When Thomas Mann meets Beethoven

I'm sorry, but seconds have arrived!

http://beethovenedintorni.blogspot.it/2013/01/doktor-faustus-camera-con-vista-e-lopus.html

But also:

http://beethovenedintorni.blogspot.it/2013/02/beethoven-comparve-sulla-soglia-dando.html

danielescarpetti wrote:

I'm sorry, but they arrived second!

Your blog also arrived "second"... what do I mean? That I had read your content much earlier than the beginning of this year... it was, 5 years ago?

But at least now they are organized and in one single place

Goodness Frank, what a memory!

In a certain sense, I feel very honored by all of this. The fact that you remember and, above all, that you have read me, I must confess, makes me quite proud. I apologize for this little "touch" of vanity, but...

You know something Frank, the phrase that you include at the bottom of your posts is the same one I used when I was in the Amadeus magazine forum. Now, that you have chosen it among so many others, it could tell me many things about you!

But perhaps, after a certain period of distance, are you perhaps getting closer to Beethoven again?

Or perhaps - who knows!!!??? - you never moved away from him, because it is impossible to do so!

In the meantime, I think you overestimate me; who knows how many will have read and appreciated your writings... so I am one of many (readers), whereas you are The One who wrote them.

I am trying to ruminate on your request and your frequently expressed curiosity regarding my hypothetical distancing from Beethoven.

Perhaps the essence could be as follows...

The phrase says:

“we were born to share joys and sorrows together”

but

“one could almost say that the best of us reach joy through suffering”

In general, I am one of those who finds the journey toward reaching a goal more interesting than the goal itself, which in the end, once arrived at... is "gone" and everything "ends"; just to be clear, I think I am someone who knows how to enjoy results, but the phrase, where the goal is joy and the journey is suffering, is "timed" over the span of a lifetime.... it foresees only one goal and only one journey.

Even if very varied and staying strictly within the musical realm, here is that the Beethoven I like is the one where he cries out his pain and not where he shows he has reached joy... For example, Brahms does not cry it out, he "whispers" it like a soul in pain... another thing I find very fascinating.

Thus, I love those compositions where the journey emerges more than the goal. You see Daniele, I am someone who, if I wanted to write a "classical" sonata—excuse the almost elementary simplification, but I don't have time for a more extensive discussion—would write it using only the minor mode (and fortunately I am someone who can choose quite a bit, so I would also have other colors on the palette... but it is the nuances that make the difference, as always)... how can I fully love (obviously, we are talking about tastes) a composer who has written only sonatas in major keys? Or only a couple? (Obviously, I am not referring to LvB.)

Someone who can make choices of this type is perhaps Chopin or otherwise a late Romantic... so returning to Beethoven... the argument doesn't hold 100% (and heaven forbid it were otherwise, he is a pre-Romantic, such grace) and it is the reason why if I had to choose a name (but today I could no longer name one), I would mention Berg in the distance... just because I am forced to. This is the point; here I want to sin with vanity, like all composers, I think my own music is the most pleasing... so it is difficult for another's aesthetics to adhere 100% to one's own, perhaps a limitation, perhaps I don't know... but aside from recognizing the greatness of a Genius like Beethoven, I cannot say that I see myself reflected in all his works... as is right.

Why perhaps Berg in the distance? As Messiaen used to say, serial music found no place because he, who was a composer of joy and color, did not find himself in this music which, according to him, expressed only fright, terror, and night (or suffering, I say?). Messiaen used the serial technique in the episode of the stigmata of St. Francis of Assisi (and if those don't cause suffering...) and in this regard he stated:

«This is a super-serial passage, which makes you understand my feelings regarding serial music: I do not consider it capable of expressing anything but fright, terror, night. And this explains why Berg chose such horrible subjects for his works.»

You see, even he falls into the matter of taste; for him, a colorist par excellence, «Serial language is not unsettling, it is black! I see it without colors, always black, gray, black, gray....»

He, then, is always changing, and in this regard he says:

«a changing music, refined and at the same time voluptuous. A music that sings. A music like stained glass, a whirlwind of complementary colors. A music that expresses the end of time, ambiguity, glorious bodies, divine and supernatural mysteries»

As if black and gray did not exist... we all know that is not the case.

But if we go to study the violin concerto, the orchestra has many glimpses of white... in short, it's not completely white, the classic "I see but I don't see," in the darkness the sliver of light becomes a point of interest, and other nonsense like that....

