April 04 Tuesday
ISSUE
TIME PROJECT SHAKESPEARE SONNET BLUEBEARD’S CASTLE
Time is Irreversible
Shakespeare Sonnet
The Bluebeards Csatle
the n
The magic and mystery of the rhythms of Sonnets Joseph Mckellen
MY m i s tress’e y e s aren o t h ingl i k e the s
co if if i
ra l
is
fa r
more
than
re d,
he r
lips
u
r e
d:
be why her are be black grow her seen ses asked, and but such ses i her sno w
whit e,
hair s
wire s,
hav e
r o
n o
r o
breast s
the n
wire s
da m
o n
re d
se e i n
e
i n
lov e
m u
gran t
pe r
breat h
e
hat h
n e
fro m
fa r
sa w
whe n
he a
a n sh e
mor e
s p e a k,
hea r
mi s
ye t
i s
lie d
l i g
mi s
wel l
k n
ple a
go d
walk s,
thin k
fals e
g
u
i
and some fumes there de than the that my tress i to her yet i that sic a more sing i i ver a dess my tress, she treads the and by ven, i my as as y be with com i n
d
h e
w h
c h
n
s o
a
d.
t
e,
k
s;
h
t
r e
e
o
w
u
n
o,
o n
r a
p a
r
n;
r
e,
e.
k
s.
d:
However universal the passions they dissect, the sequence has several unusual even unique - attributes. This bard of flesh and soul also knows English law inside out ("summer's lease hath all too short a date"). His tangled mini-dramas of desire and disappointment play out not in some abstract heaven In 1609, the publisher Thomas Thorpe issued Shake-
strewn with gods and myths but a city of law courts, docks,
speare's 154 sonnets in a handy quarto-sized edition, with
playhouses, taverns, warehouses, whorehouses in effect,
a mysterious dedication to "Mr W.H.", their "only begetter",
Shakespeare's London. The first 126 poems are addressed to
and the poem "A Lover's Complaint" printed as a coda. A
a young man, the "fair youth" of Shakesperean legend. No
come-hither line on the title page, "Never before imprinted",
one knows whether this figure had any real-life counterpart.
suggests that the Jacobean literary world had been agog to
Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, and William Herbert,
read these soul-baring revelations from a celebrity of the
Earl of Pembroke, have been since Regency times the
London theatre scene. Critics who treat the Sonnets as
most-favoured candidates. Still less do we know if the
some sort of erotic autobiography in poetic disguise have
passionate friendship recorded so commonplace in Renais-
been happy to swallow the notion of their publication as a
sance life and literature - had a physical dimension. We can't
scandalous kiss'n'tell, with Thorpe sometimes even cast as
say yes; equally, we can't say no.
a pirate who purloined the manuscript.
The poet advises the lovely youth to marry and
The reality was, in all probability, less thrilling. We
procreate; flies into a rage when he seems to have an affair
know from a reference in 1598 to "sugared sonnets among
with the writer's mistress; frets when the youth gets close to a
his private friends" that Shakespeare had been practising
rival poet; 'fesses up to a fling with another lover; laments the
the form over many years. Two sonnets, 138 and 144 in the
yawning gap between his great age and the beloved's youth-
1609 edition, had surfaced in a 1599 anthology, The
celebrates the triumph of love ("an ever-fixed mark/ That looks
Passionate Pilgrim. The vogue for sonnet sequences that
on tempests and is never shaken") and the verse that immor-
told the story of a tormented love affair, with lofty mystical
talises it over the ravages of "devouring time". Then, from
and symbolic overtones, had already peaked by the
Sonnet 127 onwards, a brunette and possibly dark-skinned
mid-1590s. Authors such as Philip Sidney, Edmund Spens-
mistress, the equally mythic "dark lady", takes centre-stage.
er and Samuel Daniel (whose collection was entitled Delia) had led the 14-line charge.
