Wednesday, September 20, 2017
Here's me noodling at work, jotting down thoughts and ideas on Vivaldi and La Stravaganza.
Spent the morning jotting notes on La Stravaganza, on the prodigy in the book, Arianna Oh!
She went on another 20 minutes. It was a YouTube that defined her new album, and in taking about her new album, she didn't talk about herself. It was her signature to deflect the attention somewhere else. By doing this, she sounded pious, modest, a humble second tier performer unworthy of first tier attention, even though she knew full well the greatness of her powers and her sway with her audience. She was attempting to do in song what Vivaldi had done throughout his career, energize his sound with the girls he studied. Arianne was trying to do the same for her fan base, capture their spirit, their glee, their unfettered energy as they congregated online, mixed with each other, stirred their frivolity together.
All her interviews were different. She told different stories, offered different details with each interview she possessed. She was gracious and never seemed tired, even though her schedule was grueling. The list of performers she admired seemed endless. When she talked about a specific performer, her enthusiasm mimicked the enthusiasm her fans had for her. She was more a fan than a performer. She could flip in and out. She went on for 30 minutes about the stage presence and artistry of Dolly Parton.
"I was so broken-hearted," she confessed to Matt Simmons on This is It Australia. "I'd never felt the weight of loss before. He was not for me but I didn't know it at the time and my world was over. I'm not good when I'm so down. Everything falls apart for me when I'm in that state. So I needed to get out of it. I needed comfort and of course the first place I go is music to lift my spirits. I listened to everything. I listened to Mozart, Handel, Seals & Crofts, Three Dog Night, Beonce, Snoop Dog, Brian Wilson's Smile, I tried everything I could. I also listed to a lot of Vivaldi and it was with Vivaldi that I realized I was happy again. Vivaldi wrote over 400 concertos so I had a lot to listen to. There are some pieces I listened to over and over. VR 564 is a favorite. So is 549 and 578, oh and of course 519. I love love love 519, the third movement is heaven! So I listened to 564 over and over. I thought about the orphans he taught at the Pieta.
But it was in listening to a performance on YouTube that I burst into tears, not from sadness but from pure joy. It was ecstacy. It was transcendent. I listened to a live performance of Fabio Biondi and his amazing Europa Galante ensemble play Vivaldi's 564, and I was overcome with everything that's good in the world. I heard the girls in his music. I heard their laughter, their naughtiness. I heard it all. I couldn't sleep after that. I listened to that performance probably 20 times, then listened to everything Fabio Biondi did. He is a baroque genius of the highest order. He is as fine as David Oistrach. His L'Estro Armonico recording is amazing."
She talked in another language. Her range was stunning. She talked like a musicologist. And she was endlessly fascinating to listen to and look at. She had everyone rivoted. She was funny and love how nerdy she was, rapsing about Fabio, her new idol, her adoring fan, a man she had the hugest crush on. He was everythign to her, the living David Oistrach with baroque bow,
"So I listened to his L'Estro Armonico Concertos, 12 different concertos that were published in _____ at Vivaldi's Op. 3. Very popular works at the time, works Bach adored and transcribed. I listened to this recording over and over and that's what finally mended my heart. Then I discovered La Stravaganza, Vivaldi's Op. 4. It was perfect. Because this is my Opus 4, my fourth recording, it was one of those incredible situations where Vivaldi had fallen in my lap at the perfect time in my life where I'm happy and loving life and now an adult who can look back on my teenage years.
Seriously, there is no better medicine on the planet, not better solution, no better healer of a broken heart than Vivaldi. He heals fastest. Faster than Handel. Faster than another other composer. No one else comes close. Not Mozart. Not the Police. Not even Bobby McFerron. Vivaldi is the original don't worry be happy guy. He is the rarest of warm gifts from a cold indifferent universe.
There was no denying Arriana's capacity to spin and sell and promote without once mentioning herself or her album. She was a master at the stagecraft. Promotecraft. All she had to do was talk about Vivaldi and his genius to get La Stravaganza to become the most talked-about album of the year. It was different. It was not like other albums. The roots when back to another time, and yet there were influences. The songs were light and bouncy and popish. It was a revalation that all along Vivaldi had a bouncy, poppy, hipness. Vivaldi was suddenly the coolest composer on the planet. His Four Seasons had already dominated elevators and commercials as the most popular classical pieces along with Beethoven's 5th, Eine Kliene, ___________. But now he had taken center stage the way Mozart had in the mid-80s when Amadeus won Best Picture. Vivaldi enthusiasts were stunned that the entire world was now at their party. It infiltrated baroque concerts. Tafle musik became a super hot ticket on their world tour. All because of one super star's mended heart.
Arianna was never a freak. She was no Lady Gaga. She was a princess from day one. She was Anna Sophie Mutter times five. She was held in awe by everyone, this insanely precocious wunderkind who was drawing comparisons to Mozart and Mendelsonn. What they wrote of Saint Sanez at six they were describing about Arianna before ten when she performed the Beethoven Concert with the Berlin Philharmonic before her 11th birthday. No child was supposed to play with such maturity. It was like an optical illusion.
For her first conducting piece, she choose something she loved, one piece that touched her above all others: Mahler's 4th Symphony with the San Francisco Symphony. It was a surprise coup, with Michael Tilson Thomas in on the surprise. The symphony had secretly rehearsed with her. They had met at _______ and formed a bond. He became her conducting mentor and together they came off with this highly unexpected surprise. It was astounding. The critic was flabbergasted. No one had expected. The symphony had secretly. It sounded as if it was improvised, an unexpected and sudden rush. That was the story that went out, but of course, months of rehearsal had gone into it. The performance was cast live on Arianna's website to millions of fans who heard Mahler and symphony music for the first time. Attendance in concert halls was up 25 percent with a new generation of music listeners.
