Versindaba
~ ‘n Kollektiewe weblog vir die Afrikaanse digkuns ~

Dimitri Sjostakowitsj se 24 Preludes en Fugas is myns insiens een van die wonderwerke van die 20ste-eeuse klaviermusiek. Dis ‘n epiese kopknip in die rigting van J.S. Bach se Das Wohltemperirte Clavier, maar dis ook ‘n idiosinkratiese, inspirerende weefwerk van allerlei invloede en musikale verwysings: Russies, Joods, modernisties, tradisioneel, jazz, aangebied in ‘n veelheid van stemme en aksente wat wissel tussen kompleks en kinderlik eenvoudig, voorbedag en improviserend, sarkasties en teer, speels en morbied. Om na die hele siklus te luister is ‘n sublieme ervaring wat (soos die 15 strykkwartette) Sjostakowitsj op sy beste verteenwoordig. ‘n Siklus waarna ‘n mens telkemale kan terugkeer; musiek vir alle seisoene.

Daar is ‘n hele paar legendariese opnames van die 24 Preludes en Fugas op die mark. Vladimir Ashkenazy en Keith Jarrett se opnames is met reg beroemd, en beide is ook nog geredelik beskikbaar (Jarrett s’n is die opname wat ek meestal in Suid-Afrikaanse musiekwinkels op die rak sien). Die talentvolle jong Konstantin Scherbakov het ‘n opname vir Naxos gemaak wat ook baie goeie resensies ontlok het. Maar die Preludes en Fugas is vir baie dekades al sinoniem met die Russiese pianis Tatiana Nikolayeva. Die rede hiervoor is eerstens omdat Sjostakowitsj die werk vir haar (of met haar in gedagte) gekomponeer het. Tweedens is dit omdat haar interpretasies werklik besonders is. Sy het etlike opnames van die werk gemaak – die opname waarna ek luister is in 1991 deur Hyperion uitgereik. Dit is een van daardie CD’s waar die uitwys van tegniese foute nie saak maak nie. Die uitvoering is tot so ‘n mate deurstraal van musikale aanvoeling vir en emosionele meelewing met die komponis en sy musikale strewes dat haar interpretasie amper bepalend is. Jy vra jouself: is dit vir enige pianis nodig, en selfs moontlik, om na Ashkenazy, Jarrett, en veral Nikolayeva, nog iets vars tot ons waardering van hierdie werk toe te voeg? 

Ek het nie so gedink nie. En tog was een van die beste CD’s wat ek die afgelope jaar gekoop het juis ‘n opname van Sjostakowitsj se 24 Preludes en Fugas. Die pianis wat dit reggekry het om hierdie werk opnuut vars, dringend en musikaal onmisbaar te maak, is Alexander Melnikov (geb. 1973). Die opname is in 2010 deur Harmonia Mundi uitgereik. Melnikov is een van daardie musikante wat ‘n intelligente, analitiese ingesteldheid gemaklik versoen met ‘n digterlike, sielvolle aanslag. Sy opname van die Sjostakowitsj het met reg onlangs die BBC Music Magazine se toekenning vir beste instrumentele opname van die jaar 2011 gewen. 

Ek sal nooit ophou om na Nikolayeva se opname te luister nie, maar Melnikov, sonder om enigsins radikaal af te wyk van haar intepretasie, het dit reggekry om die werk sy eie te maak — hy gee ons ‘n Sjostakowitsj vir die 21ste eeu.

