A Carnival of Peeves

Any man of a respectable age will find himself vexed by life's minor follies, an intelligent man much by many. These peeves eventually sum such a quantity that they plague the man en masse, a carnival of peeves. They begin to swirl around him in a kaleidoscopic display of transmogrifying irritations, combining and complementing and amplifying one another to the mounting terror of the man.

It is at this time the man diagnoses himself insane. Surely he has lost whatever sifts or diverts such tweaking gestures away from the fore of the mind.

Should chewing gum bother me? It's but a mild vice and she's your friend, a thoughtful, talented girl. . . but oh that endless, bovine mastication. And the smacking, the smacking, her saliva splashing as the gum squishes betwixt her chomping teeth. The smacking!

I could tolerate it, though, alone. Yet the phone beeps and bloops and regurgitates every digital blip programmed into its tinny insides even as the radio blares the techno remix and everyone's talking and the horns are blaring and this is preposterous. Vexation at such is no byproduct of priggishness or excessive perspicacity but of an intolerable affront.

Yet surely I can better bear the foibles of my fellow man. What then of people who repeat themselves? Every time you meet them, after the usual pleasantries pass, it comes: the story. It matters not the topic, the repeaters have them all. Whether on politics or jobs or sports they pin you with their ever-ready angle and gored by the inane protrusion you stand there helpless. Then someone enters. A friend and ally? If only. Now the newcomer must be caught up and so the story begins anew, only the new interlocutor finds the tale fascinating and begins to pepper Scheherazade with questions. She naturally grows thirsty and begins to drink her soda, sucking each swig's remainder from the lip of the can. Madness.

What of the theater's rubes and irritants? The shaky-kneed paper-crinklers and the people who suck their teeth at every plot point. While the gentleman invites by charm, these people ensnare others in their ravenous presence. Such foibles are not mild transgressions but destructive aggressions which claim more and more of the public space until an inferno of aggravation drives out every civilized man.

The Penne alla Vodka Philosophy of Life

Taste the generic.

At some point within my lifetime, Penne alla Vodka worked its way from culinary obscurity into the dining mainstay. This is not to observe that the dish is by nature a poor order, but rather there exists something about the combination of ingredients and expectations of foodies that always makes the plate a hit. Regardless of the freshness of ingredients, the quality of the preparation, and the details of the recipe, everyone seems to feel treated well when served a plate of Penne alla Vodka. Invariably it seems like something, and for that reason it seems seldom well prepared. Why fuss over a stellar preparation? Forget it Jake, it's Penne alla Vodka.

This policy or tendency or what have you, of accepting and praising something just for being, just for vaguely, barely taking the form it ought, offends good taste and decency in every walk of life. Government officials demand credit for activity instead of success, employees pay for showing up at work on time, and students good grades for turning in work of any quality at any time. Even in the world of the sacred this thinking runs rampant: it doesn't matter what kind of music is played at mass as long as music is played.

Underlying this philosophy is the desire to fulfill a need or appetite instead of an ideal. It might be an ideal that the specific task by its nature must be done well, i.e. the celebration of a liturgy, or it might be a general appeal to excellence. The idea sounds old fashioned: anything that's worth doing. . . but it's older still and wedded to Western Civilization. Aristos. Excelsior.

It's not hard to see the result of abandoning such aspirations, a poverty of excellence, but a worse effect pervades in a stultifying effect on the spirit. It does a terrible, quiet hurt to the soul every day to see a thousand things done well enough. The world shrinks as the symmetries of beauty fade and nothing beside remains but the tyranny of utility.

Mozartian Counterpoint: Addendum: KV.465

Mozartian Counterpoint

Part I | II | III | IV | V | VI | VII | Addendum

String Quarter in C, KV.465

I. Adagio-Allegro

The String Quartet Kochel 465 enjoys the most fame of Mozart's six Haydn quartets due to its dissonant 22-bar opening Adagio. The infamous dissonance of the introduction, however, has passed from hot topic of 19th century disagreement, inciting critical feuds and even re-written editions, to bearer of dissonances "mild" and "unproblematic to describe." (Irving, 54) Of course Mozart's music, here and everywhere, needs neither rewriting nor description, but understanding and enjoying. Robert Greenberg has also pointed out with humor and truth, "Only mild, vertical dissonance? As compared to what–a cat on a cactus?" Indeed there should be enough harmonic and melodic dissonance for anyone, but we're here specifically to talk counterpoint.

