I learned from Michael Johnson's comment last week that Joseph Kerman, one of my favorite writers, had died. I've read some of Prof. Kerman's writings on Beethoven this week and listened to some Beethoven as well to go along with my reading.
This morning, thinking of writing this blog, I put on the companion CD of Bach's music to Kerman's The Art of Fugue, and when I got to work I put on a Bach Cello Suite. (I tend to listen to Bach on Wednesdays to help me with this blog.) In had an email from The New York Review of Books with a reprint of this article by Kerman on Mozart: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1989/may/18/mozart-a-la-mode/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=April+9+2014&utm_content=April+9+2014+CID_be4715c7e65273092879f86134dc50c7&utm_source=Email%20marketing%20software&utm_term=Mozart%20%20la%20Mode . I read this article and two other Kerman articles on Mozart today. I also looked up Mozart in the index to "A" and I read the pages listed. Bach dominates "A", but Mozart makes a handful of appearances. Many of the references to Mozart in the poem relate to Louis Zukofsky's violinist son Paul.
Classical music seems my music of choice in recent years. I find artistic canons fascinating, and I've commented before how I find it interesting that both Pound and Zukofsky centered their musical world on Bach. Robert Anton Wilson, Donald F. Tovey, and others center theirs on Beethoven (as do I). Mozart stands between them, and his stock has certainly risen in the last century.
I feel like I've begun to ramble. It looks like I will teach Advanced Placement Music Theory again next year, so I look forward to continuing to improve my understanding of the music of the Common Practice Period (1650 - 1850). I've spent fifteen years teaching mostly English. Perhaps as I teach fewer English classes I can improve my writing and my understanding of poetry and also improve my understanding of music theory.
This reminded me of Paul Klee, who played the violin every day for an hour before going to work on his painting. He was deeply influenced by music theory, and produced 9000 works before dying at 60.
ReplyDeleteI think your poetry and music theory learning might complement each other.
When I read writers with admirable prose styles and who themselves write about qualities of music and musicians they like, I can't help but feel the intense engagement with the music somehow influenced the prose to that good/interesting (EX: RAW and PKD and Beethoven; D. Hofstadter and Bach).
Thanks for your comments. I just read a piece from Bob Wilson's Illuminatus! class where he talked about the importance of knowing Paul Klee's work intimately.
ReplyDeleteI don't know about my poetic future. In his essay on Cavalcanti, Pound said poets have to spend seven or eight years learning technique and then they blaze their own trails. I remember reading that in the mid-90's and feeling like it fit my experience. Twenty year later I continue on my path with less certainty. We will see.
I too marved at Bob Wilson and Phil Dick's writings on Beethoven. When I hear the replacement ending to Op. 131 I usually think of Phil's comment that he saw that as the beginning of a new, fourth period for Beethoven.
If I keep teaching AP Music Theory, I will try to understand the Common Practice Period better and may even finish GEB.