Bach: Violin Concerto No.2 in E Adagio - Anne-Sophie Mutter

Another of my favorite pieces, performed by my second-favorite violinist. The weather today made me think of it.

Giovanni Paolo Cima: Sonata for Violin and Cello

I found it! Here's the version I was talking about--see what you think of the difference. Maybe it's just that it's in a lower key, or the quality of the recording production.

*****

I heard a beautiful recording of this by Apollo's Fire on my pandora this morning, but couldn't find that one to share with you. This is pretty darn good, although there was something I liked better in the violin in the Apollo's Fire version. I don't know if it would be accurate to say it was "more baroque", but it was more--I don't have a word for the quality I'm looking for. Wrenching? Visceral?

My least favorite thing in the world is kissing fat baby cheeks on the warm side after they wake up from a nap. Blech.

They've got lambies on their jammies.

More from the Mountain

I'm happiest when I'm outside; just wish I could take my library with me. I suppose I'm going to have to resign myself to getting a kindle and learning to read books that way.

Tried to get a shot of what looks like caves, but you can't see them that well. I didn't take the time to explore them. Maybe another time.

I never noticed before, you can see in these pictures where my nose was broken. Maybe it's visible now because of the weight loss.

Guess where I am

Schubert - Piano Sonata No. 20 in A Major, D959: IV. Rondo: Allegretto

So here's a hell of a thing: I saw God.

It was only a brief moment. I don't know, as Paul says, whether I was in the body or out of the body. But I saw a huge ball of blue-white light--living light, for lack of a better word. The light was in motion within itself--sort of like pearlescing, but that's inadequate. And I felt Holy Fear. It was overwhelming, but it was a good fear, if that makes any sense: a consciousness of his power, majesty, glory, and holiness. And that was it. Just a glimpse.

But I feel different. I don't mean feel differently, as in about "things". I mean I feel different, in myself. Like I am different.

Final thoughts on Jane Eyre

"It is a dream; such dreams as I have had at night when I have clasped her once more to my heart, as I do now; and kissed her, as thus--and felt that she loved me, and trusted that she would not leave me . . . But I always woke and found it an empty mockery; and I was desolate and abandoned--my life dark, lonely, hopeless--my soul athirst and forbidden to drink--my heart famished and never to be fed. Gentle, soft dream, nestling in my arms now, you will fly, too, as your sisters have all fled before you: but kiss me before you go--embrace me."

Yes. Exactly.

Here's another of my favorite passages:

"My spirits were excited, and with pleasure and ease I talked to him during supper, and for a long time after. There was no harassing restraint, no repressing of glee and vivacity with him; for with him I was at perfect ease, because I knew I suited him; all I said or did seemed either to console or revive him. Delightful consciousness! It brought to life and light my whole nature: in his presence I thoroughly lived; and he lived in mine."

I'm pleased that it ended exactly as I wanted. Funny, that the book should close with the same passage of scripture I've got on my profile line. (The Greek text to the right there》》)

"There was a young lady, a governess at the Hall, that Mr. Rochester . . . that Mr. Edward fell in love with. The servants say they never saw anybody so much in love as he was: he was after her continually. They used to watch him--servants will, you know, ma'am--and he set store on her past everything: for all, nobody but him thought her so very handsome. She was a little small thing, almost like a child. . . Mr. Rochester was about forty, and this governess not twenty; and you see, when gentlemen of his age fall in love with girls, they are often like as if they were bewitched."

"The governess had run away two months before; and for all Mr. Rochester sought her as if she had been the most precious thing he had in the world, he never could hear a word of her; and he grew savage--quite savage on his disappointment: he never was a wild man, but he got dangerous after he lost her. He would be alone, too. . . He broke off acquaintance with all the gentry, and shut himself up like a hermit in the Hall."

 -- Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre

There, you see, I am not all so odd after all. Just born out of my time.

Perhaps it is that men don't really know how to love properly until they're full-grown, around forty or so. I'll tell you one thing I've often thought: I believe that one of the reasons is that a younger man would not have the ability to appreciate a truly beautiful woman as fully, as she deserves. One with beauty and charm so complex; so rich and multi-layered, that it would be wasted on a boy. Like giving a child a cabernet to drink: he prefers kool-aid.

