German culture strikes chords and discord

My February seems to have been dominated by German culture, and I didn’t even make it to Carnival! Instead I heard the Berlin-based Artemis quartet, went to a literary evening whose focus was the author W.G. Sebald (1944-2001) and enjoyed my first live performance of the Berliner Philharmoniker. Each of the evenings included a discovery, sometimes to my liking and sometimes not, and something familiar.

The Sebald event was part of an exchange between Passa Porta, the international house of literature in Brussels, and the Literaturhaus Stuttgart. Having lived near Stuttgart for a year, a period when I started to read contemporary German-language authors, nostalgia may well have been one reason for me deciding to go along.

Much of the evening was devoted to a discussion between a journalist who had interviewed Sebald, a German literature professor from the Free University of Brussels and a Flemish writer. The three guests interrupted their discussion by playing parts of interviews recorded with Sebald and reading extracts from some of his books.

I was interested by the ideas that seemed to motivate Sebald’s writing: knowing where he came from; his history; memory; remembering the past; exploring what the truth is with regards to the past. And yet, despite this, the evening didn’t make me want to go and read Sebald. I was fascinated by the ideas and the literary criticism, but what little I heard of the actual works simply didn’t resonate enough with me.

My experience of listening to the Artemis quartet was similar in one respect. Their latest Brussels concert included Quartet no. 1 by Jörg Widmann, a contemporary German composer who is supported by the Artemis quartet.

The cellist preceded the performance with a word or two about the work, which was extremely helpful. For example, he talked of how the beginning of the piece, which has the instruments making hesitant starts and scratching sounds on the strings, was inspired by the difficulty of filling a blank page, the difficulty of starting to compose a piece. Had it not been explained, I could imagine having exchanged a few quizzical looks. The piece had some beautiful sounds and made me listen attentively to try and make sense of it, but I certainly wasn’t immediately converted into a Widmann fan. It was the Artemis’s performance of two Schubert quartets (no.s 9 and 15) that captivated me.

The novelty in the Berliner Philharmoniker’s concert was Messiaen’s Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum, which I’d only ever heard on a CD and to be honest had never managed to listen to it all the way through without getting distracted. In this case, I was in for a pleasant surprise as the live performance was totally different. The largest metal gong, taller than the musician striking it, reverberated impressively around the hall, and in fact needed a second percussionist to help stop its sound, such was its power. All the percussion was exciting to watch and listen, be it the clashing cymbals, tubular bells or the rows of hanging gongs.

Although I was impressed by the Messiaen, especially given that the composer isn’t one I’d usually choose, it was Bruckner’s symphony no. 9 in the second half that made the concert for me. I perhaps paid even more attention than usual to the strings given that they didn’t have a part in the Messiaen. Wow, what a sound. I can still here the amazing pizzicato at the start of the second movement!

I don’t want to have to wait a few years for the orchestra to return to Brussels, so I think there’s nothing for it but to book a trip to Berlin and hear them in their home concert hall, the Philharmonie. And maybe catch the Artemis quartet in their home city too. Oh and why not discover the Literaturhaus Berlin while I’m at it. Ok the seeds of an idea have been planted!

Big films on a small scale

I finally discovered what claims to be the smallest cinema in Brussels: the Styx in the Ixelles area. Don’t ask me how it has taken me eight years of living in Belgium to make it there!

I felt like I was going back in time as everything about the cinema is on a smaller scale than we’re generally used to these days, including the entrance price at just 5 euros.

It seems to operate in a slightly haphazard and laid-back way, but quaintly so. For example, the cash desk, squeezed into the corner of the entrance area, was only staffed a few minutes before the film started. But then again, there weren’t exactly hordes of people to deal with. My friend and I were the only ones waiting to watch the 9pm showing of The Changeling, and merely two film-goers came out of the early evening film.

The room would have seated about 40 people, but the only other person to turn up was the projectionist who gave us a little wave as he set the reels in motion and bade us goodnight as we left.

