for a long time you have admired sarah schumann's coverimages for the german edition of virginia woolf books. you thought those images are very fitting and you were intrigued and had meant to find out more about that artist. many years later you got to know about the connection to silvia bovenschen and another couple of years later bovenschen wrote a book about schumann, 'sarahs gesetz', detailing her life, her art and their friendship/love. it's in a way a very moving book, two people who shared forty years of their lives, one of them an artist another one a professor of literature. how words and images circle around each other....
'Im Zusammenspiel der vibrierenden Linien mit den Glutfeldern deiner Farben, die sich jeder Idee einer befriedeten Natürlichkeit widersetzen und sie doch noch einmal aufrufen, glaube ich das Unternehmen einer Rettung zu erkennen.
Du rettest etwas, du rettest nicht die alten Motive unmittelbarer Anrührung oder die Möglichkeit metaphysischer Sinnbezüge, auch nicht die Möglichkeit, innere Dramatiken in die Natur zu projizieren, aber du rettest die Sehnsucht, die seit alters mit all dem verbunden war.'
Bovenschen, Sarahs Gesetz, 208
flowerville
ΜΗΔΕΙΣ ΑΨΥΧΟΛΟΓΙΚΟΣ ΕΙΣΙΤΩ
Thursday, 19 October 2017
Monday, 16 October 2017
Sunday, 15 October 2017
Every phenomenon of nature was a name - the sign, the symbol, the promise of a fresh and secret and ineffable but all the more intimate chosen union, communication and communion of divine energies and ideas. All that man in these beginnings heard with his ears, saw with his eyes, contemplated or touched with his hands, all this was the living word. For God was the Word. With the Word in his mouth and in his heart, the origin of language was as natural, as near and as east as a child's game.
JG Hamann
JG Hamann
Wednesday, 11 October 2017
Time Speaks
Fairy-tale or truth, it's all the same.
Long ago into the world it came,
Ever since adults dreamed of life's dawning,
Ever since the first bright star of morning
Set alight the windows of mankind.
Instantly in child eyes you could find
Glimmering of human comprehension.
Look, I face the future, forge ahead,
And it soon becomes a past dimension.
Here am I, I make my own life's thread.
Who am I? Distaff, thread or spinner,
I appoint the road by which is led
Every living man, be he sage or sinner.
You yourself no effort ever spared,
Light's velocity you boldly squared,
Multiplied by mass, you then went tracing
Cosmogonic views that long lay wasting.
On the planets' surfaces you saw
Cities which had vanished long before,
In the tiny micro-world you studied
Rapid particles, vibrating waves.
Here am I, your helmsman and your rudder,
Straight at you I steer my bark unsafe!
I adore a merry dislocation,
Revel when your teeming reason craves
Lightning formulas and speculation!
Well, despite that I am your old friend,
Will you not to Time a hand extend?
Or have you become so very headstrong
That you gash your knees from tumbling headlong
And forget the gesture you once threw
In the face of gods who punished you?
In reply an open challenge give them!
Let your art be simpler and more clear,
Merrier and tauter be the rhythm,
Then be off again! Go on from here
To the limits of imagination,
To the point at which you disappear!
(In our next life - the continuation).
Pavel Antokolsky
(translation Peter Tempest)
Long ago into the world it came,
Ever since adults dreamed of life's dawning,
Ever since the first bright star of morning
Set alight the windows of mankind.
Instantly in child eyes you could find
Glimmering of human comprehension.
Look, I face the future, forge ahead,
And it soon becomes a past dimension.
Here am I, I make my own life's thread.
Who am I? Distaff, thread or spinner,
I appoint the road by which is led
Every living man, be he sage or sinner.
You yourself no effort ever spared,
Light's velocity you boldly squared,
Multiplied by mass, you then went tracing
Cosmogonic views that long lay wasting.
On the planets' surfaces you saw
Cities which had vanished long before,
In the tiny micro-world you studied
Rapid particles, vibrating waves.
Here am I, your helmsman and your rudder,
Straight at you I steer my bark unsafe!
