Passover

Crossing of the Red Sea, by Aurore (20eth century. France)

By happy circumstances, this year, the Passover will be celebrated at the same time by Christians, Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox and Jews. A sign? In any case, a call for more mutual respect, friendship and love.

Pilgrims of Emmaus, by Arcabas

Holy Easter !

Sainte et belle fête de Pâques !

חג פסח שמח

Άγια Πάσχα !

Святая Пасха !

Santa e bella Pasqua !

Fiodor

Next year in Jerusalem !

I am back from a second journey to Israel – the previous one was in 2013. I would simply like to share some images, without the slightest apologetic pretention. It was a two- phase journey: a “traditional” pilgrimage week, with a group of Christians, followed by four days with my Israeli cousins.

Jerusalem. The Old City, buried under the weight of levels of history and religion. But it is a living city, as well. Alleys, crowded with legions of tourists, Arabs wearing keffiyeh or niqab, Jews with side curls, caftans and large hats, Ethiopian monks wearing their long cassocks, yeshiva students with a black velvet yarmulke, Franciscan priests in brown garb, policemen, soldiers, male and female, with a gun on shoulder. People pass each other with little, if any, communication, except for the merchants who badger you and extol their products.

 

The Christian Holy sites, the Holy Sepulchre, the Basilica of the Nativity in Bethlehem, etc. The swarming crowds and the surrounding din make any attempt for recollection a vain pursuit. But there is a one notable exception, the Basilica of the Agony, in Gethsemane, where an attentive Franciscan friar enforces the silence and where the dimmed light, around the rock, is an invitation to prayer.

The landscapes of Galilee, green and flowery, as spring arrives, evoke the settings of biblical stories. Then there is the Sea of Tiberias and, in the distance, the Golan Heights, which lead one to think of clearly less peaceful places… 

Yes, the Kotel. To those who persist in calling it "the Wailing Wall", I advise you to go there on a Thursday morning. People gather there to celebrate bar mitzvah (mitzvoth, because there are many of them), in a climate of amazing joy and fervor. At the Kotel, I brought - and wore - the kippah offered to me on my previous trip by the father of my cousin's wife. He is a 90 year old man, polyglot, bright and cheerful as a child. At the moment he offered me this kippah, he said to me: "I attend the synagogue out of loyalty to my parents." 

The Dead Sea, whose level is alarmingly low. Its shores are disappearing and its banks subsiding. Will the pipeline project bringing water from the Red Sea ever materialize? Led by a French native Israeli guide, we visit Masada and Qumran. 

Tel Aviv, bustling and yet relaxed. The splendid campus of the University, with the Diaspora museum. The Sarona district – an agricultural colony founded in the 19th century by the Templar Society of Christoph Hoffmann – a weird set of German-style, nicely restored houses, amidst high offices buildings. This neighborhood is now a fashionable area.

Rehovot, where, four years ago, I visited the famous Weizmann Institute. This time, I discovered the remarkable kibbutz of Machon Ayalon. There, from 1946 to 1948, members of the Haganah, six meters underground, manufactured millions of 9 mm bullets, right under the nose of the British Mandate authorities. 

On the way back from the Dead Sea, our Israeli guide told us that he made his alyah twenty years before, just “to see”, and that he decided to stay in Israel. He added that several of his companions returned to Europe. They came with too many preconceived ideas and too idealistic a vision. "They could not bear to see that Israel is a country like any other". Perhaps. But that country seems to me quite different from others. I feel plenty of enthusiasm and vitality among its inhabitants... Something very different from our “depressive” Europe. Next year in Jerusalem? I hope…

Fiodor

Beauty multiplied by four

The more I listen to music, the more I regard the string quartet as the summit of classical music. Two violins, a viola and a cello, and the miracle happens: unity in diversity, a family whose members are very different, but who share the same features. A family where the smallest is the greatest, supported by the others.

A string quartet is like a whole orchestra, more intimate, but no less powerful. It is the opposite of stardom: even if the first violin often has a leading role, he is (almost) never “the” soloist, who takes center stage.

The string quartet is an art that does not abide mediocrity: accuracy, unity, listening and mutual attention are constantly required.

My musical tastes are rather decided: I like something or I do not like it, open-minded with regard to period or composer. Some musical styles annoy me or tire me out, the “galant” style, for instance of Lully, Rameau, etc. Others bore me, like a number of second-class Baroque musicians (musique “au kilomètre” - “music by the yard”), and I am closed to quite a few composers of the 20^th century. But a string quartet seldom leaves me unmoved.

Even if the premiere string quartets are probably those of Boccherini, it is Joseph Haydn who gave this musical form its first reputation for excellence. After him, you have to lay out a large red carpet for the greatest: Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert. Then there are Mendelssohn, Brahms, Schumann, and even Tchaikovsky and Ravel, not to mention Dvořák, Janacek, Shostakovich and others.

