Saturday, January 25, 2003
A fine example of examining the emotional attachment made to music, one of the most emotional of all media (January 23, 10:03 pm post courtesy of James Russell's weblog Hot Buttered Death):
"You don't often see lengthy posts in the blogosphere about Karlheinz Stockhausen, but by God here's one.
"A very pertinent question might be: given his love of Stravinsky and Milhaud co-existing with his adoration of Webern and Bartok, and given his apprenticeship as a danceband and nightclub pianist in post-war Cologne, why does he continue to have such a problem with rhythm or repetition? A latent fear, perhaps, of the inhuman treadmill of the concentration camps? He was orphaned during WWII, but never came near the camps...
"Maybe not, but he was in the thick of the war, or at least the aftermath of it. There's a description in Michael Kurtz's biography of Stockhausen of how 16-year-old Karlheinz got drafted into working as a stretcher-bearer at a military hospital and had to tend to German soldiers who'd been hit by Allied phosphorus bombs, and how the victims were so disfigured he'd struggle to find a mouth to put a straw into so they could drink. Stockhausen said they would have up to five hundred bodies to dispose of in a single day. He didn't have to get close to the camps to see the horror of the war. In this regard, I remember reading a book (unfortunately I can't remember which one) about Stockhausen back at university in which he was interviewed, and the bit that lingers in my mind was where he said something about how he thought anything with a repetitive 2/4 or 4/4 beat could be considered as having a "martial" character, and that included the biggest majority of popular music. That rather startled me, which is why I remember the comment (if not the source) as I do so long after reading it in passing. I can't remember if he said why he'd come to that opinion, though... maybe his wartime experience explains it, and explains the fear of repetition and rhythm our blogger, Marcello Carlin, seems to discern. Or maybe it doesn't and I'm talking out my arse. That wouldn't be surprising or new. Anyway, it's an interesting looking blog, with the main page at the moment also encompassing "the feminisation of noise" (a subject featuring appearances by Yma Sumac, My Bloody Valentine, Cathy Berberian and Sarah Michelle Gellar), Jimmy Scott, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Charles Ives, Michel Houellebecq and the early Human League (i.e. the pre-Dare version of the band with Ian Marsh and Martyn Ware). The latter are especially interesting as for some reason when I was at Coogee Leagues club this afternoon I suddenly found myself unable to dislodge a number of the later version of the band's songs from my mind... "
¶ 1/25/2003 12:12:00 PM
"You don't often see lengthy posts in the blogosphere about Karlheinz Stockhausen, but by God here's one.
"A very pertinent question might be: given his love of Stravinsky and Milhaud co-existing with his adoration of Webern and Bartok, and given his apprenticeship as a danceband and nightclub pianist in post-war Cologne, why does he continue to have such a problem with rhythm or repetition? A latent fear, perhaps, of the inhuman treadmill of the concentration camps? He was orphaned during WWII, but never came near the camps...
"Maybe not, but he was in the thick of the war, or at least the aftermath of it. There's a description in Michael Kurtz's biography of Stockhausen of how 16-year-old Karlheinz got drafted into working as a stretcher-bearer at a military hospital and had to tend to German soldiers who'd been hit by Allied phosphorus bombs, and how the victims were so disfigured he'd struggle to find a mouth to put a straw into so they could drink. Stockhausen said they would have up to five hundred bodies to dispose of in a single day. He didn't have to get close to the camps to see the horror of the war. In this regard, I remember reading a book (unfortunately I can't remember which one) about Stockhausen back at university in which he was interviewed, and the bit that lingers in my mind was where he said something about how he thought anything with a repetitive 2/4 or 4/4 beat could be considered as having a "martial" character, and that included the biggest majority of popular music. That rather startled me, which is why I remember the comment (if not the source) as I do so long after reading it in passing. I can't remember if he said why he'd come to that opinion, though... maybe his wartime experience explains it, and explains the fear of repetition and rhythm our blogger, Marcello Carlin, seems to discern. Or maybe it doesn't and I'm talking out my arse. That wouldn't be surprising or new. Anyway, it's an interesting looking blog, with the main page at the moment also encompassing "the feminisation of noise" (a subject featuring appearances by Yma Sumac, My Bloody Valentine, Cathy Berberian and Sarah Michelle Gellar), Jimmy Scott, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Charles Ives, Michel Houellebecq and the early Human League (i.e. the pre-Dare version of the band with Ian Marsh and Martyn Ware). The latter are especially interesting as for some reason when I was at Coogee Leagues club this afternoon I suddenly found myself unable to dislodge a number of the later version of the band's songs from my mind... "
¶ 1/25/2003 12:12:00 PM