As with the fair youth, the evidence-free roster of real partners never stops swelling. Emilia Lanier born Aemelia
By 1609, this fashion had long passed. Far from
Bassano to a migrant family of Venetian musicians features
appearing as a titillating inside-track report on the private
most often in modern speculations. Again, we know nothing
passions of a bigwig from the London stage, the Sonnets
about her and Shakespeare, although she did enjoyextraordi-
would have looked old-hat. No one even bothered to
nary life. In the poems, this practised minx has been around
reprint them until 1640. Imagine some middle-aged
the block, and then some or rather, it excites the poet to feel
monster of stadium rock going to his manager today with
teased and tricked by some sultry mocking tramp. The more
the idea of a perky Britpop concept album, mid-1990s
she plays the bitch, the hotter our smitten poet grows even
style. Underwhelming, to say the least.
though he's "anchored in the bay where all men ride. Then, in the final pair of poems, the sequence retreats into\pretty but conventional conceit about Cupid and Diana's nymphs. As elusive in the finale as they have proved througout, the Sonnets end with the sort of stuff that minor scribblers once churned out before old Shakespeare belatedly came along and galvanised this dormant form with a truth, wit and fire that made it new, and made it last.
My
mistress’
Coral
is
eyes
far
are
more
nothing
red,
like
than
her
the lips
sun; red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. I
have
But
no
And
in
seen
roses
such some
damasked,
roses
see
perfumes
I
is
red in
and her
there
white, cheeks;
more
delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. I
love
That I
to
music
grant
hear
her
hath I
a
speak, far
never
yet
more
saw
a
well
I
pleasing goddess
know sound: go,
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground: And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare, As
any
she
belied
with
false
compare.
MY CO
MIS
IS
RAL
IF
TRESS'
BE
SNOW
IF
HAIRS
FAR
BE
EYES
NO
WHITE
WIRES ,
,
BLACK DAM
SUCH ROSES
I
LOVE
IN
WIRES
I HER
TO HEARHER MU
I
I NEVER
MY AND AS
SPEAK
SIC HATHA
MIS
Y SHEBE
ON
HER
AND
HEAD.
WHITE.
MORE
DE
LIGHT
TRESS REEKS.
MIS
KNOW
MORE PLEASING
SOUND:
GO,
TREAD ON THE
WALKS ,
THINK
WITH
DUN;
CHEECKS;
YET WELL I
A GODDESS
LIED
ARE
THERE
SAW
BY HEAVEN,I
BREASTS
,
TRESS, WHEN SHE
YET AN
FAR
SUN;
RED :
RED
SEE IN
THE
LIPS
GROW
ASKED ,
IS
LIKE
HER
THE BREATHTHAT FROMMY
THAT GRANT
ING
WHY THEN HER
AND IN SOME PERFUMES THAN
NOTH
MORE RED ,THAN
I HAVE SEEN ROSES BUT
ARE
MY LOVEAS
FALSE
COM
RARE,
PARE.
GROUND
D:
Yet Thomas Thorpe and his printer, George Eld had struck gold. Shakespeare's Sonnets have, over four centuries, become the pattern and paragon of intimate lyric verse. Into (with a couple of exceptions) the same simple rhyme scheme and standard division into three four-line quatrains and a final couplet, he packed an entire universe of love, lust and longing. All the emotions that lovers, rivals and the witnesses to others'
passion
overtly
feel
sing
out
with
a
compressed intensity. More remarkably, so does the ambiguous shadow-side of love the melancholy of fulfilled desire, the murderous rage of jealousy, the fear of hurt that comes with overpowering want.
pera by Bela Bartok
Bluebeard’s Castle Libretto by Bela Balazs
Béla Bartók, Hungarian form Bartók Béla (born March 25, 1881, Nagyszentmiklós, Hungary, Austria-Hungary [now Sânnicolau Mare, Romania]—died September 26, 1945, New York, NewYork, U.S.), Hungarian composer, pianist, ethnomusicologist, noted for the Hungarian flavour of his major musical works, which include orchestral works, string quartets, piano solos, several stage works, a cantata, and a number of settings of folk songs for voice and piano.
