SOUNDTRACK: JONATHAN BISS-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #126 (December 14, 2020).
This is the first of three Tiny Desk Home Concerts to honor Beethoven’s 250th birth anniversary.
Biss is uniquely qualified for the task at hand. The 40-year-old pianist has recorded all 32 of Beethoven’s freewheeling sonatas, performed them worldwide and has taught an online course in the music.hat’s impressive. Still, what’s more astounding is the personal story behind Biss’ obsession with Beethoven. The recording project alone took nearly 10 years and the things Biss says he gave up – relationships, even his sense of self – in order to live the dream is heartbreaking. The pandemic has shut down the life and livelihoods of many musicians, and for Biss the down time offered space to confront his relationship to Beethoven and his own demons. He tells his story in a raw and insightful audio memoir called Unquiet: My Life with Beethoven.
You can hear some of Beethoven’s own struggle in these perceptive performances. The bittersweetness of the Bagatelle Op. 126, No. 1, the moments of fragility in the Sonata, Op. 90, and the interior perspective that reaches outward from the Sonata Op. 109, all prove that Beethoven’s music is as meaningful today as ever.
Jonathan Biss is a chatty pianist. After playing the lovely if brief “Bagatelle in G, Op. 126, No. 1” (it’s under 3 minutes), he explains that the six bagatelles were the last thing Beethoven ever wrote for the piano.
He also jokes that he had the overwhelming urge to introduce himself via the “invent your NPR name” by inserting your middle initial somewhere in your first name and your last name is the most exotic place you’ve ever traveled.
He says that didn’t expect to be drawn back to Beethoven during the pandemic because hos music is so intense and so much. He thought he’d rather be drawn to comfort food. But he can’t get away from Beethoven.
The pandemic has sidelined many big Beethoven birthday plans. Jonathan Biss was slated to play concerts around the globe in celebration of the 250th anniversary of the composer’s birth. Instead, he’s home in Philadelphia. So it’s no surprise that for this all-Beethoven Tiny Desk concert, Biss chose music that explores the composer’s own isolation, brought on by deafness and an uncompromising personality.
He talks about cancelling his tour in March. He came home and decided to read more–do he randomly picked out How to Be Alone as if the fates were telling him something. Biss feels that beethoven provided a guide to being alone. He was alone for most of his life–his personality was rather off putting, but he was also functionally deaf–the most profound form of isolation. He retreated into his imagination to create these songs.
“Piano Sonata in E minor, Op. 90: I. Mit Lebhaftigkeit und durchaus mit Empfindung und Ausdruck” is a piece that shows his vulnerability–a rare things for Beethoven.
He plays the first two movements of “Piano Sonata in E, Op. 109: I. Vivace, ma non troppo — Adagio espressivo, II. Prestissimo.” You can hear him humming an grunting along.
He signs off with his “NPR name” which I can’t quite make out. Then he concludes with the final bagatelle, “Bagatelle in E-flat, Op. 126, No. 3” which ends by drifting into the ether.
[READ: January 1, 2021] The Linden Tree
I’ve had a few César Aira books sitting around that I wanted to finish and the beginning of a new year seemed like a great opportunity.
It’s not always clear if his stories are fiction, non-fiction or some combination of the two. The back of this book calls it a “fictional memoir,” as if that clears things up. Chris Andrews translated this fictional memoir.
The book opens with the narrator explaining that his father used to go into the town square to take leaves and flowers from the linden trees (in particularly one unusually large tree) and make a tea out of them. This had some kind of regenerative properties for him–they cured his insomnia at any rate.
From there, as happens with Aira stories–it goes everywhere.
About a different Aira story Patti Smith once wrote:
I get so absorbed that upon finishing I don’t remember anything, like a complex cinematic dream that dissipates upon awakening.
And THAT is exactly the way Aira books work for me too. I have to go back through them just to try to remember the details.
So, in this story the narrator’s father is black (mixed race marriages were unusual in Pringles at the time of their marriage). His mother, who he praised for marrying a black man, was also flawed in many ways, including being very short and very bossy.
