Language of the Arts

Martinu; The Epic of Gilgamesh; BBC Symphony Orchestra & Chorus; Jiri Belohlavek, conducting

My friend Jay M. is a fine musician despite being a tubist; maybe more because he’s a warm and engaging bassist. He’s also one smart feller. The circles and venues in which he typically performs attract a more casual listener who is no less engaging than those who listen to jazz more regularly but, due to a less frequent exposure to the improvisatory nature of the style, is just a little less informed. Subsequently he entertains more often than me the common question posed: “How do you memorize all those notes to all those songs?”

Of course, the longer answer involves an explanation of music theory, an understanding of the relationship of one note to another within the confines of a key signature, the basics of functional tonality and a grasp of the duties and purpose of each member in the performing ensemble. Jay doesn’t wish to be sophomoric nor condescending in any way to a very innocent and, if the inquiry is not rhetorical but relatively sincere, a very good question. He likens the activity in a jazz combo to the lofty conversations of a group of four or five rocket scientists. The syntax and terminology within their interactive exchange would confound the layman, but what they can accomplish would overwhelm and awe that same person. Musicians also understand a language with its own syntax and terminology, and, in the case of jazz musicians, make music by having an impromptu conversation. A song is a topic, a note is a word, a melody is a sentence, one time through the song is a paragraph, and, even though every player is “talking” at the same time, you can rest assured that each player is listening simultaneously to each other individually and the entire ensemble as a whole.

Another of my favorite “Star Trek: The Next Generation” episodes was aired on September 30, 1991, episode two of season five, and was called “Darmok”. The Enterprise has been dispatched to an uninhabited planet where a vessel bearing a race known as the Tamarians, or “The Children of Tama”, have established orbit and is transmitting a signal to announce their presence. The Tamarians had been encountered seven times in the past one hundred years, and had been deemed incomprehensible each time. When a meeting is set up between the Enterprise and the Tamarian ship, the premise that emerges is absolutely fascinating and irresistible in light of Jay’s mini treatise on musical improvisation. Both the Enterprise crew and the Tamarians use not only English words, but the full-fledged rules of syntax of, and the accurate grammatical usage of, English. And with no technical interference in their communication, they can’t understand one another. A Tamarian response to any Enterprise inquiry simply makes no sense.

When the captain of the Tamarian ship, Dathon, abducts Captain Picard to the planet surface in an attempt to bridge their language gap through an intense shared experience, in this case, doing battle with a hostile entity with the capability to disappear, it is after Dathon is mortally wounded that Picard begins to understand the semantics of his new friend’s language. As it turns out, the Tamarians use metaphor to communicate and the roots of their reference points lie deep within the boundaries of local civilization. As Dathon lay dying, yet conscious to what Picard is learning, Picard begins to regale his counterpart, after learning and then using some of the Tamarian metaphors, in a notable retelling of perhaps the world’s oldest novel, “The Epic of Gilgamesh”, poetically coinciding Gilgamesh’s mourning for his slain companion Enkidu with the death of the brave and wise Tamarian captain.

“The Epic of Gilgamesh” by composer Bohuslav Martinu was written in 1955, and is a sacred cantata, a secular oratorio, an instrumental symphony and very strange, all at the same time. And for accuracy’s sake, let us note that, in this form, we are not an epic. We are three episodes that come from an epic and last about an hour. An hour’s worth of anything, even watermelon, is remote from being epic. And yet none of these aspects detract from the piece’s greatness. It is scored for chorus, orchestra and four soloists. Mr. Martinu was Czech and lived from 1890 to 1959.

I don’t know yet if I like this piece. So, I include it here to show that full appreciation of a work of art can take some time. In the same way that I eat a portion of peas every six months or so just to make sure that I still don’t like them, I listen to this recording every ten to twelve months in the hope that the music will draw me in a little closer than the last time. The cards may be stacked against me. I don’t like to make reference to a particular recording’s foibles. This CD came with an issue of BBC Music, a magazine that I picked up from somewhere, I don’t remember where or when, and the performance was recorded live with the BBC Symphony and Chorus in Royal Festival Hall. A live performance will make things exciting for sure. But since this is recorded for an English audience, and the choral and solo text is in Czech, they seemed to feel it necessary to include a narrator who provides incomplete play-by-play in English to keep the audience apprised of the plot. I don’t remember this being done in the Mozart Requiem or in Puccini’s “La Boheme”.

I’m reminded of a short skit performed by the comedy troupe “The Kids In The Hall” where a customer comes into a store to ask the proprietor where he can buy a pair of shoes, who matter-of-factly states with no hint of an accent, “I’m sorry, I’d love to be of assistance to you but I’m afraid I speak no English.”

The customer balks, “Pardon?”

“Ah, I can see by the look on your face that you are confused by my statement. Perhaps you doubt its veracity, but let me assure you, I speak not a word of English.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“You see, everything I’m saying to you I’ve learned to speak phonetically. As to the meanings of the individual words or the percumbent rules of syntax, I haven’t a clue.”

Boy, I wish I could write with just metaphors. These blogs would be a lot shorter.

Credits: To patrons of the arts, everywhere, suspecting and unsuspecting alike, who sometimes accidently discover that they like something that they’ve never encountered before.