Trung's Five Cents Worth
My opinion on music, science fiction and sports
Monday, December 25, 2023
Story of my son’s musical journey so far
Sunday, November 19, 2023
My cultish love for Ange Postecoglou
Thoughts on seeing Sparks Live
Thoughts on seeing Paul McCartney Live
Saw
Paul McCartney probably the greatest songwriter of the rock era. It’s
one of the bucket lists of artists I wanted to see in my lifetime and
with the artist at his age, you’ll never know if there will be another
opportunity to see him play live.
https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/paul-mccartney/2023/allianz-stadium-sydney-australia-63a01a5b.html
Various thoughts of the gig
-
Setlist is a fair mixture of The Beatles's career and his solo career
(around 50:50) and gives a good cross-section of his career including
his underrated 2000/2010 era.
- There was an extremely deep cut
Beatles-related song that was played throughout the tour “In Spite of
All the Danger” which was The Quarrymen demo only found in The Beatles
Anthology Volume 1. It was quite ballsy of him taking the backing vocals
and setting up a singalong moment with the audience (ala Hey Jude)
considering most people in the audience wouldn’t have recognised the
song.
- It was fun hearing him perform songs where the other Beatles
take the lead vocals in the studio version. I knew that Paul McCartney
liked to sing George Harrison’s Something Live due to its presence in
his earlier live albums (It was present in both Back In The US and Good
Evening New York City). It was a huge surprise hearing him sing “Being
For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite!” which was a track where Lennon took lead
vocals in the studio album.
- Looking at setlist.fm, he pretty
much played the same setlist for the entirety of the Australian tour but
surprisingly there was some change in the setlist likely due to him
doing two concerts in Sydney to create some variation for people who
attended both concerts. The presence of Queenie Eye, Coming Up and A
Hard Day’s Night was a welcome surprise.
- “Here Today” was probably
the best performance by Paul McCartney that night as there is added
value of it being performed live at this age compared to just listening
to a studio performance. This is because, for the majority of the gig,
it was elderly men playing young people’s music. However, this tribute
to John Lennon’s death is far more touching coming from an 82 yo man
with an aged voice. It created an atmosphere of a person towards the end
of his life reflecting on people who have passed away. His introductory
speech talking about the male stoic culture that prevented him from
ever expressing his true feelings when John was alive and he was able to
express the emotions that come from the wisdom of age.
- My
favourite moment is “Dance Tonight” from Memory Almost Full (Probably my
favourite solo album) I suspect I was the most excited person in the
stadium regarding him playing it
It- Great to see Lennon/McCartney
duet with Lennon on the big screen during “I Got A Feeling”. It is noted
that Peter Jackson who directed the Get Back documentary was present in
the audience and was credited with this idea.
- There was a
recognition from McCartney that the audience was predominantly there for
The Beatles material. He stated that when The Beatle's songs were being
played he saw phone lights and people recording and when his late
career solo songs there was darkness producing a laugh from the
audience. He then stated that he would still play his more recent song
regardless leading to the performance of “Queenie Eye”
- The loud
pyrotechnics in “Live And Let Die” with loud explosion/bang was well
done and McCartney produced a feign heart attack
- I’m reminded of
Lennon’s lyrics of “I seen religion from Jesus to Paul” during the
performance of Hey Jude where it’s essentially become Paul McCartney’s
hymn. Having the entire crowd singing the “na na na” section became
almost a spiritual experience being there in person that can’t be
reflected in any bootleg or live recordings.
Friday, November 24, 2017
Robert Schumann’s mental illness through the lens of three composition
(Domschke 2010) from http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/196/4/325
Robert Schumann was a romantic era composer who most likely had bipolar affective disorder and subsequently developed neurosyphilis psychosis. As shown by the above genogram with the arrow pointing at Robert Schumann, he had significant family history of mental health disorder. This post will have a look at his mental illness through the lens of three composition. Two by Robert Schumann himself and one from his friend Johannes Brahms.
Robert Schumann - Carnaval
Robert Schumann was famous for writing music portraits of other people. He would meet people and then composed music based on his interpretation of their personalities. Carnaval is a piano work where most of the movements are portraits of people he knew. For example Movement 13 Estrella (13:59) was a portrait of his then fiancée Ernestine von Fricken and Movement 11: Chiarina (11:52 mark) was a portrait of Clara Wieck which Schumann ended up ending his engagement with Fricken and marrying Clara. Apparently the music already hinted that he was more interested in Clara (although to be honest I don't quite hear it).
However the most interesting movement from a psychiatric point of view is Eusebius (Movement 5 - 5:57) and Florestan (Movement 6 - 6:55). Robert Schumann gave names to two sides of his personality. Florestan which is the embodiment of Schumann's passionate, volatile side and Eusebius his dreamy, melancholic, introspective side. Florestan was inspired by the masculine bold and assertive hero of Beethoven’s opera Fidelio and Eusebius was a 4th Century Catholic priest who was a historian documenting the persecution of Christian and who he was subsequently persecuted and killed as well.
He was famous as a music critic at the time to write music reviews where he would sign off his reviews with either Florestan or Eusebius depending on his current mental state at the time. One review of Frédéric Chopin’s Variations on “Là ci darem la mano” by Mozart where he structured it as a conversation between himself and the two personalities.