I would gladly add to the list works which are not strictly string quartets, but which can be regarded as similar to them, as the sublime D 956 Quintet of Schubert, with a second cello, or Mendelssohn’s opus 20 Octet in which the instrumental configuration is doubled (four violins, two violas and two cellos). Then there are piano quintets as well, like the famous D 667 Quintet, “The Trout” of Schubert, etc.

The quartet ensembles are numerous. There are great “historical” quartets, like the Hungarian Quartet, the Quartetto Italiano, the Borodine, the Hagen or the Amadeus… and plenty of others. Among the more recent, my favourites are: the Alban Berg Quartet, the Emerson Quartet, the Jerusalem Quartet, the Pražák Quartet, the Quatuor Ébène…

If you want to listen to music, nothing is worth more than a good CD, with a good player (especially good loudspeakers). Yes, You Tube does give access to a very large number of works, but with very uneven sound quality. There, too, you need to listen with good loudspeakers or good headphones.

Here are some of my “first choice” You Tube links.

* Complete collection of the Beethoven quartets, by the Quartetto Italiano: nine hours of listening! An historical interpretation… perfect! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkUsrlDLch8

* The last five quartets (12 to 16, + Groβe Fugue) of Beethoven, by the Alban Berg Quartet. Masterful! Difficult works, sometimes austere, but brilliant. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ocyCQ3CiGQ

* The last four quartets and the D 956 quintet of Schubert, played by various groups: Amadeus, Orlando, Hagen, Pražák and Julliard. The video image is not always perfect, and the sound recording varies from one piece to the next, but the set is worth it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUPGcI1y69E

As a musical conclusion, let me suggest to you a brilliant and delightful quartet, the opus 96 of Dvořák, known as the “American Quartet”, played by the excellent Czech group, the Pražák Quartet. If you don’t have time to listen to the whole piece, go to the 7^th minute for the splendid second movement, “lento”.

Fiodor

America as I love it

 

Norman Rockwell, Going and coming

Frank Capra, It's a Wonderful Life

This is neither about Obama, nor Clinton, nor Trump… It is about America as I dream of it, as it speaks to my heart and to my memory. I see it through movies, songs, books… The list would be too long, but… a few names immediately come to mind: Frank Capra, Charlie Chaplin, Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, Stanley Kubrick, Woody Allen… Mark Twain, Emily Dickinson, Henry James, John Steinbeck, John D. Salinger… Gershwin, Bernstein, Jessye Norman, Louis Armstrong, Sarah Vaughan, Charlie Parker, Bob Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel, Leonard Cohen, Stevie Wonder… 

Norman Rockwell, Freedom of Speech

Why do I want to evoke this now? First, a few days ago, I was reading an article – I don’t remember where – about fundamental freedoms. It was illustrated by a Norman Rockwell painting. Rockwell was a man who succeeded in showing us America as we love it. I regard him as a genuine artist, a painter rather than an illustrator, as he was usually depicted. Rockwell (1894-1978) is especially known for the covers of the Saturday Evening Post, which he illustrated for more than forty years (1916-1960). If you type his name on Google images, you will be able to admire many of his works.

Then, one or two days later, haphazardly on the Internet, I watched a video that illustrates what, in my mind, makes for the superiority of American pedagogy, at least that of the major universities. It offers a masterly presentation of a work by Beethoven, the third movement of his 15th string quartet (op. 132). A musicologist, a certain Robert Kapilow, speaks to an audience at the Stanford University School of Medicine. He analyzes in very lively manner, with the help of a real (and good) string quartet, this movement, Heiliger Dankgesang (Sacred Song of Thanksgiving), in which Beethoven expresses his gratitude to "the divinity" for his recovery from a serious illness. What a talent!

These are only two small examples, but this is the America we love!

Norman Rockwell, The Runaway

Fiodor

Bob Dylan, Nobel Prize

For those like me who grew up in their youth with the songs of Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, Peter, Paul and Mary or Leonard Cohen, we can only rejoice that the Nobel Prize for literature was awarded to Bob Dylan. This is a good time to remember that songs are first of all words, words of poetry ... of literature. And Dylan was a true poet.

I can't help but think that certain will say, « Not another Jew… ».  Yes, and what may be less well-known, Dylan wrote a song, dripping with irony, which speaks of the never-ending hostility that surrounds the State of Israel  and, more broadly, the Jewish people. It's called Neighborhood Bully, from his album « Infidels », published in 1983. Here's the text.

Neighborhood Bully

Well, the neighborhood bully, he's just one man,

His enemies say he's on their land.

They got him outnumbered about a million to one,

He got no place to escape to, no place to run.

He's the neighborhood bully.

The neighborhood bully just lives to survive,

He's criticized and condemned for being alive.

