Conversations with Helene Grimaud or through the mystery flower Part Two, said Princess Haiku

photo credit


Every great artist inspires love, devotion and awakening of true self as does the pianist, Helene Grimaud. I visited her guest book on her web site at Deutschgrammophon and spent a long time perusing her messages.

These intimate conversations with Helene Grimaud, left anonymously by her fans touched my heart. They were a fascinating and poetic outpouring of love, spiritual confession, appreciation and devotion. You can read the original article here and below you will find more of the letters.

I hope that you enjoy them.
Princess Haiku


Conversations with Helene Grimaud:



etude
Atlanta
03-10-2006

My Dear Helene,

I have loved music since I was a young boy. I used to stand transfixed in the driveway next to my parent's house and listen to the pianist next door play Chopin, De Falla and Rachmaninoff. When she practiced I stood as still as a statue. The music wrapped me in enchantment. Since then music has been the most precious thing in my life.

I love all of the great composers but Sergei Rachmaninoff is my favorite. In 1959 I was fortunate enough to visit with one of the master's daughters, Tatiana at Villa Senar. that afternoon, August 16, 1959 will always live in my memory. the high point came when upon entering the music room where the Rhapsody, Corelli Variations and the Third Symphony were composed, Tatiana asked me to play his piano. I was stunned by the gesture but politely refused.

This is where you come in for were I you, I would have thanked her by playing her father's music, Chopin and perhaps some Bach or Beethoven. Only you among modern pianists could have done this precious moment complete justice!

I know that Michael Pletnev has recorded on this piano in his "Homage to Rachmaninoff" disc, but you would be my choice it it were possible to live that afternoon over. I would like you to know that Tatiana gave me a small branch of her father's favorite tree to take back to the United States with me. I went to Vahalla, New York and laid it on his his grave.

Helene, you are the most gifted pianist of our generation. I feel myself lucky to have heard you play the Rachmaninoff Second Concerto one year ago in Philadelphia, and I will be in Baltimore for your recital on November 5th. As I told you last year, your Chopin Second Sonata is the best interpretation since Rachmaninoff himself. May all the blessings of the universe be yours. Be well and continue your life in the service of music and our fellow creatures.

With highest regards and much love,
Professor Emeritus...

03-10-2006





Beau
Belgium
01-07-2006

Dear Helene,

I am not a pianist but a guitarist who is a fan of the Beatles and rock music. I recently heard one of your cds and it was a revelation; I even started crying. I asked if you were a human being or an angel? I fear the violence that we must all endure in this world. When I listen to your music, this fear turns into a sense of peace. Thank you for that amazing feeling. If you're a human being then it reassures me to know that there are people full of sensitivity and love. If you are an angel then thank you for coming to earth.



Jake
Amsterdam
03-23-2005

Dear Helene,

At the risk of being redundant I add myself to your thousands of fans that have no choice but to communicate with you in this one-way manner. I want to thank you for all of your wonderful music. I Iive in Amsterdam and am sorry to see that you don't play here so often. I saw you once in the summer of 2003 and then summer 0f 2004 you were unwell. It's a hard world for passionate beings!

Aller Beste Toegewenst



Marie
USA
03-23-2005

Hello Helene,

I bought your new CD today and it outstanding!

Is there a symbolic message in that there is a picture of you at a subway station and another picture of you next to an empty rail track?



Michel
France
02-05-2005

"Only silence remains"




PrincePeterofNewYork
USA
09-13-2008

Je t'ecoute de tout mon coeur,
At the last Night Prom at Royal Albert Hall,
You are a truly brilliantly shining star,
More beautiful than the Seven Sisters of the Pleiades.

Yoshitoshi's Strange Tales

The Asian Art Museum, in San Francisco is sponsoring an extraordinary collection of Yoshitoshi wood-block prints entitled "Strange Tales." The show consisted of wood-block prints of Yoshitoshi that comprise images of the supernatural world.

As I perused the exhibition, images of dragons, demons, ghosts and warrior devils leaped from the walls in subdued glimmering colors. Because the prints are so light sensitive, the lighting in the room was subdued casting a dark amber spell. These particular wood-block prints will only be shown for a month due to their light sensitivity and different ones will be hung for the second month of the exhibition. It was a privilege and honor to be able to see these delicate masterpieces.

What was apparent to me was the struggle that, Yoshitoshi had known in his life. Several of these images were painted by him when he was mentally and physically devastated due to unrelenting poverty. One in particular held me spellbound by its sheer mastery of human pain and transcendence via watery realms. This is the wood-block print of the boy riding the fish featured on the flags inside the Museum. When I stood before this print, the suffering of Yoshitoshi was made visceral in the form of the fish, upon which the youth plunged into the symbolic depths of sea and wave.

When you think about the international art world; the sophistication, the money, the power and privilege levied by those who own and broker great art, it is easy to forget what creates it. It is born of blood and tears that mix with paint, sediments, tinctures and strokes that follow, the footsteps of those who sacrifice their lives to serve art.

Great art is rarely trendy in its lifetime. It isn't born "uptown" in glittering high heels and arched feet, but in neighborhoods and terrains of those who struggle. In San Francisco the next generation of great artists are gone because unless they are born with trust funds or have high tech jobs they can't afford to live there. As I left the museum I observed some moments of silence for the gift of Yoshitoshi's alchemy.

Princess Haiku visits the Asian Art Museum

If you live near or are visiting San Francisco, the The Asian Art American Museum is having a fabulous new Show.

Yoshitoshi's Strange Tales: Woodblock Prints from Edo to Meiji
May 26–September 2, 2007
Hambrecht Gallery

Features a hundred prints by Taiso Yoshitoshi (1839–1892) dating from the turbulent last decades of Edo Japan to the westernizing Meiji era. The exhibition is built around two series that deal with the supernatural, one from the beginning of Yoshitoshi’s career, the other from the end—stylistically so different that they could be by different artists. Sometimes considered ancestors of modern manga (Japanese comics), woodblock prints were known as ukiyo-e, pictures of the “floating world” of entertainment, especially of actors and courtesans. Yoshitoshi preferred other subjects, including events from folklore and history, often bloody. Colors are intense, gestures histrionic. In his later designs Yoshitoshi moved beyond the swirl of momentous events to portray human emotions with great psychological subtlety, which is his most important contribution to ukiyo-e. Through his work, a picture emerges of traditional Japanese society moving at a breakneck speed into the modern world.