But the main thing about this story is the rise and fall of Peronism.
The narrator’s father rose to something of prominence under Peron. He was a municipal electrician. He used to ride his bicycle into town every day to turn on all of the lights in the town square. He rode his bike with his sixteen foot ladder attached to it.
Once he started working under Peron, he gave up on organized religion. Even when Peron was overthrown, he never returned to the church. Once Peron was overthrown, the name was never mentioned again–at least for years.
People talked about his father–said he was having an affair (the narrator overheard older women talking about it).
He does wonder if his father was a good electrician or not–but he can only use the kind of “evidence’ that he can imagine.
When he was growing up everyone in his village aspired to the middle class lifestyle (thanks to Peronism). Most families had only one child–a boy. If it was not a boy, they tried again–until they had three girls, then they gave up. So most houses seemed to have one boy or three girls.
He wound up, inadvertently, with job (unpaid) at one point). He used to go into the accountant’s office that was across the street from their house. He would run errands and shop-sit when the accountant was out. He listened in on all of the various things spoken about in accountancy offices–the price of things, the markets etc and he felt like he was wise about money. He used to enjoy playing with the office typewriter as well.
He recalls that the windows were often covered in a kind of white paint to prevent people from looking in. The office people used to scratch words into the paint to leave messages for customers. One time, the narrator’s friends came in and started writing things in the paint–you had to make sure you write your letters backward or they wouldn’t be seen outside. The accountant was very mad that the children had done this. He was sepxiaclly mad abot a bad word one of them wrote.
Not a curse, he later found out, but the word Peron.
Speaking of bad words, he recalled a game they used to play called “little mirrors” where you would take an insult and turn it around on others.
Filthy swine — Yours not mine.
Your mother’s twat — You mean your sister’s I saw you kissed hers.
Then the story switches to the absurdity of sending your child to college unless you were very rich. There’s was nowhere for any of them to use a degree in Pringles.
Then he talks about the building they lived in. It was a huge mansion but they all lived in one central room–kitchen, beds all on one room–all the other rooms unused. The narrator’s family lived on a fixed income and because of a deal his father made–they literally lived rent free.
There’s two stories about young people living in places like this. The first is the story of his father cutting down trees full of bagworms. His father asked him to burn them in the fireplace. He left before confirming they were burnt. When he got home later there were bagworms all over the ceiling of the house.
The other story is one his mother told him from her childhood. There wa s family with a boy and a girl. The boy was always bossing the girl around and pretending to be more knowledgeable. He would tell her to do something and when she would do the opposite he would say that he had wanted her to do what she had actually done. He would say great it was that the servants did their bidding. One night she was setting the table as he sat across from her. When she put something down she would say, yes, that’s where I want you to put the fork. etc. Finally she grew very angry and threw a fork at him, which pierced his cheek and stayed there.
Then he talks about the corner game. He would be walking down the street and when her realized someone was behind him, he would makes sure not to turn around. When he got to the corner he would turn and immediately sprint until he imagined the other person had reached that corner. He would then resume walking the same pace. The person behind him would wonder what had happened that suddenly this boy was so far ahead.
The joke would have been consummated perfectly if my victims had feared that they were losing their minds, or better still, if they has started to panic about a subtle crumbling of the laws of physics, as if on reaching the corner, they had stepped into a world with a different spatio-temporal paradigm. It was a harmless enough little game although the motivation behind it was undeniably cruel.
But no on fell for it. Kids would yell, “You didn’t fool me–you ran.” And adults would later ask why he had run from them.
he ends the reverie with the first statue ever built in Pringles. As everyone headed over to the Plaza to see the event, some boys ran up to him and his friend just cracking up about something. They could barely get out what was making them laugh so hard. They finally calmed down enough to say that they had climbed onto the statue and pressed the woman’s nipple while saying “koo koo.” When he and his friend tried it nothing happened.
The Plaza in Pringles is one of the most outstanding architectural achievements in the country. It was created by Francisco Salome.
And that’s the kind of story this is. A series of fun and interesting ideas full of details that mostly just show a glimpse into Aira’s mind.
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