Movie Review- Eternals

Do not become attached to this planet. -Arishem
When you love something, you protect it. -Thena

What I loved about Eternals is its philosophical depth unlike other asinine Marvel Universe movies like Spiderman. The film’s storyline was nicely done but most characters like Angelina Jolie’s were shallow and overlooked. Yet, it is the seriousness of the storytelling and rushed scenes that make Eternals enjoyable.

Eternals starts on a high note but slightly blunders by mixing up science and ancient mythologies starting from Greek (Olympia Mountain & Eternals), Babylonian myths (Arishem) & legends (Ikarus & Gilgamesh & A-Thena goddess of war) a crude form of Big Bang theory (Deviants & Tiamut as life forms emerging from primordial soup). Where Eternals blunders it also beats all Marvel films by expertly combining themes of cosmology, metaphysics, and existentialist ethics.

Summary and Review

Eternals has a very basic storyline. Arishem formed Earth and other universes. However, there is a design flaw in the sense that dragon-like creatures called Deviants are killing humans. So Arishem creates Eternals and sends them to save humankind by killing Deviants.

Eternals tries to shoehorn cosmology and metaphysics in its storyline. Arishem created people so that they could become food for a new god. But when deviants began sabotaging the birth of a new god by eating people, Arishem created Eternals to go kill the deviants and ensure that human population would grow large enough to become food for the new god Tiamut.

The birth of this god is like a remake of the Big Bang theory. Once Earth has reached its carrying capacity, the energy produced by people is supposed to be enough to cause the emergence of the god Tiamut from the depths of the seas. Tiamut’s emergence will finally annihilate earth. Eternals end up embracing utilitarianism to destroy Tiamut and save humankind.

Given that Eternals occur after Thanos, this is one of the few movies that considers overpopulation as beneficial. It also raises the creation of whether Tiamut would have emerged if the Avengers in Endgame had not time-traveled.

The Eternals accomplishes what other MCU movies like The Winter Soldier, Dr Strange and Endgame tried but failed. The Winter Soldier explored cosmic horror wrought by man, Dr Strange considered whether man has a higher duty than self-preservation, and Endgame considered the vanity of humanity trying to solve its problems by destroying an enemy instead of solving the actual problem! Anyway, I watched Endgame for the time travel and boy wasn’t I disappointed when Ant-man claimed that he had been in the quantum world for 5 hours yet 5 years had passed on Earth. Eternals weaved all these themes into one gripping story, but a story that is weaker compared to Hulk.

(PS: Time is immaterial and it exists in our real material world and in the immaterial quantum world. Events in our world happen along the time continuum and they require time to happen. That’s why you can say that you slept yesterday and you will run tomorrow because you require time to sleep and you will run in a time that is yet to happen. It is therefore a logical contradiction for Ant-Man to say that time in quantum physics is different from the time in our material world. Time is immaterial and it flows at the same speed irrespective of whether you are time-traveling or you in a quantum world)

Anyone who loves a movie that forces you to think as you watch will likely enjoy Eternals.

Diabolus in Musica: Singing with the Devil

“If Viotti is the father of modern violin playing, surely Tartini is its godfather.”

History is replete with figures who sold their souls to the Devil for favors. Just like Dr Faustus who exchanged his soul for a kiss from Helen of Troy (the face that launched ships, read war), Tartini allegedly dreamt that the Devil appeared to him and asked him to sell his soul in exchange of excellent violin playing classes and skills. At the end of their lessons Tartini handed the devil his violin to test Satan’s skill—the devil immediately began to play with such virtuosity (skill) that Tartini was left wordless, speechless, dumbfounded and tongue-tied. 

The Devil’s trill (Il Trillo del Diavolo) by Tartini Giuseppe is the greatest violin piece ever produced in Italy. Legend has it that it took more than Tartini to write it. That the Devil’s inspiration was central.

When the composer awoke he immediately wrote down the sonata, desperately trying to recapture every single note and stroke the Devil had played in the dream. Though successful with people, Tartini lamented that the piece was still far from what he had heard in his dream. What he had written was, in his own words: “so inferior to what I had heard, that if I could have subsisted on other means, I would have broken my violin and abandoned music forever.”

