Ornamentation

Ornamentation is a strange word. Originally, the word's roots implied something to do with 'equipment' – as in the equipment of an armed person.

Today, the word is used to describe something about the image of a thing, and even tends to imply a practically functionless aspect but one which nevertheless has aesthetic value.

If you look at some of the rarest of Stradivarius violins, they have ornamentation crafted into the beautiful wood – and at some level, the ornamentation is almost a vital symbol of the high quality of the instrument and its crafted structure.

An ornamented Stradivarius

This year, there may be a release of a current in post-production movie called 'Paganini – the Devil's Musician.'

No matter what real history says, this additional embellishment about the musician and composer regarding his having sold his soul to the devil to procure his skill and talent will no doubt persist on and on until everyone on the planet can't help but add this piece of folklore to the package each time they think about the composer in question.

It's a bit like the folkloric phrase 'and on the third day he rose...' These words are not in the Gospels at all. But that is not the common popular opinion of the matter.

All the same it's incredibly difficult to get someone to follow extremely 'complex arguments' and by this I mean not just expressions of words, but also expressions through art, and painting, film, and music, and even prose. I find it's quite difficult to get a modern person to listen with high consciousness to possibly the most ideologically complicated piece ever written of Russian music – Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini. From about halfway through you will recognize the melody that begins there, from its having been used in a good half a dozen of the most dramatic romantic films. It takes a trained ear to really get the point of this piece, even though superficially almost anyone can pick up its apparent romantic aspect.

And technique is almost meaningless with these things – a lot of people play Paganini but few do it properly, and even those who achieve the acclaim of critics and classical music experts, in my estimation regularly fall wide of the mark as far as interpreting what Paganini was actually driving at. If you want to see what Paganini was really about then one of the best exponents of this particular music is the rock guitarist Yngwie Malmsteen. His playing of Paganini's 4^th Concerto for guitar – especially in some of his older recordings – will give you a good idea. But then too you also have to notice the important effect of the drums and rhythm section and what these two are doing in the piece to make the entire whole understandable to the listener. Most other interpretations at least in my view – and including those renditions by even the best trained classical musicians – completely miss the intended cadence and thus the underlying motion - and melody, such as it is. And this has the effect of an appearance of pyrotechnics and is otherwise, as far as the actual 'music' goes, completely incomprehensible and utterly confused.

Rachmaninoff 'got' Paganini because you can see how he lifts the musical punchline up and up through complicated spirals like a musical wrought iron gothic staircase.

Mostarda - Italian candied fruit, contain mustard essence!
But scientists think they know...
how Stradivarius violins were made.

In a day and age when the traditional symbols of power, wealth, and status are being constantly destroyed through the relentless triumph of economic vandalism and crass ignorance, it may not be such a bad thing to be merely 'ornamented.' Or that is to say, presenting oneself as though 'merely for ornamental effect.' ...Practically functionless, non-confrontational, non-threatening, unarmed, and a pacifist. You are thus, not a target. Stradivarii and Guarnerii have survived to this day without losing 40 or 60 per cent of themselves along the way because of the greed and lust and covetousness of the wicked and the evil.

The great question is, my friends, just what is it that today possesses a similar quality of manufacture and characteristics of subtle value?