Coope, Boyes & Simpson is ‘n Britse a capella-groep wat meestal volksmusiek (sogenaamde roots-musiek) sing, veral uit die Keltiese tradisie. Met die lees van nuus vanoggend oor verdere oproer in Londen, kon ek nie help om aan hierdie groep se aangrypende liedjie, ‘Jerusalem Revisited’ (geskryf deur Jim Boyes), te dink nie. Dit is maklik om hierdie soort geweld te verindividualiseer en selfs te ‘versielkundig’: om Britse jeugdiges en hulle ouers te patologiseer sonder om na die maatskaplike en ekonomiese besluite te kyk wat vervreemding en anomie in die hand werk. Bestaande vorme van maatskaplike ellende word net vererger deur politiek-ekonomiese regimes wat allerlei jeugdienste en –sentra op dikwels siniese wyse verder afskaal – as deel van ‘neo-liberalisering’, ‘rasionalisering’ en ‘besparing’. Asof daar nie alternatiewe is nie. Margaret Thatcher (een van die argitekte van politieke koelbloedigheid en ekonomiese geweld in ons era; waarom hou Afrikaners tog so baie van haar?!)  het mos gesê daar is nie iets soos ‘society’ (samelewing, gemeenskap) nie, net individue en gesinne. Nou ja, as dit jou uitgangspunt is, moet jy nie verbaas wees as wetteloosheid, woede en geweld jou voorland is nie. As jou stede dwaalplekke vir wolwe word nie. Coope, Boyes & Simpson se liedjie is analise, aanklag en visioen. Dit herinner ons van die knusse middelklasse om nie te val vir elitêre retoriek wat die eintlike slagoffers van maatskaplike geweld vir die disintegrasie van ons wêrelde blameer nie.      

*

Jerusalem Revisited – deur Jim Boyes

Out there on a doomed estate

A house is burning down

Another island in a wasteland

Another blackspot in the town

In a homeland for the homeless

Live the scroungers of the land

Stealing anything of value

For a little ‘Cash in hand’

Out there by the petrol station

Someone’s stalking with a gun

Head full of jagged images

Somebody’s crazy mixed up son

Out there someone gives the order

Shoot to kill the little swine

We’ve got to have some law and order

In this land of iniquity and crime

And we tried to build Jerusalem

Upon this island shore

But it seems that we’ve forgotten what it’s for

Meanwhile in the city

A jewelled finger clicks

Another zero in a total

A quick financial fix

Meanwhile at the scrapyard

Another supplementary wage

Another monument to money

Another symptom of the age

And as they close another factory

And reposses another home

As they cut another budget

Another splinter off the bone

As they waste another billion

Propping up a lost empire

There are clouds on the horizon

And the future’s in the fire

And what could have been Jerusalem

Is rotten to the core

Is it Dark Satanic Mills for evermore?

And did those feet in Ancient time

Walk on England’s mountains green

And the Holy Lamb was sacrificed

On every foreign field

Was it all a vain delusion

Built on centuries of war

Now all around’s confusion

And the beggar’s at your door

And they try to say Jerusalem’s

Forever passed away

But tomorrow always brings another day

Bring back the voice of burning gold

Stifle the Silver Tongues with fire

We’ll join our hands across the world

To reclaim what we most desire

We shall not cease from mental strife

For Unity is our demand

And bound together we will rise

To make this Earth a promised land

On Death, Without Exaggeration - deur Wislawa Szymborska

It can’t take a joke,
find a star, make a bridge.
It knows nothing about weaving, mining, farming,
building ships, or baking cakes.

In our planning for tomorrow,
it has the final word,
which is always beside the point.

It can’t even get the things done
that are part of its trade:
dig a grave,
make a coffin,
clean up after itself.

Preoccupied with killing,
it does the job awkwardly,
without system or skill.
As though each of us were its first kill. 

Oh, it has its triumphs,
but look at its countless defeats,
missed blows,
and repeat attempts!

Sometimes it isn’t strong enough
to swat a fly from the air.
Many are the caterpillars
that have outcrawled it.

All those bulbs, pods,
tentacles, fins, tracheae,
nuptial plumage, and winter fur
show that it has fallen behind
with its halfhearted work.

Ill will won’t help
and even our lending a hand with wars and coups d’etat
is so far not enough.

Hearts beat inside eggs.
Babies’ skeletons grow.
Seeds, hard at work, sprout their first tiny pair of leaves
and sometimes even tall trees fall away.

Whoever claims that it’s omnipotent
is himself living proof
that it’s not.

There’s no life
that couldn’t be immortal
if only for a moment.

Death
always arrives by that very moment too late.

In vain it tugs at the knob
of the invisible door.
As far as you’ve come
can’t be undone.