The standard Baroque violin sonata is usually in 4 movements: slow-fast-slow-fast. Tartini surprises us with a 3 movement sonata.  Rather than having a movement of predictable tempo, the violin oscillates between swiftly alternating slow and quick notes. Fans of word-painting have construed this to illustrate a conversation between a pleading, almost despairing Tartini; with a proud Devil who expertly and cleverly plays quick beautiful dazzlingly notes. No doubt a highly involving dialogue between the two characters. Tartini’s use of the words: “the Devil at the foot of the bed ” in the first of the fast sections, at the moment where Tartini calls upon the performer to execute the so-called “Devil’s Trill,” validates this legend. In performing the diabolically sweet Devil’s trill the violinist plays a trill with two fingers on one string while simultaneously executing arpeggios with the other two fingers on an adjacent string. (all violinists know that stopping is no joke)

-See Tartini to J.J. Lalande. Voyage d'un Francais en Italie (1765-6).

Whether the Devil truly visited Tartini we shall never tell, that we shall always enjoy the Devil’s Trill is a Hometruth Number 1... Perhaps Tartini’s dream wasn’t a dream after all!

A Night in Vienna

A NIGHT IN VIENNA

Attending an Italian Mission School is no good experience unless you are a music/arts/comp/foreign languages student; that way you are sure of having some small fun and freedom away from the strict catholic cultures. Personally I escaped to music. My highest moment was when Music took me to Vienna.

Austria’s Vienna is the undisputed cradle and capital of classical music. She has welcomed Mozart, Haydn, Mahler, Schubert, Schoenberg among other great music prodigies and geniuses. Vienna boasts of the best and most spectacular operas in the world. For the non-musicals operas are plays in music, they are our “conducting Jim Carreys, singing Mr Beans, chanting Chris Rocks,drumming Kevin Harts, humming Cosbys et al in a theatre…”

Interior view of The Vienna State Opera House 

While Kenya has a sweet, bold, decaying monument as Kenya National Theatre; Vienna has a grand, noble, charming architectural in its State Opera House where all glorious esoteric music lives on. By the way, Kenya National Theatre is undergoing a 1-year renovation at an estimated cost of 100 million :) ; Now compare this with the 10,000,000 US Dollars and  9 years spent refurbishing the Vienna State House Opera (Cry, the Beloved Country! How we cheaply invest in arts, timewise and moneywise)

View of The Vienna State Opera House from the outside

Front View of Kenya National Theatre

You have not visited Vienna until you have watched operas in their State Opera House. I remember my host actually joking that “In Kenya you tell wageni Hakuna Matata In Vienna Opera lovers cannot be choosers”. As a rule of thumb I hate formal wear more so suits and anything that you have to tuck in, but here was Vienna’s unwritten rule that Thou shalt not attend opera without a suit. (too bad suits await me when I start pressing ‘em as a lawyer, law school was a bad decision) Viennese customs dictate that a gentleman has to be in a suit, a white tie, and a black tail coat. Now, the white tie was no big deal, ages ago I had worn one, rather forced to one in a black corduroy suit at my grandpa’s golden jubilee. As if been in a tailcoat was no torture, Vienna’s sweet culture demand that you wear medals on your coat. Not those Rudisha’s-like Olympic medals but rather the school-like Best in … For the night, my host lent me a good-conduct medal for been the most-promising students leader!

Artist Impression of Pied Piper  of Hamelin leading the rats to the river

Feeling ridiculously and funnily dressed, I rode into the State Opera House. On entering the Opera House I was met with approving stares and smiles of Karibu Nyumbani; which unluckily added to my confusion and unease. Walking to my seat, in my tailcoat and white tie I felt like the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Only difference was, instead of rodents following me, eyes were following me. Instead of a pipe, I had a program for the evening and as always my Kung recorder. The unease I felt made me make an abrupt decision of killing my dream of becoming a pro music conductor- who wants to live sweating in uneasiness of suits, rather than enjoying the music?

As happy days go, my stay in Vienna saves for my brief affair with suits was one of my happiest times. Vienna, I shall come again, very soon but not to wear a white tie. I wouldn’t be writing on Vienna if I hadn’t enjoyed this assignment on the Vienna Convention on the law of Treaties, would I?

Interior View of the Kenya National Theatre

An interior view of the State Opera House when filled

Life Demystified: A Musical Biography 1

A human’s life is the highest form of composition and maestro craftsmanship. At conception it is glorious, in youth it is a symphony of tense and sweet movements, at old age it is a sweet resolution with a final cadence at death.

