Peter Rodulfo's 'As the Elephant Laughed'. A Panorama of Evolution

Amongst the varied proliferation of paintings by the artist Peter Rodulfo As the Elephant Laughed is exemplary of stylistic characteristics encountered in his art. These include- sophisticated draughtsmanship and polished brush-work in conjunction with an industrious creativity and an exuberant imagination; all of which harmoniously unite in Laughing Elephant to produce a key-signature work, richly rewarding to view, and well worthy of in-depth analysis. 

Painted in oils on canvas during the winter of 2011/12, and one of his last art-works before relocating studio and home from Norwich to the coastal resort of Great Yarmouth, the foreground of Laughing Elephant (ease of reference title) features titular elephant facing a fox. Above the horizon the brilliant luminosity of a star casts its light upon a vast ocean where a large floating sea-shell supports a youth who stands in an enigmatic pose. The entire centre field of the canvas is dominated by two large, spiral-like waves which swirl and bubble with protozoan life. Two grass-tufted cliffs with homes perched precariously perched upon them frame the canvas on its left and right. The ghostly remains of a church tower, a dinosaur, along with trees caught in a breeze can also be seen, as well as an elderly woman sitting upon a sea-view bench, reflectively looking out to sea.

First impressions include a well-balanced and coordinated tonal spectrum, recollecting the saturated colours of a 1960‘s magic lantern celluloid slide, with a predominance of vivid hues of blue, a colour often linked with spirituality for its association with the sky and heaven.

The element of water in various forms is also often encountered in Rodulfo’s art, perhaps from the artist’s familiarity with the world’s seas and oceans as a well-seasoned traveller.

A good example of the artist’s meticulous attention to detail can be seen in the finely-worked detail of a nautilus-shell (top left) as well as in star-light reflected in water.

Detail  - Nautilus shell (top left)

The artist’s ability to create a multi-layered perspective is also evident, through a technical device which not only juxtaposes differing views, in this case both landscape and seascape, but also in conjunction with the paradox of day-light and night-sky appearing simultaneously.

Like much of Rodulfo’s art, the overall 'mood-music’ of  Laughing Elephant is essentially up-beat, good-humoured and optimistic, yet not without a philosophical dimension, for although measuring only 60 x 82 centimetres its jumbo-sized in artistic expression and interpretive dimension.

With its depiction of a variety of life-forms, marine and mammal, trees, flowers, stars and dinosaur, along with humankind, all seemingly caught in a swirling vortex of life, a receptive viewer is stimulated towards an awareness of their own, as well as humanity’s  relationship to Time and Space, Nature and the Universe.

The centre-field of Rodulfo’s Laughing Elephant is dominated by two large waves which whisk and swirl with protozoan life. According to the psychologist Carl Jung, the spiral is an archetypal symbol representing cosmic force and symbolic of the spiritual journey. The spiral pattern is also considered to represent the evolutionary process of learning and growing, it can be found in structures as small as the double helix of DNA and as large as a galaxy. At Newgrange in County Meath, Ireland, solar aligned tombs can be seen with complex spiral patterns. Dating from around 3000-2500 BC, these patterns decorate structures which are earlier in time than either Stonehenge or the Egyptian pyramids.

Rodulfo’s imagery is worth exploring, in particular the two pairs of contrasting mammals in his painting, namely an elephant and fox, along with the human figures of a male youth and an elderly woman.

Detail from Rodulfo's As the Elephant Laughed

With a friendly, all-knowing eye and grinning chops, Rodulfo’s elephant raises its proboscis trunk aloft, as if trumpeting in laughter, perhaps at human folly.

Almost all symbolism relating to elephants originates from the Indian sub-continent, where Rodulfo spent a portion of his childhood. In Asian cultures, the elephant is a symbol of good luck, happiness and longevity; its also famed for its memory, wisdom and  psychic qualities. In modern times, the Irish novelist John Banville remarked of elephants-

‘what amazing beasts they are, a direct link surely to a time long before our time, when behemoths even bigger than they roared and rampaged though forest and swamp. In a manner they are melancholy and yet seem covertly amused, at us, apparently...... If one set out to seek among our fellow-creatures, the land-bound ones, at least,  for our very opposite, one would surely need look no further than the elephants.  [5]

Detail from As the Elephant Laughed'

With its gorgeous russet-red fur, standing alert and looking sly facing titular elephant, the fox is invariably portrayed in world mythology and folk-lore as a cunning trickster-figure, a transgressor who breaks the rules, being at odds with humankind and living upon its wits. Yet in fact the fox shares some characteristics which are associated with humanity being- 

Independent, yet liking company, busy and inventive, yet destructive, too; bold but cowardly, alert and cunning but equally careless, the fox embodies the contradictions inherent in human nature’.[6]

Detail from  As the Elephant Laughed' 

Centre-stage in Rodulfo’s vision of evolution a mysterious youth stands astride a floating sea-shell. He’s engaged in a complex pose which involves one hand on the back of his head and another stretched out, as if shielding his eyes from being dazzled, his palm seemingly feeling the spiralling energy-field above him.

In almost all alchemical iconography the enigmatic figure of Mercurius is invariably portrayed as either mirthful and at play, or in the role of messenger and psychopomp to the gods of antiquity. Rodulfo's sea-shell figure is also a sophisticated variant upon the Renaissance artist Botticelli’s painting The Birth of Venus.

Botticelli -The Birth of Venus (c. 1486).

In stark polarity to this enigmatic, youthful figure there is an elderly woman with grey hair sitting upon a sea-view bench. She’s gazing out to sea, perhaps reminiscing memories from her past. Rodulfo here acknowledges the longevity of woman, along with the often unacknowledged power of matriarchy and of woman as the true vessel of ancestral memory.

In the German polymath Johann Goethe’s drama Faust the hero descends to the "realm of the mothers" — variously described as either the depths of the psyche or the cosmic womb.

Detail from  As the Elephant Laughed'

This pairing of figures, youth and age are identifiable  as variants upon the symbolism of puer et senex, (their technical art term), a pairing frequently encountered in Mannerist art and alchemical iconography representing Youth and Age. Together they symbolize the human life-span and Time in general.   

With its depiction of a wide variety of life-forms, manipulation of perspective in order to create depth of field, evocation of movement, featuring a complex pose, as well as inclination towards symbolism, Rodulfo’s Laughing Elephant may loosely be defined as Neo-Mannerist, for each and every one of the forenamed techniques, themes and artistic concerns associated with the art-movement of Mannerism, can also be seen in his art. Other paintings by Rodulfo which may also be defined as Neo-Mannerist in style and content include his - The Klagenfurt Altar, Across the Bay and The Visitor. 