More about Jane

I'm at the part where St. John has proposed marriage to Jane, and I am utterly appalled. I thought Mr. Brocklehurst was the perfect example of the worst kind of false Christian, but he is just stupid and bad in a low sort of way. St. John is diabolical: a Pharisee of the highest order. Externally, a religiously and ethically perfect man, but completely devoid of the Love of Christ (or any other kind of love, for that matter), and guilty of an astounding degree of the absolute worst sin there is: spiritual pride. Of course, Jane is too much of a real Christian to see it: she judges him mercifully, with the charity and humility which marks her as the true saint. Probably the best use of the "unreliable narrator" literary device I've ever seen: better even than Huckleberry Finn's struggle between the false morality which has been implanted in him by bad religion and the true morality which God has placed in his heart.

I shudder at the way he invokes "the will of God" to try and force her into acquiescence: equating his own will to God's, in effect. The sheer arrogance is unbelievable. It would be one thing to say to her, "I believe that I have discerned that this is God's will for us: will you consider and pray about it?" But it is something else entirely, what he does. Worse than Rochester's selfish deception. Worse than Farmer Boldwood's use of guilt. The little smug, self-righteous comments and notes: "I shall expect your clear decision when I return this day fortnight. Meantime, watch and pray that you enter not into temptation: the spirit, I trust, is willing, but the flesh, I see, is weak." If I were standing near him in real life, I would step back to avoid the lighting bolt.

I thought at one point, when Jane was accusing herself of idolatry regarding Rochester, that the story was going to take a turn to that very heartless Calvinism which St. John represents: that Jane was going to decide that all passion was evil, and marry him, "recognizing" that "real Christian love" was that detached, rational, cold benevolence which denies all human feeling, all enjoyment of anything in this world, including affection and attachment, as things "of this world" and therefore to be shunned. But her answer to his hideous proposal and his monstrous manipulation is even better, in my mind, than her choice to flee from Rochester.

Bronte has, so far, the best grasp of what it means to truly be a Christian that I have seen in an author since Victor Hugo. I especially love how God is an active, though mysterious, presence in her life: the dreams, the lightning bolt hitting the tree, the voice of Rochester calling out to her in her moment of weakness. She's off to look for him right now, and I'm hoping that she's going to find him and, through her obedience and act of sacrifice in giving him up, that God is going to somehow have worked things out so that they now can be together: that Rochester will have found both freedom and true repentance, so that the union which would once have been sinful will now be blessed. Don't tell me whether I'm right.

"For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it." -- Matt 16:25

“If you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it is yours. If it doesn’t, it never was.”
-- Unknown

Dating Theory

Yes, yes, yes! From the movie Old Fashioned. I have serious reservations about watching "Christian" movies--they're so often cheesy, heavy-handed, preachy, and just badly made. But this one was sweet and beautiful.

Another story about a guy with a past, trying to be a better man. I like how (very realistically), everyone else makes fun of him and treats him like he's some kind of freak because he's determined to live his life treating women with the respect they deserve--even when they themselves don't know they deserve it.

Here's a trailer, in case you're interested.

On Jane Eyre

I'm finally reading Jane Eyre, as you may have guessed. I've avoided these Victorian ladies' novels all my life: I found them tedious. But now I'm quite enjoying them--first Pride and Prejudice and now this. I guess I need to tackle Little Women next. It's amazing what love will do to a man.

One of the things I've always wondered at in Victorian novels, as well as in other, even older, literature such as Shakespeare, is the speed with which the characters fall in love. The expressions are always beautiful and the passion moving, but I've always read it with a modicum of skepticism, allowing that it's just fiction but thinking that, in reality, their love was lacking a very important element, in that they really barely knew each other. Take Pride and Prejudice for instance: how much time do they really spend together? A few minutes at a ball, several brief encounters subsequently. Or Romeo and Juliet: even less time. One dance, and they're in love so deep they'll both die for it. I don't doubt the depth of feeling, having experienced it myself; I fell for Amanda that quickly. It's just that I know, and knew at the time with her, that it really was just feeling--there was no real future there. But as I said, one allows for the conventions of fiction and of the culture and period in which it is written.

Jane Eyre, however, does not suffer from this weakness. In fact, I find chapter 23, the one where Jane and Mr. Rochester finally openly declare their love for each other, to be the most romantic scene I've ever read in any story. Because it's based, not on superficial charm or attraction, but on a true knowledge of each other formed over a long period of close contact. Love born of knowledge is true love that can last a lifetime. Not that that knowledge has to be perfect or complete before love can be considered genuine; but there has to be a substantial degree of it before a love can really be taken seriously. One of the best evidences of it is when, as in Jane's case, one comes to find another attractive, even irresistible, where no attraction initially existed, based on a knowledge of the inner person.

