Today’s bits of beauty are brought to you by Mahler, Visconti, Thomas Mann,Venice and a young Swedish actor who was hailed at the time as the most beautiful boy in the world – person, really, given the androgynous features.

Death in Venice is of course the film I am referring to –  based on Mann’s novel, having someone loosely resembling Gustav Mahler visiting Venice during the time of pestilence and falling in love with a boy. Or into infatuation. Or into lust. Or into an escape from the artistic crisis he is undergoing. Whatever it is, it doesn’t end well. Wouldn’t you know it.

The entire film is a visual feast, from the budding of youth to the decay of man and city. The scenes do not have the technical perfection of what you’d see in anything done in the last 20 years or so, and it makes it, in my eyes, all the more beautiful because it is so real in its impressionism.

All of this speculation really fades into the background due to the beauty of the music: the Adagietto from Mahler’s 5th symphony, the film’s version directed by Zubin Metha.

 I am partial, in this case, to the Karajan version, so here is the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Les39aIKbzE

 

 

 

and as a bonus, in an arrangement for choir:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YA1c9jZmdag

I am signing off for a while with the regular daily blog, since I will be on the road until May 8th. I might report intermittently if beautiful things come along during this East coast trip.  I am sure they will.

Photographs are from my days in Venice 3 years ago.