Thomas Pynchon on joy in music

[Dave Monroe]

“‘The point is,’ cutting off Gustav’s usually indignant scream, ‘a
person feels good listening to Rossini. All you feel like listening to
Beethoven is going out and invading Poland. Ode to Joy indeed. The man
didn’t even have a sense of humor. I tell you,’ shaking his skinny old
fist, ‘there is more of the Sublime in the snare-drum part of La Gazza
Ladra than in the whole Ninth Symphony. With Rossini, the whole point
is that lovers always get together, isolation is overcome, and like it
or not that is the one great centripetal movement of the World.
Through the machineries of greed, pettiness, and the abuse of power,
love occurs. All the shit is transmuted to gold. The walls are
breached, the balconies are scaled—listen!’”

Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow

http://www.artsjournal.com/aboutlastnight/2015/03/almanac-thomas-pynchon-on-joy-in-music.html

Beethoven & Rossini

http://gravitys-rainbow.pynchonwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Beethoven_%26_Rossini

The Invention of Beethoven and Rossini:
Historiography, Analysis, Criticism

http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/music/nineteenth-century-music/invention-beethoven-and-rossini-historiography-analysis-criticism
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