Adagio

KV.465. Adagio. 
Annotated by N. Vertucci.
Click to enlarge.

The Adagio divides into two sections of 15 and 7 measures, with the first section breaking down into units of 4, 4, and 7.

1. 15 Measures
1. 4 Measures
2. 4 Measures
3. 7 Measures
2. 7 Measures

Section I.A begins with the cello vainly droning out quavers of Cs which fail to establish a tonic center because of the viola and 2nd violin entrances on A-flat and E-flat which create the A-flat major chord. The 1st violin then enters, but on A-natural, clashing with the previous A and contemporaneous G of the viola and forming a tritone above the 2nd violin's A. The polyphonic entrances of the upper three voices which bring these dissonances create a formless coming-into-being and the descending chromatic lines following the initial dissonances evolve a sinewy chaos. Yet at the same time the imitation by its nature creates a framework of stability.

Section I.B begins and functions much the same way with the same phrase rising up, though now a step below, a beat apart through the trebles over the now-descending bass line.

Section I.C breaks the symmetry with a chromatically ascending figure, again treated imitatively although not passing through the 2nd violin.

Section II. The final seven measures finally establish the tonal area of C before we enter the Allegro, although not without disruptive syncopations and passing dissonance.

Allegro

In the exposition we arrive at the long-sought after C major with a leaping, bounding theme. The imitation throughout this section amplifies the lush energy and vertiginous activity of the theme and scalar figures.

Exposition. mm.41-47

The development section begins with imitative polyphony of the main theme over a descending bass line which proceeds, in reminiscence of the chaos of the Adagio, to tug the whole polyphonic jaunt down into a crash of highly disjunct, forte, accented figures.

Development. mm.113-118

Whereas the imitation of the exposition magnified the energy and motion, the imitation here intensifies the drama of the minor tonalities.

–

This is extraordinary music, not just for its radical harmonies but for its wealth of contrasts and expression. Mozart moves from cosmic chaos to bounding human exuberance and concludes in a fusion of the two. The complex harmonies and contrapuntal frames don't stand out as learned and instead all but disappear within the effect.

Soloman concludes,

[Mozart] composes states of ambivalence that do not unfold successively, but occur at the same time, achieving the effect of simultaneity by chromaticisms, rhythmic shifts, modulations, registral contrasts. . . Mozart specialized in the representation of amalgams of opposed affects, of beauty and sadness, of consolation and terror, of longing and anger, of pleasure and pain, teaching us what it may mean when the object of desire is simultaneously the source of fear. [Solomon, 203]

Bibliography

Abert, Hermann. W. A. Mozart. 2007.

Greenberg, Robert. The Chamber Music of Mozart. The Great Courses [Lecture]. 2004.

Irving, John. Mozart: The Haydn Quartets. Cambridge Music Handbooks. 1998.

Mozart, W.A. String Quartet in C, KV.464. Score via IMSLP.

Solomon, Maynard. Mozart: A Life. 1995.

On Verbal Chivalry

No one likes being ordered around. The reason for this truth varies from a humble belief in one's own independency to raging and irrational egoism. Yet to embrace self-government is not to absolve oneself of any and all duties. Most people understand this and embrace their responsibilities to others, if not necessarily with gusto then with fatalism. In the ideal performance of the social play, however, neither the necessity nor the principle persists at the forefront. I say this for two reasons. 

First, no one likes being reminded of a bare necessity to perform a deed. No one likes being reminded they must do something under penalty of any kind, be that pain monetary, corporal, or what have you. Who likes being bossed around by someone with no authority? Second, no one likes being bossed around by someone with authority either. Does anyone care for a reminder that he ought to help his parents out of filial piety, or show up at work to honor his contract? All such prompts smack of moralizing or authoritarianism no matter how righteous the principle and equitable the exchange. It is simply man's nature, call it unruly or liberal, that any hint of compunction ups his dander. We accept duties, but we don't like to have them throw in our face. We engage in exchange, but we don't like being hounded by takers eager for their pound of flesh.