Now, without making wild flights of fancy and staying anchored to Beethoven, at this point however one can introduce some parallelism, for example with the music of Schubert... one does not sense a failure to reach a goal, which in relation to life is almost ideal rather than achievable, it is almost a utopia... but a strong circularity, almost realistic, as if to say that in the end one does not "escape," and if we look at his works from the last 5 years... we are not facing someone who sees the light, who sees joy... but someone who revolves around a single thought...

So who is right... obviously no one... and it couldn't be any other way.

Ultimately, it's not that now it turns out that I am depressed (like Berg... my goodness...),"}/*{

When the needle of the scale points too much towards joy or thinking about Beethoven... towards the heroic... I don't fully identify with it.... and let's not even mention the "frivolous" character pursued (also by necessity) by other composers... who were also great Masters and undisputed geniuses; when the needle of the scale tips towards the expression of a restless, suffering soul, etc. ... bingo

"Unfortunately" my aesthetic is a bit lacerating... in short, I wallow with composers like Scriabin, who not coincidentally went hand in hand with D'Annunzio... etc.

But as I was saying, one alone cannot fully satisfy me... certainly as a listener, but as a composer it wouldn't be possible for me to have the same Beethovenian aesthetic, especially because today times are different and there has been no world in which the artist has not, through their developed sensitivity, reflected and captured the signs of their own time, transforming them in turn into art... which still, in the case of great minds such as Beethoven, still tells us something.

Enough with the 2-page long-windedness... though!!!

Frank wrote:

I am trying to ruminate on your request and the curiosity you have expressed multiple times regarding my hypothetical distancing from Beethoven.

Perhaps the essence could be as follows...

The phrase says:

"we were born to experience joys and sorrows together"

but

"one could almost say that the best of us reach joy through suffering"

In general, I am one of those who finds the journey toward reaching a goal more interesting than the goal itself, which in the end, once arrived at... is "gone" and everything "ends"; just to [be clear], I think I am someone who knows how to enjoy results, but the phrase, where the goal is joy and the journey is suffering, is "timed" over the span of a lifetime.... it foresees only one goal and only one journey.

Albeit very varied and staying strictly within the musical realm, the Beethoven I like is the one where he cries out his pain and not where he shows that he has reached joy... For example, Brahms does not cry it out, he "whispers" it like a soul in pain... another thing I find very fascinating.

...and once again, the Beethoven/Brahms binomial presents itself.

Different characters, different eras, and different composers sharing in common "genius" and a life made of suffering.

Beethoven at the beginning of the 19th century could afford to think in the utopia of joy; Brahms at the end of the 19th century knew well that joy is - indeed - only a utopia.

This is why I love those compositions where the journey emerges more than the goal. You see Daniele, I am someone who, if I wanted to write a "classical" sonata—excuse the almost elementary simplification but I don't have time for a more extensive discussion—would write it using only the minor mode (and fortunately I am someone who can choose quite a bit, so I would also have other colors on the palette... but it is the nuances that make the difference, as always)... how can I completely love (obviously, we are talking about tastes) a composer who has written only sonatas in major keys? Or only a couple? (Obviously, I am not referring to LvB.)

Someone who can make choices of this type is perhaps Chopin or otherwise a late Romantic... so returning to Beethoven... the argument doesn't hold 100% (and heaven forbid it were otherwise, he is a pre-Romantic, much grace) and it is the reason why if I had to choose a name (but today I could no longer name one), I would mention Berg in the distance... just because I am forced to. This is the point; here I want to sin with vanity, as all composers do, I think that the most pleasing music is one's own... so it is difficult for another's aesthetics to adhere 100% to one's own, perhaps a limitation, perhaps I don't know... but aside from recognizing the greatness of a Genius like Beethoven, I cannot say that I see myself reflected in all his works... as is right.

It is not a limitation not to recognize oneself in the aesthetics of another composer, especially if this composer lived two centuries ago! And it is objectively sacrosanct and necessary that it be so, if one does not want to descend into mediocrity!

Milan Kundera states that even if there were a composer today who could compose Quartets retracing the same style and the same depth as the last Beethovenian quartets, the operation, in itself, would be completely absurd and out of time. And I think so too! Therefore, [live on], you:

as a composer, it is not possible to have the same Beethovenian aesthetics, especially because today times are different and there has never been a world in which the artist has not, through their developed sensitivity, reflected and captured the signs of their own time, transforming them in turn into art... which still, in the case of great minds such as Beethoven, still tells us something.