I was a little disappointed that the piano, randomly placed in the corner of the room, wasn't played. I suppose it’s there to accompany the occasional showing of a silent film, but it wouldn’t have been out of place to have struck up a few chords before the film started!

The Styx, which is partnered with Actor’s Studio in the city centre, has just two screens, curiously numbered 2 and 3. It tends to show both arthouse films and more mainstream movies that have stopped running in the larger cinemas.

If you want to see what’s on at the moment, click on www.styx.cinenews.be. And to find the cinema, the address is 72 Rue de l'Arbre Benit, a stone’s throw from Place Boniface and Avenue Louise.

How much is this artwork worth to you?

A week’s stay in the south of France, an exhibition space in Berlin, a kiss, a smile, a therapy session – these were just some of the offers scribbled on post-it notes and stuck on the wall around the artworks on show at the Bozar in Brussels this weekend.

The idea behind Truc Troc, as the event is known (in French “truc” means “thing” and “troc” means “exchange, barter”), is that contemporary artists get the opportunity to exhibit their art and the public is invited to offer something in exchange for the work. It really makes you think about how much you’d give to be the owner of a particular piece.

The paintings, installations and photographs were on display Saturday and Sunday. The artists will now be looking at the bids and deciding which, if any, appeals and is a good deal for them.

There were four works that I would love to have in my apartment and for which I made an offer. I’ll let you know if I hear back!

St. Petersburg's wintry allure

I got back this week from my first trip to St. Petersburg and I certainly hope it won’t be my last one. What a city!

I just loved the facades of the buildings lining the city’s rivers and canals – blues, pinks, browns, greens and beiges. The coloured fronts, along with the white snow covering the ground, brightened up what otherwise could have been rather gloomy, grey January days.

It’s an easy city to explore on foot and so I made the most of that. And when it got too cold, there was always a cafe to hand for a pot of tea (I hadn’t realised what big tea-drinkers Russians are. I thought they generally just went for the harder stuff!) or a bowl of soup, a meat pie or a stuffed pancake. Of course, there was plenty of culture to enjoy too.

The Hermitage was amazing – I spent an entire day there and still barely touched the surface of what was to be seen. The Russian Museum was of a more manageable size and yet because there were so many new artists for me to discover, once again I felt that I didn’t really do it justice. That said, it more than piqued my interest to learn more about Russian art and I’ll be on the lookout for Russian exhibitions closer to home. I particularly liked the work of Natalya Goncharova (1881-1962), who painted both Winter (at the top of this blog post) and Four Envangelists (below).



On the musical front, I went to the Mariinskiy Theatre and saw Tchaikovsky’s Pikovaya Dama (Queen of Spades). I thought it was a brilliant production and the tenor playing the lead role of Herman, Vladimir Galuzin, was particularly impressive. Being in the Mariinskiy was a great experience in itself and then to be seeing a Russian opera set in St. Petersburg just topped it off perfectly.

An afternoon concert in the St. Petersburg Philharmonia was another highlight. The Philharmonia has an amazing history, with a seemingly endless list of famous 19th century musicians who performed here and great Russian composers who premiered their works here. The best-known example perhaps is Shostakovitch’s “Leningrad Symphony,” which was written during the Blockade of the city in World War II, and broadcast from the Philharmonia in August 1942.

Unfortunately there wasn’t any Russian music on while I was there. Instead I was treated to a programme of Mozart and Haydn, with a mesmerising performance of Haydn’s cello concerto in D major by Lithuania’s Vytautas Sondeckis.

I could say so much more about each of the above aspects of my trip and maybe I will in a future blog post. For now though, I think I’ll put on one of the CDs I bought and have another look at my photos!

Amitav Ghosh on Opium, Migration and Cross-Dressing

If you live in Brussels, love books and haven’t yet discovered Passa Porta, all I can say is you’re in for a treat. Describing itself as Brussels’ international house of literature, it’s a multilingual bookshop, a venue for literary events and a temporary residence for writers and translators all rolled into one.

