Week in Review III: Rila + Monastery

 Friday, February 11: Time for a lunch-time walk along the hilly trail that Saint Ivan Rilski followed out of what is now the town of Rila. At the spot where he discovered a spring, water still runs, and a picnic site has recently been added. Except that we didn’t bring lunch… A little further east another sign tells of the legend that local residents prayed six centuries ago that a boulder would hide their church from the view of the incoming Turks,

only to wake up the next morning to find their church…hidden from view by a boulder. Now there is a little chapel in the name of the same saint, Saint Nedelya, at the side of the road just east of Rila. Also along this path are some of the most interesting – and potentially unstable – rock formations in the region, several types of power poles (currently in use and no longer in use), and on this day – after a week of sunny weather and non-freezing daytime temperatures – only a few patches of ice and unmelted snow. 

Sunday, February 13: Today our good friend Susan braved Bulgarian buses with her younger daughter (Ivy, 8 months old) to join us for an afternoon in Rila and at the Rila Monastery. Ivy is the dream baby, and she and her mom clearly have everything worked out so that things like pacifiers and crying seem to be entirely unnecessary! In fact theirs is that deeper, more elemental kind of daughter-mother understanding that looks so effortless and eternal to the occasional observer (me) that I come away convinced that it is just that, allowing myself to forget about the experience and wisdom, the daily discipline and devotion, that lie beneath the surface of this picture-perfect relationship. 

 

We took the rarely-traveled route through Smochevo to give Susan a sense of the 360-degree panoramic view encompassing Rila, Pirin, plus Vitosha and the Macedonian mountains that would have been perfect if the clear skies had held over through the weekend, getting to the monastery after the rush of Sunday visitors had subsided. I was pleased that the monastery's museum stayed open long enough for Susan to see the double-sided wooden cross that a monk named Raphael finished early in the 19^th century. The monastery website describes Raphael’s Cross as

 “a unique work of art…made of a whole piece of wood (81cm x 43cm) ... The monk used fine chisels, small knives and magnifying lens to carve 104 religious scenes and 650 small figures into the cross. The cross was finished in 1802 after the monk worked on it for no less than 12 years, losing his sight upon completion. 

For me, seeing the real thing, in all of its intricate three-dimensional detail, for the first time 17 or 18 years ago was a powerful and lasting experience. This cross wasn’t just creative expression for Raphael, it was his personal form of daily communion, his way of nurturing his religious devotion and giving it an outward form. And this astonishing cross makes that devotion seem to me so effortless, eternal…

Week in Review II: Sofia, Badino, Blagoevgrad

Tuesday, February 8: All-Schubert concert at Bulgaria Hall. For this program we (Sofia Quartet) were joined by pianist Jeni Zaharieva, who is celebrating her fortieth season as a concert artist, and Sofia Philharmonic bassist Ivan Ivanov in Schubert’s Trout Quintet. I first played this piece – many times! – in 1997, Schubert’s 200^th anniversary year and the year that I joined the Dimov Quartet. Later in the week I discovered that, like Rostislav Dubinsky (my chamber music coach at Indiana University), Jeni Zaharieva graduated from the Central Music School, the preparatory division of the Moscow Conservatory. The CMS website mentions her as one of their outstanding foreign graduates, although this is only half true: her mother is Russian. 

Wednesday, February 9: Heading south to Blagoevgrad, there was a little extra time before the concert of the Ebony Hillbillies, special guests of the US Embassy at AUBG in honor of Black History Month. Enough time to turn off the highway 6 km south of Dupnitsa and travel 5 km east (in the direction of Rila mountain) to the village of Badino, a place we had never been before. There we encountered what we later learned was a locally-made (or at least –designed) sign warning drivers to watch out for domestic pets. Baba Vena, one of the village’s 40 or so remaining residents, explained that the sign was posted after a local dog was run over near the village square. We also met several other 80+-year-old residents, several barking dogs chained inside their yards, and one friendly unchained dog called Pirin after another nearby mountain. Pirin followed us to the village square so he could lie in the afternoon sun. From a bench there we saw two younger men on horseback, riding sidesaddle. Nobody else seemed surprised.

