Arts ancient and modern, some sight-seeing and two great writers’ beds

I can’t claim to have been overwhelmed in the same way as Proust was, but I was flooded with memories of reading the whole of his wonderful novel, the longest ever written, at around 1.3 million words, one of my life ambitions fulfilled around ten years ago. Here’s that passage in French and English:

“And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray… my aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane.

No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me.

And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory—this new sensation having had on me  the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me, it was me.”

Mais à l’instant même où la gorgée mêlée des miettes du gâteau toucha mon palais, un frisson me parcourut, attentif à ce qui se passait d’extraordinaire en moi.

Il m’avait aussitôt rendu les vicissitudes de la vie indifférentes, ses désastres inoffensifs, sa brièveté illusoire, de la même façon qu’opère l’amour, en me remplissant d’une essence précieuse : ou plutôt cette essence n’était pas en moi, elle était moi.”

Nadar’s son, Paul, accompanied his father to take this photograph and, in 1928, he gave this eye-witness report to the film-director Carlo Rim (1902 – 1989):

“Hugo laid out on his great big four-poster bed, his nightshirt and pillow all wrinkled, his hair on end, his rather large nose not yet emaciated by death. An old worker sleeping peacefully after an honest day’s work. My father had not wished to carry a lot of material. Victor Hugo’s deathbed photo was taken by nothing but daylight and lamplight… The last time his face was lit was by the sun… This shot, taken by my weeping father, may well be his masterpiece… ”

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1. Rigoletto

Verdi and Hugo had much in common, they were both considered artistic and political revolutionaries who used their work to challenge authority. I love them both, they still have a lot to teach us about our attitude to the arts. I wish that opera and drama could be seen once again, as they saw it, as the people’s art-forms.

I had a great time at the opera that night. The Claus Guth’s production and design was enjoyably stripped down, ( I had a few niggles, of course) but the cast was perfect, and you can’t say that often, from the three principals (George Gagnidze, a magnificent Rigoletto; Slávka Zámečnikova, superlative with all the right notes for this lovely role; and Dmitry Korchak, an excitingly lyrical Duke of Mantua) and the conductor, Andrea Battistoni, well, he is Italian, had the exactly right mix of Italianate legato, lilting rhythms and a true sense of drama. This was first class, in an impressive building with its spirit of democratic equality. A true reflection of the French and Giuseppe Verdi and Victor Hugo’s republican ideals.

The music of Un Ballo In Maschera still sounds like it was conceived with the plot in 18th century Europe, with its at times almost Mozartean lightness of touch contrasting with the dark, trombone-focused music of the tragic elements. It is the nearest Verdi got to writing comedy since his failed first opera Un giorno di Regno (A King for a Day) 1840, and before his final triumph, Falstaff in 1893. The singers are truly challenged by this style. the tenor, Riccardo has to combine lyrical grace with dramatic oomph. It was one of Luciano Pavarotti’s ideal parts. The lead soprano voice (Amelia) is one of Verdi’s earliest dramatic soprano roles, with phenomenal demands of range and power with strong low notes matched all the way up to the top of the voice and the need to also use pianissimo as well as fortissimo. It was one of Verdi’s most exciting inventions.

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Cathédrale Notre-Dame

His 1831 novel, Notre-Dame de Paris, known these days mostly as The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, was intended by the author as a manifesto and a plea for the preservation of Paris’ medieval architecture at a time when there were already plans to demolish whole parts of central Paris. After the book’s publication, he was annoyed that Quasimodo and his love for the beautiful Esmerelda, had stolen the limelight from 15th century Paris itself.

If you have the time, here’s a five minute clip of Lon Chaney’s iconic performance. https://youtu.be/KkB2DyoQakU?si=Qu3lYrDvg-IHeL3U

Victor Hugo deserves some credit for the preservation of Notre-Dame, but he lost most of the battles against Baron Haussmann’s virtual demolition of medieval Paris. I think he would have been thrilled by the new Notre-Dame, even though he grieved for many of Paris’ old buildings. If you are interested in his plea for medieval Paris, read the long first chapter of Notre-Dame de Paris. tHugo begins his novel without any of the characters from the story, instead it is a paean, an essay, to what we have lost. Bravo Victor!