The solution is a certain circumlocution, a tacit appeal to virtue in the form of a question. Let us call it verbal chivalry.* For example, the parent or the boss knows he can invoke certain rights and even make just demands under an unspoken principle, but he chooses to make a request. In doing so he chooses to emphasize the individual's sovereignty and not servility, to treat him as an equal, or even superior, despite his legal or moral claim. Such an exchange has several beneficial effects. The first is a liberalizing one, encouraging people to interact as equals who willfully choose the good instead of like bartering traders or servants fearing punishment. Second, one develops a sense of gratitude rather than entitlement; how much sweeter is that freely given? Lastly, this exchange allows someone to choose the principle on which he acts. Someone might grant your request not because you have leverage but because he believes you to be a kind or good person. Leaving room for people to act out of pure and simple affection seems a fine way of preserving it.

This seems far preferable to, by accident or with purpose, wagging our fingers at each other.

* Credit for the phrase to Theodore Dalrymple in The Salisbury Review. [Link]

On Muscles

At some point this morning between lapping the last loop of my Windsor and putting on my blazer, I hurt my neck. Twisted, wrenched, pinched, or strained I can't say, but some heretofore unknown and unloved muscle, after decades of flawless service, gave out. And when it did, rest assured I at last noticed it. Now it might have been the searing pain I noticed first, but hot on pain's heels set in my newfound incapacity. I was downright shocked: I can't move.

I'd never noticed just how much I could articulate this ten-pound cranium of bone, blood, and tissue until its range was reduced to about one degree in every direction. So as I leaned prone into the pile of blankets on my bed, the one painless position I quickly found, I remembered happier times: looking to my left, looking up and down. How full of agency, how free life used to be. How my muscles used to carry me carefree through life, upstairs, downstairs, over grass and through water. Heedless of their interconnected flexion and tension I ran for busses and unfurled boat sheets. I shimmied once or twice, I think. I also sat parked in front of my computer, which now seems a gross waste in this respect. (But how else to write?)

So what in return did they ask of me? Only energy, which I could supply in gleeful titillation of my palate and satiety of appetite. Not a bad deal. They even get stronger as necessary and heal themselves. What an ordinary wonder. One can surely see why great minds from Renaissance sculptors to enlightenment physicians marveled at the body's form and exercise.Take David, to the left. Look how weighty, how vital and full of  in he seems in his near stillness. How the slightest suggestion of movement, his contraposto position, suggests a symphony of activity, both actual and potential.

It's a glorious and ennobling potential, the agency of an intellect. So from now on the Half-Windsor, just in case.

On Reading Bad Writing

It may come as no surprise that President Obama's recent inaugural effusions set your humble blogger on a tirade. You may, however, be pleased to know this tirade was strictly apolitical. In fact, the speech simply iced a cake which had been rising, layer by layer, for several months. The particular bugaboo this time was mine against bad writing. Now mind you there exist many shades on literature's spectrum and everyone has bad days and deadlines, but I'm noticing a downward trend. Maybe I'm just growing old and grumpy.

For my part, I am grateful to readers.  I assume that no content is ever so enthralling or persona magnetic that you can get away with a slight or cheap shot. I strive to please and thank all for coming back despite my literary mishaps. Every essay calls for a little persuasion, seduction even.

In fact, absent some linguistic enticement, writing takes on a strident tone. "You'll read me because I'm brilliant!" it insists. Salon seems to specialize in cultivating this self-important tone. You suffer through line after line of the author's indifference to clarity and style until you realize you labor more in trying to comprehend than the author did in conceiving. I find myself more and more often throwing my hands up and moving on. Unfortunately, I'm probably missing out on some good ideas which makes me even more surly.

So bad writing is ticking me off and it's everywhere. Let's look at a few ire-inducing examples.

1) Defective Cadence

"citizens who want to come to watch the state senate do things like" -Esquire

One wonders whether the author noticed the heavily iambic meter of this line, and how he builds up energy which crashes, without purpose, into the conclusion. Does he realize it reads like this:

"citizens who want to come to watch the state senate do things LIKE"

Of course one learns rhythm and meter in high school, but I first became aware of the need to avoid rhythms with unwanted effects or associations when I studied the prose rhythms of Cicero's Second Philippic.

2) What does it all means?

