#in this case the op is sung by the three leads and the ed is just him

[killjoy-prince]

That scientist should not be 18 years old are you kidding me???

[smokeybrand]

Curse of the Brown Turd

I’ve been pretty quiet about this Heard/Depp thing because i find the fact that this trial even being necessary, is kind of bullsh*t. I have commented in the past, even made a couple of essays recently, but with the trial actually wrapping up, i wanted to address the overwhelming evidence against Heard and the weird smear job against Depp, the mainstream media seems to have committed to. Now, before i get into the weeds of all this drama, i want to state, clearly and directly, i believe Johnny Depp. I’ve always believed Johnny Depp. The second these allegations dropped, i knew they were bullsh*t. Yes, i am a fan of Depp as an actor but i can say the same about Heard. Her library is quite a bit lacking in quality compared to his but i did enjoy All The Boys Love Mandy Lane and Aquaman. That said, it’s not like she has the ability to be a proper lead in anything. She kind of sucks at acting, as we all saw during this trial, however, i generally enjoy what she brings in her supporting roles but, in all honesty, it’s because she’s hot. That’s why she’s even in films; Ma is stupid attractive and in Hollywood, that’s all you need to be successful.

Amber Heard was VERY successful, for six years, in her singular attempt to destroy Johnny Depp because he refused to cash her out the way she wanted. I don’t think Amber really loved Johnny, i think she loved the idea of him and vice-versa. Amber saw a Hollywood elite, someone who had so much clout, so much power, so much money, that she could ride his coattails into A-List status. She traded on his name for everything. Ma testified he paid her bills, she got special attention from designers when she was with him, the Aquaman role was secured for her through Depp’s influence; Johnny Depp made Amber Heard a star by proxy. That is unequivocal fact. Her star even continued to rise after the divorce. She parlayed her cries of abuse and mistreatment into so much good fortune, it’s disgusting. Meanwhile, Depp spiraled.

This is a man who met a beautiful young starlet, on the set of a passion project, that got caught up in the whirlwind of youth and mid-life crises. Depp thought Heard would add so much to his world, that someone so vibrant could light the monotony, the rut, he found himself within after decades of fame. In Amber, he thought he found someone whom he could grow old with, someone he could share the second half of his life with. He thought he found someone who could inject a bit of the youth he’d lost over the near decade and a half of being a husband and father. Amber Heard showed up, sung her siren song, and basically seduced a vulnerable Depp. That’s what happened. I’m not mitigating his culpability in this dumpster fire of a relationship but i am saying there was a bit of manipulation on Heard’s part to get him into it.

Now, this trial proved Depp’s defamation case without a doubt. Amber did that. Three separate times, actually. Once during her initial testimony and twice on rebuttal. Her accusations cost Depp his reputation, several roles, and a good amount of loot. That was proven early on. Heard saying that she not only wrote the op-ed, but openly admitted that it was about Johnny, happened soon after. That’s the case right there. Those are the facts. She literally wrote the thing about Johnny, that defamed Johnny. From her own goddamn words, she did that thing. She said so, twice. Amber Heard lost herself this case. More than that, this whole trial has proven how dishonest, violent, narcissistic, and cruel, Amber truly is as a person. To everyone. Not just to Depp but to everyone. Her f*cking sister, former friends, penthouse staff, employees, random staff at resorts; Amber has a pattern of being an abusive b*tch. Johnny does not.

In the forty goddamn years this man has been active in Hollywood, not one person has ever come out and said he was violent, controlling, rude, or disrespectful. Has he said some wild sh*t to his friends about some b*tch trying to ruin his life? Yeah he did. I would too. So would you. Does his do a ton of drugs recreationally? Sure, he does but mans is on record as to do good time sh*t like coke and molly. These things aren’t going to turn you into a violent, abusive, monster as Amber likes to claim. Does he drink too much? Of course he does. If you had to live with a petulant child like Amber, someone who sh*ts in your bed during a tantrum because you were late to her birthday party due to work obligations, I'd wanna be drunk all the time, too. None of that tells me Johnny beat Amber. None of that proves he was violent to her. Some cabinets, maybe, but dude had just found out he had lost hundreds of millions of dollars. I’d have been a little miffed, too. Smashing a few plates does not mean he’s smashing Amber’s cheek bones. However, the same can not be said about her bullsh*t.