Jean-Pierre Leguay is known as a master improviser, an art-form practised by many French organists and his style, as Messiaen’s pupil, isn’t immediately listener-friendly. The cathedral made the ideal listening studio for his pieces which deal in the less than obvious – gradual transformation, fractured sonorities, filigree textures and sudden almost violent sonic events. This is not typical “French organ grandeur” and some members of the audience obviously found it perplexing. His music could be described as sound architecture and, as such, it was definitely heard to its advantage in the very architecture that its composer has known so well for decades. I, for one, was happy to go on this architectural musical voyage in such an awe-inspiring piece if architecture.

Church organists here since then have included Camille Saint-Saëns (1835 – 1921) and Gabriel Fauré (1845 – 1924) and the church is often associated less with Napoleon’s glory but by the glory of its magnificent music. Here is an old recording of an 88 year-old Widor playing his famous Toccata on the organ of la Madeleine in 1932. https://youtu.be/gy0OZoAwkbc?si=nL9CTH62N6ZTLe60

The French tradition of organ music lives on today in, amongst other places, the great organ of Notre Dame Cathedral, where Cavaillé-Coll built the organ there in 1868. Here is a recording of the official blessing of the restored Notre Dame/Cavaillé-Coll organ, played by the cathedral’s current titular organist, Olivier Latry in a controversially avant-garde improvisation at the opening service for the new cathedral. https://youtu.be/F6DO7V6pQyA?si=A5L9huw88LG_ZV-N

French cathedral improvisation can be an acquired taste, as can a lot of avant-garde music, and of course, avant-garde anything. Here is Jean-Pierre Leguay in his improvisation on the same organ at Notre-Dame, but before the fire. https://youtu.be/nPagA6vNke0?si=Z53KZr8nCxXiKZhJ – it certainly shows the range of this magnificent and mercifully saved instrument.

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After the visit, I went for a hot shower, little lie-down and then a couple of drinks while I looked into space. So many work of genius, each one deserving at least a day to itself, but, that is what it is like to be living after at least a milenium of great paintings and in an age of so many magnificent and gigantic international art galleries. I was happy to have seen what i saw, but I know that I will have to return many times to fully appreciate the glory of La Louvre.

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My week in Sète, in the Languedoc-Roussillon region of Southern France, was quietly pleasure-filled. There was a lot to do and to see including the glorious city of Montpellier  (the subject of a later blog) but there was also time to contemplate the reflections on water that I could see from my apartment. Sète, I think, is a good place to come to if you’d like to spend some time letting your brain find its own way home.

I had taken a small apartment in one of the main streets, above a shop and across the road from a small friendly bar. There was even welcoming graffiti (I hope) by the front door.

I was up on the second floor, far from street level up a long windy and, somehow, very French staircase that had the ability of making the mundane look as if anything was possible.

The constant flow of the marine landscape outside, encouraged the inside of the flat to take on its own inner calm and it proved to be a peaceful haven except on the morning when a builder began work upstairs at seven in the morning.  But then, out of chaos comes the calm, or so they say.

I grew quite attached to the little red leather chair which swivelled round to cater for my delight in contemplative fidgeting. I confess to enjoying chairs that allow me to change the view on impulse.

So there it was, a room with a view that was always changing with the light on the Marina’s Mediterranean water…

and a sky alive with inquisitive gulls.

and Qigong teaches you to salute the sun as it rises on each new day.

No, no! Arise! The future years unfold.
Shatter, O body, meditation’s mould!
And, O my breast, drink in the wind’s reviving!
A freshness, exhalation of the sea,
Restores my soul . . . Salt-breathing potency!
Let’s run at the waves and be hurled back to living!

Non, non! . . . Debout! Dans l’ère successive!
Brisez, mon corps, cette forme pensive!
Buvez, mon sein, la naissance du vent!
Une fraîcheur, de la mer exhalée,
Me rend mon âme . . . O puissance salée!
Courons à l’onde en rejaillir vivant.

Paul Valéry accompanied me out there sometimes but then there was my old friend Johannes Brahms who seldom leaves me alone either. As my chronological journey through the history of classical music nears its end, I took a recording of Brahms’ Clarinet Quintet with me holiday and, consequently, came to the end of my musical year, 1891.