 

And we did make it to the concert on time:

Week in Review I: Sofia, Sunday, February 6

 Late afternoon trip to the heart of downtown Sofia to stock up on mineral water at the public faucets currently located across the street from the Central Bath, a building that has been “under renovation”  for as long as I can remember, and, aside from the front facade, fallen into apparent disuse and decay. During the 1990’s the faucets continuously spouting the same naturally hot mineral water that used to supply the Central Bath were located in front of the building, behind the Turkish mosque (see photos below). I didn’t think to photograph the newer fountains/faucets, so busy was I filling up miscellaneous plastic bottles. This water is free to taxpayers, but mineral water is also big business here. Even so, according to Asen Lichev, head of the Water Directorate at the Environment Ministry, as of last April, 60 "of the 102 mineral water springs in Bulgaria...are not being utilized by the state or private concessionaires" and will be turned over to local municipalities over the course of the next quarter-century. 

Finding Myself in Bulgaria

So you’ve been wondering (or not) about the title of my blog. ‘Tuk ne e Amerika’ (Here [Bulgaria] is not America’) is a phrase I used to hear a lot when I first arrived in Bulgaria and was confronted with the realities of trying to get seemingly simple things done, like mailing a letter or paying a bill. Instead of mailing a check – the check has never been a method of payment here – you actually stood in line at the post office (telephone bill) or at a payment center (electric) to take care of the monthly ‘zadulzheniya’ (obligations or debts). So I would reach the front of the line and, sparked perhaps by my obvious ‘otherness’ or my ineptness with the Bulgarian language, the exchange with the cashier would almost invariably include some reference to the fact that things here are, well, different.

Sometimes it was ‘Tuk ne e Amerika, na li?’ The last words turned the phrase into a well-meaning question with an inflection suggesting sympathy for my supposed suffering in a strange environment. If I had a complaint, it was ‘Vizhte kakvo, tuk ne e Amerika!’  – an all-purpose explanation or excuse for the way things stood, offered in lieu of an apology that nothing could be done, usually because ‘ne zavisi ot men’(it doesn’t depend on me); or it was served with a side order of ‘kakvo iskate, 500 godini…’ (what do you want, 500 years…) All of these statements had so many hidden implications, of a feeling of undeserved inferiority or subservience, of a national history of oppression (500 years under the ‘Turkish Yoke’, then 50 of Communism, now 20 of Transition), of a feeling of disorientation during the early, surly years of the Transition to Democracy. Their message to me was that I, a priori as an American, had unreasonably high expectations that needed to be shelved, discarded, or at least rethought to conform with ‘Bulgarskata deistvitelnost’ (the Bulgarian reality)

One of the thematic threads of Bulgariana, Randall Baker’s engaging account of living as an ex-pat in Bulgaria, is that so much that is so typically Bulgarian – and so different from what we experience in the US – is actually showing us how misguided the American lifestyle really is. Baker's narrative is infused with that hopeful sense of embarking on each new day in Bulgaria as a fresh adventure, of relishing in the small – and usually pleasant – surprises that you are sure to encounter here.  As an American living in Bulgaria, I share a similar MO, and see it not as a set of survival skills, but as a redefining of who I am and what my life can be, both on a short- and long-term basis. Here I have learned that the real nature of a situation is determined by how you choose to look at it ('zavisi i ot men!'); that great joy can be derived from things that from another perspective would have gone unnoticed; and that the concept expressed by G. B. Shaw (or was it Anonymous?) that “life isn’t about finding yourself; it’s about creating yourself” is worth embracing.

February Blues in Sofia

It’s been a rough winter week here. No new snow, just temperatures that are consistently well below the freezing point. Nothing that compares to New England of course, but still…

I was surprised that Monday, Jan. 24 was reported in the press as the annual “Blue Monday.” For me it was a Manic Monday. But this week has been depressing, not least because of several different scams that ‘izpluvaha’ (floated up) to the forefront of my consciousness.

