Exploring the 20th Century Music

After reading books about ballet and cinema, it seems only plausible for me to continue reading a subject of my interest - music. I found this book through New York Times Notable Books of the Year list. The book has apparently achieved critical acclaim worldwide since its publication. I find this book one of the best non-fictions (not limited to music) I've read my entire life - the contents are personal yet insightful. It's about the history of classical music in the twentieth century although it does touches the issues of Jazz and Rock & Roll. Colin Greenwood of Radiohead praised the book for providing an accessible way to learn about a subject often closed off as too difficult. This is very true - when I was a music student, I often found classical music of 20th century hard to listen to and understand. All my life, my most favourite period of classical music is the Romantic period, often characterised by emotional type of music performed in a dramatic manner. This explains my long term admiration for Tchaikovsky's works, particularly his ballets. Do you see the connection? I love ballets, so naturally I would research about other composers who did works for ballets. Yes, that's exactly how I discovered Stravinsky, who was arguably the most important figure of 20th century classical music. His works for Diaghilev's Ballet Russes are astonishing, especially The Rite of Spring. Until now, the complexity and anti-Romantic patterns of the scores are unforgettable. 

This book basically gives a really good description of several prominent European classical music composers over the period, namely Mahler, Strauss, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Debussy, Sibelius, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, before moving to American ones, including Gershwin, Bernstein, and so on. I learnt a lot about the general public's reactions when certain unconventional works by these composers were premiered. The influence of Jazz on music of this period was unavoidable. Rhapsody in Blue by Gershwin is an example of a crossover of Jazz and Classical music. Duke Ellington's Creole Rhapsody (link below) is another. I got pretty nostalgic about Nodame Cantabile while listening to Rhapsody in Blue.

 

I had great fun exploring different works mentioned in the books. For those I've listened to before, I listened again for further clarity and for those I've never come across before, I managed to learn new music. I have to admit I was biased towards the first and second parts of the book while reading because those are my main interest. Nevertheless, I'm sure I'll re-read this book again in the future when I wish to understand more contemporary composers including Glass, Adams and so on. I also learnt that Korngold was the prince of Hollywood film music composer although Herrmann made the most original composition (I mentioned him previously). Even Schoenberg and Stravinsky wanted to compose music for films in Hollywood, they were big fans of cinemas too! Of course, not being a serious student of music, I found some parts difficult to absorb, but the gripping presentation of the subject did not deter my enthusiasm to read. I thoroughly enjoyed my reading period, which only took about 2 days for a 624-page book. I definitely recommend this book to anyone who's interested in learning more about the more recent period of classical music. Classical music isn't always about Bach, Mozard and Beethoven! 

Film Score - A Forgotten Art Form?

As many people have probably known, I'm a huge fan of both movies and music. I often feel that it's a pity that people my generation no longer appreciate art. I'm referring to all kinds of art, from paintings, sculptures, ballets, operas, classical music, etc. The list will go on forever. Of course, the definition of art is a rather subjective one; I consider many things artistic, even film scores. A film score has been seen as music that accompanies a film, when in fact, it could mean more than that. The link above shows John Williams' performance in conducting the film score medley during the 2002 Academy Awards. How many of these scores have you ever listened to? Some of them are pretty recent ones (e.g. My Heart Will Go On - Theme from Titanic) , while some others are now considered classic (e.g. As Time Goes By - Theme from Casablanca). The sad thing is when people are talking about film music, the most famous theme everyone knows is My Heart Will Go On. Many people have forgotten or are not actually aware of loads of other film scores that used to be really famous, some of which can even be included in the classical music repertoire of the 20th century. Below are a few music scores that I have come to love and cherish. 

I fell in love with film scores when I first heard  John Williams' Theme from Schindler's List (link above - I cried many times whenever I listened to this emotional performance by Itzhak Perlman - one of the greatest living violinists of all time). It affected me emotionally, not only because the movie itself was so touching, but also because the score is something I have been listening forever (I'm a big fan of strings - violin and cello, in particular). Since then, I have been buying and downloading many film scores, some of those are really old ones from classic movies. I started off with the violin-rich scores from The Red Violin, Ladies in Lavender, before moving to explore older movie themes. I have to admit that I'm mostly attracted to film scores that are heavily orchestrated. 