Amber crushed off this man’s finger, full stop. She did that. She admitted to that. Her team tried to say Depp got high and ate his finger, referring to him making a joke to a child about his injured figured as proof. Dude was dressed up as Jack Sparrow, at a children’s hospital or some sh*t, scrambling to come up with a reason why the tip of his finger is missing to tell this little girl. Of course he’s not going to say my crazy ass trophy wife smashed my sh*t with a wine bottle because i asked for a post-nup. Bro, i have seen so many pictures of Depp with visible wounds on his person, that can be linked to a spat with Amber. Cigarette burns, lacerated fingers, actual black eyes, bruises  and sh*t. I’ve seen him flinch instinctively during press events where they had to walk the carpet together, the very real anguish on his face as he listened to her basically goad him into this trial with claims of disbelief and challenges to his manhood. It’s wild to me that after all we’ve seen, people, the media, choose to still carry water for this wild ass b*tch!

“#MeToo is over if we don’t listen to ‘imperfect victims’ like Amber Heard” is an actual title to a Guardian article. This sh*t came out after the first time Heard took the stand and got eviscerated by Camille Vasquez. Amber Heard is a whole ass liar that beat a former spouse, defrauded two charities for millions, and lied about Kate Moss repeatedly. She was actively exposed and discredited but the Guardian was like, “Nah, still listen to her, though.” And i get it; Amber Heard has put this entire movement in a really tough spot. She is a violent abuser who used the momentum of this very real, very necessary, revolution in society, to build herself up while tearing an innocent man down. Now, because of Heard’s selfishness, every chick that comes out with these types of accusations, are going to be looked at with suspicion. But who’s fault is that? Who decided to blindly accept that Depp was a violent abuser even though there was a ton of evidence saying otherwise, readily available for consumption, for years? Y’all made a violent abuser the poster child for violent abuse and now all that can be said is “But you still need to believe her though because other women don’t lie.” The f*ck?

I always believe women until they give me a reason not to. That’s the energy we should all have with this #MeToo sh*t. If a woman, or anyone for that matter because this case proves it’s not just the vaginas that need protection, cries foul, listen to them closely. Get the facts as they see it. Investigate thoroughly. Check all the boxes before a judgment is made. “Believe All Women” is a very fragile thing because a lot of people don’t want to. That’s why #MeToo is even necessary but if you decided to hitch your wagon to a dumpster fire, you can’t be mad when your message burns to the ground. It is very clear to me that Johnny Depp never abused Amber Heard. I am pretty convinced of that. It is very obvious to me that Amber Heard beat the dog sh*t out of Johnny pretty regularly. It is clear that she is a dishonest person who would steal someone else’s story of abuse, lie about a former lover of Depp to bolster her own delusional fabrications, and actually defraud two desperate charities of millions. Amber Heard is untrustworthy. Amber Heard is a liar. Amber Heard is an abuser. She is all of these things. These are proven facts. Johnny has proven to be none of them.

Could he have beat Amber like Chris Brown beat Rhianna? Sure. Where’s the evidence, though? I mean outside of a few doctored photos, a bunch of hearsay testimony from her closest friends and a kid sister? Depp provided actual photos of his real injuries. He provided actual video and audio recordings of her admitting to violence upon his person. She even admitted to never donating that seven million she got in the divorce and Kate Moss, herself, refuted the story of getting pushed down the stairs Amber used as justification for punching Depp directly in the face. Amber Heard has presented nothing concrete to support her accusation of abuse that hasn’t been discredited or disproved by another eye witness. Johnny’s team has proven she lied about the Moss incident and even brought the arresting officer of her old DV case to testify. How the f*ck am i supposed to believe anything Amber Heard says at this point? Why would i? Because she’s a woman? Because she’s pretty? She cut this man’s finger off and then told him to tell the world he was abused by her, to see if they would believe him. Well, i can’t speak for the world, but i definitely do. I did way back when and i think way more people believe him now, too.

[uchicagosymphonyorchestra]

Maestra Barbara Schubert leads the USO into the New Year with a concert of orchestral variations, from the perspective of three different composers. The program features Johannes Brahms’ well-known Variations on a Theme by Haydn, French composer Vincent d’Indy’s eclectic Istar Variations, and Paul Hindemith’s masterful Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber. Together these three works offer a fascinating view into how diverse composers from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries treated this traditional musical form. A reception will follow. Admission is free. Donations are requested at the door: $10 general, $5 students.

RSVP here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1266098793469630/

Program Notes:

Johannes Brahms: Variations on a Theme by Haydn, Op. 56a (1873)

Johannes Brahms lived and worked at a time when the Austro-German canon of classical music had very recently solidi ed. A new idea of musical historicism (or antiquarianism) was emerging on top of that canon as well: the Bach Society, whose purpose was to edit and publish the complete works of that recently rediscovered Baroque composer, was formed in the year 1850, and a similar Handel Society appeared in 1858. This historicism was fed by the desire for a national pantheon of Classical composers, which grew throughout the latter half of the nineteenth century. This desire was  nally ful lled in the 1890s by two gargantuan collected editions: the  rst was called Monuments of German Musical Art, and the second was titled Monuments of Musical Art in Austria. In the late nineteenth century, then, the story of classical music in Germany and Austria was a story of roots:  nding them, creating them, and then using them to propagate a new national culture.

