A Dark Suit and a Weary Smile In her concession speech . critic’s notebook

A dark suit and a weary smile Kamala Harris offered an image for a long struggle in her concession speech. Kamala Harris, speaking at Howard University, was supposed to be an image for history: a record of the first female president, not to mention the first black president and the first president of South Asian descent, to deliver her victory speech. Instead, what turned out to be her concession speech became the coda to an unprecedented election; the end of one story and not the beginning of another.
That did not mean that Ms. Harris was any less a pioneer, or a role model, in the momenEven if what she was modeling was how to make over the public face of defeat.
Standing before the red bricks and the white columns that provide the backdrop for
Howard commencements, Ms. Harris wore a businesslike pantsuit in a muddy burgundy
that read, through the screen, as almost purple (interpret that as you will). The jacket was buttoned, an American flag pin bright against one lapel, and the pants were cut with a bit of a flare at the calf. With it, she wore her usual pumps, pearl earrings and a satin blouse in the same eggplant shade, complete with a cravat, or ascot-like tie. If there was a telling detail, that was it...

In her concession speech, Kamala Harris offered an image for a long fight.
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Chopin: Tristesse (Arthur Moreira Lima)
Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849) Estudo op.10 nº 3, em Mi maior, Tristesse
Piano Arthur Moreira Lima
Arthur Moreira Lima, who died on Wednesday at the age of 84, was many pianists in one – and as such he created his own space, some would say lonely, in the constellation of the Brazilian piano since, in the 1960s, his career began to take shape. Treating bowel cancer for some time, he had been hospitalized for two weeks at the Imperial Hospital de Caridade, in Florianópolis, where his family lives.

Moreira Lima challenged critics both for the quality of his interpretations and for the choices he made – of repertoire, yes, because of his relationship with Brazilian popular music, but also because of his career choices that took him away from the traditional model of concert performer for which he seemed molded.

It all started at the age of 8, when, as a student of Lúcia Branco, also a teacher of Tom Jobim and Nelson Freire (he was only four years older than his colleague, who in 2024 would turn 80), he played his first concert with the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra.

In the 1960s, he moved to Europe, and in 1965 he won second place in the historic seventh edition of the Warsaw Chopin Competition. One can imagine the jury facing the difficult decision of choosing between him and the one who ended up winning the first prize, the Argentine Martha Argerich.

Five years later, another distinction, third place in the Tchaikovsky Contest in Moscow. By then, Moreira Lima had already passed through the hands of Professor Rudolf Kehrer. And he would attribute to him, and to his presence in the Soviet Union, the possibility of starting a career of international scope.

In Warsaw, during the competition, a Polish critic, quoted at the time by Estadão, praised his sensitivity and the understanding he had of Chopin's work in "unforgettable interpretations".

The association with the composer's music marked his career from the beginning. But what his readings showed also served to define his pianism as a whole, beyond the technique of exception, which gave touch, with each note, enormous clarity.

The romantic furor with which Moreira Lima approached the repertoire of the 19th century did not exclude moments of disconcerting delicacy or the original construction of musical phrases. Everything coexisted organically – even silence, a sustained note that is interrupted by the briefest instant before the melody can follow. And there was the choice of tempos. Without haste, without delay, Moreira Lima created – in Chopin, Brahms, Scriabin or Villa-Lobos – a time that existed only in his imagination as an artist and that perverted, in the listener, the very notion of reality.

INHERITANCE

His definitive return to Brazil, in the late 1970s, did not take him away from the romantic repertoire, but marked the beginning of a new relationship with Brazilian music. I had a particular view of her. As I said in a rare interview, I did not consider European heritage as part of Brazilian culture. It was a different universe, to which we could not claim belonging. At the same time, however, this heritage influenced our composers in such a way that it gave them enormous sophistication of writing at the time when they were creating works that referred to something, now in fact, Brazilian.

This was how he saw, for example, the music of Ernesto Nazareth, to which he had dedicated himself since the 1960s, when he began to play it in recitals in which he shared space with Chopin. "It had nothing to do, from an aesthetic point of view, to put Nazareth in the middle of a heavy program like that, but, from the point of view of importance, it made perfect sense: Nazareth among the greats. It turned out to be something that the audience received with emotion. We had been under the military dictatorship for two years – since 1964 – and the left was very angry with this gesture. A demonstration that underdeveloped also has a soul, you know?", he said in a statement given to the Moreira Salles Institute in 2022.

It was not a trivial choice and Moreira Lima knew it. If today the dialogue between the erudite and the popular is an accepted fact of Brazilian musical life, at that time it was still turning up noses. And the fact that it was defended by a pianist tailored for the largest concert halls in the world added to the discussion some perplexity. Since then, in the imaginary around Moreira Lima, what he did and was began to live with what he decided not to do – and not to be.

