A Mahler movement without theme or purpose. Energy and temper lashing out, violently. Like the soundtrack of some poor sod having a rather hopelessly doomed go at Spring gardening, and then by degrees, resigning himself to his pleasant fate, of luxuriating in the shade with a case of lager, and allowing the whole silly circus to revolve around him as it pleases. The true pastoral, as it were.
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Re: Bürger's Sturm und Drang, in classical music, as per above,
The myth of the dark Erl-König (here credited in mod. vers. to Goethe) is in Schubert's version somewhat melodramatically represented, unlike the accompanying images. The artwork in fact by far quells the music. In the old days, "urban legendry" went a hell of a long way, creating several layers of artistic composition, for which the human race should be forever thankful. Unlike today, where it seems the most interesting item of public interest is some silly woman's tit, falling out of place at a some irrelevant form of media event.
The prospect of being abducted by the King of Elves must by today's standards seem a perfectly sound alternative to socalled life in the 21st Cent.
The following to be taken with the obligatory grain of salt:
Bobbie Kom wrote:The story behind “Devil’s Trill” starts with a dream. Tartini allegedly told the French astronomer Jérôme Lalande that he dreamt that the Devil appeared to him and asked to be his servant. At the end of their lessons Tartini handed the devil his violin to test his skill—the Devil immediately began to play with such virtuosity that Tartini felt his breath taken away. When the composer awoke he immediately jotted down the sonata, desperately trying to recapture what he had heard in the dream. Despite the sonata being successful with his audiences, Tartini lamented that the piece was still far from what he had heard in his dream. What he had written was, in his own words: “so inferior to what I had heard, that if I could have subsisted on other means, I would have broken my violin and abandoned music forever.”
This was the music a probably tone-deaf H. P. Lovecraft imagined for his tale of Erich Zann! Like the Colour out of Space, this was the tune from another dimension. Things beyond mortal comprehension. At least we can attempt to put into words that which we cannot understand with our mere five senses.
And, BTW, note the position of the fingers on the Devil's left hand...
Jesper Hvid wrote:I've just read the biography of Petrus Borel, "the Lycanthrope", by Enid Starkie, in which she describes the literary dawn of 1830s Bohemian life in Paris, mentioning the musical cacophonies of composer Philippe Musard, whose "galop infernal" became the soundtrack to the chaotic lives of the earliest dandies and decadents in life, as well as culture. Unfortunately, I cannot find anything on youtube of Musardian significance, other than the odd gay bit of light entertainment, and nothing to suggest the thundering emotions of the crazed French post-revolutionary intelligentsia of Paris. However, there is this world-known flimsy, fruity piece of cancan from Offenbach's "Orpheus in the Underpants", beg pardon, underworld.
At long last, Borel's Contes Immoraux, the "tales of immorality", have now been translated into English by a really competent person, and a 180 years after the actual impulse which brought them from twisted imagination unto paper, I tend to disregard Offenbach's "rendition" as a mere romanticising of the past. In Starkie's brilliant book dating from 1954, the Parisian scene is brought into raw life, and reproduced as something a bit more than an sleazy upskirt fantasy of a bunch of wine-soaked old farts with 3rd stage syphilis.
and Borel was the true stalwart of the entire company.
If history is to succeed in blandly producing an equation mark between, say, the Lido de Paris and the Bouzingos, then I beg to differ in the strongest of possible terms. Borel and his crowd of wastrel geniuses deserve a greater place in history than has hitherto been reserved for them and their like, and should be regarded alongside the ranks of Poe, Baudelaire and Wilde.
They were the earliest hooligans, of both mind, soul and manner, and deserve a salute worthy of the greatest benevolent rascals that time has so far witnessed. They were Satan's beautiful people, pissing all over the ruling bourgeoisie, strong and fearless, and smarter than a cunning plan, concocted by I. A. M. Cunning at the Fox institute of Smartness, University of Cunning.
They were in fact the origin of the spleen, as a literary term. In that sense, they took the old romantic movement out of it's dreamy lethargy. They were true rock'n'rollers, but only Musard caught the thing in its very essense, in musical terms. Unfortunately, there doesn't appear to be anything available thus far. You may ignore Offenbach entirely.
The book mentions a party which Borel attended, at Victor Hugo's place, where Liszt played Beethoven's funeral march (from Piano Sonata no. 12), during the Paris cholera epidemic of 1832 http://www.english.rfi.fr/visiting-fran ... days-paris , and that will have to suffice, even though it is the antithesis of the revelling Bouzingo - or maybe, perhaps not. For, as Baudelaire later wrote, in his poem Le Guignon: http://fleursdumal.org/poem/110
We are ill-fated, one and all. Good night.
11:53--->
Still no Musard, but in terms of the flaggelation of pleasure overkill,
this is closer to the spirit of the Bouzingo. Complete with oriental airs, Saint-Saëns however wasn't even born when the notorious Parisian fad reached its artistical apex.
Superb, but that's exactly when it turned into Chopin. The disgust Mozza felt at the flat diddle-e-dee of the bourgeoisie, exploding into sudden emotional frenzy, ending on a note of idyllic complacency. Which is where Chopin never, ever, went. He took it to the bitter end, and is the greatest composer on piano we'll ever see.
The final part of his Gothic suite. Exploited stylewise in horror genre cinema for half a Century or more. Most of that is now entirely ludicrous, but the power of the music itself remains. Léon Boëllmann was French Alsatian - perhaps disposed towards the same Germanic influences as the contemporary author collaborators Erckmann-Chatrian. Maybe something peculiar to this region.