Amitav Ghosh, whose novel Sea of Poppies has recently been translated into Dutch, was Passa Porta’s guest this morning. Speaking for an hour to an audience of approximately 100 people, Ghosh touched on the inspiration for the book, the historical research he undertook before putting pen to paper and his relationship with language.

Ghosh first saw the migration of Indian workers as a potential theme for his latest book while he was writing The Glass Palace, which is set in Burma and India. The theme became “completely absorbing for me,” he said.

In Sea of Poppies, the author focuses on the departure of a boat in the 1830s, just before the Opium wars, taking indentured workers from India to Mauritius. This period of history isn’t well known in India and yet about 20 million people were “torn out of the sacred geography of India,” according to Ghosh.

To learn more, one of his research trips was to the Mahatma Gandhi Institute in Mauritius, which has preserved these people’s emigration certificates and other documents listing their caste, religion, height and other personal details.

Ghosh, his crop of white hair standing out from his all-black attire, came across as a serious and extremely well educated man who also had a great sense of humour and often broke out into chuckles. He switched back and forth between the serious and the amusing, one moment discussing the historical background to his novel, the next explaining how cross-dressing was a common part of ship life or how inventive the English creole language can be in obscenities.

It was a great way to spend a Sunday morning and I’m looking forward to future Passa Porta events.

Fairground Attraction

Belgium is renowned for its quirkiness and “Continental Superstar” is a perfect example. Situated in the Cinquantenaire museum (part of the Royal Museums of Art and History), Continental Superstar is a dance hall filled with fairground organs and other mechanical musical instruments.

The space is filled with bright and gaudily coloured instruments and statues, plenty of kitsch and mechanical music. In the far corner of the room there is a bar, but no staff, or potential customers for that matter, to be seen. I was left unsure as to whether I was in a dance hall, an exhibition room or just a temporary storage space.

According to the museum, around 1900 Antwerp developed alongside Paris as an important production centre for mechanical organs used in dance halls, cafes and at fairs. As the industry declined, replaced by jukeboxes, radios and gramophones, a Brussels man called Joseph Ghysels resolved to save and restore many of the organs.

It is his collection of street and fairground organs, barrel pianos and other instruments, bought in 2007 by Flemish minister for Culture Bert Anciaux, that are on show at the Cinquantenaire museum.

The name Continental Superstar was the title of a 1970s recording of what the museum calls the “world-famous star” of the Ghysels collection, a dance organ made by Theophiel Mortier in 1923. As far as the museum is concerned the title could also apply to Ghysels himself for preserving this quirky piece of Belgian patrimony.

Continental Superstar is on show until March 8, 2009.

Photo: Dansorgel Mortier 1905-1911 (Royal Museums of Art and History)

Heat, red bricks and too little music

Well I’m back in Brussels after my whirlwind tour around England. As well as family and friends, port and mince pies, there were also a couple of cultural highlights.

Art:
I saw the Rothko exhibition at the Tate Modern in London. It was brilliant. I left with a completely different appreciation for colours – some were so warm that heat seemed to actually be emitted from the canvas and others made you realise how individual any one particular colour is. I couldn’t believe how long could be spent looking at such deceptively simple works.

Architecture:
As you probably know, the Eurostar now arrives at St. Pancras station in London. While I’m not a fan of that from the point of view of my personal travel convenience, I am a big fan of the building itself. The Victorian architecture, and in particular the red brickwork, is just great. And I hadn’t realised until I made my first trip into Leeds this time that this northern city centre boasts some of the same Victorian brickwork.

Music:
Unfortunately my trip was somewhat devoid of music, though there was plenty of Radio 4 to be had, which is also very important. I think for this category, I’ll have to cheat and say the original music manuscripts on display in the British Library’s gallery of treasures.

And on that note, here’s to cultural discoveries, however small or large, in 2009.