ATDTDA (33) - pregnancy in Bulgaria or "The Emancipation of Dissonance"

[David Payne]

Also in 1910: "Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis for Double String Orchestra by English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, 37, [was first performed] 9/6 at Gloucester Cathedral" -- http://www.answers.com/topic/1910

One last, long squeak and I'll quit my yapping (on this topic):

It seems to me that there was a sea change in music and the broader arts round this time, which in retrospect was a harbinger of the horror, WWI.

As Mark so succinctly noted (http://tinyurl.com/3kxghc): "Round about December 1910, human nature changed" -- Virginia Woolf 

So it may be that death of music in 1910 (assuming we have the correct year) was a reference to old ways gone, supplanted by the new (and pick yer specific bit of newness here). 

But to be honest, I am hard pressed to think that Pynchon would refer to the birth of something so glorious as the music of Stravinsky or Schoenberg as the "day the music died" (though, to be fair, I may be mistaking the words of Sleepcoat for the words of Pynchon).

Anyhow, when I originally read Laura's question ("Sleepcoat: 'Except that the music stopped two years ago.' Any thoughts, anyone, on what stopped the music?" -- http://tinyurl.com/4k9ast), I really thought, like Henry (http://tinyurl.com/3lzzzm), that this quote was going to be like the McLean song -- a reference to the day the Balkan's version of the Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valens died.

And I still think, stubbornly, that it is. Perhaps during that horrific Hungarian barn dance fire (http://tinyurl.com/3zehd3), the death of 325 included that Moldovan grandmaster of song, the incredible!, the amazing!--what was his name ... life cut so tragically short?

In my mind, this nut remains uncracked and I'll bet that someday someone will stumble across a gloriously perfectly-fitting little factoid in the annuals of Balkan musicology ... but be that as it may, I have thoroughly enjoyed the enlightening posts to this thread!

(FWIW: Somewhat contrary, perhaps, to my previous postings, I actually do think that Schoenberg/Serialism was the most radical departure from "traditional" European music in the early nineteen hundreds, although most people in 1910 probably didn't realize it at the time [thanks, Robin, for pointing us that way!--http://tinyurl.com/3w2gql].)

On Sat, 31 May 2008 (15:12:50 +0000), Robin (robinlandseadel at comcast.net) wrote:

> Certainly, an element of chaos entered into the "Classical Music Scene"
> around this time, forcing the aura of the intelligensia
> [Milton Babbit anyone?] onto what was once a more
> mindless pleasure [Offenbach, anyone?], one of those
> Rubicons Our Beloved Author, much like the reclusive,
> cranky R. Crumb, likes to point to, those halcyon days
> when music performed in the parlor was the rule, and
> other Hallmark postmark moments that would never
> happen in a Philip K. Dick novel and rarely in real life.
>
> A lot of the music references point to all these songcatchers
> like Bartok and Vaaughan-Williams, gathering these old songs
> in old modes while they still can, somehow knowing that
> there's a very good chance they may soon become lost in
> the waste and the noise and the chaos.

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