The human life is a symphony scored for a full orchestra. The symphony opens with an all-absorbing, vigorous overture that is coloured and decorated with a cry that issues when a nurse taps the baby’s head. A beautiful crescendo of Ng’e’e ng’e’e ng’ee with an angelic velvety voice swills out accompanied by melismatic ululations for a duration. In my community this takes the form of a series of 5 slurred and staccatoed melismatic notes ornamented with a glissando for a boy, and 2 beautifully staccatoed long melismatic notes ornamented with a sharp trill for a girl.

A modulation from tonic key to a subdominant key marks the life of the mother when the smiling baby becomes a crying nuisance. The plagal cadence at cease of crying brings relief to babysitter forcing the orchestra to take a long deserved breve rest.

Suddenly nightfall comes, and the melody curves downward to a calm and sombre mood. At last, the mom can sleep. Well-modulated and sweet slurred running notes render it possible for the conductor to express the mom’s relief at the thought of a peaceable sleep.With no warning, the melody erupts into a disturbing aria:

Ng’ee ng’ee. Hello mamma, hakuna kulala, wake up and rock me

ng’ee ng’ee rock me, hello mama.

The second part of the movement subtly modulates to a syncopated 2-part recitative aria scored for the Alto and Bass parts. In the first part both sing in unison after which bass rests and alto is left oscillating between tense discords. In the aria:

Alto: Nyamaza toto. Shh! Shh! Mommy is here, shut up

Bass: Rock that child until it shuts up. Or cover its mouth. It is disturbing my sleep..

The movement is marked by a conversation amongst the strings. A harsh violin, radiant viola and an agitated cello. It conjures up the image of the shrieks of a baby, the efforts of the mother to soothe it, and the agony of a man whose sleep has been ruined. The growling cello finally dies expressing the reluctant acceptance of unpleasant nights filled with baby cries. The violin smiles mutely and whispers to itself:

How sweet to be a child

Attention on me all focused

Her, Time all on me Spent

His, Sleep on me Spoilt

The keyboard plays a chromatic harmony on both right and left hand to depict the sharp and low shrieks of the baby. The running notes descend in a decrescendo(andante) and settle at Middle C bringing a sigh of release for the mommy. A plagal cadence marks the end of ‘crying baby agony’. At last, mom can sleep.

The sun rises brightly in a Dorian mode exhibited by the Gregorian-like chanting of birds and graceful ballerina-like dancing of trees. The chromatic melody takes on a bright texture with all strings and brass playing expressive dynamic harmony that is harmonious with the ever-sweet morning sun-rays. The clarinet plays an esoteric melody that is so Mozart Like as the mom welcomes her family to the breakfast table. The piano plays serene middle notes with a higher C’ to show joy of family, the viola takes on slurred happy notes before dissolving into staccato quick notes of mom kissing kid goodbye as she leaves for job. The cello patronizes the melody as the man drives the lady to work. Each instrument wanders in its own distinct melody before bursting into a grand chorus:

We are a happy family

A family that breakfasts

together, keeps together

Inspiring Quotes from Classical Composers

Opulence of colour, sumptuousness of texture, meltingly expressive and exceedingly excellent are but some of the few adjectives that we can use to describe the works of great classical music maestros. An often overlooked area is the exquisite beauty, wisdom and inspiring value of their quotes. Join me, as we sample inspiring quotes that the great composers left unto us:

Beware of missing chances; otherwise it may be altogether too late some day.

--Franz Liszt

I was obliged to be industrious. Whoever is equally industrious will succeed equally well

--Johann Sebastian Bach

                           

Muss es sein? Es Muss sein! Es muss sein! (Must it be? It must be! It must be!)

            -- Ludwig van Beethoven on the finale of his String Quartet in F Major)

Without craftsmanship, inspiration is a mere reed shaken in the wind

            --Johann Brahms

Young people can learn from my example that something can come from nothing. What I have become is the result of my hard efforts

            --Franz Joseph Haydn

Imagination creates reality.

            --Richard Wagner

Inspiration is a guest that does not willingly visit the lazy.

            --Pyotr I. Tchaikovsky

Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius.

--Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart   

           

Some people come into our lives, leave footprints on our hearts, and we are never the same.

--Franz Schubert

Whatever my passions demand of me, I become for the time being -- musician, poet, director, author, lecturer or anything else.

            -- Wagner, letter to Liszt

As long as I have health and strength, I will gladly work all my days.

--Frederic Chopin

The point is not to take the world's opinion as a guiding star but to go one's way in life and working unerringly, neither depressed by failure nor seduced by applause.

--Gustav Mahler

Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy, it is the wine of a new procreation, and I am Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine for men and makes them drunk with the spirit.           

