“Fuck Wagner” can easily be mistaken for just another provocative song. It is provocative. Thought-provoking. It addresses nothing less than a question almost as old as time: Do art and artist form a firm unity, or can they be separated? And there’s more to it than meets the eye, especially when it comes to Wagner, one of Germany’s most treasured antisemites, the pompous composer, who has been religiously admired by Hitler and some of today’s cultural elites alike.
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Author Archives: Katharina
The Gonz That Saved Christmas
It took me one year to write about this album. When “A Very Chilly Christmas” came out, I was simply too overwhelmed with emotions. When I say I love Christmas music, don’t imagine an American tourist accent, but rather an R’n’B type timbre. 9 years ago, Andrew and I (together we are “SoloGonzales”) compiled a wish list of favourite things from our favourite artist. One of them said “A Christmas album”. So when he actually did it, its beauty blew me away – and the fact that Gonz saved Christmas (music). Continue reading
Burning Men: Chilly Gonzales, Malakoff Kowalski, and Igor Levit
When the hair on your arm is in a state of permanent erection and your eyes become instantly wet, you know you’re experiencing something extraordinary. In this case, it was the ménage à trois of some of the greatest piano artists of our time at the prestigious Rheingau Musik Festival: Chilly Gonzales, the fierce musical polymath, Igor Levit, the courageous classical interpreter, and the epitome of lyrical, Malakoff Kowalski. Continue reading
Orinoco Runs Deep
“Enya: A Treatise on Unguilty Pleasures” – review and reflection
It’s been almost 9 months now, since the virus has turned the world upside down. Time, in which Chilly Gonzales birthed a song with Gary Barlow called “Oh What a Day” (alongside Barry Manilow on the same album), recorded a Christmas album and wrote a book about Enya. Some people would call every single element of each “bad taste” initially. Why? Because what we wear, like and listen to is a form of social demarcation. Take the typical hipster as an example: “somebody trying too hard to be different by rejecting anything that is deemed popular. [...] hipsters aren’t actually different at all, they’re just people that are snobbier and more annoying about their taste in ‘alternative’ things, which are all popular now thanks to the other hipsters.” (Urban Dictionary) The hipster is the extreme representation of a trap we fall prey to in different forms when we transition from innocent, uninfluenced children to beings who have learned about effect, reaction and manipulation. In an attempt to be cool, more distinct and outclass others, we deny things we actually love, and intellectually adopt what we think we should like. We foster those well-groomed pets in the rational chamber of our brains and cage the wild spirits that once lived in our souls and nurtured our emotions in the forbidden “guilt box”. The book is a plea to rerelease our authentic, pre-adolescent, guilt-free selves – or rather that’s the afflatus I draw from it. Continue reading
Solo Piano III: A Triad of Life
Tomorrow is the day we have all been waiting for: Solo Piano III will finally be here. Fortunately, we were at the premiere in Geneva. Unfortunately, Gonzo didn’t play the full album – however: Fortunately, the few pieces made my soul rejoice. Unfortunately, the Ostinato made me aware I’ll never ever reach heavenly Aretha’s voice. Fortunately, Gonzo gone Beast for a minute, played the drums like the most freakin’ Muppet. Unfortunately, my amateur rhymes are just a rapper’s spit turned into foam. Fortunately, this idea here killed the white paper syndrome. Unfortunately, “Fortunately, Unfortunately” was the first and only “Soft Power” song he played live in ages. Fortunately, it’s a (re-)start – those pieces belong to the stages.
I know this sounds much better in its original form, but it expresses what the whole concert made obvious: Gonzo embraces his whole oeuvre like never before. The upcoming album is not only a sign of the times, but a statement from a musical humanist.
Room 29 Premiere: The World in a Hotel Room
Reflections on Perceptions and Projections
We are in Hollywood. At one of the probably most legendary hotels of the world. The Chateau Marmont. People famous and ordinary have come here for decades to escape, take drugs, love, hide, fuck, destruct or even kill themselves. A vanishing beauty, whose charm has survived, but whose facade fades. Zoom into Room 29, where Chilly Gonzales makes the piano, which has been there for decades, tell the tales of times long passed, and where Jarvis Cocker translates tunes into deeply resonating words – into a reflection on perception. We are at the stage and album premiere of contemporary song cycle Room 29 at Hamburg’s Kampnagel.
Gonz’ Summit: Swiss Bliss in Lucerne
I’ve been heavily addicted to Chilly Gonzales’ music for almost ten years now. It’s my mood booster, pain killer, soul balm and sometimes it just triggers the sweet state of melancholia. If I lived in the US, they would have probably tried to make me go to rehab. I’m glad I’ve stuck to this drug, because its quality has never been better, its taste has never been more well-rounded and the effect has never been more immediate, long-lasting and impactful than today. And I have proof for this assertion: If you manage not only to sell out a concert hall like beautifully purist KKL in Lucerne, but also to make people jump off their seats and honor your performance with standing ovations in the middle of a show, you have finally made it. Even more, if that happens in Switzerland – Zwingliland! Continue reading
The Shadow: A Modern Incarnation Story
As the old story goes, was the word in the beginning. Then God created day and night, and divided the light from the darkness – or the light from the shadow. It is also the word, “logos”, that disturbs Faust in the famous study scene and it is a shadow, that has turned into a man, turning the proverb “a man, a word” into “a man, a shadow”. The Bible, Faust, Narcissus, Freud and many more influences emulsify in Hans Christian Andersen’s dark fairy tale “The Shadow” that Chilly Gonzales and his long-time friend and cohort Adam Traynor have brought on stage as an amalgamation of a live silent movie and a paper cut come alive. After the premiere at Hamburg’s Kampnagel, it is part of Schauspiel Köln’s repertoire until October. Continue reading
The Sorcerer’s Apprentices – Berlin Edition
Chilly Gonzales fans are passionate people. They either run a website dedicated to his works, apply for a lesson by the Maestro himself with incredibly witty and funny videos, or they start playing the piano – just because they love his pieces so much. Others queue for hours to enter Kulturkaufhaus Dussmann in Berlin and witness his Masterclass. In the end, only 200 make it inside. While waiting, one of them stated something obvious, yet easy to be forgotten: “He sells out Europe’s concert halls – it is special to be part of something that intimate tonight.” Continue reading
We are Europe – Chilly Gonzales Shakes the Old World
Europeans hardly see themselves as citizens of one nation. They consider themselves inhabitants of several independent countries pooled by an alliance of convenience, or worse: necessary evil. Even more in “our” times, when the EU is in danger, fighting monetary threats. On one hand, people benefit from open borders, and on the other, they seem to be more aware of the differences than of what unites us and the rich cultural heritage. Maybe it’s the lack of a common language; a European Esperanto. Yet, it’s the words of a Canadian that strikes a chord, and might bring some remedy for the sore EU citizen – especially the German soul. In an interview with renowned radio station Deutsche Welle he states: “I firmly believe that Europe is one land and Germany an important province of this land.” Continue reading