I adore a merry dislocation,
Revel when your teeming reason craves
Lightning formulas and speculation!
Well, despite that I am your old friend,
Will you not to Time a hand extend?
Or have you become so very headstrong
That you gash your knees from tumbling headlong
And forget the gesture you once threw
In the face of gods who punished you?
In reply an open challenge give them!
Let your art be simpler and more clear,
Merrier and tauter be the rhythm,
Then be off again! Go on from here
To the limits of imagination,
To the point at which you disappear!
(In our next life - the continuation).
Pavel Antokolsky
(translation Peter Tempest)
Tuesday, 10 October 2017
Rooms, Kangaroos, New York, 1976
- out of a broken rib
sprouts an afternoon / "L'heure bleue"
(a Proustian infatuation)
These walls enclosing the room so lovingly, isolating it from the world, standing so close in front of you, intermingling with you, standing like guards watching over you, averting their gaze from the corners and the little fur-paws which they do not wish to see at all. Walls opening simultaneous;y into the furthest depths of the room, for not far from there is a small door - leading to three small chambers - chambers in which you can find everything - every service, device, solutions for all problems and anxieties, whatever ... And yet they are so tiny, these chambers, that you retain the feeling, continually, that you have never really left the other (main) room - the one from which you most want to separate yourself - and from which you will never completely escape. Nor do you get the feeling of ever having entered a truly new space - no doors, no stairs; nothing leading anywhere - as you get the feeling that this is the furthest, most remote point of this already secluded small world-place - a place containing even the secrets of certain special movements and motions as hopping and jumping, but always hidden, always concealed.
Once the door leading out of the main room has closed behind you - the door which closes itself, leading you to three small chambers - waiting discreetly; nevertheless, for the moment when you might wish to come out once again - then you do enter the third and final chamber.
This small (final) chamber is in itself like a cage: one in which you could perform the most extreme forms of actions - inspiring you to the highest expressivity of power and isolation, a feeling paramount to and beyond any existing preconceived limits or barriers.
Rooms, kangaroos.
Rebecca Horn
sprouts an afternoon / "L'heure bleue"
(a Proustian infatuation)
These walls enclosing the room so lovingly, isolating it from the world, standing so close in front of you, intermingling with you, standing like guards watching over you, averting their gaze from the corners and the little fur-paws which they do not wish to see at all. Walls opening simultaneous;y into the furthest depths of the room, for not far from there is a small door - leading to three small chambers - chambers in which you can find everything - every service, device, solutions for all problems and anxieties, whatever ... And yet they are so tiny, these chambers, that you retain the feeling, continually, that you have never really left the other (main) room - the one from which you most want to separate yourself - and from which you will never completely escape. Nor do you get the feeling of ever having entered a truly new space - no doors, no stairs; nothing leading anywhere - as you get the feeling that this is the furthest, most remote point of this already secluded small world-place - a place containing even the secrets of certain special movements and motions as hopping and jumping, but always hidden, always concealed.
Once the door leading out of the main room has closed behind you - the door which closes itself, leading you to three small chambers - waiting discreetly; nevertheless, for the moment when you might wish to come out once again - then you do enter the third and final chamber.
This small (final) chamber is in itself like a cage: one in which you could perform the most extreme forms of actions - inspiring you to the highest expressivity of power and isolation, a feeling paramount to and beyond any existing preconceived limits or barriers.
Rooms, kangaroos.
Rebecca Horn
Saturday, 7 October 2017
Thursday, 28 September 2017
15. July: First inkling of a breakthrough. What Bliss. The ferns immediately assume a startling beauty & the sense of richness permeates through all the woods...The endlessness opportunities for joy that suddenly take you unawares, releasing you, like a wild bird into uncaged freedom. A bonus!...
Now I'm at the centre of the world & nothing else matters & everything is all right & a benevolence flows down over everyone & over every petty preoccupation & idiotic anxiety & irrelevant interruption & the painful paralysis is as nothing & how can it ever have been?