Music and Drama in Bela Bartok's Opera David E. Schneider
Leafstedt is a good digger; his demythologizing Bluebeard's
More important for our understanding of the opera is the
Castle is the result of [End Page 358] thorough research. For
sleuthing Leafstedt has done on Balázs's literary influences. It
example, the opera's lack of success in two competitions
is well known that the literary style of Bluebeard owes a great
(one sponsored by a Budapest social club called the Lipót-
deal to the work of Belgian symbolist Maurice Maeterlinck.
városi Casino in 1911, the other by Bartók's sometime
Leafstedt, however, is the first to argue that Balázs's symbol-
publisher Rózsavölgyi has generally been taken to signify an
ism differs from Maeterlinck's in ways that suggest the
unwillingness of the Hungarian musical establishment to
influence of German playwright Friedrich Hebbel the subject
accept Bartók's music. Leafstedt's careful reading of the rules
of Balázs'sIn particular, Leafstedt singles out Hebbel's
of the Rózsavölgyi competition and other surviving docu-
concept of "tragic guilt," the notion that the exertion of individ-
ments strongly suggests, however, that the opera was reject-
ual will disrupts the balance of the world, and though innocent
ed from at least one of the competitions solely on the basis of
of this disruption, the individual must be punished by being
its libretto. The dramaturges who judged the work untheatri-
subsumed into the whole. This concept may well lie behind
cal never forwarded the score to Rózsavölgyi's music jury.
Balázs's treatment of Judith. For, instead of...
"Bluebeard" belongs to a category of folktales known as "forbidden-chamber" stories, which can be found in diverse cultures the world over. (Bartรณk himself knew the closely related Hungarian folk ballad "Anna Molnรกr" from his folk-song collecting expeditions.) The tricky task for a musicologist writing on Bluebeard's Castle is to foster a multivalent interpretation in keeping with the spirit of the myth at the opera's core while stripping away the layers of hearsay and lore that have come to obscure important facts about its composition and early history.
Leafstedt does an admirable job with both tasks in a multifaceted book, which, in an apparent reference to the structure of the opera (an introduction and seven scenes corresponding to the castle's seven locked doors), consists of an introduction and seven chapters. The chapters are grouped into three parts.Creation of a Modern Hungarian Opera," traces the history of Béla Balázs's Bluebeard, the play Bartók adapted (with few changes) for his opera, and the relationship between composer and playwright. Part 2, "Music and Drama in Bluebeard's Castle," offers an analysis of each scene of the opera as we know it from the 1917 score, as well as a discussion of the version Bartók completed in 1911. Part 3, "Contextual Studies," presents the history of the Bluebeard myth and considers the importance of Balázs's choice of the name Judith for the heroine of the play.
Opera by Bela Bartok
Opera by Bela Bartok
May12 - May 29
30 Lafayette Ave
Opera by Bela Bartok
Opera by Bela Bartok
Brooklyn, NY, 11217
May12 - May 29
30 Lafayette Ave
Brooklyn, NY, 11217
May12 - May 29
May12 - May 29
30 Lafayette Ave
Brooklyn, NY, 11217
30 Lafayette Ave
Brooklyn, NY, 11217
Variations on the Poster of Bluebeard’s Castle Posters design by Sihao Sun
Opera by Bela Bartok
May12 - May 29
30 Lafayette Ave
Brooklyn, NY, 11217
Opera by Bela Bartok
May12 - May 29
30 Lafayette Ave
Brooklyn, NY, 11217
Opera by Bela Bartok
May12 - May 29
30 Lafayette Ave
Brooklyn, NY, 11217
Opera by Bela Bartok
May12 - May 29
30 Lafayette Ave
Brooklyn, NY, 11217
Time is Irrever s i
b By Sihao Sun
l
e
Why Does Time Always Run Forwards and Never Backwards? By Adam Becker
Why is it you can break an egg, but not make the pieces spring back together again? To find out, we have to go back to the birth of the u
n
i v e
r
e. s
Why is there an arrow of time at all?