Brahms, no stranger to depression, had decided that his composing days were over when he completed his beautiful String Quintet in G Major in 1890 but then he met the clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld (1856 –1907) and, luckily for us, fell in love with the instrument’s mellow beauty and Mühlfeld artistry. The clarinet became, for Brahms, the instrumental equivalent of the rich vocal tones of his beloved mezzo-sopranos. Luckily for us too, he was to meet another young mezzo too that year and his composing continued.

 

Richard Mühlfeld (1856 –1907)

What has that got to do with Sète, I hear you ask. Well, nothing actually.  Except even though it was never intended, this wonderful music became the soundtrack to my stay in the South of France and a part of me will always see  Sète when I listen to it in future. We don’t need a reason though to listen to this glorious music but I like to think that the Paul Valéry of le cimetière marin would have liked it too:

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Last week, I got back from seven days in the delightful Mediterranean town of Sète in the Languedoc-Roussillon region of Southern France where I rented an apartment over-looking the Marina in this small port town which is punctuated with canals earning it the name of the French Venice. Here though, I was far away from the madding crowds of Venice because Sète, so far, has escaped the influx of tourist crowds even, apparently,  at the height of the summer.

In March, it was the perfect destination for an Englishman wanting to get away from it all for a week even if the sun doesn’t always shine. Actually it shone more than I deserved at this time of year and it only rained when it wanted to.

Standing on the top of Mont St Clair, the town’s very own  and very steep hill, I could work out some of the geographical complexities of this town which is very nearly an island with the Mediterranean on one side and the vast inland lagoon known as the Étang de Thau on the other.

Sète is a seaport but it is also a seaside resort with miles of sandy beaches which look like most of the Mediteranean coast must’ve looked in the days before the Med got, well, too popular for comfort.

I don’t know how long it will be before this charming place will escape internationalisation but, walking along that practically empty beach last week, I dared to hope that it won’t be any time soon.

I was in the white building in the centre of this picture, on the second floor with pleasant balcony that let me take in the views.

I was high enough up to get under-flown by the seagulls who looked as if they were reverting to their taste for fish rather than the contents of holiday makers’ picnic baskets or rubbish bins.

I was aware of their beady eyes scrutinising me as I sat there but they decided, obviously, that I wasn’t of much interest when there was a little fishing fleet offering much tastier pickings.

Fishing here, it seems, is often a family affair and it was good being able to watch the evening’s dinner being carried ashore every morning.

Just as welcome was the little late-night bar across the road which opened in the mornings to serve excellent espresso coffee allowing me to appreciate that, yes, I really was in France.

The people of Sète look decidedly French but with a touch of Italian.

Inside the bar, everything was pretty French too. The Au bout de la rue (‘the end of the road’) was just about perfect if you want to visit France as its most unpretentious and welcoming. After a few days I felt like I had lived here all my life.

I wasn’t working, of course, so I shouldn’t assume that everyone else was just enjoying themselves but the people of Sète give a good impression of knowing how to keep themselves entertained.

I was happy enough to wander round town between cups of coffee and others seemed content to saunter too in a place where the views are often surprising.

Life here, it seemed, doesn’t have to be a constant rush.

There was never very far to go between bars that let you sit either inside or out.

In fact, I could have got dangerously used to café-crawling.

I was truly charmed by the town’s unpretentious manners and I sincerely hope that it manages to stay that way.

Street level is special in a town where there are numerous tree-lined urban spaces and, of course, always somewhere to sit and to drink coffee.

No, I was in town to see my son Henry who has been living in the South of France since January – lucky man.

He tells me he is loving la vie francaise and he does appear to have fitted into the scene with ease.

Later that night, we went with some of his friends to a bar called  La mauvaise réputation (‘the bad reputation’)  just round the corner from the apartment. I liked the name  and felt it fitted the mood of the place but, at the time, I didn’t realise that it was named after a famous song written and performed by one of  Sète’s most famous sons.

Georges Brassens (1921 – 1981) was a singer-songwriter, a respected poet who grew up the tough way and who never quite gave up his anarchist instincts. It seemed entirely appropriate that he should’ve been born here in this delightfully independent-minded town.

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