My next self-educating adventure with film scores occurred when I encountered classic movie themes from Gone with the Wind, Casablanca and Doctor Zhivago. They are as classic as they can get and you can easily find them in any music stores. Many older people would probably know them when they listen to the tunes. Personally, I find Max Steiner's Tara's Theme from Gone with the Wind (link above) unforgettable - beautiful scores that are perfectly orchestrated. It still reminds me of certain scenes from the movie whenever I listen to this. Max Steiner is an excellent composer when it comes to composing scores for epic films. In fact, I think I purchased the scores first before watching the movie. Yes, that's how much I love film scores.

The last film score I wanna briefly discuss here is Bernard Herrmann's Theme from Psycho (link above). I see this one as a different type of film score - it's almost too masterful and horrifying to listen to. I personally think that audience's perception of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho wouldn't be the same without this theme. In a way, this theme reminds me of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring - very experimental and haunting. Herrmann's long collaboration with Hitchcock is very similar to Stravinsky's collaboration with Diaghilev in staging ballets. This is a kind of music piece that would stand on its own, regardless of its purpose as an accompaniment for a movie. Although people working in relevant fields and film buffs might know of the theme, people in general are probably no longer aware of this theme or the composer himself. It's sad, isn't it? A film score is a type of music that deserves a better recognition both as a music form and as an art form. I wanna explore the history of film music more. I'm looking forward to finding a suitable book and learning more.

DIY - Yogurt Mask

Another random post about skincare. Personally, I'm not a big fan of yoghurt, eating too much yoghurt makes me quick sick. I guess it's something I'm not very used to, but hey, I discovered the benefits of applying yoghurt mask online couple months ago. I've been wanting to write about my experience with yoghurt mask for a while now, so here it is. Everyone knows that yoghurt is a very nutritious food, but I wonder how many people actually know about its acne-minimising benefit. I don't have an acne-prone skin, but yoghurt mask has shown an impressive result in minimising my pores. I'll explain below. Apparently, yoghurt is also good when it comes to reducing discolouration and preventing premature ageing. Just what people my age need right?! It's good because it's cheap. I'm not saying you should completely let go of your over-the-counter skincare products or even premium ones. There's a really important thing I need to mention here before going further about my experience. The suitable type of yoghurt is the plain yoghurt. Hence, no strawberry or chocolate-flavoured yoghurt can be used.

I applied yoghurt mask for a week before travelling in June. I did try several combinations and got different results. I left the mask on for about 25-30 minutes each.

1. Plain yoghurt (more or less 2 spoonfuls). The result was great, I felt much refreshed. The thing I dislike about applying only yoghurt is that it's rather watery. I like to apply it thickly, especially on my T-zone area, so it was hard for me to move around after the application.

2. Plain yoghurt + lemon water (I squeezed the lemon water myself- not exactly sure how much, I reckon it's half a lemon). I did feel my pores were minimised a lot and my nose area became much smoother, but my other skin areas became much drier. Maybe I used too much lemon water (something else I should try experimenting). I know lemon is really good if you have excess sebum.

3. Plain yoghurt + 1 egg white. I obtained the best result with this combination. My skin was tighter (egg white does the trick) and it wasn't overly dry. I used this for 5 days consecutively and my blackheads disappeared almost completely. It lasted for nearly 20 days too.

I heard it's good to add some honey as well. I haven't got around to try that. I'm kind of tempted to use moderate amount of lemon water in my plain yoghurt + egg white combination too and see the result. Maybe I will do it when I get the time too. Plus, I don't see the harm of using natural ingredients. I guess you should really try it yourself as everyone has different skin types. I've been persuading my sister to do the same as she has an acne-prone skin, but she hates the smell. I guess that's the trade-off right? There's no free lunch in the world. You need to suffer from the smell a little bit before achieving the result. Do share your findings here :)

Just How Much Do You Know About Films?

Yeap, that's my question. How much do you think you know about movies? Watching loads of summer action flicks isn't exactly a great representation of  your knowledge. At least that I can say. I picked up this book randomly at Foyles Charing Cross Road couple days ago. As a film buff, I don't just watch movies, I wanna know more about them - history, film movements, styles of directing and so on. This has been a pretty productive summer for me, I've read and read, both fictions and non-fictions. In return, I've learnt loads about random things. When I bought this book, I was really interested in knowing more about artistic styles of Hollywood and European cinemas. I didn't read the description carefully enough, so it surprised me a lot when the book emphasizes more about social and political factors surrounding film production of different periods in particular parts of the world. Nevertheless, a pleasant read and I managed to learn some interesting stuff, from the style differences between the French New Wave (Godard, Truffaut, etc) and the New Italian Cinema (Fellini, Antonioni, etc), more clarity about non-dancing Indian cinema (Ray's movies), certain genres that have become more known in a country than another (Western films are often associated with Hollywood), and so on. I might have known some of them and I read the 400+ pages rather quickly (about 2.5 days). 

