then we saw the stars again

Sergei Prokofiev

[Still waiting to be reunited with my CD collection! So this episode is not exactly centered on a particular work, but rather on Prokofiev himself. There are a few suggestions below, of course.]

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My love affair with Prokofiev started by chance, and it happened after years of not really listening to a lot Classical music. I caught a movement of his first piano concerto on the radio and I was immediately won over by the newness of his language, the way the melody could sound so fresh and exciting, going to places you wouldn’t expect it to go, while still being strongly anchored in a clear tonal system. That moment literally opened up a whole new perspective on musical ideas, in a way very few musical works have ever since.

Years of listening to as much Prokofiev as I could showed me that that single concerto was no fluke. When you become really familiar with a particular band’s style, you develop a bond with the records, the sound of the guitars, the particular inflections of certain riffs and hooks. Godspeed just sounds like Godspeed, 65 Days of Static just sounds like 65 Days of Static, and so on…You could try to put this intimate knowledge into words, but you’d be missing the easiest description: their music speaks for itself.

Prokofiev flirted with atonality as a student at the turn of the Century, but never really embraced it. He did however create a language that is extremely articulate and nuanced. He understood how texture can suggest sarcasm and irony to a particular scene in a way few composers did. Listen to the more lighthearted passages in Romeo and Juliet or his Love for Three Oranges: comedy is rarely so obvious in music.

As most composers of the first half of the Twentieth Century, Prokofiev was deeply affected by the atrocities of his time. His Fifth Symphony was hailed as the unofficial soundtrack to the end of World War II, as it celebrated the hard-fought victory of the Red Army against the Germans on the Russian Front, which would eventually lead to Hitler’s downfall in the East. Listen to the first movement (which you can download here) and it isn’t hard to imagine the state Prokofiev was in. A victory of this magnitude doesn’t come for free, and the music mourns the fallen as much as it celebrates their courage.

Much like his friend Shostakovitch, Prokofiev was a witness of the Twentieth Century, through its achievements, its victories but also its struggles and its losses. Both composers enjoyed relative freedom from the Communist Party doctrines on cultural productions, while remaining attached to their native land. They enjoyed tremendous success in the West, but in their hearts, they remained Russian to the end.

Joseph Stalin died on March 5th, 1953. In a rigid regime like the one he helped creating, the death of the leader was an unprecedented national event, followed by days of mourning. The country literally stopped, and Moscow was at a standstill during the whole week leading up to his funeral. Deaths like these only happen a few times in a Century.
Oddly enough, Prokofiev died the same day, in the same city.

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Among Prokofiev’s five piano concertos, I find his first one to be the most interesting, in a way. It clearly sounds like the product of a young mind, brash, bold and tentative at the same time. While not the most popular of his works, there are moments of ecstatic beauty in this relatively short concerto. It is a technically demanding piece, which displays Prokofiev’s own pianistic skills, but even as a student showpiece, it already contains the main elements of his unique musical language.
This live version by Martha Argerich is formidable, as she always is.

1st movement

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2nd movement

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3rd movement

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Peter and the Wolf is one of the mainstays of music composed for children, and it’s easy to see why. Prokofiev thoroughly enjoyed the process and the objective of this commission piece, as he took only four days to complete the story and score.
As an introduction to the different voices and textures of an orchestra, Peter and the Wolf brilliantly puts the various sounds into a coherent narrative whole, which emphasizes the dramatic connotation we put on some instruments.
Let’s face it: could Darth Vader be represented by anything other than trombones and tubas?

The stop-motion Oscar winning version by Suzie Templeton takes some liberties with the original story, but she manages to recreate the fears of a child, in a way most child-friendly programs avoid. Genuine, cathartic fear, like a story by the Brothers Grimm. My children love it, and are both rightly elated and scared by it, as it should be.

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Dmitri Shostakovitch, Symphony no.5

[apologies for the lack of excerpt to download this week...I should be reunited with my CD collection once I reach Toronto!]

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I never really got into the Smiths. Maybe it was a variety of factors, but even when I started reading about how influential they had been to a whole lot of bands I was really into growing up, I still somehow failed to see the reason behind the reverence. Things would have been different, I’m sure, if I had been just a few years older and able to discover them right from the start. Or maybe, they would still have sounded just too…twee, perhaps? But being among a group of friends who were worshipping Morrissey in High School and College meant that I had to keep some thoughts for myself…

Until Southpaw Grammar. Now, there was something that Morrissey was doing right! Even though some of his ardent supporters were criticizing the album for being too heavy, textured, and prog (and God knows you don’t want to be labelled prog in certain indie circles…), his music was leading toward a new direction. And there was that formidably ominous opener, The teachers are afraid of the pupils, with its hypnotic orchestral sample backed by a simple tambourine loop. A simple motif, 4 notes in a rising/falling pattern, that keeps repeating throughout the song for over 11 minutes.