Characteristics of the art movement of Mannerism include variety and multiplicity, unusual perspective, staged and complex poses and utilization of mythological and esoteric concepts. Mannerist art is now recognised as being highly influential upon the twentieth century art movement of Surrealism. Indeed, the early Mannerist artist Arcimboldo (1527-1593) who used fruit and flowers to create bizarre portrait paintings, was described as the “father of Surrealism” by Salvador Dali. Rodulfo also creates his own quite unique ‘double-imagery’ as well as being familiar with Mannerist art in general. In his painting Hide and Seek an elephant is featured as part of a complex 'double-image'.

Peter Rodulfo's Hide and Seek  Oils on canvas 40 x 52 cms. (2015)

A fruitful comparison in technique, imagery and overall imagination to Rodulfo’s Laughing Elephant  can be found in the Dutch Northern Mannerist artist Joachin Wtewal’s Perseus and Andromeda (1611). Painted near exact 400 years earlier than Rodulfo’s Laughing Elephant, Wtewal’s masterpiece is inspired by the ancient Greek myth of the hero Perseus rescuing Andromeda from a dragon; it also exhibits variety, a strongly developed technique, a sense of movement and vastness, unusual perspective, along with featuring a complex, almost contorted pose. 

Joachin Wtewal's Perseus and Andromeda 

A closer analogy to the thematic concerns and style to Rodulfo’s art in general can be found in the paintings of the twentieth century German artist Max Ernst (1891-1976) and the British artist Leonora Carrington (1917-2011). Briefly lovers at the onset of World War II, Ernst and Carrington utilized highly-developed techniques and artistic devices similar to those associated with Mannerist art.  Both artists also occasionally allude to esoteric and alchemical concepts in their respective paintings; and although Rodulfo himself eschews any credence whatsoever to esoteric arcarna, nevertheless casual allusions to esoteric concepts can be discerned in his art, both conscious and unconscious.  

If however any esoteric themes or imagery can be detected in Rodulfo’s art, in all probability its simply because archetypal imagery is often embedded at an unconscious level in the psyche, and therefore the artist’s own encounter with such imagery may paradoxically and simultaneously be both conscious from familiarity and also unconscious in realization.

Crucially, although Rodulfo has on occasions found Classical mythology inspiring, more often his imagery is harvested from his own, home-grown plantation of symbols, producing a rich, allusive language, capable of expressing profound psychological statements. Its an imagery language which in the case of Laughing Elephant, engages in transcendental synthesis, that is, the total sum of its parts hints of a greater vision, one of evolution and humanity’s place within it. Its also a stark reminder in essence, with its depiction of dinosaur and abundant protozoan life, that humanity is only one of nature’s innumerable life-forms alive on Earth, in the past, present and future.

Just as Mannerist art was a product of Renaissance humanism and therefore inclined towards emphasis upon  the relationship between humanity and nature - so too Neo-Mannerist art such as Rodulfo’s Laughing Elephant, expresses the same message. 

Although enjoyable purely as a colourful and fun decorative art-work, the central ‘message’ of Rodulfo’s panorama of life seems to be - all life is involved and inter-connected in evolution, from flower and tree to star and human,  individually and collectively; and as such its ‘message’ is of importance to those alive in the world today.

Part 2

As the Elephant Laughed      Click to enlarge

An increasing interest, acceptance and understanding of alchemical concepts and symbols now permits esoteric concepts to be applied, not unlike the famous melting watches of Salvador Dali, in a, ‘soft and flexible’ way, that is, without any fixed or dictator-like attitude, to works of art, including Rodulfo’s Laughing Elephant. One fruitful avenue of enquiry worthwhile strolling down in discourse upon Laughing Elephant can be found in the lyrics of the multi-media artist David Bowie (1946 - 2016). 

In addition to being a highly original song-writer and a versatile performer who was gifted enough to work in diverse musical genres for decades, David Bowie was also a voracious reader. Throughout his long, front-running career in music, Bowie found recreation in reading spiritual and esoteric literature including Christian Gnosticism, Alistair Crowley, the Kabbalah and the writings of the psychologist Carl Jung, subjects which he sometimes alluded to in his strikingly original lyrics. [7]

Like David Bowie, Peter Rodulfo’s an artist who thrives upon rapid stylistic changes, as well as being erudite whilst maintaining his independence in creative aesthetic. He is also familiar with esoteric concepts, in particular the ideas and writings of Alistair Crowley (1875-1947), a major figure in British esotericism whose present-day reputation Rodulfo accurately assesses as one of character-assassination through the prudery, prejudices and misinformation of the British tabloid press of Crowley’s day. 

David Bowie’s allusion to the ideas of C.G. Jung can be found on the  album with its word-play title, Aladdin Sane, (1973) in the song Drive-in Saturday  in the line - ‘Jung the foreman prayed at work’, a word-play allusion to Jung’s fixation upon the number four or quaternity as the number which he believed symbolizes totality and wholeness best, citing the four points of the compass, the four seasons, four elements and the Christian tetramorph among numerous examples, as expressions of totality.

Whether intentional or not, Rodulfo’s Laughing Elephant features no less than four mammals - an elephant and a fox, a youth and an elderly woman. Together the polarised figures of elephant and fox may be considered as having a relationship to the youthful figure astride a sea-shell and the elderly woman contemplating the sea, that of anthropomorphic aspects of the human psyche. All four mammals in totality form a Jungian quaternity no less; for once the polarity of the figures of youth and elderly woman are identified as symbols representing Youth and Age, (technically known as puer et senex in both Mannerist art and alchemical iconography and commonly associated with the planetary symbolism of Mercurius ei Saturnus), then the pairing of the utterly antithetical fox and elephant may also hint of planetary symbolism when explored through the prism of comparative religion and mythology. 

In Hindu mythology the elephant's thick, grey skin is likened to the latent and hidden power and strength of the sun when occulted by thick and heavy grey cloud [8]. Such symbolism is highly suggestive of the elephant's s association with the solar.

