Aug 14

Requiem – Verdi

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Messa da Requiem, by Verdi, conducted by von Karajan ★★★★★

This is a staged piece with an empty audience, performed by the Teatro alla Scala in Milan in 1967. This was a time when Karajan, and many of the performers, such as Leontyne Price, and Nicholai Ghiaurov were truly in their prime. Luciano Pavarotti is very young in this production and appears a touch insecure, though Verdi gave the tenor a minor solo part in this work. The work itself is a compositional masterpiece, stylistically being very operatic. Karajan’s conducting is also demonstrative of the best that this piece could possibly be performed. Interestingly, he is usually found with his eyes opened during the conducting, a characteristic I find peculiar to Karajan conducting choral works. The filming is a little problematic at times, since the camera seems to stray off of the performers, and the view is often obstructed by microphone poles. All in all, this is one of the best performances of Verdi’s Requiem, and a must have by any music lover.

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Aug 08

Der Kuhhandel

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Der Kuhhandel, by Kurt Weill ★★

This opera is about the country of Santa Maria that started as a peaceful, happy country, until corruption encouraged the leaders into an arms race with a neighboring country, resulting in oppressive taxation and brutality to its citizens. The staging was not totally minimalistic, and so was endurable for a European produced production, and the singing/acting was well done. The opera was interesting in that if one simply closed their eyes and listened to the music, they would imagine that they were listening to a modern American move-musical, such as a Rogers & Hammerstein musical or the Wizard of Oz, etc. I am sure that Kurt Weill had a major influence on later composition of musicals.

So, why the poor rating? Weill was a Jewish composer that had to flee Germany during the Nazi years, eventually dying at age 50 in NYC. His political leanings tended toward Communism, and this opera represents a very strong leaning toward the same. Yet, it represents highly confused thinking, possible attributing to why the opera never really became popular. The corrupt government is the source of evil. Simple, primitive life is good. The government is hell-bent on destroying your life, while living themselves a life of luxury. Unfortunately, all of these traits were present in virtually all of the socialistic or communistic regimes of the 20th century. When Weill protests capitalism, he also glorifies capitalism by extolling the virtues of owning private property (a cow, which is the peasants means of producing a living). Such muddled thinking is so true of most liberals today, shooting a “capitalist” straw man. Weill seems to protest moral decadence by having the fat government officials relishing in a brothel, yet, had the brothel maidens dancing in the forefront at the end of the opera. Perhaps Weill needs better direction as to a real (I actually mean, only) system of morality.

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Aug 05

Napola-Elite für den Führer

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Napola, Elite für den Führer ★★★

This film has been produced in English, but I unfortunately have only the German version. I was able to follow most of the speaking, though there were critical sections where I was totally unable to understand what was going on. Thus, my review may not be entirely accurate. It is a quasi-historical film (historical fiction) detailing a young boy, good at boxing, who is asked to enroll in a special school system that Hitler had set up to establish an elite system of education. This boy goes against the wishes of his parents to attend the school, and does well at first, until questions start arising. There is an unusually high attrition rate at the school, and certain classmates are treated in a very embarrassing fashion, such as the kid who occasionally has a problem with bedwetting. The turning point was when the students were asked to hunt down and shoot some young escaped Russian POWs. This led the star character to give up, and in the end get thrown out of the school.

Reading the reviews of this movie, many comment on how this film represents a resurrection of rethinking some of the crimes of the past Nazi regime. I’m not sure such an episode is worth re-thinking. The mistake made in this film is that they do NOT engage in a re-thinking, but rather, a re-creation or a re-invention of what actually happened. They imply that young Germans actually knew better, that they had hearts and souls that defied the evil of their elders and wished to correct those evils. One wishes that were true, but such is not the case in any epoch, in any time, in any place. Such is human nature to defy the elders, but in such a fashion as to generate an even worse ethic or morality. So, Napola doesn’t satisfy the wish for a therapeutic re-think of past sins. It excuses the past by claiming that the youth really knew better, and often did act in defiance of Nazi policy. A few did, such as Sophie Scholl, but most did not.

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Jul 31

Quantum Mechanics

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Quantum Mechanics: The Physics of the Microscopic World, by Benjamin Schumacher ★★★★

This was a hard series to rate, in that, while holding my interest, I fell asleep at the end of about all 24 of the lectures. Schumacher was not boring, so I couldn’t fault him. He also generated enough interest on my part to pull out some light reading books by Richard Feynman on Physics, and enquire about more substantial quantum mechanics textbooks. He brought back memories of Physical Chemistry which I took for one year in college, in which we used the essentials of quantum mechanics quite heavily for our calculations, but of which the third term was spent doing simple solutions of the Schrödinger equation for the hydrogen atom. It seemed a little strange trying to teach quantum mechanics without mathematics. So, it ended up being more a “Quantum Mechanics for Psychology Majors” class, something which nobody could really take seriously. Dr. Schumacher covered the history of quantum mechanics, some of the basic ideas, and discussion of how quantum mechanics differs from how we see and experience the macroscopic world. I found the discussion of his work in quantum informatics to be most interesting. Should he edit this course for a new edition, I would like to see him a) include more mathematics, even if it is not totally understood, b) speak more about the history of quantum mechanics, especially in the most recent several decades, and c) include more discussion of sub-atomic work, such as quarks, muons, etc. and discuss how they tie into the quantum mechanics discussion, and d) discuss more fully how relativity and quantum mechanics conflicts and interacts in understanding the universe.

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Jul 27

Bach Organ Works

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Bach Organ Works, performed by Simon Preston ★★★★★

I was a little leery of getting yet another set of Bach Organ works, since both the Peter Herford and Helmut Walcha sets are superb. Preston offers a change of venue, with many of the Bach pieces not performed in a perfectly traditional manner. Yet, the performances were entirely compelling, and most interesting to listen to. Oftentimes, syncopation or variations in volume or tonal presentation made a completely different piece than is traditionally heard. This is a very worthy purchase for the Bach lover. Quite honestly, I think that Bach would approve entirely of this performance. Remember that Bach quite often re-worked the pieces of other composers in order to hear them in a fresh manner. These works are definitely fresh, and bring an intense amount of life and vitality to what might otherwise be considered fairly boring works.

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