Saturday, November 26, 2011

Saturday commute xlviii: Down to the language lab







A healthy musical culture is one in which
the creative function, the function aris-
ing from a strong and prevalent love of 
music, is the primary one, and in which 
the activities of the composer, the per-
former, and the listener .. are in their
several ways embodiments of that love.
It is obvious that real love for music, 
as for anything else, depends on inner
security; but it is also true that inner
security depends on the strength of love.




The style of structuring these 
pre-requisites changes all the 
time, but in their necessity 
they do not. I reflect upon 
necessity in the terms with 
which I learned of it, and 
did my best to live up to it. 
And this - I don't know - does 
this count anymore: a vision 
one could believe in, embodied 
all about one, to vindicate? Is 
it really useful to know how to 
say, petit verdot, if it is shaped on the vine and harvested as if it were something else?



                                 
   










Roger Sessions
The Musical Experience of
  Composer, Performer, Listener
op. cit. 


i   Jeremy Young
ii  Vine photo, TPF






3 comments:

  1. Well, dear Linnea, that's easy for YOU to say; I still haven't the foggiest idea what this means! :)

    The thing began as a single portrait with text. I like the portrait, I like the text; they're a fine couplet.

    Then I thought of a friend's photograph of the grapes, but I then didn't like its static suspension, and thought of the resolving power of the final portrait on the beach; but that was too pathetic or ambiguous, at best, so I introduced the illustration of the viticultural metaphor, but I'm not so sure I like that, for failing to be clearly positive or negative. But possibly it holds together under the rubric of necessity being redefined all the time. But you are a med student, and too smart for me!

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  2. What a handsome young man, and what a beautiful face! (I mean the picture at the top of your posting.) This pic may well end up where you know (I have already stolen a pic from somewhere else on your blog, which I'm keeping for rainy days)...

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  3. Well, we'll all have to salvage what we can from this, Franck. You're certainly welcome to try. This fellow's name is given at the bottom of the posting, and the search engine will show how frequently he has lent a hand to our little project. I really do associate him with some humour, I have to admit, for all the merit you ascribe to him. Or maybe the humour is all in the association; either way, he is not a gloomy day fellow.

    Here, the face and expression are very much in line with the friend I acknowledge on November 2nd, and this enabled the text to adopt its initial tone, where I think the posting was at its best. For that reason, I've eliminated a couple of pictures which detract from it. :)

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