Da Da Da Dummm …
Mozart. Beethoven. Bach. Stravinsky. Rebajes. Which one does not
belong? This is a test. Multiple choice. One out of five. Odd man
out. Forget the title. No relation. It’s about music. It’s not
about music. It’s about jewelry. It’s about a jeweler. Who’s the
jeweler? Take yer pick … ladies and gents. Step right up. Don’t be
shy. Winner gets a kiss. No shovin’. No crowding. Yo. Whoa. Hold
on. Can’t accommodate everybody. All those who picked Rebajes …
get in line. Okay lady. Pucker up.
In the beginning man imitated natural sounds: Birds … crashing
waves … blowing winds … growls, wails, shrieks of joy. They
called it song. And they advanced. They plucked a taut string. They
blew on a hollowed out ram’s horn. They beat a drum. They called it
music. Oh … the headiness of it all. The frantic dance. The
ecstasy. The excess. And then someone had a hit. Perhaps it was Grog
… head of a Neanderthal rock group called Early Man. Problem was
… with this new catchy tune they played … it could not be
passed on–by messenger–to other groups in other regions. They had
no notes with which to inscribe the music on tree bark. They had no
symbols to represent their work in written form.
And so it was needed. And so it was done. And the years passed. And
a gent came along … a jeweler- sculptor of Spanish descent by the
name of Francisco Rebajes. He was born in 1906. He studied in
Barcelona … then moved to New York in 1923. He struggled … and
strived … and became an artist. He won the medal of honor at the
Paris Exposition Universelle in 1937. He designed six murals for
the United States pavilion at the New York World’s Fair in 1939. He
created jewelry. He worked in copper. He made a brooch. He opened a
shop in 1943.
Ah … me lads and lassies. This was no ordinary brooch … this
copper brooch shaped like musical notes. Rebajes took a humble
material and with it brought life and movement to a subject in a
fashion achieved by no other jewelry manufacturer. It resides today
in a private collection. But lament not my friends. I have a picture
of it for all of you to see.
For those of you who are new to this thing called Tidbits…may I
direct you to my home page at www.tyler-adam.com where you will
scroll down the left side menu till you get to the area that says
Tidbits…and then click on the link that says: Music … where you
will see a graphic of a gorgeous copper brooch created by Francisco
Rebajes.
And there ya have it. That’s it for this week folks. Catch you all
next week. Benjamin Mark
-- http://www.tyler-adam.com --