Des's
Classical Music extravaganza
of links, lilts and lost life
by
DF Lewis
If
eyes are window of the soul, then ears are gateways to something even
more intangible and life regaining. If the term hadn't been pinched, I
think I'd call it soul music, the type of sounds to which I love to listen,
in active and inactive moments of creativity. I hope, if you have not
already seen the light, this sound-picture may provoke you to explore
further the world that I have had much joy in inhabiting for a good thirty
odd years.
Walter Pater said
“All art constantly aspires towards the condition of music.”
But when I was in my teens I did not possess the artistic yearnings that
have beset me since. My life was in a limbo, edging towards a middle-of-the-road
precipice, soon to be lost forever in meaningfulness and staid achievement.
The first record I bought was POETRY IN MOTION by Johnny Tillotson, and
I loved (and still do) sixties pop music. I read books, but mainly Enid
Blyton, then Biggles and some safe classics. Then, serendipitously and
inexplicably, I heard THE RITE OF SPRING by Igor Stravinsky. Mind-blowing,
frightening, staccato, abstract, I met a sea change with no flippers and
very little experience even in floating, let alone swimming (despite being
brought up in a seaside resort!). I then discovered the novels of Charles
Dickens (and he had walking coffins in TALE OF TWO CITIES and death by
spontaneous combustion in BLEAK HOUSE, just as examples!) – where
was I? My well-meaning parents who hung on for dear life to the tassels
of ordinary working-class things lost me to some extraordinary drug-without-a-drug
called music and literature (only to regain me later as I thankfully regained
them).
Taking the music
thread (it only meets up with the literature thread at some more fortuitous
cross-sections later), I travelled back from Stravinsky and found Vivaldi,
Bach, Mozart, Schubert, Beethoven etc. Having once laughed at a string
quartet performance at junior school, along with all my peers, I now saw
Chamber Music for what it was: real life conversations in a language one
knew the meaning of but couldn't quite reconcile with logical thought,
except through brainstorming. The late string quartets of Beethoven were
so complex and so damn 'mad', I couldn't believe I wasn't dreaming. Hung
about like cobwebs with nuggets for my testing tongue to flash out and
nibble. Then, Wagner's operas. Philip Glass's Minimalism. Satie's surrealistic
piano pieces. Atonal hells and harmonious heavens. Strange avant garde
pieces for cello and electronics. Cage's silence. I could go on forever
choosing names and titles in a similar random fashion. Sometimes, music,
literature and visuals gloriously and decadently come together in a sudden
spout, as happened with me in the film DEATH IN VENICE (ie Gustav Mahler,
Thomas Mann and Visconti). I can only do so much to convey the enthusiasms
I feel. It is the stripping bare of intentional clutter to reveal beneath
the sense of wonder from half-remembered dreams of a lost life. Pretentious
is not the word, more the child-like act of pretending in earnest and
for real.
Equally, this subject
is not served well by producing neat hyperlinks. Like exploring the music
itself, one has to trust to misalignments as well as serendipities for
full reaping of the soundfests.
However: http://www.orchestranet.co.uk/ring.html
is where you can set off randomly searching a webring of classical music
sites, and this, to me, is the only way you can approach the internet.
Then there is: http://www.classical.net/
the home of the email discussion forum Musiclassical. And I belong to
several such forums: C20M for 20th century music, chambermusic for …err,
yes, Chamber Music and brit_contcom for British music (which is popular
worldwide) and classicalcorner for a more general discussion.
Music associated
with horror: http://www.scorelogue.com/horrorhistory.html
And with science fiction: http://www.avnet.co.uk/home/amaranth/Critic/SFmusic.htm
Unusual composers:
http://www.search-beat.com/modern.htm
20th century: http://classicalmus.hispeed.com/twentieth.html
Great lists and lilts: http://www.classical.net/music/rep/lists/20th.html
General information: http:/www.musicweb.uk.net/
British Music: http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~snc/british.htm
Well, that's just
a taster. What else can I say? Ah, yes, just to quote from a column I
used to write for an well-known American horror magazine a few years ago,
after which I received some wonderful letters saying how I had stirred
them into following up my passion for classical music:-
“With
due respect -- and I may be wrong here since I'm often wrong -- I imagine
many of you enjoy popular rock music in its various forms ... which is
fine, carrying, as such music often does, mind-stretching horror images,
eeriness, nightmare, alternative religiosity (even quiet contemplation):
especially when you're in the right frame of mind to bring ordinary music-listening
towards your spiritual antennae.
Well, so far so good. But if you want more, if you want something different,
why don't you try modern orchestral 'serious' music? I know a number of
people denigrate what they call avant garde music -- saying it's a load
of pretentious noise. Well, yes, some of it is. You're right. But there
are some composers whose music I cannot live without. The secret, for
me, is to listen to such pieces time and time again until they settle
down, where the unpredictable sounds and apparently tuneless passages
begin to match the rhythms of your self-induced waking dreams.
There was one piece of music that originally stirred me into the outlands
of taste, turning me from the more 'normal' ways of my beloved parents
who only ever listened to melodic music and watched television. As ever,
I will not name names.
Vampires play the flute.”
Well I have now named
the name of that piece of music for this site. It is Spring as I write
this … and it's its own rite, I guess. A new one relived.
DF
Lewis
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DF Lewis on his
new fiction magazine, Nemonymous
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