"He spoke in a soft voice, in an otherwise silent room." -Salon

You see how it's not really clear what's important in that sentence? Is it the softness, or the silence? After all, any sound would have shattered the silence. Also, isn't the construction sloppy? We want to make the two phrases with "in" parallel, especially because they're both indicating location, but the comma throws off the parallelism. The comma also puts the weight on soft, which as we established doesn't make any sense.

3) We Talk Like Dis

Another Silmaril from Salon:

"It’s like when you’re trying to decide on a restaurant with a new friend." -Salon

Choose, madam, the word you are looking for is choose.

4) Indirect Misstatement

even those for whom it is right can benefit from talking honestly about it. -Salon

On the one hand "for whom" is the indirect object of "it is right" and the subject of "benefit." Rectitude aside, don't Frankenstein your sentences. It is too easy in the name of efficiency to try to join clauses by any means possible. Sometimes, just make a compound: Even those who x, can y. Yay.

Similarly, from an opera blog:

[Her] unusual voice and compelling presence made Magda more interesting to me than I've found her in the past.

"More interesting" is shared between two verbs as the predicate of "made" and the direct object of "found." The result is an awkward shift in sense.

5) Participial Maze

by saying “these things do not sap our initiative; they strengthen us,” he took a decided shot at Paul Ryan, || doubling down on Mitt Romney by adding in the next breath. . . -Vanity Fair

First, note how the ideas before and after my red break are unrelated and lay listlessly against one another. The participle doubling links the two phrases, however the speaker (President Obama) did not "take a shot" by doubling down, or at the same time as doubling down. The ideas are related forcibly by proximity, not logic. If you strip out the extraneous you see how disjointed the sentence is:

"He took a shot a Paul Ryan, doubling down on Mitt Romney."

That the author thought to squeeze in another quote at the end. . .

6) Chopped Up

"They spoke audibly enough that I had to work very hard to not hear them." -WQXR

1. Too many short words makes a soupy sentence where nothing stands out, unless you make something stand out.
2. The use of "that" to indicate the result that is logically unnecessary.
3. There's too much junk cluttering the parallelism between to work/not to hear, which is why one does not feel the parallelism, which I believe is the point of the sentence.

Hence a broken sentence.

Perhaps instead, "They spoke so loudly [that] I strained. . ."

7) Apposedly Bad

"have shifted from youthful nihilism to pessimism to a less totalizing pessimism, one that leaves room for something approaching or at least nodding toward hope, change, possibility." -NY Times

This sentences loses momentum and grinds to a halt. Why?

1. The phrase beginning "one that leaves" is simply in apposition to the previous sentence, mooching off of its energy.
2. The phrases "something approaching" and "at least nodding toward" are too long. Also, they're too similar, only one is necessary. The author clearly couldn't find the word she was looking for,  meaning "acknowledges and leaves room for"
3. The concluding asyndeton lets the sentence drip dry.

Instead: "have shifted from nihilism to total pessimism to a pessimism which admits some hope, change, or possibility."

8) It Burns!

"In my writing and podcasts, I’ve expressed my hatred of breastfeeding Nazis, my love of boxing, and my bafflement at arduinos. I have lots of opinions, but I’m not all that ideological, and my favorite stories I’ve written are the ones with the least bombast." -Hannah Rosin, Reddit AMA

1. Syntactical Ambiguity: Does she hate [non-Nazis] breastfeeding Nazis or Nazis breastfeeding each other?
2. She's not expressing emotion at the arduinos as in I'm angry at you, she's baffled because of them.
3. "lots of" is not colloquial, like "a lot of," it's just wrong. Unless perhaps she has multiple lots full of opinions.

The boldface line is a doozy. She starts with the direct object, gives us the main verb and subject, then a predicate of the subject. The result is that:

1. The "my" and "I" jockey for prominence to the confusion of the sense. Also, one of them provides redundant possessive information.
2. The separation we noted above means she has to duplicate the sense of "my favorite stories" again after the verb with "are those with."
3. After we're confused and exhausted, we finally get to the point at the end.

Instead: The least bombastic of my stories are the most dear to me.

 –

In conclusion, bad writing is unpleasant reading and fruitlessly effortful work. I don't recall which pianist once said how much more difficult it is to play a bad piece of technically easy music than an excellent piece of challenging music. The same is true of reading. Write well, for the sake of your ideas and your readers.