My favorite lines from this scene:

(Jane speaking) "Do you think I can stay and become nothing to you? Do you think I am an automaton?--a machine without feelings? and can bear to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips, and my drop of living water dashed from my cup? Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong!--I have as much soul as you,--and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh;--it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God's feet, equal,--as we are!"

This is why I had to leave. To "stay and become nothing to you"...it was unbearable. Not that where I am now is much better. But it is, a very little bit. I at least don't feel like my chest is being physically turned inside out two or three times every week.

(Rochester speaking, a bit later) "'My bride is here,' he said, again drawing me to him, 'because my equal is here, and my likeness. Jane, will you marry me?'"

This is exactly it: "My equal and my likeness." How often does one actually find his equal and his likeness in this life?

Of course, as you probably know (spoiler alert if you haven't read it), their love is tragically doomed by Rochester's secret. You might, knowing my life, expect me to sympathize with him. And I do sympathize--with his pain and his feelings. But I approve entirely of Jane's course of action, based on her perception of her situation, and the fact that, at that place and time, there is no way for him to be free to marry her honorably. She acts rightly, and most courageously, and her speech to him about standing on her principles even though every sense and feeling within her is fighting against her, is no less than inspiring. She is right: it's what she has to do. We may think, perhaps even rightly, that the Church of England is overly harsh in its absolute prohibition of divorce, especially in such a case as Rochester's. Attempted murder, for instance, is probably reasonable grounds, and Jesus himself said that adultery is. But none of that is within Jane's control: she believes that to be with him is sin, therefore to her it is sin (Rom 14:23), and she must flee, no matter how hard or how painful. Of course, if I were in Rochester's place, her strength of will and stainless character would make me love her all the more, and thus suffer all the more. But on the other hand, if I were in Rochester's place, I would not have attempted to deceive her.

I do find a lot of myself in Rochester though: the tragic mistake early in life, the dissipation which follows from the despair attendant to that mistake, the hardness of character which results from it. But especially that longing to be a better man, to rise above his circumstances and find his way back to the light. And when he thinks he's found, in Jane, the angel to lead him back to that light, I think, "even so".

But I also see something of myself in Jane, early on in the story. The childhood is quite similar. And that scene where she more or less snaps, and stands up to her aunt...I had a scene very much like that with my stepmother. And then it led to the same sort of willfulness as I grew up: a determination never to let myself be bullied and trampled on again. Or to stand by and watch anyone else be treated so.

And then Jane, alone on the moor, cast off from all she knows and loves, is the best metaphorical picture I have ever encountered of where I have been, emotionally, since...well, you know. Exactly it. Especially because it is, for her, just the latest in a series of hard knocks that always seem to end with her alone, destitute, and friendless. But most especially this part:

(Jane has been worrying, despite her own pain, of her beloved's sufferings, and what they might drive him to) "Gentle reader, may you never feel what I then felt! May your eyes never shed such stormy, scalding, heart-wrung tears as poured from mine. May you never appeal to Heaven in prayers so hopeless and so agonised as in that hour left my lips; for never may you, like me, dread to be the instrument of evil to what you wholly love."

I have. I have felt what she then felt; and feel it still. I've said those prayers and shed those tears. "The instrument of evil to what you wholly love." The only other author I've come across who touched on this was Richard Llewellyn, who said, "A horrible feeling, it is, to know you are a burden in body and spirit to somebody dear to you." There is no pain like the pain of knowing, or fearing, that you've hurt someone you love.

"Hopeless of the future, I wished but this--that my Maker had that night thought good to require my soul of me while I slept; and that this weary frame, absolved by death from further conflict with fate, had now but to decay quietly, and mingle in peace with the soil of this wilderness." -- Charlotte Bronte, ibid

"Love me, then, or hate me, as you will...you have my full and free forgiveness: ask now for God's, and be at peace."

-- Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre

Pachelbel Done Right

It's almost Christmas again. <groan>. And I used to love Christmas so.

This piece has been over-done and over-played to the point of losing its considerable charm. Especially because of that God-awful, horribly over-sentimental, bastardized version by the trans-Siberian whatever, which is, IMAO, the worst thing to happen to classical music since Hooked on Classics.

Here's what it should sound like. Enjoy before you get sick of it again.

Normally I would criticize this performance as being technically very good but lacking in feeling. But in the case of this usually overwrought piece, I find it rather refreshing.

