Friday, February 5, 2010

I kissed his hand and I left a letter for him on the table.

He was one of the greatest artists of the world. She was a divine singer.

Constantin Brancusi and Maria Tanase met in New York in 1939.

“I met Costache Brâncuşi in New York and I left him in the bed brought from his Paris studio. It was raining that day and he asked me to sing for him. Not to see him cry he propped his back against mine so that I could not spy his face. Later on, after many songs, he fell asleep. Not to wake him up, I put a pillow to support him instead of my back. I kissed his hand and I left a letter for him on the table. In an hour I had to leave for the country.”
Maria Tanase



The meeting was caught in a photo document. Seemingly, “the laments” of Maria Tănase did not enchant the sculptor, if we are to believe architect Octav Doicescu, since he preferred doinas and playful, merry tunes, with jocose lyrics. He favored spontaneous, direct, simple music. For this visionary artist of simplicity, the music of Wagner sounded “barbarian”, that of Beethoven “too dramatic”, whereas Mozart he deemed “gentle and sweet.” He compared J. S. Bach with a lion stepping majestically in the desert (V. G. Paleolog).
It is a fact though that music accompanied him along all his life, and the Romanian folk song soothed his longing after the country, comforting the immigrant to Paris until his death.
Brâncuşi And The World Of Music by Viorel Cosma (b. 1927)


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