MuseVision

Welcome MuseVision Readers. The June 2006 edition features Anne Finch, poet of the 17^th – 18^th centuries. Also included is a Video by the Magical Mystery Trio, featuring music by the Fab Four – OK, The Beatles. Cliff, our dedicated moderator continues with a digression about music and poetry. We indulged him this time. Also included are some words about Gustav Klimt’s “Schubert” painting in a new section called “Why we love this painting”. A Dorothea Baird photos update rounds things out.

# posted by DreamSpinner @ 6/18/2006 07:09:00 PM

Take a look at some pictures of an intriguing looking woman. I found them on the web one day while just Googling the name “Anne” to while away the time. I began researching and soon realized I had stumbled on another very interesting character. The images are of Anne Kingsmill Finch, an English poet who lived from 1661 through 1720. She is also known as Anne of Winchilsea. She occupies an important place in British poetry as she was one of the first published women poets. The time is which she lived is one of my favorites in Art and Music history. She was married just about the same time Bach and Handel were born and she lived about the same time as France’s Watteau, both having died in the same year, 1720. All of which were giants of creative energy and big favorites of your humble moderator.

These pictures from London’s National Portrait Gallery are made from the same original and it is simply a two inch long miniature, however most certainly painted from life. Miniature artists could do wonders in a tiny space and their best work can be quite awesome. Though the image is obviously limited, the complexity and intelligence of the subject is apparent. Anne is surely a creative thinker and has had perhaps more than her share of suffering. Her poems are rich tapestries of strong, contrasting emotions. She can compose poems which seem so delicate and light, while some others are deal with the most troubling and burdensome of life’s realities. She is known to have had periods of severe depression as well as other times which proved much happiness and triumph.

Her biography is interesting, yet complicated. She met her future husband, Heneage Finch, while she was Lady in Waiting to Mary of Modena, Queen Consort to James II of England. Entire books have been written about this period and there are so many details, you have to have a slide rule to figure it all out. Heneage was a great supporter of Anne’s writing, after an initial skeptic period, and helped her maintain and publish quite a large amount of poetry. He managed to get into political trouble during his career, not an unusual thing, and was tossed into the slammer for being a “non-juror”. The term refers to one who refuses to take a new oath of some kind, usually to a new King, because they believe they are still bound by their old oaths. Cooler heads eventually prevailed and Heneage and Anne were reunited again. By all accounts, their marriage was an unusually happy one. Her depressions came and went. She learned to live with them. Anne became “of Winchilsea” when her husband surprisingly inherited the title.

Even today, Anne’s work exerts an influence on other creative people - a rare thing for poets of such a seemingly remote era. A sculptor in Britain, Ralph Brown has produced works based on imagery from her poetry. There is also a narrative of her life and poetry with musical accompaniment. An antique music ensemble, Musica Dolce, performs while a narrator reads some of Anne’s poetry mixed with her life story.

Some examples of Anne Finch's poetry.

To The Nightingale

Exert thy Voice, sweet Harbinger of Spring!

This Moment is thy Time to sing,

This Moment I attend to Praise,

And set my Numbers to thy Layes.

Free as thine shall be my Song;

As thy Musick, short, or long.

Poets, wild as thee, were born,

Pleasing best when unconfin'd,

When to Please is least design'd,

Soothing but their Cares to rest;

Cares do still their Thoughts molest,

And still th' unhappy Poet's Breast,

Like thine, when best he sings, is plac'd against a Thorn.

She begins, Let all be still!

Muse, thy Promise now fulfill!

Sweet, oh! sweet, still sweeter yet

Can thy Words such Accents fit,

Canst thou Syllables refine,

Melt a Sense that shall retain

Still some Spirit of the Brain,

Till with Sounds like these it join.

'Twill not be! then change thy Note;

Let division shake thy Throat.

Hark! Division now she tries;

Yet as far the Muse outflies.

Cease then, prithee, cease thy Tune;

Trifler, wilt thou sing till June?

Till thy Bus'ness all lies waste,

And the Time of Building's past!

Thus we Poets that have Speech,

Unlike what thy Forests teach,

If a fluent Vein be shown

That's transcendant to our own,

Criticize, reform, or preach,

Or censure what we cannot reach.

To Death:

O King of terrours, whose unbounded sway

All that have life, must certainly obey.

The King, the Priest, the Prophet, all are thine,

Nor wou'd ev'n God, (in Flesh) thy stroke decline.

My name is on thy Role and sure I must,

Increase thy gloomy kingdoms, in the dust,

My soul at this, no apprehension feels,

But trembles at thy swords, thy racks, thy wheels,

Thy scorching fevers, which distract the sense,

And snatch us raving, unprepar'd from hence;

At thy contagious darts, that wound the heads

Of weeping friends, that wait at dying beds.

Spare these, and let thy time be when it will,

My business is to die, and thine to kill.