-- elizabeth smart
-- elizabeth smart
Sunday, 24 September 2017
Saturday, 23 September 2017
gemis
janine hendriks describes a letting be when it comes to creating her images. the images are more important than the maker. it's about being surprised by colour, particularly the depth of colour, about letting accident (toeval) playing a big role, a combination of vulnerability and strength.
this below is one of hendrik's illustration for maartje wortel's goudvissen en beton.
a successful combination of images and words. it's not something that can be classified. a blue white book, blue and white words. paragraphs have numbers. they tell a story about the sea and tilburg, about art and people. it's like bohemia by the sea. the story - or whatever you want to call what is told - is held by the images.
it is said, in this book, that art is a comfort, because art can tell you that something, someone has understood you.
this below is one of hendrik's illustration for maartje wortel's goudvissen en beton.
a successful combination of images and words. it's not something that can be classified. a blue white book, blue and white words. paragraphs have numbers. they tell a story about the sea and tilburg, about art and people. it's like bohemia by the sea. the story - or whatever you want to call what is told - is held by the images.
it is said, in this book, that art is a comfort, because art can tell you that something, someone has understood you.
Als je vazen te snel uit de oven halt, breekt het glazuur op het porselein. Al die breuken, al die scheurlijnen, ze laten een geluid achter. Er gaat iets kapot, maar er komt ook iets voor in de plaats, al is het een bescheiden geluid, beweging. Craqueleren heet dat. Het geluid van de kapotte vazen komt op willekeurige momenten. Wanneer je het niet verwacht is het daar. Een aanwezigheid. Zo is het ook met het gemis; er is een leegte en tegelijkertijd is er troost. [17/42]
Monday, 18 September 2017
When the shadow of the sash appeared on the curtains it was between seven and eight oclock and then I was in time again, hearing the watch. It was Grandfather’s and when Father gave it to me he said, Quentin, I give you the mausoleum of all hope and desire; it’s rather excrutiating-ly apt that you will use it to gain the reducto absurdum of all human experience which can fit your individual needs no better than it fitted his or his father’s. I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all your breath trying to conquer it. Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.
Faulkner - The Sound and the Fury
Wednesday, 13 September 2017
solstad/monikova: same but different
I still border on a word and on another land,
I border, like little else, on everything more and more,
a Bohemian, a wandering minstrel, who has nothing, who
is
held by nothing, gifted only at seeing, by a doubtful sea,
the land of my choice.
-- IB
the other day i read solstad's novel 11, book 18 and thought hang on, i've read something like this before, and that was monikova, pavane for a dead princess. same but different, i thought. interestingly both writers would have been of somewhat the same age had not monikova died of a brain tumor almost 20 years ago. her book was written approx 20 years before solstad's and named after that ravel piece. so, in monikova, princesses, the moment of royalty, reference to nabokov and charles kinbote, solus rex, and in the end, the royals flee into literature (if only they would), dignity flees into literature, shyness too, if you want to, if it makes you happy. as if literature is more real than life. which is why monikova always has been -- properly baptized by friedrich christian delius -- the duchess of bohemia at the sea, according that bachmann poem, and because that was where monikova came from, in both senses.
is literature more real than life?
In Solstad, the protagonist Bjorn Hansen who leaves his wife for a feeling only experienced in literature, a feeling that sometimes in rare occasions, seems to manifest itself in people, for instance in a new woman: He had discovered in this deliberate infidelity an intensity and a suspense that he could usually only observe with fascination, but without fully understanding, in art and literature. p7
the protagonist in monikova, specialized in kafka and arno schmidt, adjuncting and in despair about the students, she says about her life that it is rather a sequence of quotes from literature or movies which she not always immediately can place and then intends to write them down. yet, if they are written down and she finds back the quote, she wonders, whether there is the danger that you then double the boredom or despair...
is it about the good old hunting for the ineffable again?
and where to hunt it, in life, or in books? at any rate not easy, because not all sorts of books might provide that or maybe not all sorts of readers either...
i mean i liked the book, but did it go deeply enough, I mean deeply enough into my own existence? p72
[...]
what he now wanted to read was a novel that showed life to be impossible, but without a trace of humour, black or otherwise p74
so, hunting for the ineffable in the axebooks, but that is difficult, because they are not easy to find, or not enough or often enough that it would help (help for or with what?)