I wondered where that sample might have come from for the whole summer of ‘95. A few weeks later I stumbled upon Shostakovitch’s fifth.
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Artists often produce contrasting works about their native countries. Their ambiguities, their questionings and criticisms are met with some instinctual attachment to the land of their ancestors, the land they still love in spite of what History may have to say. They are no different from the other citizens, they just articulate the dichotomy more eloquently perhaps. And Shostakovitch’s entire body of work can be seen as a musical documentary on Soviet Russia, the rise and fall of Stalinism, and a tentative, timid opening to the West. He kept working on those themes throughout his life (another entry mentions this, if you missed it), but the Fifth Symphony marks a pivotal moment in his career.

After a few daring pieces in the early 1930s, Party members and dignitaries expressed their concern about Shostakovitch’s controversial musical language. This was a time of increased paranoia, cultural realignment, and state-sponsored purges. Artists, of course, were not spared, and Shostakovitch himself had been warned: he had to come up with something that would please the Party.
When the Fifth came out in 1937, it was an immediate critical and popular success. And yet, the opening sequence is hardly an optimistic or bombastic introduction in the vein of military marches, far from it. The motif that Morrissey sampled lies ambiguously between major and minor, an unresolved musical phrase that leaves the listener in a state of unease.
Perhaps the most obviously Soviet part of the symphony is its second movement. It is also its shortest act, and it is punctuated by a certain pungent irony, something that was shared by Prokofiev as well in most of his works. Hardly what you would call program music, or tone poem in dedication to the greatness of Stalin. But the leaders were happy with it.

What about the popular acclaim? The greatness of Shostakovitch lies in the fact that he offers no easy answers in his music: his ambiguity reflects the listener’s psyche, and what was hailed as one of the great musical works of Communist culture by some was also considered as a subtle criticism of Stalinism and its excesses by others. Listen to the mournful third movement and you might see it this way too. What are we celebrating here? Aren’t we rather mourning the countless victims of Stalin’s paranoia instead?

Perhaps the key to the success of Shostakovitch’s Fifth lies also in its accessibility. The melodic passages are clear and well-defined, the orchestration is powerful without being bombastic, and the narrative keeps going forward. Shostakovitch would eventually become more ambitious in his symphonic scope in the next two decades, but the blueprint is right here. A musical universe that is rich and complex, multifaceted and profound.

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The Fifth is arguably one of Shostakovitch’s most popular works. I grew up listening to the Bernstein version highlighted by the NPR clip, which had been approved by the composer himself. Interest in the Rusian composer has not waned over the years, and he is featured among every important conductor’s list of recordings. Sir Georg Solti and Yevgeny Mravinsky both released essential versions of most (if not all) his symphonies,
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The young LA Philharmonic conductor Gustavo Dudamel is going from strength to strength, and in the following videos you can easily see why. This was recorded in Italy with the Isreal Philharmonic Orchestra in 2006, when he was only 25.

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The past few days have been a blur: packing the house for the relocation company, getting 51 boxes to fit into a 280 cubic-feet crate, selling the rest of our stuff away and donating the rest of the unsold items to families who would use an extra bed or a coffee table, cleaning the house for the landlord’s inspection, and generally sleeping a lot less than required.

It all feels good though, and I will write more about the process of moving, and what it means to us as a family, in a longer post.

We set up a bandcamp.com page for amberhaze, at long last. It seems that this platform has been quite successful in allowing customers to purchase cheaper and better sounding versions of what you can find on itunes or other major mp3 sites. I like the fact that you can choose your bitrate resolution, and the name-your-price option seems fair. As many artists have pointed out, making tons of money out of music is out of the question at this point, and if it means that greedy A&R’s and shortsighted majors will be out of business, then so be it. If it means that independently released artists and small labels have to work hard to promote their humble releases, then so be it. But it puts you, the listener, at an advantageous position: you get to fund our art directly, and though your contribution may be smaller in mere monetary considerations, we do keep more of your generous support in return. In a way, it’s a throwback to the medieval concept of the artist and the patron, and it’s not all that bad a deal. Au contraire.

Death in Venice was a track that we recorded during the album sessions. I started recording it at my parents’ house in Italy, and Nick put in the finishing touches during mixing.
The track is inspired by the eponymous short story by Thomas Mann, a reflection on ageing, the relevance of art and the difficulty to find inspiration around us. I can find a lot of resonance in Mann’s writing, even though he sometimes displays a penchant for affectation that I don’t always find easy to get into. And of course, this story is also complemented by the wonderful opera by Benjamin Britten, and the visual testament of Luchino Visconti.

The song is free with all downloads of the album. Hope you like it.

Hunted by a freak (Mogwai cover) by amberhaze

Errol asked me if I wanted to come down and hang out with Mike and Jared from Lymbyc Systym the night before the show. He wasn’t sure he could spend some time with them with all the commitments you find yourself submerged with when you’re trying to run a show for 3 different bands, So I was happy to play the artist liaison for the evening! In the end, it was still the four of us, and after a few beers we took the brother to Little India.
It was as though we had met before. I definitely had a feeling of deja-vu with Mike and Jared. They reminded me of some of the musician friends I had when we used to live in Providence. The type of people you can just start a conversation with, and you know it will just bounce off and evolve and morph into completely different topics. Case in point: veganism, Zen retreats, vintage keyboards and hoomecooked Italian food.
I find it very reassuring that musicians can reach a certain level of success, open for some of the most lauded current bands, and still remain totally unfazed about the whole media circus or the need to be in every hipster’s good books. More than anything, I think it just sums up the proverbial lesson: keep doing what you love, and something good will come out of it. Which were pretty much our parting words for the night!