He's not supposed to fight back, he's supposed to have thick skin,

He's supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in.

He's the neighborhood bully.

The neighborhood bully been driven out of every land,

He's wandered the earth an exiled man.

Seen his family scattered, his people hounded and torn,

He's always on trial for just being born.

He's the neighborhood bully.

.

Well, he knocked out a lynch mob, he was criticized,

Old women condemned him, said he should apologize.

Then he destroyed a bomb factory, nobody was glad.

The bombs were meant for him.

He was supposed to feel bad.

He's the neighborhood bully.

.

Well, the chances are against it and the odds are slim

That he'll live by the rules that the world makes for him,

'Cause there's a noose at his neck and a gun at his back

And a license to kill him is given out to every maniac.

He's the neighborhood bully.

He got no allies to really speak of.

What he gets he must pay for, he don't get it out of love.

He buys obsolete weapons and he won't be denied

But no one sends flesh and blood to fight by his side.

He's the neighborhood bully.

.

Well, he's surrounded by pacifists who all want peace,

They pray for it nightly that the bloodshed must cease.

Now, they wouldn't hurt a fly.

To hurt one they would weep.

They lay and they wait for this bully to fall asleep.

He's the neighborhood bully.

Every empire that's enslaved him is gone,

Egypt and Rome, even the great Babylon.

He's made a garden of paradise in the desert sand,

In bed with nobody, under no one's command.

He's the neighborhood bully.

Now his holiest books have been trampled upon,

No contract he signed was worth what it was written on.

He took the crumbs of the world and he turned it into wealth,

Took sickness and disease and he turned it into health.

He's the neighborhood bully.

What's anybody indebted to him for?

Nothin', they say.

He just likes to cause war.

Pride and prejudice and superstition indeed,

They wait for this bully like a dog waits to feed.

He's the neighborhood bully.

What has he done to wear so many scars?

Does he change the course of rivers?

Does he pollute the moon and stars?

Neighborhood bully, standing on the hill,

Running out the clock, time standing still,

Neighborhood bully. 

And, for good measure, here's the very young Dylan (21 years old), doing Man of Constant Sorrow, a song from his first album (1962). Enjoy !

Fiodor

A young Israeli Arab expresses outrage

Muhammad Zoabi (18 years old), is the nephew of the Arabic deputy to the Knesset Haneen Zoabi, who is hysterically anti-Israeli. On the contrary, Muhammad, as an Arab and Muslim, is attached to his country and proud to be an Israeli citizen. Threatened with death because he denounced the Palestinian exactions, he had to take refuge abroad during several months. He is back in Israel and expresses himself with courage, especially on his Facebook page. This is a post he published today:

“Yesterday, a 13 year old teenager was murdered by a Palestinian terrorist in the safest place a child should have; sleeping bed in her house.

Today, a father was murdered, yet again, in front of his family at the hands of despicable Palestinian terrorists.

Not hearing any condemnation, nor public rage in the Palestinian society at the horrifying attacks, I ask myself; what state the Palestinians allegedly want to create? What society the Palestinians want their children to live in? What kind of education they want to give to their future generation...?

The answer that we get as a result of their actions is something no democratic, liberal western country should tolerate!

Their radical, extremist and inhumane ideology is something Israel has been fighting for decades! And it is one the western world needs to understand they can't support!”

How can we hope for peace, when such a culture of hatred is maintained, from the nursery school, in the Palestinian population, and when the Palestinian politicians award to the killers the glorious title of "martyr"…?

Fiodor

The Great “Will”

Immortal for 400 years, William Shakespeare has left us an unparalleled literary treasure. Victor Hugo saw in him, «one of those indomitable geniuses made so by God that they might go fiercely and full-throttled into the infinite». And René Girard who, in his Shakespeare, les feux de l’envie, analyzes his theatrical works in order to support his own theory of mimetic desire, introduces his work with these words: «Whoever would propose a new book on Shakespeare, when thousands of studies on this author already line the shelves of the world's libraries, should began by begging forgiveness. Mine shall be the most banal, that of an irrepressible love for his theater...»

The homage that I would like to render to the great "Will" here is, as well, motivated by a love of his work and the conviction that there lie hidden there incomparable tools for understanding the human heart and the world around us. Dostoevsky, Shakespeare, the Bible: it's all there. You should undoubtedly add to that list Cervantes… who died on the same date – but not on the same day, a question of different calendars being used – as Shakespeare.

Here is a video recorded by the Shakespeare Globe, to animate a memorial walk along the river Thames, between Westminster and the Tower of London, on the occasion of the 400th anniversary. It consists of several quotes from the fourth act of Richard II – The Life and Death of King Richard II. Here one sees King Richard renounce his crown in favor of Bolingbroke, the future Henry IV.

God bless you, William !

Fiodor