Eddie Beato’s Post

Painting a Cabin in the Wood! On the heels of Old Masters of the Hudson River School, I added more yellowish-greenish foliages in the background, and darker greens and browns on the foreground. Atch, painting like the Old Master is a lot of work, but I can’t get enough of Mother Nature. Happy Belated Easter!

Good Morning Souls! This little painting may resume my humble studies on landscapes (since the end of 2022-and beginning of 2024). Last week, I added some autumnal leaves tinging the green stream with peace and serenity. The autumnal leaves may cheer me up to eliciting a melodious thank-you for the gifts of life! May you have a blissful day!

On Great Pianists, Great Imitators, Personality and Genius! In Memory of Vladimir Horowitz, the Old Man! - Eddie Beato https://lnkd.in/ei7tZCFh

Liszt - Sonata in B Minor - Marc‐André Hamelin - Live - 2013 https://lnkd.in/esb5PS45 Marc Andre Hamelin’s superb rendition, when compared with other fine pianists’ highest strivings to matching Liszt‘s dramatic juxtapositions, alike diabolical and angelic, could be said to be one of the best so far. With so many super-virtuosic pianists taking the stage by storm, it is quite difficult to say who is the king of all? I also payed a hearing to Vladimir Horowitz’ rendition of the said Sonata in B minor, reminiscent of the legend of Dr. Faustus, and the legendary pianist, well-known for his Herculean FFF, but also for his mellifluous cantabile-line, struck me as somewhat “harsh and banging” as though his indomitable potencies, his inner devils, could not be tamed by the soothing instances of Fr. Franz Liszt’s penchant for religious meditations. Thank Goodness! Horowitz played much better in the 1980s. His lifelong struggle to lassoing his bugbear from within (his legendary Concert in Moscow, 1986) catapulted him as one of the greatest pianists of all time. Therefore, when all is said, whether in technical prowess, or musicality, Marc Andre Hamelin should be asked to take the throne among the best pianists of the last 40 years. Much respect to Marc Andre Hamelin, and though he surpasses Horowitz’ dexterity, his pianism seems to lack the multilayered crusts (barks or rinds) of the old-oak master tree of yore. Fate is intrinsically bound-up to the bud of genius, and I think Vladimir Horowitz lived long enough to mitigating the setbacks of unleashing such devils of fortísimos (pyrotechnics) without the angelic sweetness and mirth of “pianism”. Laugh out loud, for there was a time when technical prowess could make you a celebrity overnight, and most pianists, at least back in the 1990s, would rather aim the prime of their youth to resolving all the technical hurdles of pianism. But making music, whether we like or not, whether we excoriate ourselves for any such sillines and banality (once razzed as “feminine daintiness”) is to sing with our finger-tips, víz., the piano instrument’s foremost end, despite its percussive plangent sounds, is to be an expressive medium in the gentle touch of the artist. Rembrandt’s bold impasto is great, and one could hung the painting by the hook nose, but Vermeer’s delicacy and traceless brushstrokes, are no less powerful to winning my praise. You choose your favorite! Judging from his early recordings, at times, Horowitz was very successful at finding a pleasant blending between these two extremes, but I think art is a long journey, and the latter Horowitz, the old man, is generally considered to be more musical than the former.

Mikhail Pletnev plays Scriabin Preludes no. 1-8 op. 11 at Eglise de Verb... https://lnkd.in/e56ptPUZ These preludes are so scenically descriptive that I can just enjoy them as visualized landscapes of iridescent beauty, that is to say, they are serene lakes scarcely ruffled by errant gales….blissful transcendence, for the most part “unperturbed” by the earthly tugs and pricks of desires and ennui. With these preludes, the nexus (between the subjective and objective) is quite at home in my most intimate reflections. Devoid of such pictorial imageries, nonetheless, the preludes are still very enjoyable, but I think Robert Schumann or Franz Liszt would have baptized them with the most mystical escapades (e.g., pilgrimages, fantasies, reveries, andante religioso, and so on) into the unfettered paths of the “otherworldly.” Most interesting is the fact that Skryabin’s preludes cannot be said to be eerily haunting or gloomy, but there is something “Sibylline” about them that can give me the goose-bumps. They have been described as being “Chopinesque” and I can hardly dispute the striking similarities between the two composers, but the latter seems to stray away from the established key as though verging on the fringe of the unknown, darkly and forbidden. The scintillating tones seem to lure us further into other worlds, twilights, web of dreams, mythical places smacking of fairy tales, elemental forces and spirits as though enlivened by some magical intelligence or influences. It is so true that Skryabin, a self-avowed mystic, when composing these preludes, was probably dabbling with the apocryphal teachings of gnosticism and theosophy! His tragic end with blood-poisoning has cast a spell of mysteries, a curse and mischief for those who dare play Dr. Faust with the supernatural genies of creativeness. Esoteric vs Exoteric His fate has been sealed to the same extent that his music, however deeper than Chopin’s most celebrated compositions, will remain “esoteric” and perhaps unsuitable for what is intrinsically and essentially a music for sojourners from beyond, or at least “a music for new ears,” to quoting F. Nietzsche. Sadly, such listeners are often pianists themselves, listeners of rarest breed, his proselyte, the novice, the newly initiated disciple. Crazy enough, one may frown-upon some of the grisly titles (Satanic Poems) purposely chosen to his poetic liberties, for he had no qualms to admitting an irresistible element of Faustian beauty in the demonic. Rightly so, dangerous music, like the B minor Sonata of Franz Liszt, is often stretched so far so as to go beyond the cannon of the dried-up wellspring of the orthodox, the diatonic and conventional. And as has been pointed out, Skryabin was the maverick of classical music. Therefore, it is fair to say that Alexander Skryabin, like Debussy, is the master of colors par excellent, and one ought to define him, first and foremost, as a visual-composer.