The scamorama began on Wednesday, when I drove to an afternoon quartet rehearsal at our regular performance venue in the center of Sofia. I had planned to stop long enough at the Bulgaria Hall performers’ entrance to get my cello safely out of the cold before parking as close to the hall as possible. This changed when I spotted a free parking space on Aksakov Street, a short half-block from the entrance. I could not however determine whether or not this was a “Sinya zona,” the Blue parking zone where you need a parking voucher or to send a text message to pay for your parking space. The signage was not helpful (see photos below), but the fact that other cars were parked along the left curb seemed reassuring. But as I later learned, the most likely reason that the space I found was empty was that the previous car to occupy it had just been towed away. Because that’s also what happened to my car while I was rehearsing. Later, when I went to pick up my car from the towed-away lot (and pay the "relocation fee" and fine), the police officer cited the law that makes it illegal to park on the left-hand side of a one-way street and, he said, unnecessary for there to be any kind of no parking signage. I had major two problems with this. First, there had been a no-parking sign there, and there should still be such a sign there (except that "somebody" took it down), because there’s an exception for cars of a certain government ministry, which can park there, thus furthering the false impression that a ‘payak,’ a "spider" tow truck, won’t be along shortly to scoop up your vehicle. This sign, further down on the same pole, is still there, but turned around so you can’t see it. Second, there are many one-way streets in Sofia where the parked cars are always on the left, without any special signage, and no ‘payak’ ever makes off with them, because on most such streets, it’s not a sure thing that the owner is going to notice a missing vehicle on the same day. So to keep the wheels of the parking violation ‘reket’ (racket) turning, they’ve made a little web on Aksakov Street, in the heart of the Blue Zone, where nobody parks for long and most are in a hurry.

Scam No #2: Customs is holding ALL packages from abroad, no matter how small, and requiring their recipients to make a special trip to pay a 20% import tax on the value of the contents. Cello strings are expensive, and yet wear out after a few months of playing on them. According to the unwritten rules of Bulgarian ingenuity, I need to concoct a fake invoice showing a very low value for my strings in order to avoid a large tax. Unless I forgot to tell the sender to not include an invoice in the package – very depressing.

Scam No. #3: Begging in Sofia is a more lucrative profession than most “honest” jobs in these parts. And, according to a bTV investigative journalism program that I tuned into once I got the car back, many Sofia beggars are not desperate, undernourished, and poorly clothed individuals with disabilities, but have been trained by a ring leader to look like they are. At home they walk normally and wear clean, brand-name clothes. But of course the ring leader is taking a large cut of the take, reported to be as much as 100lv (60 USD) a day per beggar. A well-paying job for which a college degree is required is likely to pay less than 1000 lv per month, depending on the sector. Members of the government and parliament are paid much more, whether they “earn” it or not.

Normally I wouldn’t mention such undignified monetary matters. I like to think that I am ‘nad tiya neshta’ (above these things). But this week it's too cold, and I’m depressed...and disgusted.

Kukerski karnival: Healthy Weekend Craziness in Pernik

 Hot Wine and Kebapche served here

Above: More or less authentic Bulgarian 'kukeri' get ready for action

Above: Some "alternative" masquerading 

 

Group from Palestine heads to the Mask Workshop

Group from the Basque Country almost makes it back to the hotel

Until today, I hadn’t been to the center of the western Bulgarian city of Pernik. I’ve always thought of it as a place you drive around on your way to Blagoevgrad from Sofia. After arriving in Bulgaria, the first thing I was told about the citizens of Pernik was that they are Bulgaria’s most obnoxious drivers (“beware of cars with “PK” license plates,” I was told). That was long before I learned that ‘pretsakvane’ – getting cut off or cheated out of what you think is rightfully yours, even if it’s a piece of the road) – is a national pastime here, so commonplace that if you take things (and yourself) too seriously, ‘shte poludeesh.’ Going crazy – another national pastime.

A positive example of 'poludyavane' is the carnival craziness in Pernik this weekend, as the city hosts the 20th edition of its justly-renowned Surva International Festival of Masquerade Games. According to Bulgarian traditions dating back to pagan times and still practiced today, ‘Survakari’ are those who on January 1 perform a special blessing to bring luck and health into each home, while “Kukeri” are unmarried men who masquerade through their towns on specific celebration days early in the year in order to ward off evil spirits. This description from the festival website captures some of the flavor of the ‘kuker’ rituals:

The dance of the masked men [‘kukeri’] is a mystic unity of rhythm, sound, and color. They move in a special step. Wearing impressive masks and unique costumes they fill the air of the villages with the sounds of hundreds of bells and whispered blessings wishes for prosperity. The mask, according to folklore beliefs, protects from the harmful influence of impure powers.