Brahms’ career lined up perfectly with the development of this national historicism: his  rst published opus (his Piano Sonata in C Major) was written in 1853, and his last published opus (the Bach-inspired Eleven Chorale Preludes for Organ) was written in 1896. Brahms’s Variations on a Theme by Haydn, Op. 56, emerged against this historicist background. Even in the early nineteenth century, the trio of Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven represented a holy trinity of Austro- German compositional practice. One needs only to look to the famous words of the music patron Count Waldstein, when he funded Beethoven’s studies with Haydn: “You shall receive Mozart’s spirit from Haydn’s hands.” For Brahms to write a set of variations on Haydn, then, was like an act of intercession, intended to connect oneself to the musical divine.

Brahms took the theme for this work from a manuscript shown to him by an early Haydn scholar, Carl Ferdinand Pohl. It was the second movement of a piece for winds, and above it was written “St. Anthony Chorale.” Brahms was enamored with the chorale’s expansiveness, and set out to write a set of variations with the chorale as its theme. Brahms thought of variation form as a balancing act: on one hand, one needed a unique theme (but not odd enough to be distracting); and on the other, one needed inventive variations (which should still be recognizably related to the theme). With the new backdrop of nineteenth-century historicism, there was an additional factor to balance: a set of variations on a classic theme ought to pay its respects to the greats without being overly conservative — and it ought to innovate but it could not leave its theme behind. Brahms had previously written a set of piano variations on a theme by Handel, which demonstrated his ability to write music that blossomed from the hardy seed left behind by a great master. He hoped that this Haydn chorale would be just as fertile for a new composition.

It might be surprising, then, to learn that Haydn actually had nothing to do with the wind version of the “St. Anthony Chorale” that caught Brahms’s imagination. Musical misattributions were common before the twentieth century for two reasons:  first, copyright laws were few and far between; and second, much music was copied by hand and disseminated in manuscript form without careful oversight. Musicologist H.C. Robbins Landon has purported that this “St. Anthony Chorale” was in fact composed by Haydn’s student, Ignaz Joseph Pleyel. (And in any case, the original inspiration for the chorale tune did not come from Haydn: the chorale was based on a hymn sung by pilgrims in Padua, where the tongue of St. Anthony was kept as a relic.) Brahms’s theme, then, lacks the authentic connection to Haydn that Brahms had hoped would tie him to a venerable tradition. 

Of course, none of this changes the sheer joy of listening to Brahms’s Variations. The listener’s curiosity is immediately kindled by the opening statement of the theme: it is organized into five- measure phrases, which thwart our deeply ingrained, foursquare Classical expectations. Brahms preserves this unique detail in every one of his eight successive variations. The melody of the theme also provokes curiosity: it’s an oddly static melody, mostly hovering around the same notes (D and E- at above it).

The  first variation takes us into definitively Brahmsian territory: over a static bass we hear a bustle of triplets in the strings, set against duplets in the other instruments. This sort of melodic three- against-two is one of Brahms’s favorite maneuvers, as many beleaguered pianists know. The second variation gives us the first hint of storm and stress: sharp timpani strokes are followed by quiet flurries of motion in the strings. The third variation soothes the anxiety of the previous one with sinuous lines played by the woodwinds over a placid string accompaniment. The fourth variation grows out of the previous one, with the same hushed lyricism now cast within the less con dent minor mode. The  fifth variation is a lively Poco presto, serving the same function as a scherzo movement within classical sonata form. In the sixth variation the horns take center stage, playing a version of the opening melody that is decorated with skipping sixteenth notes. Here Brahms changes the underlying harmonies of the theme, closing the initial phrases with unexpected cadences in a minor key. The seventh variation has a kind of courtly magnanimity, with slow lilting rhythms recalling the Baroque siciliano dance. The eighth variation, which calls for the strings to play with mutes, casts us into a state of mysterious groundlessness. We regain our footing with a stately passacaglia finale. (A passacaglia is a form in which the bass line repeats the same figure over and over, while the other parts play constantly-changing countermelodies over it.) This passacaglia leads us seamlessly back to the original St. Anthony Chorale, played triumphantly by the whole orchestra to cap the work.