-- Ludwig van Beethoven, quoted in Marion M Scott, Beethoven (1934)

Word Painting in Handel’s Messiah: The Historic Painting of His-Story

Scored for orchestra, chorus and soloists the Messiah is undoubtedly the world’s finest oratorio. An oratorio is a music piece that is set from biblical text. The Messiah traces the story of the Christian Messiah by incorporating prophecies, nativity, life and passion of Christ.

Handel’s use of word-painting excites nerves by rending the Messiah the exquisite air of ingenuity, grace, perspicuity, eloquence, and animation. Word painting is the musical depiction of words by mirroring music to convey the literal meaning of the text of a song. For example setting a happy melody in a major key, using low notes to express a sad mood among others. Word painting can be achieved through the use of a minor or major key to express the mode; tempo to express mode or role of a piece of music, or through melodic shape such as melismatic and syllabic word-painting to enhance the emotional impact of words. Melisma is setting a single syllable over many notes while syllabic painting entails one note per syllable.

Handel’s Portrait

There is a rare and exquisite harmony that is balanced in a lively and sober melody. Opening with the tenor aria Comfort ye my people, a first-time listener may take the same phrase to be a Come-for-tea (com-for-t) invite (an offense I was once guilty of when I first performed the tenor aria).

The text Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill made low; the crooked straight, and the rough places plain. (Isaiah 40:4) is set for a tenor aria

In Handel's melody, the word "valley" ends on a low note, "exalted" is a rising note on an augmented interval; "mountain" depicts a sharp rise and high leap, while "low" is another low note. "Crooked" is set to four notes of uneven quality, while "straight" is sung on a single note; "the rough places" is sung over short, separate notes whereas "plain" carries over several measures in a series of long notes. See excerpt of the score below:

In the Hallelujah chorus, low notes symbolize the world while the kingdom of the Lord is sung on high notes (And oooh the soprano parts were not written for female voices, they were set for male soprano and castrati. True that unbroken male voices are the best soprano quality, just listen to that 10-year old boy squeal…) The hallelujah section has a joyful timbre characterized by sweet arpeggios and implied chromaticism on a major scale making it the most popular movement of Handel’s Messiah.  

The happy madrigal For unto us a Child is born chorus is my favorite movement of the Messiah as well as Christmas Carol. Set on the word wonderful, the upward swing and swift climb of the violin in thirds is bright and jubilant illustrating more than words could that the child was a wonderful counselor. The four parts seldom appear in unison painting a charm and graceful air. Each part sings a delicate melody that is stimulating to all musical palates. Until Christmas...

In All We Like Sheep the movement begins in unison with all voices singing "All we like sheep." However on the word astray the 4 voices disintegrate and wander away from each other almost aimlessly in running notes. The melody literally goes astray by hipping and hopping through an unlogical melodic progression. By using counterpoint, dissonant chord progression, and unresolved cadential points Handel achieves a tension that serves to make the voices more independent.

Glory to God in the highest is contrasted with peace on earth. Glory is scored for the sopranos, altos, and tenors and reaches high notes that are light in timbre and lively. Peace on Earth is sung low in pitch and by the men.

In the movement of ‘And with His stripes’ Handel uses a staggered entrance of Renaissance counterpoint to have each of the chorus' sections state this text prominently. This creates the dual impression of lash after lash on the back of Christ and his falling down with the cross during the Passion. To depict the pain from the whips, Handel composes a dissonant jump from a high note to a low one. The forbidden notes are also used in the chordal progression to reinforce pain.

The final movement (Worthy is the Lamb) sums up the message of the Messiah. The Messiah musically narrates the story of Jesus: his birth, death, and resurrection. Worthy is the Lamb concludes that Jesus is the Messiah (he is the "lamb" that is "worthy"). The text adapted from Revelation 5:12-14, is set in heaven around the "throne", with (ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands) all angels singing:

Worthy is the Lamb that was slain

And hath redeemed us to God by his blood,

To receive power, and riches, and wisdom,

and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing…..

The part above mimics all angels and creatures respectively thus the singing and instrument orchestration is intense and loud.

The voices are too excited to sing in unison. There is excellent syncopation and ingenious cadences to show a leap of eras and transport the listener to a different age and new location. The final amens are set on different melodies for the different voices. This depicts the image of what it will be like in heaven hearing the multitudes sing amen in different and distinct voices. The word-painting of amen (let it be so) also expresses agreement with the whole text and underlying message of the Messiah.

