Hantaï on BWV 1066

I found this video of Le Concert Français performing BWV 1066, Bach’s orchestral suite #1.

I like the tempo (unlike many commenters), but find the conducting by Hantaï to be laughable. It looks like he has no clue about what he should be doing up there. He’s an excellent harpsichordist, and incidentally, the performance isn’t bad. But sadly he looks a little bit like a clown up there.

Audibly, it sounds as if Mr. Bernadini is really leading with his strident oboe.

(No real fault to Mr. Hantaï, but I can’t help but giggle too because he looks like Jerry Seinfeld up there at the podium, which brings back memories of the storyline regarding “The Maestro” and his summer home in Tuscany.)

East Gallery – NGA

I visited the National Gallery of Art recently.

I first entered the so-called East gallery to find a modern space. It was a little disappointing. But this mobile hanging from the ceiling was cool. It was moving at a fairly good speed.

Better, I think, is this view, with some color on the wall and a tree. I like the coldness of a stone wall with a living tree. That says something.

This space also reminded me of the most beautiful outdoor surroundings of the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. Whereas the NGA made me feel like I was in some sort of public space where I leave after a number of hours (say, a museum or concert hall), the Getty had a feeling of a very nice (and large) private estate.

The entire outdoor surroundings in fact surpassed the art inside, becoming its own aesthetic playground.

The art in the west wing at the NGA is far better than the Getty’s, I’m saying. We took in two special exhibits of Spanish art, one of armor, the other, still life paintings. The guy could paint good “heirloom” tomatoes but not so great bread.

I seriously get the National Gallery’s desire to have a “modern section,” something to echo the aesthetics of art in the past fifty years (at least). They have their little pyramid things sticking out like the ones at the Louvre, but let’s be honest, they really don’t compare. There are orange cones around them outside. There’s a road going past.

Mr. Pei, we like the glass stuff in Paris. We want some too, please!

Come on. Getty:

It’s not that I’m trying to compare one museum’s wing to another’s complete museum, two coasts apart. That’s what I have done, but ultimately, that’s not the point.

Have you ever been on the underground “bridge” that connects the main United concourse at the O’Hare airport? It’s kinda cool. They have a lot of lights and play Gershwin music.

At the National Gallery they tried something like that.

This is the area beneath the street I mentioned. Soon, you come up to the wedges of glass designed by I.M. Pei. The scene at the airport is better, even more artistic.

Pei’s design uses water. In the cafeteria, you can watch the water cascade down.

Of course, the Getty has water too.

All I’m saying is, I used to think the NGA was a top-museum. What hangs on the walls inside is but one measure. Your use of space and the architecture is another. But copying the Louvre and the O’Hare airport is ultimately just disappointing.

I mean, look at the de Young in San Francisco:

Someone punched real holes in that façade. That’s awesomeness.

While the NGA also may be copying other famous landmarks (namely the Pantheon in Rome), I still am a sucker for this space on the (now firmly preferred) west gallery:

That’s all.

Cathedral

I remember well the book by Macaulay on Cathedrals. Building the Book Cathedral

Today I finally visited the closest one to my home and had a good time snapping photos.

Pancrace Royer

I recently purchased Premier Livre de Pièces pour Clavecin by the French baroque composer, Pancrace Royer as performed by Christophe Rousset.

I discovered this composer and his quite flavorful music in a DVD extra by harpsichordist Skip Sempé; specifically, it was Royer’s tour-de-force work entitled La Marche des Scythes. Thanks to some enterprising fan, you can see it for yourself via YouTube. (It’s really good.)

So, when I saw a whole collection by Rousset, another favorite harpsichordist of mine, I couldn’t resist.

The French harpsichordists were a rich bunch of fellows. I have a feeling more than one were eating some of the rich sauces we equate with Escoffier-style French cuisine. François Couperin was almost a lightweight, compared to the later Rameau, and certainly Monsieur Royer. Royer is remembered perhaps more so for his operas today, but he left us in 1746 a rather robust set of keyboard pieces.

If you’d like to follow along with the Sempé video, behold all of the fast notes.

You can also read some of Charles Downey’s thoughts on this release via Ionarts blog.

Royer’s music makes use of some of the lower registers of the harpsichord, imparting the richness in sonority that made me think of yummy, rich French sauces. Rousset has chosen a rather nice sounding instrument to interpret Royer’s pieces, among the nicer moments we hear in the third track, Les Matelots and the first, La Majesueuse. In other rather colorful pieces, such as Le Vertigo, Royer goes the other direction, tickling the upper-registers. All the time, there are ornaments all over the place. Royer’s music hits my ears as quite modern, bold, and harmonically satisfying, especially in Rousset’s fingers and hands.

A very satisfying release that is full of energy, finger fireworks, and at times even, beautiful noise. Warmly recommended.