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| Arnold ( I never had syphilis ) Schoenberg & Alban Berg |
A resumé ? A turning point ? In any case a chapter with 2 Asterixes
"I am saying all this to remind the reader of the historical
circumstances under which [ … ] this account is written. ( late autumn 1943 )"
21.1 Can the war
still be won ?
…auspicious revival of our submarine war...which within 24
hours has claimed as its victims no fewer
than twelve ships – including two large passenger liners with five
hundred passengers on board.
… or the comando exploit … Operation Oak (Unternehmen Eiche,
September 1943) – The rescue of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini by Otto
Skorzeny
…in the meantime, we have experienced the destruction of our
venerable cities from the air… ( Allied bombing raids )
… we registered the landing of American and canadian troops
on the southern coast of Sicily…
…with a mixture of horror and envy… ( the italian people are
rebelling against their leader )
… Just last week a Communist uprising… broke out in Naples…
( 27 - 30 september 1943 )
21.2 State of mind : Mix of Pride to be
German, fuelled by propaganda and fear for the ennemy
….with five hundred passengers on board … (followed
immediately with )… We owe this success to a new torpedo with fabulous
capabilities
…I cannot suppress a certain satisfaction at our ever
resourcesful spirit of invention…
..we who suffers it ourselves laden with guilt.
- our Wehrmacht storm forth against the Russia hordes, who
in turn defended their inhospitable but apparantly very beloved homeland… (
condescending )
-… the invasion of our Sicily – ( imperialistic )
On the one hand SZ laments over : the dreadful bombardment
of the city of Durer and Willibald Prickheimer and a few lines further he says
… in the wake of which the city ( Naples ) no longer seemed worthy of German
troops, so that after conscientiously destroying the library and depositing a
bomb…
In SZ mind, the cultur of Durer is still vastly more
important than the library of Naples. He accuses the Nazi regime of all evil, but still, every word, he speaks, can be turned against him too.
21. 3 Willibald Pirckheimer (5 December 1470, Eichstätt,
Bishopric of Eichstätt – 22 December 1530, Nuremberg) was a German Renaissance
lawyer, author and Renaissance humanist, a wealthy and prominent figure in
Nuremberg in the 16th century, and a member of the governing City Council for
two periods. He was the closest friend of the artist Albrecht Dürer, who
made a number of portraits of him, and a close friend of the great humanist and
theologian Erasmus.
21.4 Monseignor
Hinterpförtner ( behind the door )… who in no way resembles the passionate
scholar around whom was centered the student uprising in Munich…
Probable reference to :
Kurt Huber
(October 24, 1893 – July 13, 1943) who was a Psychology and Music professor at
the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and member of the White Rose group,
which carried out resistance against Nazi Germany.
The student uprising :
The White Rose
(German: die Weiße Rose) was a non-violent, intellectual resistance group in
Nazi Germany, consisting of students from the University of Munich and their
philosophy professor. The group became known for an anonymous leaflet and
graffiti campaign, lasting from June 1942 until February 1943, that called for
active opposition to dictator Adolf Hitler's regime.The six most recognized members of the German resistance
group were arrested by the Gestapo and beheaded in 1943. Most were in their
early twenties.
21.4 page 186 in the vintage edition of DF merits to be
quoted entirely, but I will not do it. Suffice to say that the 10 years under
Hitler have destroyed all what Germans were ever proud of.
21.5 Asterisks serve to refresh the reader’s mind … irony
21.6 I am too close to my subject. ( So is Thomas Mann ? )
21.7 I would write the whole thing in one fell swoop, in one
breath, without any divisions, indeed without paragraphs and identations… (
through SZ, Mann investigates more Modernist narrative techniques – Joyce ? –
Claude Simon ?)
21.8 AL lives a conservative, rigid life with no interest in
things outside his musical Art…
Compared to Chopin’s “not wanting to know” He too wanted to
know nothing, see nothing, indeed experience nothing…
21.9 exception of the eyes : Adrian’ sensitivity to, indeed
his weaknes for the magic of eyes, black eyes, blue eyes : the eyes ( of
hithertho unknown ) characters : Marie Godeau, Rudi Schwerdtfeger, Nepomuk
Schneidewein.