I want to write a little bit about my love for movies. How should I put it? Movies are something I've liked since I was young, without much realising how much certain titles have grown on me. I think the turning point was when I watched Schindler's List. That last scene, such a simple scene of people paying respect to Oskar Schindler. I wasn't able to stop crying. Since then, I started questioning myself how some films could be great and some couldn't. I've started going through some famous movie lists (e.g. various AFI, imdb, 1001 movies to watch before you die lists) to get an understanding of what good movies are. Movies have been with me when I was happy and sad. I have written some reviews occasionally, not long ones - short enough for Facebook status updates, and they're mostly on new movies. I truly wish I could learn more about film studies one day. I really wanna be involved in producing movies. I appreciate all kinds of movies although I'm more biased towards drama genre than summer blockbuster kind of things. Art house cinemas are something I support too - you'll be amazed when you watch some independent films and realise how much better they are than movies you often watch in cinemas.

I do wish I can pick up another book about the history of films, preferably one that talks more about different styles. I really wanna learn more about the French New Wave and the New Italian Cinema. I think I've found some good titles, but haven't been to a bookstore to personally check them yet. Maybe I'll write about my findings next time :)

Appreciating Ballet - A Dying Art Form

Being a ballet geek, I really like reading and watching anything about ballets whenever I have the time. I took ballet classes when I was really young, but I was never a big fan until after I've read manga serial called Swan by Kyoko Ariyoshi. I'm really grateful to my mom's friends who bought the first 9 volumes for me on my 8th birthday. I didn't like it then and only tried to read it again when I was 13. I was immediately hooked and asked my dad to drive me to a bookstore to get the remaining volumes. The first ballets I discovered are none other than the three infamous Tchaikovsky's ballets, i.e. Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker. Since then, I've learnt more and more through reading biographies and of course, surfing the web. Having previously read Margot Fonteyn: A Life by Meredith Daneman, Nureyev: His Life by Diane Solway and I, Maya by Maya Plisetskaya, I couldn't resist it when I saw Apollo's Angels: A History of Ballet at Foyles last week. I just knew I had to buy and read it as soon as possible. It didn't take me long to read, 608 pages in about 3-4 days despite my irregularity. I enjoy Jennifer Homans' writings and the first line of Chapter 1 just describes ballet so beautifully.

"Music and Dancing, not only gives great pleasure but have the honour of depending on Mathematics, for they consist in number and in measure. And to this must be added Painting and Perspective and the use of every elaborate Machines, all of which are necessary for the ornament of Theatres at Ballets and at Comedies. Therefore, whatever the old doctors may say, to employ oneself at all this is to be a Philosopher and a Mathematician." - Charles Sorel 

I'm not a total beginner when it comes to the history of ballet (e.g. I know ballets were not invented, but popularised by the Russian), but this book has taught me a lot more things. The book not only explains ballet in its own world, but also describes the social and political factors surrounding the making of a ballet. For example, the ballets structured during Stalin's period are more realistic than the Imperial Russia's ballets (dominated by fairy-rich themes). Personally, it's also interesting to learn that homosexuality among male dancers is not a personal preference, but a cultural identity - being a homosexual allows male dancers to explore their feminine sides and be more expressive. Diaghilev and Nijinsky were an item before Nijinsky married a Hungarian dancer! I'm aware that John Maynard Keynes, the great Economist that greatly influenced my choice of degrees (naturally, I was more excited than ever when I saw his name), had a Russian ballerina (Lydia Lopokova) as a wife, but I never knew he was so influential within the ballet community in England. Being an avid fan, I know many ballets and  dancers. I even bought some ballet scores, but this book allows me to connect the dots between periods.  For example, La Sylphide and Giselle came before the three Tchaikovsky's ballets, which are predecessors to The Firebird, The Rite of Spring and so on. 

