Exhibition Margaret MacDonald

There is a big exhibition of Rennie Macintosh's work at the Huntarian Glasgow. I am a great admirer of his work and it was devastating about the Glasgow Art school fire this year.

His wife Margaret MacDonald, I probably admire her work even more - and her exhibition is away in Helensburgh. I've been writing on women artists recently - and they are usually treated as second class or ignored and hidden away. I notice too how often female artists are referred to as - collaborating with their partners, or being painted by them - when the reality is that these women artists were strong independent artists in their own right.

Margaret influenced the wonderful Austrian artist Klimt and others.

Macintosh credited her with being an important part of his figurative and symbolic interior designs. "Remember, you are half if not four-quarters of all my architectural...Margaret has genius, I have only talent."

Margaret MacDonald, (1864 Scotland) She was celebrated for her panels in Glasgow's famous Willow Tearooms - The May Queen, and Oh ye, all ye that walk in Willowood. Along with her husband Rennie Macintosh and Herbert MacNair, she was one of the most influential members of the collective known as the Glasgow Four. She exhibited with Mackintosh at the 1900 Vienna Secession, where she was an influence on the Secessionists Gustav Klimt and Josef Hoffmann.

Pianist Alfred Brendel Edinburgh International Book Festival 2013

Alfred Brendel

Alfred Brendel, Austrian pianist, gave a charming and knowledgeable talk about his new book the Pianist Bible with Jonathan Mills, composer and pianist and director of the Edinburgh International Festival, and co-author Michael Morley  at Edinburgh International Book Festival 2013. 

Firstly Brendel and co-author Michael Morley read excepts from his new book a Pianist’s Bible – with chapters on Emotion, Notation, Fantasy, Art and Artists, Humour, Wit and Wisdom.  

The talk really became interesting when the audience gave requests and questions. 

One member asked about his favourite recording by Brendel, which he said was Schubert played with the Cleveland Quartet. He thought this recording was so together and he wondered how older European players matched younger American players. 

Brendel said his favourite composers were Bach, Handel, Hadyn and Schubert. He said that great piano music was composed for ensembles. Someone asked him was it about playing with feeling OR in time – to which he replied it was about ‘feeling in time’!

He said that the piano had the biggest solo repertoire. As the piano is more complex to learn than other instruments such as violin or wind instruments, it therefore takes longer to reach the peak of performance, usually between 40 and 60.   

Brendel said the biggest influence on his music was great conductors and great singers. He said it was necessary to turn the piano into the orchestra and to understand the ebb and flow between the genres and to control the rhythm and nuances.

Jonathan Mills

And here is Brendel playing Schubert.... wow - http://www.youtube.com/alfredbrendel

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Goa Xingjian

Goa is from China, after speaking out against the cultural revolution he now lives in exile in France, in his Second Life.  As happened in Russia after this country's revolution, the 'free thinkers' and the creative people have had to flee China.  He is a writer, poet, playwright and painter and I went to his talk this August at the Edinburgh International Book Festival 2011.

 

Goa discussed his views on the differences between the artistic genres and the aesthetics of the different art forms - he spoke of how painting is not literary, theatre is not literal, and the art of the narrative. He said that Literature has suffered from political interventions and it can subjugate literature when authors submit to politics. That globalization imposes also. 

He talked of the necessity for literature to confront experience. Of how we don't understand 'Evil' and the 'Nazi' experience and how history could easily repeat itself. That people 'like to be led' as it is the easy way and how important 'independence' of Thought' is. 

Gao had a deep serenity and calmness about him.  His paintings are very good and they lead the eye on mystical journeys. He talked of setting aside months to paint when he barely reads at all - because image and painting must come direct (without words). When he paints he listens to music and he feels that painting is beyond words.

Gao describes himself as a 'total artist' - creating novels, short stories, essays, plays, paintings and film.  His 'Ballad Nocturne'  continues his ongoing experimentation with dissolving and redefining artistic boundaries, and with melding aesthetic forms.