The Messiah (Jesus Christ) is the reference point of historical epochs having split History into AD and BC. Surely History is His-Story. And no musician understood this better than Handel. What Einstein did with relativity, Handel achieved more with word painting.

The 3 B's of Music: Bach, Beethoven & Britten

THE 3 B’S OF MUSIC

Today we shall look at the 3 B's of music. They are J S Bach, Beethoven and Britten; though some will argue that Brahms is the third B. 

Heralded as “the immortal god of harmony,” “the beginning and end of all music,” and “a benevolent god to which all musicians should offer a prayer to defend themselves against mediocrity” Johann Sebastian Bach known as JS Bach (1685-1750) was a German Composer of the Baroque period. He was a contemporary of GF Handel. He is one of the few music greats whose music was written in mathematics. He is rumoured to have met intellects like John Milton (English poet who wrote Paradise Lost), and the great Italian scientist Galileo Galilei with whom he revered Mathematics as the Music of the Spheres.

Bach’s signature

He is famously known for his church music. His foray into secular works led him to compose the concerti grossi which made him to be considered as the father of ‘keyboard concertos’. Famous works include The Art of Fugue which is an intellectually staggering show of virtuoso and a landmark of baroque instrumental works; the Toccata  and Fugue in D Minor boasts of ornamentation and instrumental colour which serves to cement one’s love affair with Bach’s genius; Cantata No 8 is his most imaginative sacred cantata

All Bach’s works are symptomatic of dedicated genius that was not a victim of itself. His sons were his students and they inherited his musical genius though to a lesser extent. He was also a dedicated organ and composer teacher to his second wife Ann Bach.

Ludwig Van Beethoven was a child prodigy who excelled in pianism more than in other instruments. All his works bear a seal of distinction. His piano concertos bear a trademark signature of electrifying and arresting opening tuttis. The Piano Concerto No 5 in E Flat Major (Emperor) was written by a deaf 39 year old Beethoven. The emperor  was his final concerto, and has been hailed as his final heroic gift to mankind.

His symphonies exhibit a battle between struggle (disturbance) and triumph (exhilaration) what has since become the Teutonic tradition of ‘Beethovian’ interpretation. The translation from scherzo to finale in the 1st movement of the 5th Symphony(No 5 in C Minor) attests to this. His choral symphony embodies the spirit of the Romantic Period of music. Celebrating spirituality, Beethoven preaches and sanctifies optimism as the highest virtue that ennobles man and makes his existence possible. Interspersed with glorious adagios and scherzos, Symphony No 9 is most famous with its ‘Ode to Joy’. Other Beethoven greats include Archduke; Serenade in D Major; Spring Sonata; Kreutzer Sonata; No 5 in D Major on Rule Brittannia.

Beethoven’s Mass in D Major (Missa Solemnis) is a supreme masterpiece whose performance has always been disastrous. The dismal performance is attributable to the strain on the quality of solo and chorus renditions been unable to match Beethoven’s genius as expressed in the fugues of the Gloria and Credo.

The genius of Beethoven is always challenged by the ingenious Austrian Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Born in England, Benjamin Britten, later knighted as Lord Britten of Aldeburgh was a music child prodigy born in the 20th Century period of Classical music. He immortalized himself with the Aldeburgh festival that he started in his home area. He is the finest opera writer England ever produced. Most of his solo works were written for his great friend and the tenor Peter Pears.

His great symphonies are the Cello Symphony and the Sinfonia da Requiem. Employing sonata form, the Sinfonia is majestic, bold and one of the most powerful orchestral works. Discarding the traditional formula of a concerto as a struggle between solo and orchestra, the pacifist Britten took a fresh approach and wrote a cello symphony that was a conversation between the two.

The lesser known Cantata misericordium was commissioned in 1962 by the Red Cross Society.It was scored for tenor and baritone soloists, chorus, string quartet and orchestra as a universal appeal for charity. The Cantata misericordium falls short of an oratorio and was adopted from the Good Samaritan parable. Another Ben’s opus is The Young person’s Guide to the Orchestra. It is adapted from a theme by Purcell (famous for his Dido and Aeneas) to demonstrate to children the instruments of the orchestra. The lofty work has a pleasant, light and expressive air due to the variant timbre and colour scheme of the full range orchestral instruments.

Other famous works by Britten include A ceremony of Carols; the Spring Symphony; Cantata Academica; Peter Grimes; The Rape of Lucretia among other operas and scores developed for films and theatre.