My favourite sections include the development of ballet in Russia, especially the bits about collaboration between Petipa-Ivanov and Tchaikovsky, all the way to the development during Stalin's regime. The Sleeping Beauty is the first great Russian ballet ever choreographed (Tchaikovsky's best scores) and Swan Lake is the most imperfect one out of the three (the only depressing one), yet still very attractive today. Then, the Diaghilev's Ballet Russes section highlights long collaboration with Stravinsky. I had a great time listening to loads of works by Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky and Prokofiev while reading certain chapters. The last chapters about its development in the UK and US are also very interesting. I got to learn more about Robbins and Balanchine. The final section concludes about how ballet as an art form is dying and someone like Balanchine is needed to revive it, based on historical evidence. Unlike paintings or sculptures, ballets cannot be preserved in a still form. Ballet is the first thing I've ever really liked and done plenty of research on - one that I've come to appreciate before films and music in general (I even wished to be a ballerina in my next life when I was much younger). This is why I feel very sad reading such a book as it would be such a waste if the future generation cannot appreciate ballets as we can now. Nevertheless, I had a great time reading and learning the book. It makes me appreciate ballet as an art form even more now. 

My Ever Growing Book Collection

I'm sharing with you a picture I recently took of my ever growing book collection. I have a small bookshelf in my room, but I have other books placed there, so I'm utilising the bars next to my bed. It's actually pretty convenient for my hand to reach the books as I'm constantly next to my laptop these days. As you can see, my reading choices are just as random as my blog entries can be. I love fiction, especially literary fiction. I bought Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov and The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera even after I've read them. But you know, sometimes you just love certain titles so much that you actually wanna own and re-read them. I've recently finished reading the two books I bought in Singapore, namely The Hundred Foot Journey by Richard C. Morais (a quick, easy read) and Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang (I previously dedicated an entry for this). That means, apart from my Collected Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald, which is rather like a reference for my planned Fitzgerald project, I now have four other books to read, i.e. Apollo's Angels: A History of Ballet by Jennifer Homans, A Woman in Berlin by Anonymous, The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood, and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John le Carré. I recently ordered Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff (not shown), which was one of the best non-fiction books chosen by many major publications last year.

I love reading so much. I really do. I love the feeling I get when I finish reading a book. The joy of turning the last page of a book gives me a sense of accomplishment. More knowledge learned, regardless of whether the book is a fiction or a non-fiction. In my opinion, I usually learn as much from a fiction as well, if not more. Also, it indicates a time to buy more! I enjoy going to bookshop more than I love surfing amazon website to look for new bargains. I love smelling books and being close to them. I'm such a book nerd, I know, but seriously, who cares? Reading more is always good for you.

Loving and Learning from Wild Swans

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang is the latest non-fiction book I read this year. I picked it up randomly at Changi Airport on my way to the UK. It's not only a great book to read (I couldn't put it down), but also one that affects the readers emotionally. Well, at least I felt that way, and I still do. It's about a story about three generations of women in a Chinese family. The book vividly describes their experience throughout the Japanese occupation and Chairman Mao's Communist regime. It's now easily one of my favourite non-fiction. It's as unforgettable as Nicholas and Alexandra (about the last Emperor and Empress of Russia - a topic I'm very interested in) that I read years ago and I still treasure until now. I believe this will be the same. I guess what makes the book so great is that the writer's very honest about her family's experience over the years. This is why I love autobiographical kind of books - they come straight from the heart and the readers feel it. It's almost too painful to read sometimes, but when I nearly reached the end of the book and turned the last page, I didn't want it to end. I truly wish there's more to read, but as real as any non-fiction, it must stop at certain point.

Another reason why I'm so deeply affected and moved by the book is because of my Chinese ancestry. Ever since I was young, my dad has been repeatedly told me stories about my grandparents, who came from China. My grandfather and his younger brother immigrated from Mainland China (Fuzhou in Fujian Province) with my great-grandparents to look for a better place to live elsewhere. They came to settle in Tebing Tinggi, a small city in North Sumatra, Indonesia. That's where my grandparents were married and my dad was born. Throughout their lives in Indonesia, my great-grandparents and grandparents never forgot about their Chinese roots. My great-grandfather had five siblings in China, some of whom might still have some descendants there. This kind of story makes me rather emotional. I really wish I could visit my ancestors' birthplace one day. It's a shame that none of us can speak the Fuzhou dialect anymore at home though we all speak Hokkien. 

Also, I kept wondering what would have happened if my great-grandparents and grandparents chose to stay in China. Would they experience the same hardships described in the book? I'm not saying this as they didn't experience anything difficult in Indonesia. My grandfather had a hard time during the Japanese occupation in Indonesia. I guess in every family, there's always a story to tell and I would really love to know more. I used to listen attentively whenever my dad told me their stories. I really miss those times. Anyway, back to the book! I think everyone, regardless of their roots, should read this book if possible. It's one of those books that will change the way you think and appreciate what you have - self-reflection, in other words. I'm grateful to have come across it, really.