pynchon-l-digest V2 #1193

[Daniel Wolf]

> From: Nudeants at aol.com
>
> >>>Actually, the closest parallel to GR's achievment that I think I could
> find
> in music would be maybe some 20th century classical works, such as Elliott
> Carter's first string quartet, maybe Pierrot Lunaire by Schoenberg,
Kraanerg
> by Xenakis.  Something achieving huge diversity of material coupled with
> huge
> diversity in presentation of material, yet managing to achieve unity of
> purpose seemingly at odds with that diversity.<<<
>
> Amen, amen, amen. Where were you during the discussion in which many were
> saying Steely Dan was the closest parallel? I was so disgusted by that
> thread I unsubscribed and joined a John Irving discussion list.

Even more so than any work of Carter, it is the _4th Symphony_, _Three
Places in New England_, the _Second Orchestral Set_, and the _Second,
"Concord, Mass." Piano Sonata_ of Charles Ives that come closest, to
bridging formidable, abstract musical structures with materials, citations,
that are immediate referenced to the "real" world.  I had to move to Europe
to get the chance to hear this piece -- the American equivalent of
Beethoven's Ninth -- performed live.  Also unforgettable is John Cage's
_Renga with Apartment House 1776_, where fragments of revolutionary-era
American music and  songs of African-American, Sephardic, White Protestant,
and Native American soloists are projected in front of an orchestral tracing
of drawing fragments from Thoreau's Journal.  Gordon Mumma's
electro-acoustic "Dresden Interleaf" could have been a missing chapter from
GR, while Robert Ashley's video operas are of a piece with CL49 and  VL.

Daniel Wolf
Frankfurt