somehow it happens that ineffable feeling cannot be found in the other person either, or not always or not for long and what remains are artificial emotional constructs like bjorn hansen's jealousy barely covering the emptiness of this relationship and not sure it is because of that but bjorn hansen leaves turid lammers also because the french charme has worn, off. there is the old woman problem in solstad, i noticed in shyness and dignity too, the women,they're generally only characterised by their looks, never say anything, and once they get older and according to some, less attractive which is embarrasing and then, he can leave them as it is conveniently not him that's callous, but it's all nature's fault. so this is all a bit grating. then again you could just as well say, all of that, the aloofness, the alienation, belongs to the book, is a theme of it and in a way characterizes life, loneliness characterizes life, but not even loneliness is a problem, the problem is -- well what is it. someone inable to give himself meaning and does things in order to see whether they make him feel something?
in novel 11, book 18, it's all very seamless, glossy, affluent, saturated, complacent, aloof, no one has real problems - and in fact in a way one could say this is the usual one about the nothingness actually being not-so-nothing at all, but even if it is not nothingness it is still not yet the ineffable feeling and maybe, maybe there may be really nothing after all underneath all that distance, and not-so-nothing - or life is as usual elsewhere...
-- at any rate there are not the problems that normal people have such as money worries etc, there are rather smaller problems of hierarchy, of belonging (but only in the way in which belonging would help to give oneself consequence - or access to that ineffable feeling), bjorn hansen's son is a weirdo, but not as much as himself who is sort of moderately sociable, but then again not as fancy to outdo turid lammers in acting, a bit at the margins in the theatregroup.
that people in monikova are different, they are alienated too but not so much from each other as rather from society. all are somewhat less glossy, less sheltered and all are in some ways deprived and harmed, they're less successful and goodlooking [in fact the monikova protagonist who lives quite contently with two men is of according to solstad of ugly-woman age, but that isn't described as a problem in that book], their life is less easy and smooth, ugly daily life leaves its imprints a bit stronger. as such maybe? they came to admit their fallibility -- and i wonder whether it is the admittance of one's own fallibility that allows for the sharing of those insights in life, are we really so detached from each other or only sometimes. so it seems, in her book they are rather together alone than alone-alone like the people in solstad.
however, i think it's too easy to dismiss bjorn hansen's problem as originating from being too affluent or having an too easy life as that would not do justice to the whole existential dimension (in that book.
so, the big no, the great negation, both take to the wheelchair.
in solstad it's a secret plan. the difficulty to accept that this is life, the this is it feeling, so to speak:
What bothers me is that my life is so unimportant. p79
[...]
Existence has never answered my questions. he added, just imagine, to live an entire life, my own life at that, without having fund the path to where my deepest needs can be seen and heard! I'll die in silence, which frightens me, without a word on my lips, because there is nothing to say. p80f
[...]
In this way he became increasingly absorbed by thinking openly in the language that had somehow taken hold of him. It was all about his inability to reconcile himself to the fact that this was it. p83
something is out of control, is it about gaining control again, language has hold of him, but doesn't reveal the ineffable. one is not even in control of language. something needs to happen, what is it, a reassurance of the self? to take matters in the own hands and - to the outside - cripple yourself so you can feel that you have some consequence? cripple yourself, but not really, because that would actually hurt and actually have consequence. but that would hurt, wouldn't it?
it is one interesting question whether resistance always have to involve self harm, whether a form of resistance is not just thinkable but liveable that does not involve self-harm, for as such one could interpret the big No, the big Negation. the surrender of the self in a way, and whether one has to surrender oneself in order to express one's freedom or give oneself traction. and whether this is only possible in this way and not anyhow else. and would only this give hansen his moist, dark peace p211, satisfied but still mute and lonely.
