Transcript Myth Music Nietzsche oakmont symposium 2012

The Art of Soul with Kayleen Asbo
Dante’s Divine Comedy
Fridays at St John’s in Petaluma at 7 pm
Begins March 9 with a free open house and introduction
Apollo,
Dionysus,
Nietzsche
and
Music
History
Kayleen Asbo
“Music has a power of
forming the character,
and should therefore be
introduced into the
education of the young.”
"Any musical innovation is full of
danger to the whole state, and
ought to be prohibited . . . when
modes of music change, the
fundamental laws of the state
always change with them.“
(Aristotle, The Politics,
translated by T. A. Sinclair)
Musike Therapeia
1872
Richard and Cosima Wagner
King Rudolph II and Neuschwenstein Castle
The Wagner’s home at Tribschen
Countess Marie d’Agoult and Franz Liszt
The “impossible” Tristan und Isolde and
conductor Hans von Bulowit took eight years to bring it to stage
1872
“The Birth of Tragedy presented a view of the
Greeks so alien to the spirit of the time and to the
ideals of its scholarship that it blighted
Nietzsche's entire academic career. It provoked
pamphlets and counter-pamphlets attacking him on
the grounds of common sense, scholarship and
sanity. For a time, Nietzsche, then a professor of
classical philology at the University of Basel , had
no students in his field. His lectures were
sabotaged by German philosophy professors who
advised their students not to show up for
Nietzsche's courses.”
-Marianne Cowan
Pythia, John Collier (1891)
Delphi
What is Valued?
Apollo : Intellect, Light, Elegance, Grace
Dionysus: Raw Emotion, Tragedy, Darkness, Intensity
Oracle at Delphi: Never Leave the Middle
Orpheus- son of Apollo, priest of Dionysus
Symbol the snake and the egg
Theater of Dionysus, Athens
Athenian Theater reached its height in
6th century BCE
The more you can hold sorrow, the better you can
find joy
-William Blake
Apollo
God of Light, the Sun, medicine,
architecture, mathematics
Order, balance, harmony, clarity
Abstract thought
Refined, elegant
Major key mode
Clearly defined meter
Regular, moderate rhythm
String instruments (lyre, kithara)
Apollo
Apollo and the Muses,
Simon Vouet (1640)
Apollo, Giovanni Tiepolo, (1752)
Stoa, Athens
Apollo
Petrous Tabouris Ensemble
Parthenio Ton Alkman
The Head- intellect
Lyre (strings)
Balance
Elegance
Moderation
Clarity and logic
Symmetry , proportion
Major key mode
Predictable rhythm and melody
Civilization: form and rules
God of sun and light
Lyric poetry- rhyme
Apollo Belvedere
Apollo and the Muses at Parnassus
Nicholas Poussin (1632)
Apollo Slaying the Python
Apollo and Daphne, Bernini
John William
Waterhouse,
Apollo and
Daphne (1905)
The Festival of Daphne
Lord Frederic Leighton
Apotheosis of Homer,
Ingres (1827)
Dionysus- God of:
Tragedy and Comedy,
Stillness and mania,
music,
Ecstasy, wine, paradox,
wildness, nature,
Dismemberment, the Raw
Gustave Moreau
Birth of Dionysus
Birth of Dionysus
405 B.C.
Hermes Delivering Dionysus to Mount
Nyssa
Silenus
Baby Dionysus
Tragedy= “Goat Song”
Chorus of satyrs
Dionysian Mask, 2nd century BCE: Arts as Religi
Young Dionysus with Muses and
Nymphs
Lawrence Alma- Tedema
The Women of Amphissa( Bacchantes)
Bacchante
Frederic Leighton
The Many Faces of Dionysus
Effeminate Androgyne
Luigi Valadier
(1774)
Wild Masculine
The Boy Bacchus
Guido Reni
(1620)
Dionysus,
Bouguerreau
Dionysus as Mature Man
Dionysus
Jacopo Sansavino
(1515)
The God Who
ComesEpiphany
Dosso Dossi
(1524)
Dionysus and Satyr
480 B.C.
Silenus, Dionysus, Maenad and Satyr
370 B.C.
Dionysian Procession
Roman Mosaic (Museum El Djem)
Return of Dionysus from the East
Museum El Djem
Rites of Dionysus
Tim Shaw
Rites of Dionysus
Tim Shaw
Rites of Dionysus
Tim Shaw
Rites of Dionysus
Tim Shaw
Pentheus (The Bacchae)
Rites of Dionysus
Tim Shaw
The Denigration of Dionysus:
From God of stillness, ecstasy
and divine communion
Dionysus
God of wine, drama, dance
Ecstacy and Dismemberment
Tragedy and comedy
Emotional (and tempo) extremes
Wildness, nature and the Raw
Minor key mode
Aulos (woodwinds) and percussion
Shifting meters
Dramatic dynamics
Bacchus,
Caravaggio
(1593)
Bacchus,
Caravaggio
(1596)
Bacchus (1640)
Peter Paul Rubens
Theater Masks, Mosaic at Hadrian’s Villa
Fastnacht, Germany
Kukeri, Bulgaria (Thrace)
1872
Apollo
God of Light, the Sun, medicine,
architecture, mathematics
Order, balance, harmony, clarity
Abstract thought
Refined, elegant
Major key mode
Clearly defined meter
Regular, moderate rhythm
String instruments (lyre, kithara)
Dionysus
God of wine, drama, dance
Ecstacy and Dismemberment
Tragedy and comedy
Emotional (and tempo) extremes
Wildness, nature and the Raw
Minor key mode
Aulos (woodwinds) and percussion
Shifting meters
Dramatic dynamics
What is Valued?
Apollo : Intellect, Light, Elegance, Grace
Dionysus: Raw Emotion, Tragedy, Darkness, Intensity
Oracle at Delphi: Never Leave the Middle
Orpheus Loses Eurydice
Bergamo (16th Century)
Tragoudi (Petros Tabouris)
Claudio Monteverdi and L’Orfeo (1600)
Orpheus
A balance between light and dark
Major and minor
Order and freedom
Passion and Control
The Renaissance
Baroque composer JS Bach
Age of “Enlightenment” and Apollo
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Moonlight
Caspar David Friederich
Romantic Music
Nocturnes, Impromptus, Fantasy, Elegie, Humoreske
Tempo disruptions: Rubato, Morendo, Ritardando
Shift to minor key mode
Dynamic and range extremes
Playing “by heart”
Hector Berlioz and the
Symphonie Fantastique
Extremes: Mahler Symphony No. 8
Rite of Spring (1913) , Nijinsky
Irregular Rhythms in Rite of Spring
Igor Stravinsky by Pablo Picasso (1920)
“The more art is controlled,
limited, worked over, the more it is
free . . . The Dionysian elements
which set the imagination of the
artist in motion . . . must be
properly subjugated before they
intoxicate us, and must finally be
made to submit to the law: Apollo
demands it."
Igor Stravinsky, Lecture at Harvard 1940
Apollo- 1927
Orpheus- 1947
Estonian Composer Arvo Part
Andy Goldsworthy and the Orphic Egg
Oakmont OLLI Winter Session:
The Hero’s Journey Through Myth, Music and Art
Thursdays from 3-5 pm
www.kayleenasbo.com
OLLI at Sonoma State
The Heroine’s Quest
Mondays 9:30-11:30
www.kayleenasbo.com
The Art of Soul with Kayleen Asbo
Dante’s Divine Comedy
February 2013