Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Wants, by Philip Larkin
György Ligeti - Atmosphères
Beyond all this, the wish to be alone:
However the sky grows dark with invitation-cards
However we follow the printed directions of sex
However the family is photographed under the flagstaff -
Beyond all this, the wish to be alone.
Beneath it all, desire of oblivion runs:
Despite the artful tensions of the calendar,
The life insurance, the tabled fertility rites,
The costly aversion of the eyes from death -
Beneath it all, desire of oblivion runs.
from 20th Century Poetry & Poetics (Oxford University Press, 1969)
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16 comments:
Let me suggest alternate music:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXh07JJeA28&feature=related
Gyorgy Ligeti - atmospheres
thank you, Prospero, it is a really good alternative - i did not get it until about minute 6, and then i could hear it with the poem. two very different readings of the poem, i think, when combined with each piece of music. i think i'll change it to yours.
My art student (Angelina) doesn't like this piece. It stresses her out. She much prefers tonal music.
sounds like your art student and i would get along just fine. the tonal alternative is saved in the sidebar, for her listening pleasure.
“But often, it is the apparent dead end which conceals a gateway opening into fresh fields.”
- Ligeti
your sixth sense, sending me what i needed to hear
Ligeti once wrote: "Totalitarian regimes do not like dissonances."
perhaps this is why i like it
or this..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlTkFTJdBws&feature=related
Prospero, I can't say I like it per se, I can appreciate it more intellectually, I think - which you seem to be doing, as well. I does make me feel uncomfortable and goes with some subliminal message of the poem, and that I like.
That quote got me thinking if there are any systems that tolerate dissonance, and what dissonance is.
thank you, vv, i have to listen to it again, but i think i get the resonance. i listened once and got a bit uncomfortable towards the end and that's when it started to resonate - it seems this poem is an exercise in tolerating/touching discomfort...
vv
Gorgeous Fauré. The opening melody on the piano is lovely.
Just thinking out loud... music has four essential characteristics - melody, harmony, rhythm and timbre.
What are the equivalents in poetry?
Music Poetry
melody - ?
harmony - form, eg sonnet
rhythm - meter
timber - phonetic aspects, eg nasal sounds
Melody is the most difficult to translate. Phonetic features such as alliteration certainly seem melodious. But could melody be equivalent to the meaning of words?
But i digress...
Ligeti virtually ignores melody, harmony and rhythm in this piece. It is all about timber.
this was my initial music choice:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_jvGUrKxZQ
George Enescu, Ballad for violin
I like it that we have a whole selection of music for this poem.
Prospero, I found myself quite reluctant to engage with the question of whether music is translatable, or of comparing music and poetry characteristics -
so I thought about that reluctance instead. It may be because, more than anything, I feel music and poetry, and how do you translate a feeling? But of course, you have the cultural context of music or poetry - I'll never be transported by a rāga as I am by a piano sonata. But would I be, had I the context translated to me - and what does translation mean in that context - this is where i'm thinking aloud now...
to me melody is a shape-not a single note but and arc, a phrase. melody is a horizontal motion like a line of poetry..not sure of the technical word in poetry for that-
like the flow of a dance, or the glide of a wave
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