Gently, thy fatal sceptre on me lay,

And take to thy cold arms, insensibly thy prey

# posted by DreamSpinner @ 6/18/2006 06:45:00 PM

On the Road with a Bass-playing Poetry Accompanist

Having spent most of my life obsessed with music, poetry has always had to come in through the back door. I was crazy about Poe’s works when I was very young and I managed to glean a smattering of meaning from various English classes. I had one teacher who loved poetry greatly and I’m loathe to admit that I did more than my share of dozing in his classes - not because there was anything wrong with his teaching at all. The fault was mine entirely. I finally got my act together and many years later wrote him a letter of apology. I’ve tried to clean up my peasant-like condition and just in time, too. I now have friends who take great delight in Poetry as well as having a daughter who is a great student of the subject. In deference to them, I try not to expose my prodigal past.

One highlight of my poetry experience was doing dramatic readings of poems accompanied by improvised music. I would read the poems and some of my friends would make up the music. Sometimes we'd switch and I would imrpovise, too. That was a lot of fun back in the sixties. The audience seemed to get a kick out of it. This fact sets up an interesting tale from a bass playing friend of mine. Let’s call him Bob. Bob is a true classical bassist, meaning that classical music is all he plays. Jazz is not in his lexicon. Bassists who plays in every style are a different breed altogether. Classical Bassists are usually very affable people who believe they represent a long tradition of musical high ground. They consider themselves the unspoken leaders of the orchestra, and, while all the other instrumentalists have some sort of quaint opinion of their own place in the musical scheme of things, the bass players are true believers in their own importance. If you could say that first violinists seem like caffeinated, puritanical chipmunks, than you could say that bass players seem like long-suffering lions. After hours, bass players can be extraordinary good-time Charlies.

So, back to Bob…. Bob and I used to travel together to out of town gigs. Bass players always have a fine large station wagon or van to carry their elephant sized instrument We always yakked constantly and flipped from one topic to another. I avoided too much political blather since I am rather conservative , compared to most musicians, and usually try to avoid seeming like a fossil from a former age (even though that's true). After concerts we would head out home. Bob would plant a bottle of Jim Beam on the dashboard; light up a J and off we would go. Of course this was some years ago, before he knew better. After all, this is the twenty-first century and better judgement rules. One day, while traveling to an engagement, I was mentioning that I had read about a police raid at a farm in South Carolina in which the cops had discovered the owners were using alcoholics to pick the crops and paying them not in cash, but in booze. I thought this was outrageous, of course. It seemed so then, but everything is so outrageous now that we need a new word to convey the meaning. Bob actually found this story amusing and said it reminded him of his Conservatory days in which he was "paid in booze" to go out weekends with a former Baptist minister-turned-poet. The former minister would take Bob and a few other musicians to poetry gatherings in University towns and “open mike nights” at clubs, coffeehouses etc., etc. The musicians would improvise music while the “minister” read his poems aloud. He would pay them off in whiskey, and made sure they got invited to the hottest, anything-goes after- hours parties. My jaw was dropping as he told me this tale, as I remembered my own just-for-fun poetry-musical events and they never ended up like that…. And of course we never got paid a thing – what do you expect with “The Hollow Men” accompanied by bongos, violins, and zithers.

This scene was verified for me in the biography that Anne Sexton’s daughter, Linda Gray Sexton, wrote…. I actually bought the book and read it. Not that I knew or cared much for Anne’s work, but I wanted to read about the effect crazy people have on others. The book does not disappoint. Anyway, she describes various poetry readings attended by her and her mother. It seems you have two followings at these events, the Apollonian and the Dionysian. The Apollonian folks go home after the punch and cake and read more poetry. The Dionysian people are just getting started for the evening. The punch and cake are the just the beginning.

With my own musical obsessions now pretty much contained, I have to admit I am turning back to poetry. A friend once suggested that there must be an answer to why people hold poetry in lower regard today than in the past, when some even chose to speak poetically. There must be lots of good reasons. Any ideas?

# posted by DreamSpinner @ 6/18/2006 06:32:00 PM

A Musical Soiree can be among the most rewarding evenings of one’s whole life. If you are a musician or a music lover, being invited to a sumptuous evening of songs and chamber music is something to be highly regarded, because this is where we make music as well as make musical friends and alliances. Some forms of music can only be aired and shared in such a setting. The combination of music, friends, food and conversation is irresistible. This is where you learn what sounds good, what moves people, and what’s on peoples minds.

Klimt brings us into the middle of such an occasion and presents us with one of its highlights. Franz Schubert wrote some of the most memorable songs, chamber music and piano solos of the early 19^th century. In Klimt’s painting, you can truly “hear” the warm musical moment emanating from the piano and the experience is verified by the rapt faces of the listeners, some of whom may be musicians or music lovers. It’s difficult to remember any other image that captures more fully all the details and atmosphere of a soiree. Klimt was a great admirer of Schubert, of course, and his own reaction to Schubert's music must surely be captured in the faces of the listeners. They say the painting was destroyed during WWII when a bomb hit the building in which it was housed. A fire ensued and it was reduced to ashes. The image lives on and continues to inspire us and that is - why we love this painting.

# posted by DreamSpinner @ 6/18/2006 06:27:00 PM