In almost all world mythology and folk-lore the fox with its nocturnal activities and changeable nature is associated with the feminine and the moon. The fox’s feminine and deceptive qualities are reflected in the anima projections of  rock-music lyrics such as Jimmy Hendrix’s ‘Foxy Lady’ and Jim Morrison’s song ‘20th century Fox’ .  More recently lyrics by the brothers Mael of Sparks in their 2008 song This is the Renaissance in which there are Paintings filled with foxy women. Thus its possible to extract from Rodulfo’s Laughing Elephant a planetary quaternity consisting of Sol et Luna in conjunction with the pairing of puer et senex (Youth and Age) which are invariably represented by the planetary opposites Mercurius et Saturnus. This planetary quaternity of two luminaries and two planetary opposites, is identical to those named in the German alchemist Michael Maier’s book of Mannerist styled emblems Atalanta Fugiens (1617). The very same quartet of planetary symbolism is allude to by the quartet of statuettes found upon the funerary monument known as the Layer monument (c. 1600, Norwich).  

Yet even in the ecstatic rubedo moment depicted, there’s a hint of a curtain ready to fall and in an instant black-out Rodulfo’s vision of the inter-connection of life, and for a cyclical return from rubedo revelation to a nigredo state of darkness, gloom and unknowingness. This return to a nigredo state is hinted by a spectral church, perhaps an allusion to the death-throes of Christianity in the 21st century, to houses perched precariously upon cliffs, and above all, by a raven seen entering in full-flight intruding into the frame. (top-right). 

Birds and avian symbolism in general often occur in the surrealist art of Max Ernst and Leonora Carrington, as well as in alchemical iconography where the black raven, dove, eagle, white swan, peacock, pelican, phoenix and vulture among others, are frequently encountered. Birds can also be seen in several of Rodulfo’s paintings, sometimes making a nuisance of themselves by playfully intruding into the frame of a well-ordered composition, quizzically eye-balling the viewer.

In the early 17th century alchemical anthology the Theatrum Chemicum  a black raven settles upon a melancholic adept under the influence of  the malefic planet, Saturn.

An Elephant in the Garden

Rodulfo’s Laughing Elephant has a remarkable affinity with another great art-work which also expresses itself in a lighthearted, optimistic and idiosyncratic, yet visionary manner, and which likewise delights in multiplicity and variety, as well as concerning itself with evolution and the inter-connectivity of life on earth, namely Sir Thomas Browne’s Discourse The Garden of Cyrus . 

Although differing in form, Browne’s hermetic discourse The Garden of Cyrus (1658) shares the same geographical place of origin to Rodulfo’s Laughing Elephant, namely the city of Norwich. Not only does it make specific reference to a wide variety of life, including those depicted in Laughing Elephant such as trees, star-fish and seas, but also elephants, Browne giving example of the quincunx pattern when used as a battle-formation which effectively 'defeated the mischief intended by the  elephants’. 

Rodulfo’s Laughing Elephant like Browne’s Garden of Cyrus, is in essence an idiosyncratic vision of the inter-connection of the cosmos. Although separated by centuries, both works of art delineate nature’s multiplicity and variety throughout the macrocosm. Crucially, both creative artists possess the necessary technical skills of their respective craft in order to construct a communicative frame-work for their vision of evolution. Rodulfo’s Laughing Elephant  like Browne’s discourse The Garden of Cyrus is a work of art which expresses an awareness and sense of wonder of the artist’s own unique place in the world, as an individual and as artist. Ultimately, both works of art engage in transcendent synthesis, that is, the total sum of their imagery and symbolism multiplies into a greater vision, one of evolution and humanity’s place within it.

Conclusion

Not only are all four elements represented in Rodulfo’s Laughing Elephant  via fish and bird, tree and star, but also imagery allusive to the Microcosm and Macrocosm, with its depiction of  the small world of humanity represented by a mercurial youth and a matriarchal senex, as well as the large and cosmic, the Macrocosm; thus it may be be interpreted as a mandala, that is, a work of art which invites contemplation, reminding and refreshing the individual of their place in the cosmos. Together, microcosm and macrocosm, in conjunction with the metaphysical framework of Space and Time, the basic template of all mandala art, can be discerned within the canvas.

The art-historian Arnold Hauser defined Mannerist art as, ‘a vision of a new spiritual content in life, with a tinge of the bizarre and the abstruse’ [8].

Hauser’s definition is applicable to Browne’s Garden of Cyrus as much as Rodulfo's Aquarian-tinted vision of evolution. Indeed, visionary art, such as both Browne's and Rodulfo's invites a receptive viewer to a cosmic ‘soul-journey’ of the imagination. As such Rodulfo’s Laughing Elephant is a canvas which is capable of producing a transcendent or numinous moment by transporting a receptive viewer from the ordinary and mundane, to a place where imagination is unconfined and to where future possibilities and unrevealed relationships are found.

K.Faulkner 2012-2016

In Memorium  David Bowie (Jan 8th 1946 - Jan 10th 2016)

Starman singer and song-writer, actor and multi-media performer.

With thanks to Krzysztof Fijalkowski

Notes

[1]  Religio Medici (1643) Part 1 Section 15
[2] Pseudodoxia Epidemica  (1646) book 7 chapter 15
[3]  Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1646) book 3 chapter 1
[4]  Miscellaneous Tract 13 Museum Clausum pictues Item 13

[5]  John Banville ‘The Sea’  pub. Picador 2010

[6] Dictionary of Symbols ed.Chevalier and Gheerbrant Penguin 1996

[7] http://tanjastark.com/2015/06/22/crashing-out-with-sylvian-david-bowie-carl-jung-and-the-unconscious/

[8]  De Gubernatis, Angelo - Zoological Mythology (Volume II)  1872. 

[9] Arnold Hauser -  Mannerism: The Crisis of the Renaissance and the Origin of Modern Art 1964 

Bibliography

Mannerism - John Shearman Penguin 1967

The Alchemy of Paint  - Spike Bucklow pub. Marion Boyars 2009 reprinted 2010 and 2012.

Arcanum 17 - Andre Breton 1945 pub. Sun and Moon 1999

See Also

Rudolfu's Mandala of Loving-Kindness

Mark Burrell: North Sea Magical Realist artist extraordinaire

Lowestoft Floods 1953

The absurdly slow and long bus-journey from Norwich to the coastal town of Southwold through the darkest interior of Suffolk, was well worth enduring for an early viewing of Mark Burrell’s latest work, currently exhibited at CraftCo, until the 28th September.  

Mark Burrell (b. 1957 Lowestoft) is an established artist who has developed his distinctive style and unique vision from decades of industrious creativity. Nationally, Burrell’s work has featured frequently on British TV. He was awarded first prize on the programme Moving Art and won the Lucy Memorial Prize at the Royal Overseas League. Internationally, he has exhibited at the Interart Gallery and the Williamsburg historical Art Centre at New York. 

