BEWITCHING WILL. Asya Ardova in Pursuit of Deciphered Solutions.
Listen to the new soundtrack “BEWITCHING WILL (Rimsky-Korsakov, Vladigerov, Bertollotto)" performed by Asya Lazar ARDOVA. It will appear at the ardSOUND after the final reconstruction of the player, but now you may press this link and listen to it on my Soundcloud page:
UNTAMED PARADOXES OF KONSTANTIN SLUCHEVSKY.
What did it all mean for him? Symbolism was not yet so mighty that time, as it would be on the border of the 19th and 20th centuries. One of the most self-concealed and mysterious poets Konstantin Sluchevsky charms momentarily and from above (geschtalt). His verses are able to cease melancholy, affecting nearly physically, involving you into the other system of thinking – MANIFESTING LIFE!!!
Henri Evenepoel. Spaniard in Paris.
Oh, damn this night…
Konstantin SLUCHEVSKY
Translated by Asya Ardova
Oh, damn this night — so frightening and crazy:
The wind exhaling spurs of rattling hail,
Grim darkness casts, dim lanterns’ gazing,
And windows catch this light a-waiting.
While somewhere nights are full of light and glow,
And beauty of the crescent sailing low,
When stars and souls making dreams be borne,
Exciting crimson sunny dawn.
The darkness rules, but doesn’t reign everywhere –
Bewitching will, but I’ll destroy its way.
Here’s my guitar, the strings are spare,
I’ll tune the Moon; the stars shall sing the day!
They’ll come, these starry strings a-blazing,
The darker is the gloom — the brighter be the chant.
Let both hail and windy blasts get crazy —
The Nightingale’s trills resound as a Grant!!!
Yosikhiro Simoda. Blue Wind.
Bewitching Will of the Rain
Poem by Asya Ardova
Fancy, fancy! – tired rain,
Wild darkness, empty brain.
I am searching for the rhyme,
Thoughts are scattering untamed:
Should the lines I choose be lame?
Or, at least, the words get grind.
Nothing makes me unrestricted,
Nothing makes for disarray.
And I feel a bit addicted
Of this rain anyway.
SHIFTED SPACE OF THEODOR PARNICKY.
Have you ever thought about the nature of a syncope? What is it for and when did it appear? Gazing inside the centuries I tried to find pre-condition of this time-breaking device, and especially, when there are several (or some essential) quantity of them, when the ear stops feeling syncopation as an event on the even smoothness, when time is moved one tiny beat (quarter of a beat) apart from the main measure beat. Let’s investigate this phenomenon in the other arts. Does syncopation exist in poetry? Yes, it exists everywhere the time is going forward.
Medieval Latin poetry, standing between ecclesiastic one and circular classical antic Roman of passing away ages, full of natural subjects and adventures, like at Notker Balbulus (the Stammerer), Swiss historian and musician of the 9th century.
The state of syncopation is the kind of shifted space. It skips, making leaps, covers everything measured, suddenly emerging on the foreground, instantaneously felt as the substitute for the main rhythm, like some marshland.
However, syncope is felt, only when it exists relatively to stiff rhythmical base, otherwise it continues forming this new system subordinated to the SHIFTED SPACE. If after all you happened to be grasped by the new reality, that syncopation creates, do remember the initial meter with previous accents and do stop the influence of a new space.
So, let’s try to make the picture of the new realities emergence on the crest of syncopated rhythm in all possible genres.
The Polish-Jewish writer Theodor PARNICKY shows this effect of shifted space most vividly in his famous historical novel “Aetius, the last of the Romans”.
Portrait of a Young Roman man. III century BC.
The action of the novel takes place in the 5th century, at the dawn of the Western Roman Empire, when Christianity had been already the legitimized dominant religion for almost a century, while the antic Roman and Greek cults took the place of banished ones. Antic temples and statues were destroyed and remade to Christian ones, according to the New Testament’s parables. So, the excerpt, I’d like to admit here, describes the scene, when the main character Aetius comes to the antagonistic camp of his enemy, rather feisty and devout woman Galla Placidia (mother of the future emperor Valentinian III and regent of the Western Roman Empire).
Portrait of a Roman woman. IV century BC.
She is scornful, eager to humiliate Aetius, but right at the moment of her supposed victory over him, quite of a sudden Placidia understands, that her knelt enemy is laughing desperately over something, that is now taking his breath and thoughts far away from Placidia’s intrigues. What made Aetius burst into laughter at the moment, when his fate was decided?
Aetius is waiting for you! Haughty and majestic she is, her hands wrapped in large sleeves, woven with gold. Placidia passes triclinium and then enters atrium. Ten huge lanterns throw ten circles of light onto the mosaic floor, where ten wise virgins are depicted, each one carrying a lantern. One of these virgins seems to attract Aetius most of all. He can hardly stop looking at her. The great effort ─ and he raises his eyes, scrutinizing piously the real woman of flesh and blood standing in front of him. Struggle began!
As scolding Placidia breaks her monologue with praying and pondering, Aetius turns his eyes towards one of the virgins on the floor mosaic. This strange lantern in her hands, but not its flame, stained in garnet colour…Its form resembles Franconia shield, only with two holes, equidistant from the centre. Foolish was the author of mosaic, for even Aetius’ little son Carpilio knows, that hole in a lantern causes the oil to be poured out…
Aetius’ astonished glance slide towards outraged Placidia.
The lantern is crossed by triple undulating line.
-We shall summon you up in an hour, Aetius, - Placidia exclaims, reveling Aetius’ subdued state.
Aetius bows, but having approached the door threshold, he bursts into laughter. Placidia won’t ever pardon this laughter to him, never she will…
Fragment of ancient Roman mosaic floor in Zippory (Israel).
Aetius was laughing, because he managed to solve the mystery of the lantern in virgin’s hands. Of course, the mosaic had been once made as the depiction of Mnemosyne with her nine daughters – the muses. Later it was adjusted to the Christian legend of the New Testament parable of ten Virgins. Meanwhile the strange lantern had once been nothing, but a theatre mask in Melpomene’s hands.
HOW SWEET IS THE SINGING OF GYPSIES!
Kodzi Matsumara. Tsugaru ─ strolling musician.
Rhymed reflection by Asya Ardova
Ancient land, and Zoroastrian quadrille,
Praising Spider of Gold ─ the Sun!
Jets of light, emanated by Ohrmuzd,
Making wolves turn to spiders and run…
Ancient land, and the quadrille of pagans,
Praising Sun, for to warm their hearts.
They are Slavs ─ Snow Maidens and shepherds,
All around is covered with ice.
How strange is this riddle of Ohrmuzd ─
Mizgir ─ Spider-the-Wolf and shapeshifter,
He has come from the far land of flame,
To the clime of the ice and the rime.
Maid of Snow, she’s melting of passion,
He’s embracing the cloud, but in vain...
How sweet is the singing of Gypsies,
It’s imbibed with Zoroastrian sun,
Russian writers are melting with pleasure,
And the tears are ready to run.
No legend has ever existed,
Of this spectral and luminous passion,
‘Twas inspired by wonderful gypsies,
And a bit by Zoroastrian fashion…
Persian spearmen. Mosaic relief. Suza (Elam). Before 500 BC.