So this afternoon I braved the cold and joined the crowd in the Pernik city square, where masquerading groups of from all over Bulgaria and abroad (I personally witnessed groups from Slovenia, Palestine, and Basque) offered an amazing array of inspired interpretations – from authentic regional folkiness to contemporary creative craziness – of the ‘kuker’ and related folk traditions. In their broad inclusiveness, the membership of most groups reflected the festival’s laudably liberal policy on this point: “the minimum requirement for participation is having the willingness to take part.” As the groups paraded – jumping, dancing, resting a bit, jumping some more – toward the competition stage, they created a chaotic carnival in sound: a sustained clanging cacophony of not hundreds, but thousands of metal bells. This was duende-infused craziness to be sure.

Marketing Mozart: Wolfy at 255

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – or “Wolfy,” as his facebook friends call him, no doubt taking their cue from the Peter Shaffer play and subsequent Milos Forman film Amadeus – was born in Salzburg, Austria, on this day 255 years ago. Mozart is the immortal master of melody who brought what we now call “the Classical Style” to what many of those who believe in absolutes would consider to be “absolute perfection.” But it’s also a well-worn paradox that, the more celebrated the person, the more unreliable are the commonly-repeated “facts” about him.

The circumstances surrounding Mozart’s early death form a prime example. Was he a victim of chronic kidney disease or of poisoning at the hand of a jealous colleague? Given the scant available evidence, both are possibilities, but the “Salieri poisoned Mozart” thesis is the one that captures the imagination. While ultimately unprovable, the idea that Mozart was murdered simply makes for better drama. The prolific Russian writer Alexander Pushkin and composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, who based his opera Mozart and Salieri on Pushkin’s play, recognized the dramatic potential of the story. So did Shaffer and Forman, who re-packaged it for modern consumption in Amadeus [watch trailer here]. 

Horsing Around: Tom Hulce as Mozart in Amadeus

J. Peter Brown, one of my esteemed music history professors at IU Bloomington, points out in an online essay that "the film translated what could be accepted as compelling drama into what for many viewers became the time, place, and characters of history. The caveats published with the stage play were never imprinted on celluloid; [in the film,] fiction was never segregated from truth…" But he also cautions that Mozart’s letters and other primary sources “cannot be taken as "just the facts," for nearly every writer of letters and memoirs, as well as the purveyors of rumors, had his own agendas and beliefs. It is from the documents themselves and their interpretation that the Mozartean mythologies flourished.” Brown concludes that the Shaffer/Forman character of Salieri, though drawn with a generous supply of “fictional ornament,” was correct in his summation that “the phenomenon of Mozart transcends explanation.”

F. Murray Abraham as Salieri

Nowhere is the Mozart Phenomenon more ubiquitously present – and exploited – than in his native Salzburg. Plaques and statues in his honor can be seen throughout the city, and the priciest concerts at the prestigious Salzburg Festival (held each August) are the Mozart opera performances at the Haus fur Mozart. Competing firms use his image and mystique to sell their amaretto confections. In Salzburg everyone can get a piece of Mozart – or hear a piece by Mozart, live or recorded, practically 24/7.

One of the Mozart works you are likely to hear in Salzburg – or anywhere that Mozart is performed – is his enigmatic Symphony No. 40 in g minor. [Listen to the first movement here.] About it Brown writes, “Although Mozart's music is often recognized as universal, [this symphony] has received varying interpretations of its essential meaning.” Mozart’s 40^th was the reason that Nicholas Harnoncourt, now recognized as one of the world’s great conductors, picked up the baton in the first place. As a young cellist in the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, he was dissatisfied with light-hearted interpretations of the G minor symphony. “I was sure that we were doing everything wrong.” After one such performance he decided that “I don’t want to ever play it again in that way, and the next morning I went to the director of the orchestra and said I quit the orchestra…Mozart changed my life.”