Nat, koue Vrydag in Stellenbosch. Ek sit en blaai deur digbundels. Hierdie een is vir baie jare al ‘n gunsteling…

A Confession, deur Czeslaw Milosz

My Lord, I loved strawberry jam
And the dark sweetness of a woman’s body.
Also well-chilled vodka, herring in olive oil,
Scents, of cinnamon, of cloves.
So what kind of prophet am I? Why should the spirit
Have visited such a man? Many others
Were justly called, and trustworthy.
Who would have trusted me? For they saw
How I empty glasses, throw myself on food,
And glance greedily at the waitress’s neck.
Flawed and aware of it. Desiring greatness,
Able to recognise greatness wherever it is,
And yet not quite, only in part, clairvoyant,
I knew what was left for smaller men like me:
A feast of brief hopes, a rally of the proud,
A tournament of hunchbacks, literature.

Ons hotel was in Egnatia, Thessaloniki se besigste straat. Ek het hierdie foto een aand net voor donker van die balkon af geneem. Dit was kort voor ons vertrek uit die stad. Ek wou my tydelike uitsig op ‘n manier bewaar. Dit gebeur so min dat ek nuwe uitsigte het, en genoeg tyd gegun word om aan hulle gewoond te raak…

Ek probeer myself vanaand, ‘n koue, sopnat aand in Stellenbosch, op daardie balkon onthou — iets van wat ek gevoel het, gedink het, gehoor het, geruik het, moet tog nog agterhaalbaar wees, lewendiger as ‘n foto? Waarom anders reis ‘n mens tog? Maar al waaraan ek om een of ander rede vanaand kan dink, is hierdie lieflike gedig van die Kubaanse digter Heberto Padilla:

Man on the Edge – deur Heberto Padilla

He is not the man who goes over the wall,

feeling himself enclosed by his times,

nor is he the fugitive breathing hard

hidden in the back of a truck

fleeing from the terrorists,

nor is he the poor guy with the canceled passport

who is always trying to cross a new border.

He lives on this side of heroics

– in that dark part –

but never gets rattled or surprised.

He does not want to be a hero,

not even a romantic

around whom we might

weave a legend.

He is sentenced to this life, and, what terrifies him more,

condemned irretrievably to his own time.

He is headless at two in the morning,

going from one room to another

like an enormous wind

which barely survives in the wind outside.

Every morning he begins again

as if he were an Italian actor.

He stops dead

as if someone has just stolen his being.

No looking glass would dare reflect

this fallen mouth, this wisdom gone bankrupt.

Een van die groot skilders van ons tyd, Lucian Freud, is vandag oorlede. Hy was 88. Hier is een van sy skilderye:

Die groot Turkse digter, Nazim Hikmet, is in Thessaloniki gebore — toe hierdie stad nog deel was van die Ottomaanse Ryk. Ek het die afgelope paar weke met ‘n kopie van Hikmet se Selected Poems, in Engelse vertaling, in my rugsak rondgeloop en hom gereeld gelees. Teen die agtergrond van die politieke en ekonomiese krisisse in Griekeland, en die vele protesoptogte wat gedurende my kort verblyf in Hikmet se geboortestad plaasgevind het (die woede, die desperaatheid van veral die werkers en die armes), is hierdie gedig nog net so relevant, nog net so ‘n aanklag, as wat dit was toe dit dekades gelede geskryf is: 

* 

A Sad State of Freedom – deur Nazim Hikmet

You waste the attention of your eyes,
the glittering labour of your hands,
and knead the dough enough for dozens of loaves
of which you’ll taste not a morsel;
you are free to slave for others –
you are free to make the rich richer.

The moment you’re born
they plant around you
mills that grind lies
lies to last you a lifetime.
You keep thinking in your great freedom
a finger on your temple
free to have a free conscience.

Your head bent as if half-cut from the nape,
your arms long, hanging,
your saunter about in your great freedom:
you’re free
with the freedom of being unemployed.

You love your country
as the nearest, most precious thing to you.
But one day, for example,
they may endorse it over to America,
and you, too, with your great freedom –
you have the freedom to become an air-base.

You may proclaim that one must live
not as a tool, a number or a link
but as a human being –
then at once they handcuff your wrists.
You are free to be arrested, imprisoned
and even hanged.