Choosing to work in alkyd resins, giving his canvases a stained-glass luminescence and sometimes restricting his tonal palette in order to create a highly-charged emotional atmosphere, Burrell’s art is strongly feeling orientated. His often dark, near Gothic and sometimes disturbing art is however, not without great beauty and charm also, as is evident in his Memories of a Merry-Go-Round (below).

Burrell’s resourcefulness is such that the closely-knit community of his home-town of Lowestoft has supplied him with an abundance of artistic inspiration.His personal memories of growing up at the now long-gone Beach village, of a Lowestoft town long gone in particular, have provided him with fertile subject-matter. His artistic imagination sometimes draws upon common and personal childhood fears of a ghosts-on-the-washing-line-in-the--moonlight variety such as the Freudian terror of being told one's mother is, 'going to visit the Fish-man' (fish-shop) for example. Childhood memories and fears are prominent in his Bogey Boys.

   

Burrell's extensive back-catalogue also includes a number of  both land and seascapes. In his Lowestoft Floods 1953 (top) Burrell conjures the events of the North Sea Flood at Lowestoft. Taking a bird-eye perspective of the cataclysmic surge tide, local landmarks are featured, along with the chaos of the event. There's perhaps a nod in style in Burrell's canvas to the primitive simplicity of English art as exemplified by Stanley Spencer (1891-1959) (it was while alone in the winter of 1937, when resident in Southwold, Suffolk, that Stanley Spencer begin a series of paintings entitled The Beatitudes of Love). What's certain is that it's a work of considerable artistic imagination for Burrell was not actually born until several years after the event; however, local folk-lore recollection of the disaster in conjunction with Burrell's fertile artistic imagination and distinctive draughtsmanship, contribute to a highly-imaginative reconstruction of the effects of the 1953 North Sea storm tide upon  the east coast town of Lowestoft.

Far from viewing the world through rose-tinted spectacles, Burrell considers the world today to be a sometimes dark place. Sharing this view-point with the German artist Otto Dix (1891-1961) whom he admires, the influence of the Neue Sachlicheit (New Objectivity) artist can be discerned in his Midnight Circus, Backstage (below). 

Mark Burrell, along with fellow North Sea Magical Realist artist, Peter Rodulfo, is also receptive to the ideas of C.G.Jung (1875-1961). In particular the Swiss psychologist's essays The Spirit of Man, Art and Literature, in which the psychic processes and archetypal structures involved in artistic creativity are discussed. Jung's essays, especially On Picasso (1932), Burrell considers to contain the most perceptive of all psychological observations upon artistic creativity he's ever read. 

With words applicable to both Burrell's and Rodulfo's art, C.G. Jung declares in The Spirit of Man, Art and Literature, -

'Whoever speaks in primordial images speaks with a thousand voices; he enthrals and overpowers, while at the same time he lifts the idea he is seeking to express out of the occasional and the transitory into the realm of the ever-enduring'.

and 'All art intuitively apprehends coming changes in the collective unconsciousness'.

Its no sweeping hyperbole to state that Mark Burrell is quite simply the greatest creative artist to flourish from the coastal-town of Lowestoft since the days of the composer Benjamin Britten (1913-76). He's also of a calm, thoughtful and affable disposition in his personality. We therefore cordially wish him along with fellow North Sea Magical Realist artist Peter Rodulfo, many more years of good health and inspiration.

There's a distinctly Mark Chagall-like quality to the beautiful painting entitled Sky of Stars (above); however reproductions barely do justice to the glowing splendour of Burrell's work. Nevertheless they're worth posting, if only to inspire the reader to visit a current exhibition and view the far greater originals for themselves ! 

Links

A film about Mark Burrell

More Mark Burrell paintings at Mark Burrell Art

See also - 

Mark Burrell;s 'The Homing-Ground'

Peter Rodulfo: As the elephant laughed

Taraf de Haïdouks

Taraf de Haidouks (Band of Outlaws) are a collective of Romanian musicians who are now celebrating their 25th year with a world tour. They will be performing in Wales in August, Stockholm, Sweden Friday 18th September, Lille in France, Friday 16 October and Mexico City, Mexico, Sunday 25th October this year (2015). Given their scheduled world tour it was a lucky event for fans to catch them at the Theatre Royale at Norwich, as part of the Norfolk and Norwich Festival. Although now three months ago, the memory of hearing these Romany musicians perform with astounding virtuosity remains fresh, helped by re-hearing their CD back catalogue on ipod.

The Norfolk and Norwich Music Festival itself has an illustrious history. British composers such as Edward Elgar, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Arthur Bliss and Benjamin Britten all had world first premieres of their music performed at the Festival. In more recent times composer/performers such as Philip Glass, Ute Lemper, Michael Nyman, John Cale, Laurie Anderson, Terry Riley, Ray Davies and David Bedford have all performed at the Festival.

Taraf de Haidouks hail from Clejani, a village which is noted for its traditional Romany musicians who have passed their skills down from generation to generation for decades and even centuries. Taraf de Haïdouks began their music career when Belgian promoter Stephane Karo travelled to Romania in the late 1980s in search of a group of musicians he had discovered on an obscure recording. However it was not until the downfall of the dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu (1918-1989) that travel restrictions for Romanians were lifted and the current interest in Romany music with bands such as Taraf de Haidouk began. The lyrics of their Song of the Dictator describes the events leading up to the overthrow of the Romanian dictator.

Song of the Dictator

Green leaf, flower of the fields
What are the students doing ?
Into the cars they step
Towards Bucharest they head
Into the streets. They shout
'Come out Romanian brothers,
Let's wipe out the dictatorship'.

Ceasescu hears them
His ministers call for
a helicopter which takes him away
What do the police do ?
In his steps they follow,
In a tank they bring him back,
In a room they lock him up,
and so his trial begins.
His blood pressure we take,
And the judge condemns him:
'Tyrant, you have destroyed Romania'.

Romany culture has an interesting, if slight association with Norwich for the author George Borrow resided there in his youth. Over the course of his travels, Borrow developed a close affinity with the Romany people of Europe. Descriptions of Romany folk and their culture feature in each of his books including the autobiographical Lavengro, and The Romany Rye, in which Borrow  recollects his time with English Romany gypsies.

Borrow's travels included Russia, Portugal, Spain and Morocco. Wherever he travelled he acquainted himself with the people and languages of the various countries he visited. Fascinated by gypsy music, dance and customs he even became familiar enough with the Romany language as to publish a dictionary of it. When in Moscow Borrow visited Russian gypsies camped outside the city. His impressions formed part of the opening chapter of  The Zincali: or an account of the Gypsies of Spain (1841). But it was while walking on Mousehold Heath, a large area of heath and woodland on the north-eastern outskirts of Norwich, adjacent to Lavengro and Gertrude Road, that George Borrow first encountered gypsy culture. His friend Jasper Petulengro (meaning blacksmith) revealing his gypsy soul to him  

"There's night and day, brother, both sweet things; sun, moon, and stars, brother, all sweet things; there's likewise a wind on the heath. Life is very sweet, brother; who would wish to die?"