The gig at Homeclub was great. Maybe it was because I knew it was going to be my last in Singapore, but it felt liberating. Playing by yourself and looping your own sounds can be daunting at times, and if you make a mistake there is no simple way to rectify it smoothly, which happens on occasion. But all loops were looped exactly when they needed to, the balance was just right, and it felt good to say goodbye with some songs that some in the audience have grown familiar with.

I did play a new cover, and that’s what you can hear in this blog. “Hunted by a freak” is one of my favourite tracks by Mogwai, and I only played it once before on the grand piano. This version is closer to the original I suppose, and at the same time it shows the direction some of my new tracks are taking.
I just realised how much I love playing and recording covers. Maybe I should start a record club too? hmm…

Lymbyc Systym were up next. And it’s amazing how full the keyboards/drums setup can sound. Plug a Rhodes and a Clavinet into a Vox and Ampeg, and you’ve got your walls of guitars and pounding basses at your fingertips. The Microkorg is just the icing on the cake.
Their brand of instrumental music is unmistakably American, in a Keith Jarrett kind of way. The sense of openness in their melodies, the interplay between the Rhodes and the drumming: never overdoing it, but never minimalistic either. This is why I’ve come to like North American bands more than their European counterparts. There is no false sense of irony, no existentialist angst looming every four bars. The music is honest, simple and beautiful. And ultimately, it stays with you much longer.

LITE were many things, but above all, they were precise. And as much as Lymbyc Systym could be the perfect soundtrack to a roadtrip in Arizona, LITE feels like walking down Shibuya or crossing platforms in Shinjuku. Their musicianship is incredible, from the odd-time signatures to the sudden outbursts of guitars and motorik bass. You know the feeling you have when your CD is skipping and you find it oddly fascinating? LITE can do that, live.
The crowd clearly came for them, too. And it was great to finally see a lot of reaction from the audience. This is something I never really got used to here, so for once seeing people loosening up and pushing towards the front was refreshing.

We hung out some more after the show, and Mike told me more about his adventures touring in small Italian towns and drumming for other bands. He also seemed to be quite amused by the fact that the kids are into music, and I could see the parallels between Luca and Dante and the Bell brothers. Luca and Mike, the older brothers, are both more extroverted and generally louder, and all you have to do is sit back and enjoy their stories. Dante and Jared are more mellow, and that’s why the dynamics work: it’s all in the balance.

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Mike summed up his musical philosophy this way: you’ve gotta play every show like it’s your last, or like a 6-year-old would. But with more control.
I couldn’t agree more. And as Luca and Dante grow up in a more receptive place for kids to play, experiment, fail and pick themselves up again, I’ll make sure to remind them.

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There will be more posts before I leave, but I really want to thank Errol and Lesley for believing in music, and making things happen.
Live band photos courtesy of Thomas Tan. Truly a devoted music lover and an amazing photographer.

Click on the song to listen
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I read something quite disconcerting this morning on Repubblica
A monthly magazine, usually more prone to featuring the hot chick of the month in bikini or (preferably for its predominantly male readership) topless and beyond, is going to feature a cover showing Roberto Saviano at the morgue, complete with toe tag. According to the magazine, this photoshopped image represents what Saviano’s enemies wish could happen, and the list features not only the most notable Camorra bosses but also prominent government figures and influential bishops with ties to corrupt industrialists and the like.

I’m not sure this is the way to go, even if you’re trying to make a point. Saviano is a courageous man who is forced to live under constant protection, for the simple fact of exposing the way of the Neapolitan syndicates and how they control the whole region, and beyond. For this, which he considers his duty to inform, Saviano is a wanted man, unable to go get a coffee by himself, meet his fans casually, let alone have a relationship. He is a wanted man, but he is not a dead man. And neither does he want to be.

If you have ever seen him on TV, giving a speech, reading from his book or from other courageous journalists whom he admires, you’d be hard pressed to think of someone who feels more alive than him.

A few months ago, I started this track, in honour of him. And unlike the monthly magazine, it is not a fake eulogy, or a shock tactic to draw attention. It’s just my humble appreciation of a man who believes in something bigger than him, in a time when we are all too easily looking the other way. It takes more than courage to write like he does. It makes me sad, angry and ashamed to see how other journalists and TV personalities from Silvio Berlusconi’s channels are branding him an opportunist and, for lack of better words, a “media whore”. How can you look yourself in the mirror? Would you also insult Anna Politkovskaya’s death by the same token?
“Saviano”, this track in progress, features samples taken from a talk show. I am not including them here, because, well, I don’t own them yet! But if you do understand Italian, These snippets make a lot more sense than the instrumental version you have here. I hope you like it though.

Coraggio, Roberto.