Vincent d’Indy: Istar: Variations Symphoniques, Op. 42 (1896)

Vincent D’Indy’s Istar: Variations Symphoniques, Op. 42, is based on a story from the Epic of Gilgamesh that describes the descent of Ishtar, goddess of love, into the underworld in order to save her imprisoned lover. Ishtar is forced to remove a piece of jewelry or an item of clothing at each of the four gates through which she passes. This slow and methodical disrobement was the inspiration for d’Indy’s reversal of variation form: instead of beginning with the theme, d’Indy begins with his most far-flung variation. Each subsequent variation is pared-down and re ned, and the piece ends with the “naked” theme. A concertgoer who is familiar with Richard Strauss’ opera Salome (with its infamous “Dance of the Seven Veils”) might expect a garishly orientalist Ishtar — but not so. D’Indy’s Istar is much closer in character to the nineteenth-century orchestral genre called the “symphonic poem,” which is best represented by Liszt’s allegorical works of the 1850s. Istar projects this same sort of allegorical abstraction. We do not hear the urgency of a determined goddess here; instead, we hear the story of ornament and simplicity, told in a late- romantic Franco-German voice.

This piece’s unusual form, and the myth that inspired it, is worth examining. Why would the Babylonian Ishtar be a promising subject for a French symphonic piece in the German genre of the “symphonic poem”? What would have made it feasible — or necessary — for such a piece to be penned in fin-de-siècle Paris?

Istar was composed in 1896, during a period of European fascination with ancient cultures of the eastern Mediterranean. As the Ottoman Empire began its slow dissolution over the late nineteenth century, the Europeans swept in — and when they left, they took local artifacts and mythologies with them. The tale of Ishtar (from the Epic of Gilgamesh) is one of those mythologies. The Gilgamesh story was first translated into English by the Assyriologist George Smith, who attracted international attention by comparing the flood myth in the Epic to Noah’s flood in the Bible. Smith further declared that Gilgamesh was the same figure as Nimrod of the Old Testament. These similarities to more familiar European myths were what put early Assyriology into the public eye.

Indeed, the story of Ishtar descending into the underworld is remarkably similar to the myth of Orpheus from Ovid’s Metamorphoses: Orpheus was a hero who plied his way into Hades with the musical power of his lyre to save his beloved Eurydice. The Orpheus myth appears throughout the history of European music like a leitmotif. Claudio Monteverdi’s Orfeo (1607), for example, was a seminal early opera. Likewise, the musical reformer Christoph Willibald Gluck also turned to Orpheus when he wrote Orfeo ed Euridice (1762), his first opera written in a new, streamlined style. Victorian readers of the Gilgamesh epic were quick to point out the similarity between Ishtar and Orpheus — and d’Indy’s Istar, in turn, appears to triangulate the distance between the Babylonian Ishtar and the Greek Orpheus. While Monteverdi’s Orfeo began with simple pastoral forms that became more formal, more ornate, and more filled with pathos as Orpheus journeyed into the world of the dead, D’Indy does the exact opposite: his most inventive material comes at the beginning, with ravishing orchestration for the initial variations, gradually lessening as Istar’s (literal) divestment proceeds, and resulting in a knowing and elegant simplicity in the final section of the work. D’Indy’s Istar, then, is a reversed Orpheus.

Paul Hindemith: Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Weber (1943)

Paul Hindemith began his work on the Symphonic Metamorphosis of Themes by Carl Maria von Weber shortly after leaving Germany for the United States. In Germany, the composer had alternated between resisting the Nazi government and making concessions to them: thus, a man whose music was officially catalogued as “degenerate” could at the very same time receive praise from Josef Goebbels, who praised Hindemith as the foremost composer of his generation. Despite Hindemith’s popular success, though, political tensions mounted. Wilhelm Furtwängler, the legendary conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, was even forced to step down from his post temporarily because of his vigorous defense of Hindemith. The composer emigrated to the U.S. in 1940, and joined the music faculty at Yale University.

The Symphonic Metamorphosis began its life as a series of sketches for a ballet. Hindemith had planned to collaborate with Léonide Massine on a ballet based on the music of classical composer Carl Maria von Weber, but Hindemith and Massine’s artistic differences over the staging eventually killed the project. Hindemith refashioned his sketches into the orchestral piece we hear tonight. The themes that Hindemith selected for “metamorphosis” were all fairly obscure Weber tunes: three of the Metamorphosis’ movements were taken from Weber’s Op. 60 collection of piano duets, and the middle scherzo was based on Weber’s music for the Friedrich Schiller play Turandot. One might speculate that Hindemith chose these little-known and little-appreciated themes so he could showcase his compositional skill. (You might recall the balancing act that Brahms was faced with: don’t pick a theme that will steal the show from your variations!)