The first person to seriously tackle this problem was an Austrian physicist named Ludwig Boltzmann, who lived in the late 19th century. At this time, many ideas that are now known to be true were still up for debate. In particular, physicists were not convinced – as they are today - that everything is made up of tiny particles called atoms. The idea of atoms, according to many physicists, was simply impossible to test.
The first person to seriously tackle this problem was an Austrian physicist named Ludwig Boltzmann, who lived in the late 19th century. At this time, many ideas that are now known to be true were still up for debate. In particular, physicists were not convinced – as they are today - that everything is made up of tiny particles called atoms.
Why don’t things happen in reverse all the t i m Boltzmann was convinced that atoms really did exist. So he set out to use this idea to explain all sorts of everyday stuff, such as the glow of a fire, how our lungs work, and why blowing on tea cools it down. He thought he
This is obviously wrong, but nearly every
could make sense of all these things using the
theory that physicists have discovered since
concept of atoms.A few physicists were
Newton has the same problem. The laws of
impressed with, but most dismissed it. Before
physics simply don’t care whether time runs
long he was ostracised by the physics
forwards or backwards, any more than they
community for his ideas.
care about whether.
e
Once again, Boltzmann’s colleagues argued that it wasn’t possible to explain why entropy always went up. It just did. And again, Boltzmann was unsatisfied,
He got into particularly hot water because of
There’s egg on your face, literally. You tried to
his ideas about the nature of heat. This may
juggle some eggs, it all went wrong, and now
not sound like it has much to do with the
you’ve got to shower and change your
nature of time, but Boltzmann would show that
clothes. Wouldn’t it be faster to just un-break
the two things were closely linked.
the egg? Breaking it only took a few seconds,
and went searching for a deeper meaning. The result was a radical new understanding of entropy — a discovery so important that he had it engraved on his tombstone.
But we certainly do. In our experi-
so why not do that again, but in reverse? Just
ence, time has an arrow, always pointing into
reassemble the shell and throw the yolk and
the future. “You might mix up east and west,
Boltzmann measured the number of
the white back inside. You’d have a clean
but but but but you would not mix up yesterday
ways atoms, and the energy they
face, clean clothes, and no yolk in your hair,
and tomorrow,” says Sean Carroll, a physicist
carry, can be arranged. When entropy
like nothing ever happened.Sounds ridiculous
at the California Instituteehw ihe ei eieof Technol-
increases, it’s because the atoms are
but why? Why, exactly, is it impossible to
ogy in Pasadena. “But the fundamental laws of
getting more solutions.
un-break an egg?
physics don’t distinguish.
According to Boltzmann, this
It isn’t. There’s no fundamental law
is why ice melts in water. When water
of nature that prevents us from un-breaking
is liquid, there are far more ways for
eggs. In fact, physics says that any event in
the water molecules has to arrange
our day-to-day lives could happen in reverse,
themselves, and far more ways for the
at any time. So why can’t we event in our
heat energy to be shared among
un-break eggs, or un-burn matches, or even
those molecules, than when the water
un-sprain an ankle? Why don’t things happen
is solid. There are simply so many
in reverse all the time?
ways for the ice to melt, djsh shdj llfsj skd ek a iej ei wj we un-break eggs, or un-burn and relatively few ways for it to Like many stories about physics, this one starts with Isaac Newton.
Boltzmann set out to prove them wrong. He thought heat was caused by the random motion of atoms, and that all of thermodynamics could be explained in those terms. He was absolutely right, but he would spend the rest of his life struggling to convince others.Boltzmann started by trying to explain something strange: “entropy”. According to thermodynamics, every object in the world has a certain amount of entropy associated with it, and whenever anything happens to it, the amount of entropy increases. For instance, if you put ice cubes into a glass of water and let them melt, the entropy inside the glass goes up.Rising entropy is unlike anything else in physics: a process that has to go in one direction. But nobody knew why entropy always
increased.Boltzmann
started by trying to explain research something strange: “entropy”.
We all sharing the same period of time in a sense; While, what we do, think, and experience would
g d. e
a
seize in that moment forever which can never
b e
n
h c
This is the magic makes time values different and uni
q
u
f e
o
r
u s.
Designed by Sihao Sun