Handel's Largo and Persuasion

This Sunday consisted mostly of playing, reading, and writing, in that order. Since I was deeply absorbed in thought, and the fingers cooperated, Beethoven sonatas and Chopin nocturnes (Op. 15 No.3* and Op.37 No.1**) went unusually well. I also played bits of Schubert's sonatas D. 958 and D. 959, bits of Beethoven's variations ("God Save the Queen" and the Diabelli variations), Debussy's "Claire de Lune," and the piano part of Händel's "Largo" (from Serse) arranged for cello and piano. All of these latter pieces are ones I've practiced for a long time, but haven't mentioned before.

Speaking of the Largo (or "Ombra mai fu"), I've just found many versions of it on YouTube. The spectrum reaches from the very dramatic (Jussi Björling) to the calm (Janet Baker). As for the more modern versions, I like Jennifer Larmore's voice very much, but her video of the Largo is a curiosity. I imagine that it appeals to the demographic of women whose favourite television series is "Touched by an Angel," who drink fruit tea every day, and whose houses are full of cats, aromatherapy candles, gardening and housekeeping magazines that they refuse to throw away, photo albums, and pastel drawings. Anyway, I was rather disillusioned when I found out that the song is addressed to a shady tree (the "dear and amiable vegetable"), but I suppose that the gravity and stateliness of the music do seem proportionate in mid-summer. (c:

As for the reading, it was the first three chapters of Jane Austen's Persuasion. I've read the book often, but yesterday evening I started trying to write a screenplay based on it, so I needed to refresh my mind. The inspiration was the 2007 ITV film adaptation of that book, which had some good aspects (it showed the isolation of the heroine and the callousness of her family well, and had modest costumes, some good casting, and a nice comic character in Mary) but was in most ways completely off. Their Anne Elliot seems to be a desperate spinster who has been put out of the matrimonial running because she was never particularly attractive anyway. Yet in the book she is attractive; she is still rather pretty, but above all a well-educated, refined, and good woman who would be popular in different circles. Another main point is that she conceals her emotion instead of tearing up the whole time. I don't think that the filmmakers understood how much gossip and humiliation an eighteenth-century old maid would have been up against if she had not been self-disciplined enough to conceal it.

Besides, I think that it is simplifying matters too much to have the heroine in tears so often. That's not the way it works, in my experience. Emotions tend to be compounds, that take a very long time to break down into simpler elements like anger or sadness. It is only when the breaking down has occurred that tears come, or that one can laugh and get rid of the tension that way. When there is doubt (as there usually is) whether one has a reason for feeling sad, or whether one should indulge it, the process is even slower. Usually, tears result immediately only where there are smaller, single and finite reasons for sadness, like a mean remark or a bad exam result. So, that was my mini-"anatomy of melancholy."

But, despite the liking I have for the heroine, I find the book difficult because it is not as objective as Jane Austen's previous books. It follows the thought processes of the heroine much more closely, especially the emotionally draining struggles of Anne Elliot to use her reason to control her manner and thoughts. Even the satire is not so light any more, because it is defensively directed at neglect and coldness, rather than offensively directed at quite harmless foibles. It is, I suppose, the detached, gently moralizing, and satirical tone of Austen's other books that, first of all, prevent one from feeling too much of the sorrows of the heroine, and, secondly, give one the reassuring feeling that everything will turn out all right. And I would venture to theorize that those books, while there is much realism in them, are excellently escapist because of this secure feeling, whereas Persuasion is not.

For the reading I went to the St. Matthäus churchyard again. It was sunny at the time, and the trees are still splendid (though the leaves are not as fresh as they were in May), and altogether it is very beautiful. The daisies have grown out now, but there are countless other flowers on the grave plots, from pink roses and begonias through white impatiens to the pale purple harebells. It seems like fall has come early, because the leaf-petals of the (linden?) trees are scattered over the ground. Birds and insects are also ubiquitous. A black and orange insect with a ridged back even climbed onto my book until I carefully flicked it off. As for people, there were more than usual, tending the gardens or simply walking about.

On my way out the gates I saw that the door of the church there was open, and I went to the doorway and looked inside. The church itself (built around 1908) is a beige-coloured building, compact, with one broad central tower on top of a squarish frame, with smaller towers at the corners; the towers are topped with sober, dark-grey, bulbous domes. There is a covered porch in front, with a sculpture of (if I remember correctly) a learned man and his pupil between the two entrances. Around the church there are tall trees, like a cottonwood or poplar, and flower beds. Anyway, inside it there is a large chamber, with white walls and a soaring ceiling that has plaster ornamentation at the top. There are dark wooden seats built into the walls left and right, and the room itself is full of rows of (not particularly appealing) light-coloured metal chairs. There is a large stained glass window bearing the words "Ich bin die Auferstehung und das Leben" at one end. Oddly enough, there were no basins for holy water. Set in to the wall opposite the entrances, there is a smaller sort of "stage" where the pulpit, tall potted bushes and candelabra are. Altogether it seemed simple and a little pretentious, but not bad-looking.

* Here is a video of it, unfortunately with lots of background noise.
** Another video, with little background noise, but many deep questions . . . and an abrupt ending.