A 21st Century Mozart

". . . in modern conditions Mozart would make a fortune with the products of one side of his genius which he would lose in performances of works of the other side." 

–A Companion to Mozart's Piano Concertos. Arthur Hutchings, p. 160.

Arthur Hutchings' companion to the Mozart concerti is one of those densely perspicacious books in which one can find insight at every page and line. The one-off line I quoted above is one of many you could profitably unfold into a long essay.  At first look it seems a throwaway what-if to tantalize historians: What if Alexander the Great had lived, what if Cicero debated Demosthenes, and so forth. Yet the question is a little deeper, methinks.

You see, Mozart has rather unwisely been made the patron saint of starving artists, especially musicians. In truth, he wasn't the best servant to the Archbishop in Salzburg and afterward he made tidy sums throughout his ten years in Vienna. At the time of his death he was poised to explode on the opera world. So while we may be wrong to see in Mozart the subject of grievous injustice, we can't help and I don't think we're wrong to feel that he was let down. We who greedily lap up the masterpieces he produced-week by-week find unbearable the autocratic constrictions and lowbrow tastes with which he contended. Why should such a rare genius answer to anyone? Yet Mozart, very much the first freelance musician, responded to the demand and especially in the concerti and operas produced works both finely-crafted and appealing.

We should realize instead, from Mozart's experience, that ours is a liberated time. A 21st century Mozart wouldn't have to cater to the whims of a handful of rich patrons or the citizens of one city because the transportation and information revolutions have given every artist a global audience. Can you imagine the demand for Mozart's prolific universal genius? He'd have an opera premiering in New York, a new movie he scored opening every few months, he'd be on tour performing concerti and symphonies, and his serenades would dominate the Top 40. He would have commissions lined up for years and pupils lined up around the corner. Imagine a Mozart masterclass, and a Mozart not wasted teaching Franz "shithead" Sussmayr.

With his popular success Mozart would fund the projects of his heart. No more dense pupils and comissions for mechanical organ. What would we see? What would a mature, unfettered Mozart produce? Would he glory in the esoteric or elevate the everyday? Both, probably. What intimate chamber worlds and celestial symphonies might be. Surely he'd still be outraging the conservatives with his daring harmonies and befuddling the avant-garde with his knowledge of the old ways. I'm sure he'd still be giving cutting criticism of his contemporaries, and I can just see him walking Bimperl along Central Park on the way home to a private chamber recital with family and friends.

I would worry about his education, though. Would Mozart's father have been able to remain his private tutor? Could he have afforded to? Would Leopold have been dragged through the tabloids for exploiting his son? What scandals would have been cooked up in a media frenzy?  We should probably spare ourselves the thought of young Wolferl in a government school classroom of 30.

Aside from the fact that no musical education could replace that from his father, young Wolfgang's interest was almost exclusively musical. Would it have profited him, his family, or anyone, to have dragged him though a "Core Curriculum?" Yuck. Is not the disconnect between the thoughts downright offensive: Mozart and Core Curriculum. How different the associations. If the young Mozart was as attention-deficient as many of his sonatas, might he have been medicated dull as so many other spunky, innocent boys today? We rightly noted the virtues of our liberated culture, but it seems clear the young Mozart was a freer boy and the Mozart family a closer, freer family than most today. What Wolfgang might have gained in the technological revolution from looking at digitized scores of Bach he might have lost early in other ways and early on.

Of lessons we should be wary of drawing too many. It's all too easy to start pointing and wagging fingers at the alleged causes of the artistic lacuna in our society. The solution, however, is no political or social prescription, but the personal one to cultivate him in our lives through his music. Toward this end Mozart can have done no more, having left us his most perfect, universal art. The only appropriate responses, I think, are love and gratitude.

And more music. Especially opera.

–

Amarcord: Ten Frames

Read our review.

click to enlarge

Music of Middle Earth: The March of the Ents

If the success of a romance like The Lord of the Rings in the postmodern 20th century is not surprising enough, consider the love of Tolkien's songs and poems therein. Beloved by Tolkien and Middle Earth aficionados, the songs showcase not only the author's wordsmith craft but also his affection for words. Yet they're no artist's conceit because they add veracity and authenticity to the larger narrative, enshrining the deeds of Middle Earth not just in history but in lore.

