Themes and Conclusions

urn:iso:std:iso:639:ed-3:eng

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text excerpt

I have been listening this week to the recorded piano music of a composer now widely esteemed for his ability to stay an hour or so ahead of his time. But I find the alternation of note-clumps and silences of which it consists impossibly monotonous, and I long for the leverage of Beethoven’s timing, to say nothing of harmonic and other leverages. The matter of the music is so limited in effect, too, and so solemn, that I was sustained only by the hope, during each longer silence, that finally the pianist might have ‘had it’ too and shot himself.

I have been listening this week to the recorded piano music of a composer now widely esteemed for his ability to stay an hour or so ahead of his time. But I find the alternation of note-clumps and silences of which it consists impossibly monotonous, and I long for the leverage of Beethoven’s timing, to say nothing of harmonic and other leverages. The matter of the music is so limited in effect, too, and so solemn, that I was sustained only by the hope, during each longer silence, that finally the pianist might have ‘had it’ too and shot himself.

excerpt from 'Themes and Conclusions' pp. 135 (104 words)

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