Category: Music
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Orff returning
An intelligent documentary on Orff, the Nazis, his vanity and painfully late repentance on the BBC, called 'O Fortuna'… it had a particularly striking ending, where various voices of people who had revered him or been betrayed by him spoke one after another, without comment. A sort of Olympian point of view: I liked its…
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Globes
Working tonight on a program note for an old piece of mine – as it happens the final composition I ever wrote, in 1986 – Seven Last Haiku, which will have its premiere by the students in late March this year. One or two pianists are looking at it, and we have a cellist (Bennett…
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Erasure / release
I have a large, well-organized personal library. [Pause and drum roll.] Many academics and intellectuals do so, of course, but I am a Collector – certainly in my department I have the largest and most strictly organized library, both in my office and at home, of books, CDs, DVDs, videotapes, LPS, and other media (although…
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Bruchstücke
I am slightly less disoriented/anxious than I have been for three weeks. Slightly, I say; at least enough to have some sense of distance from it all; and a bigger sense of time, as though I can perhaps imagine different ways that the fear and confusion of the past days can fit into larger parts…
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Through the gate
The last section of Ravel's Ma mére l'oye (Mother Goose – it is also at the end of the suite) is 'Le jardin féerique', the fairy garden. This finale is built on strange, quasi-archaic contrapuntal lines, which have a sort of hieratic grandeur in the way they don't match neatly. About halfway through, everything evaporates…
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Boy band
Hmm, what a ruthlessly symbolic dream: sitting around with a bunch of charming, handsome, talented young men who have a (classical, I think) ensemble that has somehow become famous; I ask them to come perform, collaborate, work with us in the North, and they say no, politely, with regret – we'd love to, but we…
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Kagel ist tot
Mauricio Kagel, composer, died today. A brilliant and highly imaginative man… I have written about his work in a number of places, in print and also online, and met him a few times. I'm not grieving terribly because he had a successful career – the career he wanted – and he lived to a decent…
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Longing
Awake in the early morning hours, as often this week. The remains of Monday's full moon in Pisces. The hum of the computer in the next room, trying to do its automatic backup – which is clearly screwed up, so I got up to erase and try again. And continued reading Mann's Doctor Faustus in…
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Relational
Not quite so sure I won't try to become a Jungian analyst; we'll see. Of course, in any major decision it is good to give up on it at one point, at least… but despite my concerns about age, health, time, cost, logistics, appropriateness, and what might be my underlying (possibly suspect, narcissistic, inflated or…
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Ostern in Stuttgart (II)
[March 22-25, 2008] Intensiv (Saturday/Sunday) The two days following surgery are complex and not without their pleasures: these are the days immured in intensive care, the days of morphine. These are also the days of constant attention, many tubes and cables, an endless bleeping and ticking of machines, an excellent nurse or two, a charming…
Paul Attinello 