A little poetry for ya ...

[Iving]

So … I was just going about my business – archiving LPs etc – when I saw this ditty on the rear of the Michael Hoenig Album ‘Departure From The Northern Wasteland’:

 

 

Repetition is the image of eternity in music
The music of the past justifies itself for its limitation
The music of the future is sparing itself this effort

 

 

I wondered what Audiophile Style folks might make of this particular poetry.

 

To me?

 

Line 1
Repetition contributes significantly to the “form” [cf. philosophy] of music – has to do with brain no doubt – and to me language also. Cross-cultural. Universal.

 

Line 2
My wife – a gifted soprano – jokes that there are only so many ways you can put notes together to make music. I disagree with her. Mathematically she may have a point. But not regards music as language. Perhaps Hoenig is intimating that repetition is more prevalent the more primitive the music.

 

Line 3
The evolution of music avoids repetition. Artists want to be original. Frontier music (not cowboy stuff – rather, music just evolved) leans less on repetition for structure and appeal.

 

Your thoughts welcome … I haven’t (yet) heard the Album … anybody know it? How the poetry and the music relate?

[The Computer Audiophile]

6 hours ago, Iving said:

I was just going about my business – archiving LPs

That's quite the business. Only joking. 

[Iving]

I know ... time for poetry ... hard life.

 

I am very workmanlike about my archives!

 

Got the bug yet? How many LPs to date ... one (RHCP 'Unlimited Love') and counting?

 

Expected a conversion at/post Munich ...

[The Computer Audiophile]

3 minutes ago, Iving said:

I know ... time for poetry ... hard life.

 

I am very workmanlike about my archives!

 

Got the bug yet? How many LPs to date ... one (RHCP 'Unlimited Love') and counting?

 

Expected a conversion at/post Munich ...

Haven't got the bug yet, but I listened to the Atmos version of this, told a friend about it, and he ordered the colored vinyl :~)

 

https://store.deutschegrammophon.com/p51-i0028948627783/max-richter/the-new-four-seasons/index.html

 

[Iving]

10 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Haven't got the bug yet

 

I like "yet" :-)

[DuckToller]

I like Max Richter  - in uncoloured stereo, though!!

[christopher3393]

An old favorite poem that seems apropos:

 

The Idea of Order at Key West

BY WALLACE STEVENS

 

She sang beyond the genius of the sea.   

The water never formed to mind or voice,   

Like a body wholly body, fluttering

Its empty sleeves; and yet its mimic motion   

Made constant cry, caused constantly a cry,   

That was not ours although we understood,   

Inhuman, of the veritable ocean.

 

The sea was not a mask. No more was she.   

The song and water were not medleyed sound   

Even if what she sang was what she heard,   

Since what she sang was uttered word by word.

It may be that in all her phrases stirred   

The grinding water and the gasping wind;   

But it was she and not the sea we heard.

 

For she was the maker of the song she sang.   

The ever-hooded, tragic-gestured sea

Was merely a place by which she walked to sing.   

Whose spirit is this? we said, because we knew   

It was the spirit that we sought and knew   

That we should ask this often as she sang.

 

If it was only the dark voice of the sea   

That rose, or even colored by many waves;   

If it was only the outer voice of sky

And cloud, of the sunken coral water-walled,   

However clear, it would have been deep air,   

The heaving speech of air, a summer sound   

Repeated in a summer without end

And sound alone. But it was more than that,   

More even than her voice, and ours, among

The meaningless plungings of water and the wind,   

Theatrical distances, bronze shadows heaped   

On high horizons, mountainous atmospheres   

Of sky and sea.

 

                           It was her voice that made   

The sky acutest at its vanishing.   

She measured to the hour its solitude.   

She was the single artificer of the world

In which she sang. And when she sang, the sea,   

Whatever self it had, became the self

That was her song, for she was the maker. Then we,   

As we beheld her striding there alone,

Knew that there never was a world for her   

Except the one she sang and, singing, made.

 

Ramon Fernandez, tell me, if you know,   

Why, when the singing ended and we turned   

Toward the town, tell why the glassy lights,   

The lights in the fishing boats at anchor there,   

As the night descended, tilting in the air,   

Mastered the night and portioned out the sea,   

Fixing emblazoned zones and fiery poles,   

Arranging, deepening, enchanting night.

 

Oh! Blessed rage for order, pale Ramon,   

The maker’s rage to order words of the sea,   

Words of the fragrant portals, dimly-starred,   

And of ourselves and of our origins,

In ghostlier demarcations, keener sounds.