CRYING

The pianist never explained his motives. But it is certain that he saw different musical references as part of the same dialogue. "Choro is, in a way, the soul of Brazilian music. And this involvement with Nazareth's work introduced me to this magical world, imperceptible to those who are immersed in classical music. But it exists, it is very rich and even helped me in my interpretation of classical music," he said in 2022.

He saw something similar in the work of Astor Piazzolla, to whom he dedicated an album in 1997. "Piazzolla brought to tango, milonga and other popular genres a development from a formal, musical point of view. It is a treatment that is characterized by the use of themes, with counterpoints, fugues, imitation, all the formal elements of classical music. Piazzolla collected his themes from street music, but developed them in the manner of the sonata and the uniqueness of his music lies in this treatment", explained the pianist in a December 1997 interview with Concerto Magazine.

ROAD

In the late 1990s, his recordings began to sound a bit uneven. Appearances on stage were rare, almost disappearing completely. And when, in the 2000s, he returned, it was in a different context. Moreira Lima bought a truck, installed a piano on it and began to tour Brazil, making presentations in public squares. The 2018 documentary by Marcelo Mazuras, which accompanies the project, Arthur Moreira Lima – A Piano for All, talks about more than 300 thousand kilometers driven.

The truck went from the south to the north of the country, went up the Amazon River, snaked its way along the São Francisco River. To the public, any public, the beautiful mattered. There was in the project the assumed desire to democratize the piano, classical music, what he defined as the shared gesture of making music. But also a pianist who now placed himself once and for all away from the big centers and their expectations, traveling the roads with only his music and his piano. Somehow, it has always been like this.

The information is from the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo.
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Thank you for your interest and R.I.P Arthur Moreira Lima!

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"A dark suit and a weary smile"
@nytimes @VVFriedman

Transcript:
Kamala Harris offered an image for a long fight.

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A dark suit and a tired smile.

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This article is by Vanessa Friedman and is read aloud by an automatic voice.

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Comela Harris' speech at Howard University was intended to be an image for history,

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a report on the first female president,

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Not to mention the first black

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President and the first female president of South Asian descent,

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who gave her victory speech.

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Instead, her speech, in which she admitted defeat,

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at the end of an unprecedented election,

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at the end of a story,

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instead of the beginning of a new one.

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This did not mean that Miss Harris was less of a pioneer or a role model at that moment,

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even if she demonstrated how to conceal the public face of defeat. Than

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in front of the red bricks and the white

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pillars that form the backdrop for Howard University's graduation ceremonies,

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Miss Harris wore a business-like trouser suit in a muddy burgundy red that

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appeared almost purple on the screen.

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Interpret that however you want.

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The jacket was buttoned up,

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a glowing pin with the American flag was emblazoned on one lapel, and the trousers were cut

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and a little flared on the calf.

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She wore her usual pumps,

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pearl earrings and a satin blouse in the same aubergine tone,

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complete with a shawl collar or an ascot-like tie.

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If there was one significant detail, it was this one.

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The shawl collar is a cousin of the limp bow that Miss

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Harris often wore on large public occasions,

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which combines both tradition and subversion,

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Men's clothing and the role of women

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and a sign that despite the fact that they were

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had never put gender at the centre of her candidacy,

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was there anyway.

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In the context of her speech on the occasion of her defeat, the shawl collar reminded us of the history

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her own and that of the women and politicians before her,

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and in this context, as she said in that speech, he stood for

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the idea that some battles were protracted, that this one had lasted decades, even centuries

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and would continue afterwards.

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In this respect, it was a symbol of both a promise and a lawsuit.

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The tie closed the circle, because

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this appearance was linked to her victory speech in 2020, when she became vice president,

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with her appearances at the Democratic National Convention,

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when she was chosen as her party's presidential candidate,

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and with the debate in which she faced Donald J. Trump for the first time

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. When uniforms are a sign of recognition

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and a quick way to carve out a place in people's imaginations, then

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she has created her very own.

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Their clothes, as subliminal as their effect may be,

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suggested that the images of her last moment as a presidential candidate

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in this election cycle were just as consciously chosen as their words,

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that she knew that fashion was a useful tool in designing her

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abbreviated legacy, because it was widely understood,

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and she used it on purpose, as she would undoubtedly have done if she had won.

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although in this scenario

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the outfit would probably have spoken the same language of clothing,

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it might have been more spiced up, the suit more structured, the tie would have smelled more like sparkling wine,

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like her look at the presidential debate before,

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which goes back to George Washington afterwards...

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She used clothing as one of her final metaphors.

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She told the audience gathered in front of her,

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some of whom were in tears: "Now is not the time to throw up your hands,

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but to roll up your sleeves." Her sleeves stayed down,

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but the message could not be overlooked.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/06/style/kamala-harris-concession-speech.html