Many of Tolkien's songs have been set to music and in this series I would like to compare some interpretations. So to start, The March of the Ents, from The Two Towers.

We come, we come with roll of drum: ta-runda runda runda rom!
We come, we come with horn and drum: ta-runa runa runa rom!
To Isengard! Though Isengard be ringed and barred with doors of stone;
Though Isengard be stong and hard, as cold as stone and bare as bone,
We go, we go, we go to war, to hew the stone and break the door;
For bole and bough are burning now, the furnace roars - we go to war!
To land of gloom with tramp of doom, with roll of drum, we come, we come;
To Isengard with doom we come!
With doom we come, with doom we come!
–The Two Towers. Ch. Treebeard

The March of the Ents. Stephen Olivier. 1981.

Here we have the whole of Tolkien's Entish war song thrummed out by a chorus of basses over a walking bass line. Probably the most faithful to the simple spirit of the story, this version itself derives its considerable effect from simple means.  The deep, earthy basses are a natural fit for the Ents and the bass line, aside from mirroring the march of the Ents, provides a sense of motion under the strophic, hymn-like phrases of the text. The syllabic and almost staccato treatment of the words brings out the hard-hitting consonants of Tolkien's thumping battle hymn. Lastly, the dynamics give a terrible urgency to the fury of the Ents:

For bole and bough are burning now,
the furnace roars - we go to war!

The Ents' Marching Song. The Tolkien Ensemble. 2006.

Here, the drums with their wild rhythms create a scene of primeval danger. The ensemble here remains quite faithful to the text, deriving the rhythms from Tolkien's words. They do, however, insert a dramatic scene voiced by beloved Tolkien enthusiast and performer Christopher Lee in which Sir Christopher, presumably as Treebeard, shouts rousing commands to the marching Ents. This trick opens up the music from a simple song to a scene of action. The following brassy fanfares play up the martial theme until the bass voices return with the text. The opening and Sir Christopher's monologue are the highlights.

Isengard Unleashed. Howard Shore. 2002.

Consistent with the Wagnerian dimensions of Shore's score, the war song of the Ents is nested within the Battle of Helms Deep. Like Olivier's piece, Shore begins with bass rumblings, however he quickly builds to a small rhythmic figure which, in contrast to a simple walking bass, creates a more specifically martial theme. Next, however, Shore makes a radical departure from Tolkien and Olivier and, with both text and music, paints the scene from a third person perspective. No longer do we hear the Ents themselves sing of their tale in the making, no longer a muscular war song, rather we hear high soft voices narrate in the Elvish tongue. Shore paints the image of a people rising from an ancient slumber with a long, melismatic, conjunct line culminating in a crescendo and the entry of a solo boy soprano high above, fulfilling and releasing the musical tension and completing the narrative of the Ents' attack.

Lastly, let us hear from The Professor himself.

Shore's interpretation stands out certain for complexity and for its departure from the text, but I would argue it is quite successful. The version from Olivier and The Tolkien Ensemble are admirably faithful but still vivid and engaging interpretations. Are there any other noteworthy versions or performances we overlooked?

Top Ten: Things Which Annoy Classicists

Classicists are a curious bunch. We come in all shapes and sizes and with all manner of creeds, but generally it's a smart and elitist crowd. We're also rather. . . picky.

Most of us find the following vexing. Utter these at the risk of being denounced on an epic scale. I tried to keep the list focused on the discipline and not academia.


10. "I know Italian/Modern Greek. . .

. . . can't I just pronounce/read it like that?" It's not the ignorance of the cradle of Western Civilization here that galls so much as the unwillingness to invest in learning about it.

9. Fouling up quotations

Quote foreign languages at your own risk. "Arma virumque cana" is an epic fail.

8. Duckworth, Balchazy-Carducci, and Cambridge

Aside from the varying quality of the commentaries, the first two fall apart about an hour into reading and there is no force in the universe which can keep a new Cambridge propped open.

7. Random Translations

It's admirable that you added the $4.99 bargain edition of The Odyssey at checkout, but the Derpy McDerperson translation is not helping anyone or anything. Ask for assistance.

6. Lack of an Apparatus Criticus

You mean we don't have perfect original manuscripts? What?!