Petulenegro also says in Lavengro perhaps even while standing on the steep chalk hill which leads up to Mousehold heath, with its fantastic view of Norwich, as imaginatively depicted here by Alfred Munnings (above )

There's the wind on the heath, brother; if I could only feel that, I would gladly live for ever.

There can be little doubt that George Borrow with his fascination with gypsy culture would have enjoyed Romany-styled music by bands such as Taraf de Haidouks and the brass ensemble Fanfare Ciocărlia.

Band members November 2016

One appeal of Taraf's music to modern Western ears, is that it speaks of a long-lost nomadic, wandering life, living close to nature, aware of changing fortune, communally sharing life's joys and sorrows, as well as experiencing injustice and persecution for one's beliefs, non-conformity and misunderstood life-style. 

Taraf perform music which is based upon unusual Balkan folk rhythms, tonality and instrumentation;  each and every musician in Taraf is  a consummate master of his respective instrument, which includes the highly-characteristic sound of the Cimbalon, as well as violinists, flautist, accordion-players and bassist. Together they share jokes and banter on-stage, encouraging each other to produce some remarkable solo performances as well as playing poignant melodies with syncopated rhythms at incredibly fast tempo together. 

The evening's music-making was further enhanced by the appearance of the glamorous Viorica Rudareasa who first recorded with Taraf  on Dumbala in 1998. Dancing in her high heels (no mean feat)  on the evening Viorica sang numbers from the band's latest album Of Lovers, Gamblers and Parachute Skirts (2015),

The evening was memorable on another account personally, for while sitting in the rear row of the stalls of the theatre, I could not but help notice a group of young men energetically bobbing their heads up and down in time to the highly infectious rhythms of Taraf de Haidouks. On closer examination with opera glasses I was pleased to discover I share a similar taste in music with my son and his friends. The very best music unites and transcends the generations.

Discography

* Musiques de Tziganes de Roumanie (1991)
* Honourable Brigands, Magic Horses and Evil Eye (1994)
* Dumbala Dumba (1998)
* Band of Gypsies (2001)
* Maškaradǎ (2007)
* Band of Gypsies 2, with Kočani Orkestar ( 2011)
* Of Lovers, Gamblers and Parachute Skirts ( 2015)

Wikilink - Taraf de Haidouks

George Borrow and his novels

This one for Carl Brown and John.

The Symphonies of Bohuslav Martinů

Bohuslav Martinů ( b. December 8th 1890 - d. 28th August 1959) was a brilliant Czech composer of a vast quantity of music, including six symphonies which were written against the backdrop of World War II (1939-45) and its aftermath. With their bohemian lyricism, highly original orchestral colouring and exciting rhythms, Martinů's six symphonies, composed at the height of his mature style, are the crowning glory of his musical genius. Among the greatest of all twentieth century symphonies, they encapsulate the human condition yet emerge triumphant, joyous and life-affirming. 

Born in the village of Policka in Bohemia, Martinů had an isolated childhood, seldom descending the hundred plus steps of the bell-tower of his family's living quarters. He took lessons from Joseph Suk who was the son-in-law of the 'founding father' of Czech music, Antonin Dvorak (1841 -1904) and played second violin in the Czech Philharmonic during the years 1918 - 22, an experience which provided him with a privileged insight into the co-ordination, workings and performing capabilities of an orchestra.

Living in Paris in the 1920's Martinů became familiar with the very latest in art, including Surrealism. He experimented with many forms of music, his La revue de cuisine (1927) was a jazz-inspired success. Continuing his musical studies with Albert Roussel, Martinů eventually settled for the clear and concise form of Neoclassicism, as first developed by Stravinsky in the 1920's. The political scenario of the 1930's however necessitated that he fled Paris only days before the Nazi occupation of the city. It took him nine long arduous months to finally reach the haven of America, catching one of the very last available passenger ferries before the war prohibited the crossing the Atlantic sea. 

Like his fellow compatriot before him, Dvorak who found enormous success in America with his New World  symphony (1893) Martinů also found fame in America. He'd been writing music for over 30 years before he came to write symphonies, relatively late in life and in his 50's, but then following a commission he wrote a symphony in each of five consecutive years. In the 1940's all the major American orchestra's performed Martinů's symphonies throughout the cities of the United States. 

From the opening bars of the first movement of Martinů's first symphony (1942) the craftsmanship of a skilled composer conjuring a unique orchestral colouring can be heard. It's worth remembering that the Czech music tradition with its rich folk-melodies and inventive rhythms was proudly independent from the Viennese school which dominates much Western music. Martinů made frequent reference to Moravian folk-melodies, resulting in music distinctively coloured by the inventive rhythms and the lyrical, bohemian rhapsodies of his Moravian homeland. His first symphony has been described as, “epic, tragic and energetic”.

The American composer and music-critic Virgil Thomson (1896-1989) also stated of Martinů's first symphony, in words which are applicable to all of his symphonies -

'The shining sounds of it sing as well as shine; the instrumental complication is a part of the musical conception, not an icing laid over it. Personal, indeed, is the delicate but vigorous rhythmic animation, the singing (rather than the dynamic) syncopation that permeates this work. Personal, and individual too, is the whole orchestral sound of it, the acoustical superstructure that shimmers consistently.There's a calm, pastoral mood pervading both the first and second symphonies, the composer describing his second symphony (1943) as “lyric, poetic and vivid”.

Martinů considered his tense, highly-dramatic and angst-filled third symphony to actually be his first proper symphonic work, having had Beethoven’s Eroica in mind when he wrote it. “It is a work of revolt,” he once claimed, “of manly defiance, of grim yet firm determination, challenging fate.” Its first movement reflects the anxieties and fears experienced by many during the World War, the composer himself describing it as 'dramatic and Bohemian'.

Martinů described his fourth symphony (1945) as - “impressionistic, cosmopolitan, colourful and joyful”. Its probably his most accessible and satisfying symphony to listen to and easily the most frequently performed and recorded of all his symphonies. There's an extraordinary rapid change of mood from triumph to despair in its opening bars in a string glissando phrase slightly reminiscent of a moment in a Hollywood Film noir film where the heroine's dreams are suddenly dashed. (00: 55 - 01:10 on the clip below)



A high-quality clip of the scherzo from the  4th symphony. (Below)

Martinů described his fifth symphony (1946) as 'visionary'. Its said to hover somewhere between the joyous optimism of the fourth symphony and the angst-fuelled energy of the third symphony.