There’s neither an iron, wooden
nor a tulle curtain
in your life;
there’s no need to choose freedom:
you are free.
But this kind of freedom
is a sad affair under the stars.

Terug in Stellenbosch na drie weke in Thessaloniki en Istanboel. Die een stad is in Griekeland, die ander een in Turkye. Deesdae. In beide stede word jy egter heeldag gekonfronteer met geskiedenisse en lewende praktyke wat hierdie genasionaliseerde onderskeid, en dalk die idee van die nasie-staat as sodanig, amper ‘quaint’ laat lyk. ‘n Onlangse politieke affektasie. ‘n Verbygaande aanwensel.

En in elk geval, Thessaloniki is maar eers in 1913 deur moderne Griekeland geannekseer. Vir baie eeue voor dit was Thessaloniki naas Istanboel (voorheen Konstantinopel) een van die belangrikste stede van eers die Bisantynse en daarna die Ottomaanse ryk. Twee van die twintigste eeu se mees ikoniese Turke, die staatsman Mustafa Atatürk en die digter Nazim Hikmet, was boonop in Thessaloniki gebore.

Beide hierdie stede weerspreek (dikwels teen die sin van hulle heersende elites!) die idee dat homogeniteit, monotaligheid en ander vorme van ’suiwerheid’ ‘n natuurlike en standhoudende kulturele en politieke staat is; en dat hibriditeit net ‘n modieuse, verbygaande slagspreuk is.

In Thessaloniki bestaan die ou moskees immers nog steeds soos paddastoele in die skaduwee van die woonstelblokke — die Arabiese inskripsies op die mure is verbleik maar nogtans sigbaar. In Istanboel kan jy Christelike ikone en muuskilderye bewonder in kerke wat later moskees geword het. En so kan ‘n mens aangaan: suiwerheid is ‘n illusie, en boonop een wat die werklikheid van kruisbestuiwing en beweging net vir ‘n paar dekades lank kon fnuik.

Beide stede word vandag opnuut gediversifiseer en verander deur nuwe aankomelinge — migrante en vlugtelinge uit die Midde-Ooste, uit Afrika, uit Oos-Europa. Deur besigheidsmense en toeriste. Ons ervaar iets van die glorie van hierdie stede in hulle bouvalle en murasies. Waarom dan die tyd wil stol?

Hierdie een lees nie so lekker nie, jy moet hom eerder sing. Gebruik sommer die deuntjie wat tydens die skryf deur my kop galop het, Bob Dylan se “Dirt Road Blues”, van die album Time out of Mind. Dit is in elk geval ‘n amper generiese blues ‘riff’, waarskynlik ‘n variasie op iets wat Dylan iewers gehoor het. Terloops, ek het die liriek op ‘n keer vir Loftus Marais gewys. Hy het sy kop meewarig geskud en gesê die verwysing na die blomme in die voorlaaste strofe is gewoon ontoelaatbaar in ‘n hedendaagse Afrikaanse gedig. Hy is natuurlik heeltemal reg.

***

stofpad

.

ek draf met die stofpad langs totdat ek jou sien

ja ek draf met die stofpad langs totdat ek jou sien

o ek draf met die stofpad langs

my hart raas soos ‘n blik kantien

.

jy het my hart gebreek in sewe stukke niks

ja jy het my hart gebreek in sewe stukke niks

o my hart het jy gebreek

my asem jaag in my keel ek is onfiks

.

ek staan op die bult en kyk uit oor die vallei

ja ek staan op die bult en kyk uit oor die vallei

die wolke bo dreig om te val

ek hoop om vanaand nog ‘n lift te kry

.

iewers hoor ek honde blaf die boer sê staan of sterf

ja iewers hoor ek honde blaf die boer sê staan of sterf

ek moet ‘n lang en wye draai draf

maar vat jou spoor weer anderkant die werf

.

ek dra ‘n bossie blomme saam maar die son het dit verwelk

ja ek dra ‘n bossie blomme saam maar die son het dit verwelk

die vergeet-my-nie is vir jou my lief

al weet ek jy verkies die aronskelk

.

eendag sal ek ophou soek ek is seker dat ek sal

ja eendag sal ek ophou soek ek is seker dat ek sal

maar totdat ek eendag ophou soek

draf ek hierdie stofpad tot ek val

Edouard Glissant

Edouard Glissant is vroeër hierdie jaar oorlede.

