Thomas Pynchon on joy in music

[Dave Monroe]

... point is, that Beethoven/Rossini binary goes way back:

Beethoven and Rossini have always been more than a pair of famous
composers. Even during their lifetimes, they were well on the way to
becoming 'Beethoven and Rossini' – a symbolic duo, who represented a
contrast fundamental to Western music. This contrast was to shape the
composition, performance, reception and historiography of music
throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Invention of
Beethoven and Rossini puts leading scholars of opera and instrumental
music into dialogue with each other, with the aim of unpicking the
origins, consequences and fallacies of the opposition between the two
composers and what they came to represent. In fifteen chapters,
contributors explore topics ranging from the concert lives of early
nineteenth-century capitals to the mythmaking of early cinema, and
from the close analysis of individual works by Beethoven and Rossini
to the cultural politics of nineteenth-century music histories.

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

On Sun, Aug 16, 2015 at 1:10 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> Yeah fer sure. Think the great writer movie lover " knew" Kubrick while,
> when, in England? probably would have trusted him to keep his reclusivity
> intact, if Kubrick did decide to know him back that early.
>
> wikipedia tells me there was a new major biography of Rossini in English in
> 1968 and it also says there was a " Rossini Renaissance" the second half of
> the 20th Century.
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On Aug 16, 2015, at 12:45 PM, Mark Thibodeau <jerkyleboeuf at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Rossini is not in the novel, which means Kubrick using it is all the more
> interesting.
>
> On Aug 16, 2015 8:08 AM, "Mark Kohut" <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> 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?
>>
>> Sent from my iPad
>>
>> > 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
>> >>> -
>> >>> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l
>> > -
>> > Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l