Stardust - Nat King Cole

Beauty and Honesty

I was talking the other night with a woman friend about the difficulty of communication between the sexes. I sometimes forget how hard it is from the other side--how women don't know who they can trust. Or, as she put it, "But women have to be so effing vigilant because dudes try to manipulate you like it's their full time job." And I know it's true, but I seem to always unconsciously have this expectation that they should just know that I'm not like that--like they should just look at me and say, "Finally! An honest man." Yeah, I know it doesn't make any sense; I said "unconsciously" didn't I?

It's strange, really, how ideas appear to you in clusters. The same night I had that conversation just happened to be a night when I was in a hotel, which is pretty much the only time I ever watch TV. And I spent most of it thinking about how much I hate the way women are displayed and their beauty exploited. My intentional segregation from popular culture means that I'm not constantly bombarded with such images, and so when I do see them, it's almost as if from the perspective of an outsider. The idea that kept going through my mind as I sat through the soul-destroying banality, was that I never thought I'd hear myself say this, feeling as I do about feminism, but that this objectification of women was sickening. And what's even more sickening is their own self-objectification. Every second ad is about "beauty"--but no one seems to know what beauty is. The kind of "beauty" being sold by these pimps of self-esteem is to real beauty what twinkies and doritos are to real food.

Beauty is not just a woman's physical appearance. It is something she is and something she does. A woman makes the whole world around her more beautiful.

This is beauty.

I started to put a "this is not" image here, but I don't even want that ugliness on my blog. You know what it looks like: you see it every day.

So we live in a world where men don't know what honesty is, and women don't know what beauty is. Is there a correspondence? The ancients used to speak, before feminism, of corresponding male and female virtues. I think it was Spencer, for instance, who said that the chief masculine virtue was courage and the chief feminine one chastity. And I know it was Shakespeare who said "Can beauty have better commerce than with honesty?" Could it be that when men fail in one of their virtues, that women will fail in the one which corresponds to it? Courage and chastity, honesty and beauty, chivalry and modesty, protection and nurture. I wonder if there's a list by some ancient philosopher.

None of this is to say, of course that any of these virtues is exclusive--that men should not practice chastity, or that women cannot have courage. Just that those aren't their defining qualities.

Making Rachmaninoff Look Easy

My word...I don't think I closed my mouth through this entire performance.

Rachmaninoff can often sound choppy and unlovely, presumably because it's so difficult to play. But this girl is astounding. Preternatural.

By the way, if you keep hearing something you can't quite place during the second movement, it's "All by Myself". The guy who wrote it ended up having to pay the Rachmaninoff estate part of his royalties.

Waterhouse, Keats, and Couperin

WOMAN! when I behold thee flippant, vain,
Inconstant, childish, proud, and full of fancies;
Without that modest softening that enhances
The downcast eye, repentant of the pain
That its mild light creates to heal again:	5
E’en then, elate, my spirit leaps, and prances,
E’en then my soul with exultation dances
For that to love, so long, I’ve dormant lain:
But when I see thee meek, and kind, and tender,
Heavens! how desperately do I adore	10
Thy winning graces;—to be thy defender
I hotly burn—to be a Calidore—
A very Red Cross Knight—a stout Leander—
Might I be loved by thee like these of yore.
Light feet, dark violet eyes, and parted hair;	15
Soft dimpled hands, white neck, and creamy breast,
Are things on which the dazzled senses rest
Till the fond, fixed eyes, forget they stare.
From such fine pictures, heavens! I cannot dare
To turn my admiration, though unpossess’d	20
They be of what is worthy,—though not drest
In lovely modesty, and virtues rare.
Yet these I leave as thoughtless as a lark;
These lures I straight forget—e’en ere I dine,
Or thrice my palate moisten: but when I mark	25
Such charms with mild intelligences shine,
My ear is open like a greedy shark,
To catch the tunings of a voice divine.
Ah! who can e’er forget so fair a being?
Who can forget her half retiring sweets?	30
God! she is like a milk-white lamb that bleats
For man’s protection. Surely the All-seeing,
Who joys to see us with his gifts agreeing,
Will never give him pinions, who intreats
Such innocence to ruin,—who vilely cheats	35
A dove-like bosom. In truth there is no freeing
One’s thoughts from such a beauty; when I hear
A lay that once I saw her hand awake,
Her form seems floating palpable, and near;
Had I e’er seen her from an arbour take	40
A dewy flower, oft would that hand appear,
And o’er my eyes the trembling moisture shake.

Writing about feminine barriers and reticence the other day has had me thinking of this piece of music, and so I thought I'd add some art and poetry to complete the image of the thing that's in my heart. No agenda: just in praise of feminine virtue. Nothing is more beautiful.

"Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all. Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain; but a woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised." -- Prov 31:29-30.