Thomas Pynchon on joy in music

[Mark Kohut]

The Beethoven Ninth is in the novel, from 1962 but I cannot remember if Rossini is. Hearing it, a classical music fave, now makes ALEX nauseous, anti-violent. Which, yes, might mean Burgess, a composer too, also felt it was 'violent' music metaphorically? 

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> On Aug 16, 2015, at 4:57 AM, Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> See http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/music/nineteenth-century-music/invention-beethoven-and-rossini-historiography-analysis-criticism
> 
>> On Sun, Aug 16, 2015 at 3:39 AM, Mark Thibodeau <jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I have often wondered about Stanley Kubrick using Beethoven and Rossini to
>> such great contrapuntal affect in his film version of Clockwork Orange.
>> Gravity's Rainbow and Clockwork Orange came out literally within months of
>> each other, so I sincerely doubt whether one could have influenced the
>> other. And yet, both extremely important works of late modernist art feature
>> this intriguing musical counterpoint, rather explicitly at that.
>> Interesting, no?
>> 
>>> On Aug 16, 2015 3:57 AM, "Dave Monroe" <against.the.dave at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> “‘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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