"Mozart is the greatest composer of all. Beethoven created his music, but the music of Mozart is of such purity and beauty that one feels he merely found it — that it has always existed as part of the inner beauty of the universe waiting to be revealed." - Albert Einstein

"If Mozart were around now he would write a killer rock song." - Vanessa Carlton

More quotations on Mozart here.

 

Music to Die For, Soviet Style

In her web profile, an accomplished American string player has described her major field of study at the Juilliard School as “Soviet Style Butt Kickings.”  The humor of this is somewhat displaced by the probability that her teacher at the Yard is an émigré from the former USSR who uses an aggressive pedagogical approach, the kind that uses fear as a twisted inspirational tool. The kind of approach that supposedly hones your survival skills in a “safe environment,” allowing you to successfully “take on the world” – but only if you’ve survived the classroom skirmishes without mortal wounds to your self-confidence. 

The above has nothing to do with my own experience in Bloomington as a chamber music student of the wonderful Rostislav Dubinsky, who immigrated to the US in the mid-1970s, and who was always kind and encouraging, even when we were in need of a figurative butt-kicking! He had then (1989) just published his book Stormy Applause: Making Music in a Worker's State. Recalling his post-war tours with the Moscow-based Borodin Quartet, Dubinsky told us once that “Bulgaria was like America for us.”  Of course he was referring to a sense of ‘Western’ freedom, not to the oppression offered by ‘Stalinskiya tip rukovoditeli,’ political or professional leaders of the “Stalin type,” who to this day – whether it’s in America, Bulgaria, or somewhere else – think that intimidation gets the best results. Among musicians it’s conductors who seem to favor this MO.

During a break at yesterday’s quartet rehearsal, we were looking at a little pamphlet on the enjoyment of classical music published in Bulgaria ‘po vreme na Komunism.’  In it was the famous story of Lenin listening to a Beethoven piano sonata, complete with a portrait of the leader in rapt concentration on the music and the following quotation:

"I know nothing more beautiful than the "Appassionata" and I could listen to it every day. Wonderful, immortal music. I always think, with perhaps a naive, childish pride, how can man create such wonders?" [Listen to Beethoven's "Appassionata" Sonata here.]

 Even in Bulgaria, so long under the Soviet shadow, it is well known that Lenin's thoughts on the "Appassionata" did not stop here. Our first violinist easily recalled the rest from memory:

 ". . . but I cannot listen to music too often. It affects my nerves and makes me want to say sweet nothings and stroke the heads of men who live in a dirty hell and can still create such beauty. But these days you can't go around stroking people's heads lest your hand be bitten off. You have to smash them over the head—smash them without mercy—even though in theory we are against every form of oppression of mankind . . . ours is a hellish task." 

There it is: a classic model for Soviet-Style Butt-Kicking Musicians. This English translation of Lenin's words in taken from a January 1949 Time magazine article on the celebrations of the 25^th anniversary of Lenin’s death (January 21, 1924).

 

Stalin also had a favorite piano piece, and a favorite pianist. When he died on March 5, 1953, he is said to have been listening to the Mozart Piano Concerto No. 23 in A Major as performed by Maria Yudina. Her recording of this work had been made ten years earlier at Stalin’s request, with a single copy pressed for his personal use. When he later sent her a generous fee, she wrote him a thank-you letter that could have been her death-sentence. Read the astonishing story in the youtube description when you listen to Yudina play Mozart for Stalin, here. 

In an excerpt from Stormy Applause, Dubinsky offers another musical perspective on Stalin’s death: the Borodin Quartet was required to perform music by Tchaikovsky at the Great Leader’s funeral before playing at the funeral of composer Sergei Prokofiev, who had died on the same day. (Prokofiev had become “Stalin’s final victim.”) 

 Over and over again, we played Tchaikovsky's Second Quartet. Everything began to appear unreal, repeating itself as if in a strange dream. And again, people walked in, heads bare, looking at the coffin with the same expression of grief and humility.Toward evening, I fell asleep with my violin in my hands. Alexandrov nudged me. I fell asleep once more and he nudged me again.''Don't fall off the chair,'' he whispered. ''We have to play now.''