No decent recording of Martinu's 5th symphony is available online. The music-critic Robert Layton however, wrote of Martinů's Fifth symphony

'The Fifth is the last of the purely 'abstract' symphonies:...Martinu has an almost classical view of the limits imposed by the symphonic discipline. In a sense the Fifth is the most classical and perfectly balanced of the symphonies: the perspectives are precisely judged and the control over detail and its relation to the work as a whole is complete; there is no trace of the slight sentimentality that clouds the slow movement of the Fourth. It is filled with the life-enhancing power we find in his very best work and its statement is wholly affirmative'.

Martinů's sixth symphony (1951-53) followed after a five-year gap after the fifth symphony. It was written after he had a serious fall from mezzanine floor, sustaining injuries to his head which affected his hearing, causing him to suffer from vertigo for some time afterwards. This major traumatic incident of 1946 marks a turning-point  in Martinů's music away from the structured, dispassionate form of Neoclassicism, to a far-freer expressiveness, loosely termed as Neo-Impressionism. Martinů described his sixth symphony as a “song of longing and hope”. Its opening movement may depict the sensation of vertigo -

The  music-critic Robert Layton stated of the sixth symphony-

'the detail in the musical landscape (of) this work unfolds is richer in colouring and immediate in impact. At times the Fantasie symphoniques has the visionary quality, the enhanced awareness of colour, the vivid contrasts and more brilliant hues that are said to come from taking mescaline : certainly there is a proliferation of textures, exotic foliage and vibrant pulsating sounds that have no parallel in the earlier symphonies. ...the opening of the second movement unleashes an extraordinarily imaginative, insect-like teeming activity'. 

Layton summarizes Martinu's symphonies thus-

'The Fourth and the Sixth symphonies open up new worlds of sound: the Fifth consolidates territory already won and is less exploratory than either. Both the Fourth and the Fifth have recourse to direct sectional repetition, This way of treating material argues an approach to form which has its origins in the eighteenth century dance suite:.........It has been argued that Martinů was content with his discoveries, that he made little effort to expand the frontiers of his world experience. Up to a point this is true, for he did repeat himself in many of his works. But the finest music in these symphonies glows with an inner warmth and love of life, inimitably expressed'.

The Czech music critic Aleš Březina assessed Martinů thus -

'In the majority of cases, Martinů was not the first one to turn the music world’s focus in a new direction; rather, he would act as the perceptive and inquisitive observer of the music scene, one ever ready and willing to expand his compositional vocabulary and his catalogue of genres. His capacity to combine experimentation with a musical idiom very much his own places Martinů amongst the 20th century’s most exciting, as well as most innovative, composers'.

Its generally acknowledged that Martinů's vast output is startlingly uneven in quality and that he repeated himself in many of his works. However, although many works by Martinů are seemingly of a highly improvised, uncritical and unrevised nature which echo stylistic traits similar to contemporaries such as Bartok, Prokofiev and Stravinsky, Martinů distilled the very essence of his musical genius into his six symphonies which are lyrical, colourful and exciting works; he's also one of the few predominantly cheerful voices in 20th century music. The best of Martinů's music is mercurial in its ever-changing moods and rhythms, and often Mozartean in character. (Mozart was one of the few Viennese composers to influence the musical world of Prague of his day). Martinů's music shares with Mozart's a fondness for the structure and formality of 18th century music, in particular music of the dance, as well as  sharing a piquancy in its writing for woodwind.    

In a rare American Radio interview Martinů stated that the three main influences upon his music were Czech national music, the English madrigal and Debussy.  He also stated of his art-

'The artist is always searching for the meaning of life, his own and that of mankind, searching for truth. A system of uncertainty has entered our daily life. The pressures of mechanisation and uniformity to which it is subject call for protest and the artist has only one means of expressing this, by music'.

Martinů's near pathological compulsion to compose resulted in a vast catalogue of both highly original and hastily composed, unrevised music. Altogether he wrote almost 400 individual works in some 40 years. In addition to the six symphonies, there are five piano concertos as well as concerti for varied combinations of instruments.  His  large output includes - the opera Juliette, Key to Dreams (1937) the tense and thrilling Double concerto for Strings, Piano and Percussion (1938) a charming Concerto for Harpsichord and small Orchestra (1935) in Neoclassical style, seven string quartets, the first piano quartet (1942) with its remarkable last movement opening bars of jazz-blues improvisation, and the hauntingly beautiful late work Chamber music No. 1 ('Les fetes nocturnes') (1959) a sextet for clarinet, harp, piano and string trio (1959) all of which are well worth hearing. 

Due to the politics of the 'Cold war' and the 'Iron Curtain' of the Soviet bloc, Martinů sadly was never able to return to the Moravian homeland he loved. Increasingly homesick, he spent the last few years of his life as an exile in various European cities, dying from cancer aged 68 on the 28th August, 1959. Martinů's legacy however lives on in his unique music, in particular his symphonies. Its a legacy far greater than many realise, for among those who took music-lessons from him was the quintessential American songwriter, Burt Bacharach (b. 1928).

Discography

Martinů : Symphonies (3 CD's) Royal Scottish National Orchestra  / Bryden Thomson Chandos 1991 Re-mastered 2005  - a rich recording sound, but bit plodding though.

Martinů: Symphonies (3 CD's)  Bamberg Symphony Orchestra / Neemi Jarvi  Brilliant 1987
A ridiculously low-priced bargain on Amazon for 3 discs and for many years the best available recording and interpretation until .....

Martinů: Symphonies (3 CD's) Jiri Belohlavek / BBC Symphony Orchestra Onyx 2011
GRAMOPHONE AWARD WINNER 2012 simply the best interpretation and recording currently available.

'You won't find a more persuasive champion than Belohlavek, who has the music in his blood. His skill at unravelling Martinů's rhythmic and textual knots-evidenced time and again in these live performances by the BBC Symphony Orchestra - is such that you immediately sense the stature of the music. The best place to start is the Fourth Symphony: in Belohlavek's hand it sizzles - especially the Allegro vivo, a motorised march that generates fabulous momentum. **** --Financial Times,30/07/11

Bibliography

The Symphony 2: Elgar to the Present Day editor Robert Simpson pub. Penguin 1967 chapter 30 - Martinů  and the Czech tradition by Robert Layton. 

