Month: November 2018

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Guardo sui tetti

I went a little too heavy on vinegar and salt when making a simple salad. It reminded me of the food at the mensa, the cafeteria for the two universities in Perugia, Italy. I went there with friends only a few times. However, I remember the salad well. The Romaine lettuce was always fresh. But, somehow, the dressing was always salty, oily and very acidy. The lady behind the counter serve the food swiftly. Their utensils, hitting on the mixing bowl, created a chaotic atmosphere.

I lived in Perugia for a little over six months, attending language classes at Università per stranieri. Between late September, when I first arrived, and early November, I moved three times. Although the school brochure indicated that students could be placed with Italian families, the only thing available upon my landing was a sublease, one room in an apartment over ten-minute walk from school. With winter months fast approaching, when I heard that a spot in an old building near school opened up, I quickly took it.

I shared a big room with two young girls from Taiwan. The land lady would not allow any visitors. Day and night, she looked out from her window overlooking the stone path, making sure no strangers passing through her gate. I was her darling until I told her that I found a better place and would move out by the end of the month. She rampaged through all my drawers and suitcases when I was at school, just to make sure that I was not stealing from her.

I couldn’t be happier moving into a two-bedroom apartment on the top floor of a family-orientated building. A fresh coat of white paint was applied to brighten up the entire apartment. With high ceiling and sparsely furnished, my room was spacious and echoey. My roommate was a fifteen-year-old girl from Central Taiwan, extremely homesick and very quiet. I was home a lot, preparing for my dissertation. Often, the only sounds in the apartment were news broadcasts or music coming from my radio.

In comparison to my room, the galley kitchen seemed unusually small. Even the white appliances and brand-new cabinets couldn’t make it appear bigger. In those days, my budget was very tight. The living costs seemed impossibly high. Other than cabbages, carrots, onions, tomatoes, pasta and flours, I could afford very few things. To make life more tolerable, I would invite a few newly-met friends over. We would find the most creative ways to cook with limited ingredients. The fire and the boiling water would quickly warm up the space. The results of our experimental recipes would often make us laugh. Those were the happy moments of that long winter.

On sunny days, I loved to open the windows in the kitchen, looking over terracotta rooftops to find a little piece of blue sky. The view always reminded me of Mimì’s descriptions of her little place:

Vivo sola, soletta,
là in una bianca cameretta:
guardo sui tetti e in cielo;
ma quando vien lo sgelo
il primo sole è mio*

I live alone, all alone,
there in a white little room:
I look over the roofs and in the sky;
but when the snow-melt arrives,
the first sunshine is mine.

By the end of my six-months sojourn in Italy, I only began to understand the langue, the people and the beautiful country. Yet, I learned from those months how a beam of sunshine could warm up one’s heart and drive away one’s wearies. I miss the cerulean sky of Italy.

*La Bohème,  Act I, Giacomo Puccini; Libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa.

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Tempo

Daylight Saving Time ended on Sunday.  Clocks on all the devices in my room reset automatically.  But the ones in the kitchen needed manual adjustments.  Somehow, working around the apartment, I got confused.  For a brief moment, I panicked about not managing my time well.

Every year, we adjust our clocks following the changes of seasons—and temperatures.  The linkage between time and weather always reminds me of the Italian word “tempo.”  It means “time.”  One would ask, “Non ho molto tempo.” (“I don’t have much time.”). It also means “weather”—as in “Fa bel tempo oggi” (The weather is nice today).

For the written portion of my doctoral candidacy exam, I was to review then newly published The Tempo Indications of Mozart by Jean Pierre Marty.  Although Marty assigned metronomic markings for each tempo/meter combination, his arguments were based on the understanding of the meaning of Mozart’s tempo indications.  I opened the review exploring the meaning of “tempo”—a simple word that musicians live with every day.

If we were lucky, our teachers would have taught us how each term would be linked to a certain speed, as marked on old-fashioned metronome.  The truth is most of the words that the composers put down at the beginning of their compositions have more to do with its character than a performance speed. Allegro means cheerful; vivace means lively; andante means walking; largo means broad, so on and so forth. They can be further qualified by words such as molto (very), non troppo (not too much), grazioso (gracious), maestoso (majestic), sostenuto (sustained), etc.  So, instead of thinking about “speed,” it is more suitable to consider the “temperament” of the composition.

Robert Schumann often broke away from the traditional Italian markings and turned to his native German.  In Davidsbündlertänze (Dances of the League of David), Op. 6, one finds Lebhaft (lively), innig (intimate), mit Humor (with humor), ungeduldig (eager/impatient), einfach (simple), and wild und lustig (wild and funny).  Hugo Wolf took it much further, abandoning Italian markings all together.  For “Liebe mir im Busen zündet einen Brand” (Love in my bosom ignites a fire), he wrote “Äusserst rasch, mit leidenschaftlichstem Ausdruck” (Extremely rapid, with the most passionate expression); “Schlafendes Jesuskind” (Sleeping Jesus Child), “Sehr getragen und weihevoll” (Very sustained and ceremonially).

Claude Debussy frequently gave detailed directions throughout his compositions.  At the beginning of  “Soirée dans Grenade” (Evening in Granada), the second piece of his suite Estampes, he wrote “Mouvement de Habanera –Commencer lentement dans un rythme nonchalamment gracieux” (Movement of Habanera—beginning slowly in a rhythm nonchalantly gracious).  Then, he gently guided the performer by saying “Retenu” (hold back) . . . , “Tempo giusto” (proper tempo) . . . , “Tempo rubato” (flexible tempo) . . . , “Très rythmé” (very rhythmic) . . . , “Tempo primo—avec plus d’abandon (First tempo—with more abandonment).  Toward the end of the piece, he asked twice for “Léger et lointain” (light and distant) as everything quietly faded into the night.

Erich Leinsdorf in his thoughtful book The Composer’s Advocate: A Radical Orthodoxy for Musicians wrote about the importance of understand composer’s chosen words.  These words lead the performers as well as the audience into the right atmosphere—the right tempo, the very thing that Mozart considered to be the most important to music making.  Let’s always hope for the perfect “tempo.”