…The third and final day came. We still had had nothing to eat. Contact with the outside world was maintained only by those who could make their way back after going out into the streets. They said that people kept coming and coming. …Late in the evening, we put mutes on our instruments and began Tchaikovsky's ''Andante Cantabile.'' [Listen here.] We played quietly, without vibrato, the way Russian folk songs are sung. The delicate sound of the quartet drowned in the incessant noise of the slowly moving crowd.

A Pink Flamingo for Placido Domingo

Around 10PM yesterday evening I happened on a live concert broadcast in progress on Bulgarian National TV. At first I wasn’t sure what I was watching – an unidentified orchestra and chorus in an unfamiliar hall. The first striking visual landmark was what looked like a pink flamingo nesting in the principal flutist’s hair. It turned out that this special ‘izvunreden’ broadcast was a seventieth birthday tribute to one of the world’s musical wonders, the Spanish tenor Placido Domingo. I caught approximately the second half of the celebration at the Teatro Real (Re-AL) in Madrid, Domingo’s hometown. And there he was, taking it in from his box seat next to the royal hostess, Queen Sofia. As the master of ceremonies explained, with simultaneous Bulgarian translation (‘prevod na efir’), seven of the 20 vocal soloists who were singing in Domingo’s honor were laureates of his “world opera competition” Operalia, an important forum for young operatic talent.  Among the Operalia laureates singing for Domingo at the Teatro Real were two from the Balkans.

The Albanian soprano Inva Mula, a prize winner in the first edition of the competition (Paris, 1993), performed a dramatic selection from the verismo opera composer Ruggero Leoncavallo. (Someone just posted it on youtube, here.) Aside from singing leading roles on record and on the stages of the world’s great opera houses, Mula is also the voice behind Diva Plavalaguna in The Fifth Element.

Inva Mula in operatic action with Placido Domingo 

Then came Sonya Yoncheva, the 29-year-old soprano from Plovdiv, Bulgaria who won the most recent Operalia (Milan, 2010) together with the Romanian tenor Stefan Pop. (Operalia 2010 was a veritable Balkanalia!)  This was the first time I had heard her sing, and she looked and sounded fantastically free in a selection from Lehar’s operetta The Merry Widow. (Just posted on youtube, here.) It turns out that before being discovered in Geneva, she studied in her hometown Music Academy with none other than Nelli Koycheva, a mezzo that I’ve worked with several times in recent years!

Sonya Yoncheva at Operalia 2010

Other notable performances on the concert included German bass Rene Pape singing Prince Philip’s lament from Verdi’s opera Don Carlos (great cello solo there) and Uruguyan baritone (perhaps better known as Russian diva Anna Netrekbo’s husband) Erwin Shrott doing a charmingly overacted – but still vocally impressive – interpretation of Leporello’s ‘Catalogue’ aria from Mozart’s Don Giovanni. Another highlight was the world premiere of Pla-ci-do, a specially-composed orchestral “birthday song” by Oscar-winning composer Tan Dun from Shanghai, who was also in attendance.

Toward the end of the celebration, the flutist’s pink flamingo decided to migrate, and this splash of loud color in a sea of formal black began to shadow the master of ceremonies. When it came out of hiding, it had morphed into a long, high-collared cape worn by another Madrid native, (now-retired) soprano Teresa Berganza, who skillfully avoided tangling herself up in it as she painted a heartfelt portrait of Domingo the man and artist. She ended with a subtle suggestion that everyone would feel much closer to Domingo at this moment if he would appear on stage. The birthday boy took the hint, addressing the audience following a videoclip of him singing with his mother. (Both of his parents had been performers of traditional Spanish zarzuelas - hear Domingo sing one here.) Most singers, he admitted, think about retiring once they hit 50. With an incredible 130+ roles (most available in multiple recorded versions) and 50 years of singing on the world’s stages, he’s still going strong and in magnificent voice. His astonishing versatility (he’s also an accomplished conductor and director of opera companies in LA and Washington, D. C., not to mention his activities – such as Operalia – on behalf of young singers) and genuine artistry have made him one of today’s most loved and respected musicians.