We do not know the colour of the eyes of Adrian’s mother, SZ
or even Esmeralda…
21.10 travels interupt from time to time this rigid life…
Graz, North sea ( tone painting ), Basel ( attend the
performance of baroque sacred music )
Monteverdi Magnificat
The Magnificat (Latin: [My soul] magnifies)—also known as
the Song of Mary or the Canticle of Mary—is a canticle frequently sung (or
spoken) liturgically in Christian church services. It is one of the eight most
ancient Christian hymns and perhaps the earliest Marian hymn. Its name comes
from the first word of the Latin version of the canticle's text.
The text of the canticle is taken directly from the Gospel
of Luke (Luke 1:46-55) where it is spoken by the Virgin Mary upon the occasion
of her Visitation to her cousin Elizabeth. In the narrative, after Mary greets
Elizabeth, who is pregnant with the future John the Baptist, the child moves
within Elizabeth's womb. When Elizabeth praises Mary for her faith, Mary sings
what is now known as the Magnificat in response.
Organ studies by
Frescobaldi
Girolamo Alessandro Frescobaldi (Italian pronunciation: [dʒiˌɾɔːlamo
fɾeskoˈbaldi]; also Gerolamo, Girolimo, and Geronimo Alissandro; September,
1583[1] – March 1, 1643) was a musician from Ferrara, one of the most important
composers of keyboard music in the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods.
A child prodigy.
Oratorio by Carissimi
Giacomo Carissimi (baptized April 18, 1605 – January 12,
1674) was an Italian composer. He is one of the most celebrated masters of the
early Baroque or, more accurately, the Roman School of music.
Buxtehude Cantata
Dieterich Buxtehude (German pronunciation: [ˈdiːtəʁɪç bʊkstəˈhuːdə],
also Dietrich; Danish Diderich [ˈdidəʁɪk buksdəˈhuːðə], equivalent to the
modern Diderik; c. 1637 to 1639[1] – 9 May 1707) was a Danish-German organist
and composer of the Baroque period. His organ works represent a central part of
the standard organ repertoire and are frequently performed at recitals and in
church services. He composed in a wide variety of vocal and instrumental
idioms, and his style strongly influenced many composers, including Johann
Sebastian Bach. Today, Buxtehude is considered one of the most important
composers in Germany of the mid-Baroque.
Musica reservata
In music history, musica reservata (also musica secreta) is
either a style or a performance practice in a cappella vocal music of the
latter half of the 16th century, mainly in Italy and southern Germany,
involving refinement, exclusivity, and intense emotional expression of sung
text.
21. 11 …the fiery sketch that legend says a certain Someone
drew in the sand … (The legend of Master Builder Gerhard of Ryle and the Devil
? ).
21.12 AL is depicted as something of a hermit living an
internal intellectual live rather than a live of experiences. His still living
in his tiny two room appartment in the peter Strasse Leipzig.
His stay in Leipzig has been interrupted by three
excursions, each decisive in his musical development:
-
North Sea / Sylt : tone –painting ( Romanticism
? )
-
Graz : Strauss’s Salome ( maps out various paths
of development for twentieth century music – modernist dissonance, romantic
nostalgia, ironic detachment – it is no accident that Mann sends his fictionzl character
to a performance where Schönberg, Alban Berg and Webern are present.
-
Switserland – Geneva – Basel – Zurich ( Baroque –
Religious )
o
AL phosphorescence is played within the
framework of the lectures d’orchestre in the Basel’s Composer Society
o
AL does not really fit in with his peers in the
artistic circles
21.13 A devilish ambition?
- Art wants to stop being illusion and games ( against form
)… it wants to become comprehension
- the remark terrorizes SZ
- There came a day… FFW to chapter 25.
- Composition of the Brentano Songs – Lieder based on poems
by Clemens Brentano – financed by SZ and Kretzschmar – sung by Jakob Nägli, a
crippled boy.
- Clemens Brentano, or Klemens Brentano (9 September 1778 –
28 July 1842) was a German poet and novelist, and a major figure of German
Romanticism.
21.14 Kretzschmar leaves leipzig for a further career