Robert Schumann identified his melancholic and exaltated side of his personality to these two characters and they seemed to represent his manic and depressive phase of his bipolar affective disorder.
Robert Schumann developed depression around 1833 where his brother Julius died of tuberculosis, his sister sister in law Rosalie died of malaria and Robert Schumann contracted malaria himself.
He fell in deep depression and anxiety and was quoted in writing “During the night of Rosalie’s death, the most terrifying thought a person can ever have suddenly occurred to me. The most terrible thought heaven can punish you with, that of losing my mind. It overwhelmed me so violently that I was inconsolable, I could not guaranteed that under that circumstances I would not raised my hand against my own life.”
His depression was severe enough to be in near catatonic state where he was kept in the bed for nearly a week where it was described ‘he resembled a statue” which occurred during his tour to Russia with his wife Clara in 1844
In between his bouts of depression he would have phases of ‘exaltation’ where he would led to impulsive behaviours such as hyper sexuality (where he’ll sleep with prostitute and ended up contracting syphilis that would ended up killing him), over-practicing on the piano (where he ended up injuring his right hand destroying his career as a pianist), poor sleep but also periods of composition binge where he would compose non-stop for several days.
The Eusebius and Florestan movements are musical portraits of his depressive and manic side of his personality.
Robert Schumann - Geistervariationen
Although Robert Schumann remained functional throughout his life. Around 1850 (40 years old) his mental state deteriorated and he became increasingly psychotic. He most likely contracted syphilis from sex with a prostitute as a teenager that remain latent throughout most of his life and his marriage but became active during this time. He started having auditory hallucination of music where he described as “very strong and painful aural disturbances.”. Initially the auditory hallucination were restricted to a single note where Schumann was quoted in saying ‘I can’t read anymore. I keep hearing the note ‘A’”. Eventually the hallucination became full fledged themes of music that were attributed to angels and ghost of both Felix Mendelssohn and Franz Schubert. He described the themes he heard as “Magnificent music, with instruments of splendid resonance, the like of which has never been heard on earth before”. He composed these Geistervariationens or "Ghost Variations" of the theme he heard via his auditory hallucination.
Johannes Brahms - Piano Concerto No. 1
Towards the end of his life, the auditory hallucination that were initially angelic in nature, became demonish in nature. He believed the variation themes to be turn into devils and took the form of hyenas and tigers. He started having paranoid delusions of being surrounded by evil spirits. He developed delusions of guilt where he was obsessing that he was a criminal and his destine to go to hell and would repeatedly read the bible in hope for salvation. He started having fears that he may harm his wife and children likely due to command hallucination. Robert Schumann was so distressed by these hallucination that he didn't feel safe around his family and believed that he was a danger to his family.
So Robert believed that he must end his life to ensure his family would be safe from him. He went to the Rhine River bridge and jumped off with the intent for suicide (his elder sister Emilie Schumann who most likely have depression or catatonic schizophrenia committed suicide by drowning at the same area earlier in his life).
However he was rescued by a passing fisherman and he lived the rest of his life in a mental asylum where he died officially from suicide via starvation. Although in reality it wasn't suicide because he wanted to live but refused to eat due to paranoid delusions of the food he was given to be poison. He died from pneumonia after he become severely deconditioned due to his malnutrition brought on by his paranoid delusions.
Prior to his suicide attempt, Johannes Brahms became friends of Robert Schumann and Clara Schumann during his brief period of lucidity during the end of his life and also formed the most famous love triangle in classical music history. He played his Piano Sonata No. 1 and Robert Schumann briefly went back from retirement of being a music critic and wrote an article promoting Brahms to be the next Beethoven and saviour of German music. After Robert Schumann attempted suicide and admission to mental asylum, Johannes Brahms than lived with Clara Schumann and took care of her and her children and helped out with the finances for many years. There are documented letters from both Clara and Johannes that they admitted they have fallen in love with each other. It is unknown whether he hooked up with Clara during this time but he ended up not pursuing the relationship due to possible guilt of falling in love with his best friends wife while his friend was wasting away in a mental asylum.
Johannes Brahms composed the Piano Concerto No. 1 about Robert Schumann attempted suicide, if you listened to the opening theme by the string instruments, you notice the sudden leap in melody which symbolises Robert Schumann leaps into the Rhine river. This concerto is a representation of his despair for his friend Schumann attempted suicide, his love for Clara Schumann (as represented by the tender 2nd movement) and the ongoing guilt this love caused him to feel. It is one of my all time favourite Piano concertos.
Sunday, March 27, 2016
Music (Over)Analysis - Symphony No. 5 by Dmitri Shostakovich, the condemnation of Stalin regime and vindication of Stalin's anti-formalism
Tuesday, February 2, 2016
Undertale Theory on the nature of the protagonist (Spoilers)
- Chara was a troubled and evil person who hated humanity who poisoned Asgore and laugh about it and left the underground to kill the humans and obtain their souls and become powerful and godlike.
- Chara was a troubled but ultimately well-meaning person who was willing to sacrifice its
own life to allow Asriel to escape the barrier and to bring back six human
souls to liberate the monster kingdom. When attacked by humans, Chara wanted to kill them in self-defence. The poisoning of Asgore was a prank gone wrong rather than a deliberate attempt and the laughter was more of a nervous laugher than anything sadistic.