Day Seventeen: Centre Pompidou

While the morning was spent watching Code Unknown, a film I unfortunately couldn't tell you very much about at all, the afternoon was spent at the Centre Pompidou, Paris's modern art museum.  I will admit that I didn't think I would be at all interested in the museum, as we never studied much modern art in school (surrealism, but that's it), but I managed to have a good time.

I guess I'll start out with the depressing part first to get it out of the way.  They're doing an exhibit called "elles @ pompidou" (dedicated to women artists, who get virtually no credit in the art world...or any other world for that matter, as the exhibit showed me), which was good to see.  And yet, if you have to distinctly create an exhibit dedicated to women because otherwise there's not enough by women artists in the museum...that's not good.

And then at the end of the exhibit, they had this poster in English.  I don't really want to describe it so I'll just post pictures.

And no one actually cares about those months.

This poster put me into an existential crisis for a few days.

But I'll end on an extremely high note, if one can appreciate it.  My absolute favorite moment was this:  we were getting into the surrealist section of the museum, and as the tour guide gave a lecture on a sculpture in the room I thought I heard the violin part of one of my favorite pieces of all time, "Liebestod" from Wagner's Tristan and Isolde.  

The song is the opera's conclusion, and (spoiler alert!) Tristan has just died in Isolde's arms.  The song begins with her denial of his death, a love song describing his physical features.  Even then you can hear the tinges of insanity that are about to explode in Isolde's mind.  And while her song is strangely beautiful and one of the most emotionally affecting in all of Western music, the orchestral accompaniment is the truly powerful element.  The strings first have an ascending, agitating  and chromatic line, crescendoing finally until Isolde goes completely insane and eventually dies of grief.  The piece's climax is one unmatched, and if you haven't ever heard it, please do; it's wonderful and it's heartbreaking and it's insane.  (Can be found here; watch the whole thing for full effect.)

I tell you all this because I did indeed hear the violin part in the museum, and when I turned around I saw an avant garde film of Salvador Dali playing.  Just hearing "Liebestod" and seeing the inital second of his film I was instantly moved.  So the strings are building to this incredible climax, and the film is crosscutting between two lovers and an orchestra playing the piece.  And when the piece finally reaches its climax--the moment in the opera where Isolde is the most heart-wrenchingly insane--the conductor stops conducting, for he has gone insane; he clutches his head and does John Cleese's "silly walk" into the other storyline. 

I love, love, love Dali for this musical connection.  I fortunately started video recording at exactly the right time, so I have it on my computer if anyone's interested.

Walking total:  6.6 miles.