The Symphonic Metamorphosis ultimately turns Weber’s original pieces into empty molds that are then filled with Hindemith’s inventive fire and flash. The first movement, a raucous Allegro, transforms a Turkish march by Weber into something far more foreboding. The second movement, crafted from music originally for Turandot, is a set of variations on a Chinese melody (drawn by Weber from Rousseau’s Dictionnaire de musique of 1768). The Chinese tune is repeated over and over, to create a feverish perpetual motion machine whose ceaseless whirring is underscored by the almost never-ending trills in the woodwinds. By the end of the movement, this off-kilter tune completely exhausts itself of significance: it’s as if one had repeated a word so many times that the word is now a string of unfamiliar sounds. The third movement, a soothing Andantino, hews closely to the original structure of Weber’s piano duet but adds two new elements: first, a cushion of harmony in the strings, and second, a final flute solo that is foreign to Weber’s style. The final movement is yet another march, introduced with horn-calls and martial beats of the snare drum. One of the goals of the Metamorphosis was to show the new possibilities that were unlocked by the huge, post-Romantic, twentieth-century orchestra. The piece requires an extensive percussion section: over and above the standard percussion instruments we hear a tambourine, gong, wood blocks, tom-toms, and chimes. Hindemith’s use of percussion gives every movement an edge of danger.

The bizarre exoticism of the “Turkish” first movement and “Chinese” second movement are worth exploring. The Ottomans were a legendary military opponent of the Habsburgs for the entire existence of the Habsburg empire, and it was commonplace for Biedermeier-era composers to mimic the sounds of a Turkish military band (think of Mozart’s “Rondo alla Turca”). It’s not surprising, then, to encounter a Turkish march by Weber. But why would Hindemith choose a Turkish march for his Metamorphosis? The Turandot scherzo is even more confusing: Weber wrote his music for Schiller’s play Turandot, which was in turn based on an eighteenth-century commedia dell’arte play by Carlo Gozzi, who in turn was inspired by the Sassanid Persian tale of Princess Turandokht (“daughter of Turan,” Turan being the ancient name for Central Asia). European whimsy gradually transformed Turandokht into the Chinese Turandot, the thwarted empress of Puccini’s eponymous opera.

And what can we make of Hindemith’s putative homage to Weber? Weber was a composer idolized in his own time, but after a few generations he was remembered only as a composer of a few famous operas. It might surprise the reader to learn that the nineteenth-century critic A. B. Marx wrote that Weber’s work was on par with Beethoven’s: it “often surpassed [Beethoven’s work] in grandeur and elaboration.” But Hindemith isn’t bowing to the old master, Carl Maria von Weber. His piece does not seem to highlight the original features of Weber’s music in same the way that Brahms’s Variations paid tribute to the simplicity of “Haydn’s” chorale. Neither does Hindemith scorn Weber: even though Hindemith’s transformed final product is overwhelming in its fire and brilliance, it still seems to depend on the structure of the Weber pieces on which it was based. (The first movement of the Metamorphosis, for example, preserves the exact same phrase structure as Weber’s original.) Finally, Hindemith’s treatment of the Chinese melody from Turandot raises questions: this is not a metamorphosis of Weber, but a metamorphosis of Weber’s original metamorphosis. In sum, Hindemith’s Metamorphosis doesn’t point backwards to its original source material in the way Brahms’ piece does — but it doesn’t call attention to its own structure like d’Indy’s Istar, either.

The intended subject of this Metamorphosis isn’t the beginning of the transformation, or its final product: it’s the process of metamorphosis itself — a process that inadvertently creates a formless but threatening Orientalized “Other.” (A painter might set out to turn the story of Ishtar into a painting, but he would shudder to imagine the real Ishtar who eluded his brushstrokes.) This “Other” emerges as a threat only after it has passed through the ears of Rousseau, of Schiller, of Weber, and finally through Hindemith’s ears to us — like a racializing game of “telephone” (a game that was once called “Chinese whispers”).

Hindemith’s Metamorphosis, then, is an object lesson in how music is inextricably bound up in the political conditions of its creation. Is it possible, as a composer, to connect your music to the past in just one specific way, and to scrub away all other traces of intervening history? Is it possible to write music based on a theme penned by a composer as monolithic as Haydn, without calling attention to a Bloomian “anxiety of influence”? Can the genealogy of a melody, or of a myth, be wiped away to create a clean musical slate to work on? We listen to Variations on a Theme by Haydn, though, whose theme has nothing to do with Haydn, and we suspect the answer is “no.”

— Notes by Andrew Malilay White Ph.D. Student in Music