She brought an awareness of music at a level that hadn't been seen since Beatles, Michael Jackson and Elvis. She was becoming the world-wide phenomenon and she wasn't getting worn down. She kept going and going, as if more obligations and performances gave her more energy.
There were rumors of her mental stability, that she was the greatest diva ever, a royal pain in the ass who acted like Queen of All Things. They were rumors. The long list of ex-boyfriends was a who's who of popular men, and she seemed to fuel all speculation. When asked if she was a dark, mean person, she answered, "I'm not a mean person by nature, and love everyone, but I'm no pushover either. Cross me and watch out. I get that from my mom, who's like the strongest person I know. I love my family and they're so supportive. I have the most amazing brother and friends. I'm really just a normal person who happens to play music. I can't do anything else. I'm not worth all the fuss, but if it's there I'll enjoy it and share it with my fans, who I love more than anything. I love my fans as much as the music. And it's all about the music."
She could play any instrument and was a virtuoso on all stringed instruments. She loved experimenting and trying new things. There were some things she wasn't as strong in. It took energy for her to lay down a strong bass line. Jazz improvosation was not her natural way of playing. She was more organized and analytical, less improvosational. She occassionaly went on tangets about Jean-Luc Ponty, whom she considered as great a composer as Debussy and Ravel. She had what James Brown had, indefatigable energy.
I want to be Brian Wilson.
[Main Character]
Dedicated to Taylor Swift, Fabio Biondi, and the immortal Antonio Vivaldi
On the subject of drugs. No. I don't need drugs. Music is my drug. I can experience any emotional state I need with music. And it lasts. Music is ecstasy. Music is the biggest upper on the planet. Music is all I need. Do I need drugs to keep going. No. Because I get 8 hours of sleep every night. I love sleep. Sleep is my favorite activity. I'm a late night person. I go to bed at 2 a.m. and sleep until noon every day. It works fine. Now some of these things start at 5 am and 6 am and I understand that. I wake up. I'll schedule that. I'll break my sleep in two. I'll go to bed at 12:30 or 1 and get up at 4 and do the promo or talk show and then at 8 I'm back in bed until 12 or 1. I can sleep anywhere. Sleep is never a problem wiht me. I can turn off my mind. I read a book on how to do that, so even if the ideas are hitting me hard, once it's time for bed, I shut things down.
But Vivaldi. If there were one person I could meet and talk to it would be Vivaldi. More than David Oistrack. More than Mozart or Bach. No, it was absolutely be Vivaldi. He's such a phenomenon and mysterious person. He wrote so much brilliant music with such effortless ease. I think the Piaza knew what they had because they always signed him back on, but I don't think anyone at the time realized they were dealing with the one person who would define that entire era. And there couldn't have been a better ambassador for that time between the 17th and 18th century, the high baroque era that he dominates. There is no other comparison for his particular type of music. Bach is different and a towering genius for different reasons. And Handel, well he's also a brilliant genius and equal to Vivaldi, but he's also different. Vivaldi is unique in that he has no stages. He just is. Within his box, he invented new ways of saying the same thing. When his style fell out of favor and he became passe, he really struggled. I can see why his world had fallen apart. His end was unfortunate and lonely. He had to sell vast quantities of his manuscripts. He probably looked on his life as something that had happened and that was that.
Vivaldi is not on a lot of top 10 composers of all time list because Bach and Handel represent the baroque composers and sure, that makes sense, I mean those two giants are giants for a reason. Bach is like this brainiac Einstein musician who can calculate and modulate at will while creating 16 kids...I mean think about that! And Telemann wrote 3,000 pieces and at his best is incredible, but Vivaldi has something the others don't have to the same degree, and I think it's becuase of the girls he taught and was around every day while he worked at the Piata. The concept of teenagers didn't exist in the 1700s, but these girls were still young and newly formed and abandoned and they must have looked to this crazy wild violinist as a role model, especially when you consider the music he wrote for them. There were hundreds of other composers in Venice at the time and some were important and famous personalities, but they didn't have what Vivaldi had. None of them, and I bet the girls knew it, that he was by far the best. He was Elvis. He was the king, even though he was not at times treated that way. And the girls were trained so well that they were the best orchestra in Europe. They practiced and that was what they did all day without the distractions we have today. And they gossiped and talked and carried on the way girls do. He picked up on that. It's more than just his compositional ability. The girls of the Pieta are in his music. They're there! I can hear them. I can see them in my dreams. That's why I wrote this album. It's for those girls and all the fans I have today, the girls without parents, the girls in need of warm sound and hope and dreams to live by. That's why I'm so passionate about Vivaldi and so thankful that his spirit had truly entered my heart and soul. My life is happier and better because of Vivaldi. And I'll get to listen to his brilliant music for the rest of my life. That's the great party. He's interwoven into the soundtrack of my life. Everyone can benefit from including a little Vivaldi into their own personal soundtrack. We all have a person soundtrack, a constant playlist we continue to update and add to and subract from. All of us have it, or at least I hope we all have it -- can you imagine not having music in your life. And with Vivaldi, there's that pick-me-up. There's that bright shining 3 minutes of bouncy happy glee to pick up your step. There's that shimmering sound that isn't too heavy and isn't too quiet. It's just right. Vivaldi is just right. That's why he's my favorite composer right now. I ususally don't do favorites, and I'm sure in another year or so I'll switch things up, but right now and for the past two years now, ever since that horrible breakup we won't go into, Vivaldi's my number one. I love this guy. He's the Godfather of music to me. I'll never get tired of him. Just like I'll never get tired of breathing.