Hy is in 1928 in Martinique gebore — net drie jaar na Frantz Fanon, wat ook in Martinique gebore is. Glissant het Fanon egter met presies 50 jaar oorleef — Fanon is al in 1961 dood, op die jeugdige ouderdom van 36.

Ons het in Suid-Afrika, en in Afrikaans, waarskynlik nog te min aandag gegee aan Glissant. As briljante digter en romansier, ja, maar ook as filosoof en teoretikus van marginaliteit, diversiteit, kreoolsheid, post-europese artikulasies van moderniteit, die post-koloniale kondisie, taal en identiteit…

Fanon het die psigiese geweld van koloniale rassisme soos min ander verwoord. Hy het die teenstrydighede en slaggate van dekolonisasie in Afrika amper profeties uitgewys. Maar hy is al in 1961 dood — hy het in ‘n ander wêreld as ons geleef.

Glissant is nie noodwendig ‘n alternatief nie (Fanon is nog glad nie irrelevant nie), maar hy is myns insiens ‘n belangrike aansluitingspunt, ‘n verdere bron van konsepte, invalshoeke, trajekte en drome, veral in die sg. “postkoloniale teorie”, ‘n tradisie “still haunted by the spectre of Europe” (Achille Mbembe).

Hier volg drie kort uittreksels uit die Engelse vertaling van Glissant se boek Poetics of Relation.

Imaginary

Thinking thought usually amounts to withdrawing into a dimensionless place in which the idea of thought alone persists. But thought in reality spaces itself out into the world. It informs the imaginary of peoples, their varied poetics, which it then transforms, meaning, in them its risk becomes realized.

Culture is the precaution of those who claim to think thought but who steer clear of its chaotic journey. Evolving cultures infer Relation, the overstepping that grounds their unity-diversity.

Thought draws the imaginary of the past: a knowledge becoming. One cannot stop it to assess it nor isolate it to transmit it. It is sharing one can never not retain, nor ever, in standing still, boast about.

Repetitions

This flood of convergences, publishing itself in the guise of the commonplace. No longer is the latter an accepted generality, suitable and dull – no longer is it deceptively obvious exploiting common sense – it is, rather, all that is relentlessly and endlessly reiterated by these encounters. On every side the idea is being relayed. When you awaken an observation, a certainty, a hope, they are already struggling somewhere, elsewhere, in another form.

Repetition, moreover, in an acknowledged form of consciousness both here and elsewhere. Relentlessly resuming something you have already said. Consenting to an infinitesimal momentum, an addition perhaps unnoticed that stubbornly persists in your knowledge.

The difficulty: to keep this growing pile of common places from ending up as dispirited grumbling – may art provide! The probability: that you come to the bottom of all confluences to mark more strongly your inspirations.

Generalization

Recognizing, imagining, Relation.
Yet another undertaking, thoroughly disguised, of universalizing generalization?
Escape, the problems at our heels?
No imagination helps avert destitution in reality, none can oppose oppressions or sustain those who “withstand” in body or spirit. But imagination changes mentalities, however slowly it may go about this.

No matter where one is, no matter how strong the force of errantry, one can hear the mounting desire to “give-on-and-with”, to discover order in chaos or at least to guess its unlikely motivation: to develop this theory that would escape generalizations.

Poetics? Precisely this double thrust, being a theory that tries to conclude, a presence that concludes (presumes) nothing. Never one without the other. That is how the instant and duration comfort us.
Every poetics is a palliative for eternity.

Ek het hierdie naweek twee goed gelees wat my weereens laat dink het aan die gesprekke wat deur Heilna du Plooy en Pieter Odendaal se onlangse bloginskrywings op loop gesit is. Die eerste is Irma du Plessis se uitstekende artikel oor studentskap en die universiteitswese in Suid-Afrika wat Saterdag in BY verskyn het. Lees dit gerus, dit is die moeite werd — soos altyd maar met Irma se intervensies die geval is.

