"I have nothing to say
and I and saying it." - John Cage
I read that Zukofsky chose the publisher for 80 Flowers because they had published a book by John Cage. For John Cage's centennial I did 4'33" with some of my classes. On page 433 of the hardcover edition of Finnegans Wake the word "SILENCE" appears. I've often wondered if that inspired the Wake-enthusiast Cage.
While writing this blog just now a student told me his band had composed a piece by randomly opening a book of scales and using a scale they randomly pointed to. They chose C minor.
Joseph Kerman wrote a terrific piece called "Beethoven's Minority" about Beethoven's pieces in minor keys. Beethoven had something of an obsession with the key of C minor. His pieces in C minor tended to end up in C Major (such as the Fifth Symphony). Kerman observes how rarely Beethoven's pieces in other minor keys followed that pattern of ending up in the parallel major key. Beethoven seemed to associate the key of C minor with heroic/Promethean struggle. I love the line near the end of The Trick Top Hat by Bob Wilson that says something like people such as Beethoven see evolution as an Promethean struggle, when they only need to cooperate with the DNA blueprint. Following the comments on the morphogenetic circuit in Quantum Psychology, I tend to reword this as "cooperate with the morphogenetic fields."
I plan to read more Zukofsky so I'll have more to say about him in future posts.
"The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley" - Robert Burns
Maybe Beethoven was cooperating with the morphogenetic fields?
ReplyDeleteWhen I think of Mozart - dead at 35, drink as proximate cause - I suspect so much of his work sounds "majory" because he exteriorized his true desires in the forms of his day. The choice of major keys had to, on some level, have been from a deep need to connect with the light, the sun, the bright...To write oneself into altered, exalted states?
I like your idea about Beethoven cooperating with mophogenetic fields. Bob called Beethoven's music the song of the sixth circuit in Prometheus Rising. I just watched a great DVD of Claudio Abbado conducting Mahler's Third Symphony. I love his smile. He struck me as a true magus with his magic wand, causing magickal sound to emerge with the slightest gesture.
ReplyDeleteI remember Nietzsche talked about Mozart combining the music of the Italian tradition with that of the Germanic tradition. I wonder what Bob's The World Turned Upside Down would have included musically. I suspect Beethoven would have made an appearance.
I started the book Mozart and Masonry which Bob mentioned in one of his books, but I never finished it. The Magic Flute has a special place in my heart. I've told you the story about seeing Berman's film of The Magic Flute on July 24, 1985, haven't I?
I think the details of your Berman/Magic Flute experience might be re-told for a wider audience. Please?
DeleteAfter graduating from college in 1985 my parents very kindly gave me a trip to Europe which got kicked off with my attendance at the Ezra Pound Centennial at the University of Maine in June. I organized my trip so that I could visit Ingolstadt, Bavaria, on July 23. That worked out, and I arrived in Munich on the morning of July 23 and got a train to Ingolstadt, Train 3230 on Track 23 at 7:32 AM. I felt excited to visit the birthplace of the Bavarian Illuminati, but it chilled me when the train stopped at Dachau on the way. I decided to visit the concentration camp at Dachau the next day. I spent the night in Ingolstadt and returned to Munich on the 25th.
ReplyDeleteNow, I had wanted to visited Germany since my childhood. I had a fascination with my German heritage which had turned into horror when I learned more about Nazism. Arriving in Munich and seeing the long line at the train station to find a room, I decided I wanted to get out of the country. I booked a midnight train to Vienna (sorta like the Gladys Knight song), put my one small suitcase in a locker, and got a train to Dachau.
Visiting the concentration camp proved a horrifying and overwhelming experience. Seeing the iron gate reading "Arbeit Macht Frei" ("Work will set you free") I had a sense of my life's purpose. I saw unlearning that as my life's goal. I had a new appreciation of the "Bob" Dobbs' idea of Slack.
Well, I returned to Munich in a daze. I wandered around, losing faith in humanity. I walked through a park with pom-pah-pah bands playing Strauss, naked people playing frisbee and bought the biggest pretzel I've ever eaten. I ended up learning that Berman's film of The Magic Flute would play that night. The film would end around 11:32 PM giving me just enough time to run to the train station and catch my train to Vienna. I'd always wanted to see it, so I said what the heck
Watching the Swedish film with German subtitles had a profound effect on me. (I sorta knew the story and I knew a little German.) I thought the guy who played Sarastro looked how I might look in the future, and Berman's film of Mozart's opera restored my faith in humanity.