tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13593902.post4851272167720061630..comments2024-02-11T09:55:50.468-08:00Comments on The Eastside View: Exposition, Development, RecapitulationCharles Sherehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10480432901356490235noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13593902.post-92183902093113713672009-09-25T21:12:03.304-07:002009-09-25T21:12:03.304-07:00Messiaen: another German mystic.<i>Messiaen: another German mystic.</i>Charles Sherehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10480432901356490235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13593902.post-85451634483077927292009-09-25T20:59:28.479-07:002009-09-25T20:59:28.479-07:00The two piano concerti are great fun.
Anecdote:...The two piano concerti are great fun. <br /><br />Anecdote: Saint-Saens was asked, following the performance of Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande: "What did you think of the music, maestro?"<br /><br />Saint-Saens: "What music?"<br /><br />____________<br /><br />And what, then, of Messiaen?Curtis Favillehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06213075853354387634noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13593902.post-55148738867582469332009-09-25T10:13:36.395-07:002009-09-25T10:13:36.395-07:00No, no! "Englishtenment" isn't a mis...<i>No, no! "Englishtenment" isn't a misspelling, it's a brilliant new word! Since much of the Enlightenment, at least according to my anglophone education, came from the British Isles.<br /><br />I was of course silly to use the word "decline," I suppose an attempt at irony. "Declination" might have passed, but even it's misleading. Of course agriculture ennabled culture: but for ill as well as, well, well.<br /><br />I'm not fond of Saint-Saëns, whose music seems to me more Germanic than Gallic. I stand by my last paragraph, finding some difference between decadence and indulgence; but of course it was meant light-heartedly. Damn: I don't want to resort to emoticons here :-[</i>Charles Sherehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10480432901356490235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13593902.post-67537641834536282102009-09-25T09:52:34.011-07:002009-09-25T09:52:34.011-07:00Charles, sorry about the misspelling. But must &q...Charles, sorry about the misspelling. But must "continents of misapprehension" be accounted for it?<br /><br />I take it you disagree, then, about the "invention" of agriculture? A "decline"? What an odd notion. Without agriculture, there is little or no culture. <br /><br />What can be carried on the saddle of a horse, or a travois? <br /><br />It's a good thing those monks hid the scrolls up in those dry, cool caves. <br /><br />Agriculture isn't bad; it's good. It's the abuse of it that's caused our problems. Isn't your home-grown tomato in season superior to the corporate farm version? Isn't that the crux of the problem? <br /><br />Our planet is on the verge of catastrophic events. Is your position a glib scepticism in response?<br /><br />German romanticism is decadent on its face. Is French rationalism less indulgent? Is Saint-Saens less histrionic than Brahms?Curtis Favillehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06213075853354387634noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13593902.post-51538647563798936882009-09-21T22:04:47.297-07:002009-09-21T22:04:47.297-07:00Ah, yes, the Invention of Agriculture. It must sur...<i>Ah, yes, the Invention of Agriculture. It must surely have been the beginning of the long decline. Among other things, the bringing-into-the-open of the war between the sexes. Jaynes has a lot to say about the results of the invention of agriculture: social structure, urbanization, complex hierarchies of governance, writing and arithmetic… the development of the art and awareness of Memory… <br /><br />I do love your word Englishtenment; is it new? (All is not gold that englishters…)<br /><br />The difference between La Valse and any Strauss is the difference between France and Germany, between Irony and Romanticism, between Fashion and Nostalgia, between deftness and dictat.</i>Charles Sherehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10480432901356490235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13593902.post-34320039972779290472009-09-21T15:53:46.072-07:002009-09-21T15:53:46.072-07:00Nice post.
My take on the "progress" of...Nice post.<br /><br />My take on the "progress" of civilization probably derives from my readings of Sauer, Dubos, Bates, Mumford, and Glacken. <br /><br />The first great age of human development--a period of nomadic wandering, first on foot, later on horse or camel--came to its partial conclusion when man began to domesticate plants, establish settled community, and to "save" culture through recordation of language, sound (music), history, crude science--began, in effect, to have an official "memory" of its own existence. This plateau (platform) brought us to the age of self-consciousness (Greece and Rome) and all the ideas which focused human intelligence upon itself and environment. After a very brief hiatus (the Middle Ages), comes the Englishtenment, the expansion of scientific (empirical) thought, and art as an expression of (intelligent) lhuman potential. <br /><br />In terms of our rapid agricultural and industrial expansion(ism), (exploitation), we haven't really come to any effective realization about the implications of the unlimited growth paradigm--which is a fulfillment of Smith and Toynbee and Marx. China is still 19th Century England (150 years later). <br /><br />La Valse is the "infernal" consequence of decadent exploitation--"madness" as polytonality, dancing the gavotte at Versailles as Paris is consumed in flames. Is it "anti"-romantic. Probably, but any more so that Richard Strauss at his most indulgent? <br /><br />Word verification: torysonCurtis Favillehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06213075853354387634noreply@blogger.com