Die tweede ding is hierdie aanhaling van Bernard Stiegler, die hedendaagse Franse filosoof van die tegniek: ‘There is no doubt that a real conflict of cultures announces itself, that is, a struggle to try and impose behavioural models, collective programs through which markets must be dominated, for that is the question hidden behind all this: an unprecedented, merciless commercial world war where digital networks are already, are at first, and will increasingly be fighting instruments for the conquest of world commerce – of the world commerce of merchandise as well as ideas.’

Dit is daardie ‘as well as ideas’ wat, in die lig van ons gesprekke, by my spook.

Vanoggend, drie dinge oor oud word — en oor ouer wordende mans spesifiek: ‘n Artikel van my oor Bob Dylan se 70ste verjaardag het gister in Rapport verskyn. Danie Marais verjaar vandag — ek sal nie sy ouderdom verklap nie, maar hy is gewis nie meer 39 nie… En Pieter Odendaal raps “die ouer garde” oor die vingers in sy jongste (!) bloginskrywing. Dus dra ek graag William Butler Yeats se “Why Should Not Old Men Be Mad?” op aan al die ou en ouerwordende mans wat hier lees! Soos Bob Dylan sing: “Time and love has branded me with its claw…”

Yeats

Nazim Hikmet

Nazim Hikmet is Turkye se beroemdste en waarskynlik belangrikste digter. Hy is in 1902 in Thessaloniki gebore, toe nog deel van die Ottomaanse Ryk (vandag is dit natuurlik deel van Griekeland). Hy was ‘n politieke aktivis (sommige verwys na hom as ‘n “romantiese kommunis” of “romantiese rewolusionêr” — beskrywings waarna elke skrywer myns insiens gerus maar kan streef!) en het lang tye in die tronk en in ballingskap deurgebring. Hy is in 1963 in Moskou oorlede. Sy wens was om onder ‘n plataanboom in enige kleindorpse begraafplaas in Anatolië tot rus te kom, maar daardie wens is tot op hede nog nie geëer nie. Sy Turkse burgerskap, wat in 1959 herroep is, is darem in 2009 herstel. Hier is een van sy pragtige gedigte in Engelse vertaling:

On Living, deur Nazim Hikmet 

I

Living is no laughing matter:
you must live with great seriousness
like a squirrel, for example–
I mean without looking for something beyond and above living,
I mean living must be your whole occupation.
Living is no laughing matter:
you must take it seriously,
so much so and to such a degree
that, for example, your hands tied behind your back,
your back to the wall,
or else in a laboratory
in your white coat and safety glasses,
you can die for people–
even for people whose faces you’ve never seen,
even though you know living
is the most real, the most beautiful thing.
I mean, you must take living so seriously
that even at seventy, for example, you’ll plant olive trees–
and not for your children, either,
but because although you fear death you don’t believe it,
because living, I mean, weighs heavier.

II

Let’s say you’re seriously ill, need surgery–
which is to say we might not get
from the white table.
Even though it’s impossible not to feel sad
about going a little too soon,
we’ll still laugh at the jokes being told,
we’ll look out the window to see it’s raining,
or still wait anxiously
for the latest newscast …
Let’s say we’re at the front–
for something worth fighting for, say.
There, in the first offensive, on that very day,
we might fall on our face, dead.
We’ll know this with a curious anger,
but we’ll still worry ourselves to death
about the outcome of the war, which could last years.
Let’s say we’re in prison
and close to fifty,
and we have eighteen more years, say,
before the iron doors will open.
We’ll still live with the outside,
with its people and animals, struggle and wind–
I mean with the outside beyond the walls.
I mean, however and wherever we are,
we must live as if we will never die.

III

This earth will grow cold,
a star among stars
and one of the smallest,
a gilded mote on blue velvet–
I mean this, our great earth.
This earth will grow cold one day,
not like a block of ice
or a dead cloud even
but like an empty walnut it will roll along
in pitch-black space …
You must grieve for this right now
–you have to feel this sorrow now–
for the world must be loved this much
if you’re going to say “I lived” …