Brilliant Box-set notes - Stig Jacobsson

Chandos Box-set notes - Jan Smaczny

Wikilink -  Bohuslav Martinů

Catalogue of  Bohuslav Martinů's compositions

To follow:    Orchestral and Chamber music of Bohuslav Martinů

The Lovesick Man

Saturnine blues, this time in the form of an early work by the German artist George Grosz's The Lovesick Man (circa 1916),  a painting which reflects dominant themes in Grosz's art - human nature and individual weaknesses, themes which have lost little relevance today.

George Grosz (1893-1959) was born in Berlin and grew up during the prelude to World War I (1914-1818).  In protest against the nationalist fervour and rabid anti-British sentiment vocalized on Berlin’s streets in the build-up to war, Grosz and fellow artist Jon Herzefelde (1891-1968) provocatively changed their names to an Anglicized form of spelling and pronunciation. Incidentally, there's a stylistic affinity between the pioneering photo-montage developed by John Herzefelde for political propaganda, one or two examples of which I've discussed before and the surreal humour of Terry Gilliam (b. 1940) the creator of cut-out, animated montages which were an integral part of the British TV series Monty Python's flying Circus (1969-71). 

In his tense and unsettling portrait of a lovesick young man, George Grosz alludes to the Ursprung tragic hero of German romanticism, Werther, a character created by Johann Goethe in his Der Leidenschaft der Junge Werther (1774) known in English as The Sorrows of Young Werther. 

In Goethe's phenomenally popular novella of the day, the sensitive and romantic hero Werther is unable to come to terms with the fact that his sweetheart has married another and that his love can never be consummated. He borrows a pair of pistols, and after writing a confessional letter and drinking a bottle of port, shoots himself. Goethe’s semi-autobiographical tale of unrequited love was accused of  encouraging copycat acts throughout Germany, and of making a cult of suicide, accusations which the author strongly denied. 

It's been suggested that the spate of suicides which occurred in Germany following the publication of Goethe's Werther were in fact the result of an increased awareness of educated individuals of the inflexibility of bureaucratic institutions in Germany; this extreme frustration with the deeply-rooted conservatism of German society, effectively prevented the possibility of following  in France's revolutionary path.

Although differing in artistic objective Grosz's symbolism in The Lovesick Man differs little from that of the medieval tradition of Vanitas motifs. In Grosz's early painting not only can a near palpable red heart be seen, but also a revolver in the breast-pocket of the sitter. The empty room with a vacated table and chairs heightens the solitary sitter's loneliness. On his table there's the indulgences of a pipe and cigarettes along with a bottle, probably of alcohol. There's also paper and a pen on his table, suggestive that a confessional, or urgent communication is to be made. The anchor tattooed on his head hints of sinking or wallowing in unloved despair. The bones in the bottom right corner and fish bones symbolically allude to death. In the far background beside a blood-red sickle moon, the rib-cage of a skeleton can be seen. The theme of dissipation and death is developed further with a plant at the top corner which lacks either leaves or flowers. The gun placed next to the sitter's visible heart has strong symbolic associations, hinting that either suicide or a crime of passion is about to be committed.  

Wrapped up in self-absorbed gloom Grosz's anti-romantic hero is capable of senseless acts. The message of Grosz's Marxist morality art- lesson seems to be - self-centred individuals who care only for their own happiness condemn themselves to a solitary madness; they do so at the expense of the well-being of society in general.

George Grosz witnessed the return of the defeated nation's troops to civilian life, the near breakdown of moral order and the subsequent violent conflict between the extreme left and right-wing in street fighting in post-war Berlin. The trauma of hyper-inflation added fuel to the social problems of crime, prostitution, drugs and the black market, endemic on Berlin's streets following World War I.

In January 1919 he was arrested but escaped imprisonment by producing fake identification documents which he'd forged himself. He joined the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) in the same year; however, unlike the Russian communist revolution of 1917, the German communist revolution of 1919 failed, due to various factors too complex to discuss here, not least, the assassination of Communist party leaders Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxembourg in January 1919.

In 1921 Grosz was accused of insulting the army and fined 300 German Marks. The court also ordered his satire on German society Gott mit uns (God with us) to be destroyed. Although Grosz left the KPD in 1922 he subsequently spent five months in Russia, meeting Lenin and Trotsky.

By 1924 economic and social stability in the newly established Weimar Republic allowed the opportunity for the creation of radical new art - Fritz Lang's film Metropolis (1927), Hermann Hesse’s novel of crisis and re-integration of identity, Steppenwolf (1927) the new music of Jazz and Kurt Weill spring to mind. The decadent, pleasure-loving years of the Weimar era and the rise of fascism are also the setting of Christopher Isherwood’s autobiographical novel Goodbye to Berlin (1939) which was later was adapted as the film Cabaret (1972).

By 1920 George Grosz had mastered his artistic powers to make powerful statements on the social instability and chaos of post-war Berlin. His art gives a glimpse into a society sharply polarized between rich and poor, and of a Berlin resembling a Dante-like inferno where individuals of varying degrees of power and corruption enact Berlin's social maelstrom on the streets of the metropolis.

Grosz's low opinion of humanity is epitomised in the title of his 1946 autobiography A little Yes and a big No which he wrote once a naturalized American citizen. In a salutary lesson of how serious economic and social upheaval can affect the qualities of empathy with others and encourage selfish behaviour, the embryonic origins of fascism no less, he describes Berlin after World War I- 

"Everywhere, hymns of hatred were struck up. Everyone was hated: the Jews, the capitalists, the Junkers, the Communists, the army, the property owners, the workers, the unemployed, the black Reichwehr, the control commissions, the politicians, the department stores, and the Jews again. It was an orgy of incitement, and the republic itself was a weak thing, scarcely perceptible. … It was a completely negative world, topped with colourful froth that many imagined to be true, happy Germany before the onset of the new barbarism."  

Tragically, although in 1954 Grosz was elected to the American Academy of Arts he continued to be home-sick and returned to Berlin, where he died in 1959 in an alcohol-related accident.

Wiki-Link - George Grosz

The Master and Margarita

Earlier this year I read once again The Master and Margarita. Mikhail Bulgakov's masterpiece is considered by many to be a major 20th century novel and a seminal work of a genre loosely defined as magical realism. However, it's not always an easy novel to read in either its volume or thematic scope. Because of its many-facted nature, Bulgakov's masterpiece is both a metaphysical fantasy and a satire upon life in 1930's Soviet Russia, which alternates between comic and profound, mystical and satirical with seamless ease. It’s also a novel which inter-twines history with politics and religion, as well as a testament to the triumph of artistic self-expression in the face of State censorship and oppression.