I first became aware of him through his roles in the Franco Zeffirelli film versions of Verdi operas (like this one - Domingo's character is the first to offer a "toast"), at about the same time – circa 1990 – that The Three Tenors (Domingo, Carreras, and Pavarotti) were presiding over soccer stadiums with concerts that, like the Domingo 70^th Birthday Gala, made the cut for international TV broadcast. Experience the Three Tenors in action here. 

The flutist's flamingo was "louder" than this and nested higher up

Today around Rila

This week is the start of the spring semester at the American University in Bulgaria. One of the many joys of teaching at AUBG is the campus’s proximity to one of Bulgaria’s most beautiful regions, the western slopes of the Rila mountain. Until a few years ago, I equated this area with the famous Rila Monastery – and nothing else. Having finally discovered some of its “secrets,” such as the excellent winery at Smochevo and the rock formations at Stob, I am now a permanent convert.  I’m sure this would happen to anyone who, driving south toward Blagoevgrad, turns off E-79 after Usoika and follows a little-used local road through the wooded hills leading to the Smochevo plateau. I remember the first time I took this route, a kind of “back entrance” into the town of Rila and the Rila Monastery beyond. The incredible panoramic view when I reached the Smochevo plateau was enhanced by the amazing late afternoon light, which – I later realized – gives this region its break-taking coloring in all of the seasons.

Here’s what I saw today in the late afternoon (4-5:30PM) light, driving into Rila from Smochevo (having left the panoramic views behind) and walking in the hills at the east end of town.

A Trio of Cellists on Film

Last week, when I mentioned the 1946 film Deception with Bette Davis and music by Korngold, I started to recall other movies in which the cello has a major role. Cello-playing characters abound, most conforming to a view of those who “do music”--especially classical music-- as social outsiders. Then over the weekend a local cable channel broadcast one I didn't know about: Swimfan, a terribly twisted quasi-thriller in which the psychotic and murderously vindictive would-be girlfriend of a high school swim star happens to also play the cello. In a later scene, she does a badly cello-synched rendition of "The Swan" from Saint-Saens’s Carnival of the Animals. This is not what I had in mind.  

 

The classic on-screen social misfit with a significant dose of cello-playing in his background is Woody Allen’s Virgil Starkwell character in the 1969 “mockumentary” Take the Money and Run, also written and directed by Allen. While Virgil can't quite capitalize on the potential of music to help him rise above his enrivonment, his cello-playing is a humorous symbol of his being "different." Remember cellists, as much as seeing a cello get smashed pains us, this is just make-believe.Watch here.

In The Soloist, Jamie Foxx plays Nathaniel Ayers, a disturbed Juilliard dropout living on the streets of Los Angeles until he is befriended by journalist Steve Lopez (Robert Downey Jr.) If the damaged string instruments in this 2009 film seem more realistic than in the Woody Allen flick, consider this: The Soloist is based on the true story of Nathaniel Anthony Ayers (born 1951), who was a scholarship student at the Juilliard School in New York City when he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Watch the trailer here.

Another moving true story is that of the brilliant British cellist Jacqueline du Pre (1945-1987), who quickly rose to the top of her profession in the 1960s before multiple sclerosis ended her playing career when she was just 28. It is dramatized in the 1998 film Hilary and Jackie, based on a controversial book by du Pre’s older sister. One of the recurring musical themes in the film is taken from the magnificent Cello Concerto by Edward Elgar, a piece that continues to be more strongly identified with Jacqueline du Pre than with any other cellist. Her intense personal relationship with the work is palpable in this version, conducted by her then-husband, Daniel Barenboim. Watch here.

Some felt that Jacqueline du Pre’s brand of musicmaking was overly-emotional. Conductor Sir John Barbirolli (1899-1970), with whom du Pre made her first recording of the Elgar in 1965, disagreed. He countered that “when you’re young you should have an excess of everything; if you haven’t an excess, what are you going to pare off as the years go by?” For another conductor colleague, du Pre was like "the lightning passage of a comet which, with remarkable intensity– but all too briefly – illuminates our lives." This is how Zubin Mehta recalled her. For a serious documentary on her life and musical personality, try the Christopher Nupen film: see trailer here.