Mikhail Bulgakov (May 15th 1891-1940) studied medicine and travelled extensively throughout Russia before settling in Moscow as a theatre director and writer. He worked on and developed, never quite completing his masterpiece right up until his death in 1940. Due to censorship and the controversial nature of his subject-matter, his novel was not published in its entirety until 1967. Its recorded that Bulgakov spoke personally to Joseph Stalin on the telephone requesting permission to travel, a request which was inevitably refused. Given the Zeitgeist of 1930's censorship in the Soviet Union it was also inevitable that Bulgakov's out-spoken attack on the bureaucracy of Stalinist Russia would not see light until decades later. As the Soviet composer Dimitri Shostakovitch also discovered when Joseph Stalin visited the theatre to hear his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District the Soviet dictator was the supreme State censor of the arts.

The Master and Margarita describes the visit of a mysterious character named Woland accompanied by a bizarre entourage who play tricks upon Moscow's citizens. The irony being the Devil and his entourage's conjuring of pranks in what was once the world capital of State-endorsed atheism. The novel's comedy is supplied by the antics of a walking, talking, fat, cigar-smoking cat who accompanies his master Woland and much of the satire is centred upon Woland's exposing the greed, lust, vanity and pride of Moscow's citizens. The novel's rapid action is set in a theatre, both on-stage and back-stage, a psychiatric hospital and the apartments of ordinary Moscow folk and interspersed in the narrative are episodes transporting the reader to Roman-occupied Jerusalem during the trial and crucifixion of Jesus Christ. These are told from the perspective of Pontius Pilate and his tormented conscience. Not least among the novel's triple and inter-related story-lines is the love story of the Master and his redeemer, Margarita.

The Master and Margarita  is prefaced with an epigram from Goethe’s Faust-

                                         ‘…who are you, then?’

‘I am part of that power which eternally wills evil and eternally works good’.

The myth of the scholar who barters his soul to the devil for knowledge has a peculiar place in the Western psyche, representing as it does, inverted questions of the individual’s relationship to God. Bulgakov's novel is in many ways a development and variation upon the Faustian legend which various playwrights have been attracted to, including the Elizabethan dramatist Christopher Marlowe, author of The Tragicall History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus (1604). Several historical persons in the esoteric tradition have been proposed as a prototype of Faust. In the British esoteric tradition the Elizabethan magus John Dee is often proposed. A more likely figure from the country of the legend’s origin would be the Renaissance figure of Paracelsus.

The medieval legend of the questing scholar who barters his soul to the Devil was developed by the German genius and polymath Goethe in Faust I and II. The figure of Faust in Goethe’s drama, his gambling his soul with the Devil at risk of losing it, was of particular interest to the Swiss psychologist C.G. Jung. In fact, there’s sufficient material in Jung’s collected writings for a full-length essay on his interpretation of Goethe’s drama. Digressing slightly, I cannot resist quoting Jung's summarizing of the Faustian spirit and it's relevance to modern-day man -

It was from the spirit of alchemy that Goethe wrought the figure of the “superman” Faust, and this superman led Nietzsche’s Zarathustra to declare that God was dead and to proclaim the will to give birth to the superman, ‘to create a god for yourself out of your seven devils”. Here we find the true roots, the prepatory processes deep in the psyche, which unleashed the forces at work in the world today. Science and technology have indeed conquered the world, but whether the psyche has gained anything is another matter.  -CW 13: 163

As in Goethe's Faust Mikhail Bulgakov in The Master and Margarita asks questions on individual destiny, fate and redemption. Crucially, Bulgakov raises the relevance of the Faustian myth in his novel to modern times, holding up a mirror to the responses and moral choices available to the individual when faced with the temptation of evil when living under stifling State bureaucracy, censorship and economic hard times.

In his 1997 introduction Richard Peaver stated no-one has ever been able to explain why several minor characters in The Master and Margarita share the names of famous composers.  In  what may be a world first, I believe I can in fact explain why Bulgakov's minor characters are named after composers.

The Master and Margarita opens with a literary professor named Berlioz meeting the Devilish trickster Woland one evening shortly before being decapitated by a tram, slipping under its wheels from spilt sunflower oil, just as Woland predicts. The psychiatric hospital in which the Master is a voluntary resident and where several victims of Woland's diabolic tricks end up insane from their disbelief from encountering the Devil, is maintained by a suitably cold and clinical doctor named Stravinsky. The theatre where Woland first performs magical tricks upon an astounded Moscow audience is run by a much harassed director named Rimsky-Korsakov.

Quite simply, all three of these characters are named after composers who wrote music in which the Devil is prominent. The Romantic composer Hector Berlioz wrote a free-form oratorio entitled The Damnation of Faust. Igor Stravinsky in 1918 wrote a jazz-style chamber work The Soldier's Tale in which a soldier trades his fiddle to the devil for a book which predicts the future of the economy. The Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov famously re-arranged and orchestrated Modest Mussorgsky's tone-poem A Night on a Bare Mountain a musical portrait of a mid-summer Walpurgis Nacht and witches sabbath, as also occurs in a central chapter of The Master and Margarita.

The British author Salman Rushdie once stated that The Master and Margarita was an inspiration for his own novel of magical realism The Satanic Verses (1989). Twenty-three years since first reading Bulgakov's love-story fantasy I recognise echoes of my own life's love-history to certain characters of the novel; my first copy of it was a birthday present given in 1989 from someone special to my heart over decades. Every time I read Bulgakov's landmark novel of magical realism another meaning within its comic and tragic pages illuminates my understanding of my own progress in life. Bulgakov's masterpiece is capable of striking a deep chord on the themes of individual destiny and the relationship between creativity, love and mental illness.

The Master and Margarita has been served well in translation since its first publication in 1967. It's also been a rich source of inspiration to numerous artists, attracted to its strong characters and magical scenes. I've chosen only two images from a wide variety of art available on-line. There are also several Russian productions of The Master and Margarita on Youtube which are well worth checking out.

Editions

Harvill Press 1967 translated by Michael Glenny

Collins Havill 1988 reprinted (twice)
Picador 1997  translated by Diana Burgin and Katherine O’Connor

Penguin 1997 reprint 2000 trans.Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky

Also recommended
Mikhail Bulgakov -  Heart of a Dog (1925) first published 1968
A novella/long short story equally comic and profound. 

Wiki-links -  The Master and Margarita     Mikhail Bulgakov