this is where solstad stops. in his case only inauthenticity seems to work. which reminds of again ibsen and his wild duck that had played a huge role in shyness and dignity as well. i wonder whether shyness and dignity might represent as a whole the relling character while here, novel 11 represents hjalmar ekdal. if that was an intention, it's quite successful. but yes if it is about inauthenticity and the wild duck's theme of the life-lie occurs here again, as such that the life-lie of someone ought not to be destroyed, according to relling, because the life-lie keeps people alive. interesting here is that when they plan to play the wild duck in novel 11, the physician that is assisting bjorn hansen in his wheelchair plan and thereby errecting the life-lie (which in this case is a lie to others, not to oneself as in ibsen) does refuse to play the relling role in the theatregroup and this refusal is a very relling-like act and as such indicator of some gentle mocking or ironizing in solstad's writing, at times. monikova in a different way, is a prankster too.
it's very interesting, how they both use literature and refer to other books... for solstad, ibsen and for monikova it's kafka, schmidt and nabokov...
in monikova there is apart maybe from the aspect of resistance, or giving some sort of meaning to one's life another reason for sitting in the wheelchair, it is an obvious expression of hurt or handicappedness, a making visible of a hurt that otherwise would go unnoticed. in her book the alienation is different, it's alienation from some people from some parts of society, but also a closeness to some parts of society and a closeness to some people and it is not easy to reconcile that. it's a problem with daily life. daily life hurts and that manifests itself in bodily symptoms such as limping, in a sense - as the development (unlike in solstad where one only find out at the end what hansen has planned for his great negation) is a gradual one and walking gets more and more difficult, -- it's less about pretending the handicap but more about an acute pain of living that is a bit more clouded in distance in solstad. in last consequence the wheelchair is an image for not being able to walk in this world anymore.
the problem of loneliness is a different one as well, the relationship between her and her two men characterized maybe not necessarily even by a longing for each other but rather they are driven to each other by a fear of that chaos which is that problem with life, the this is it problem, - but, this is admitted as in they don't exclude themselves from each other and those moments of recognition of that problem of life and/or each other leads to some odd and deep moments of happiness, closeness. so they sort themselves out, in a the blind leads the deaf sort of way, as they can share that insight about life probably being meaningless, whereas it is maybe not meaninglessness but something else:
some residuum of life, that remains after one has done everything, all one's tasks and so on. that there is a constant implosion of a fossilized brain which can't explode anymore by any sort of despair; a sadness of senseless staring is bigger than the power of life and the power of death, it's beyond suicide.
this in a way is yet another negation, and that adds up to another refusal and a gaining of the experience of consequence of one's own life, of traction, to give up the charade in the wheelchair, it just doesn't make sense anymore. monikova's protagonist does this symbolically by having a doll - the dead princess - commit suicide in the wheelchair on june 3rd -- the day kafka and arno schmidt have died, she says, her adversaries and aides. so, where to find the ineffable, in books, or life, or both? not sure whether there is an answer to that maybe the answer walks away just like the protagonist, just walks away in that truly bohemia-by-the-sea spirit, bordering like little else, on everything more and more.
[2012]
Tuesday, 12 September 2017
Nie mehr über etwas zu schreiben, was ich nicht völlig kenne, nie mehr über etwas zu schreiben, was nicht streng begrenzt ist, nie mehr über etwas zu schreiben, dessen Notwendigkeit ich nicht einsehe.
nie mehr über etwas zu schreiben, für oder gegen das ich nicht aus tiefster Seele schreiben muß,
nie mehr über etwas zu schreiben, worüber ich das meine schon gesagt habe,
nie mehr über Kunst zu schreiben (mit einer Ausnahme).
Franz Fühmann an Konrad Reich, 24.7.1970
nie mehr über etwas zu schreiben, für oder gegen das ich nicht aus tiefster Seele schreiben muß,
nie mehr über etwas zu schreiben, worüber ich das meine schon gesagt habe,
nie mehr über Kunst zu schreiben (mit einer Ausnahme).
Franz Fühmann an Konrad Reich, 24.7.1970
Sunday, 20 August 2017
Saturday, 19 August 2017
verpflichtende Genauigkeit mit ihrer wartenden Verborgenheit
Im »Neuen Musiklexikon« von 1926, das den Anspruch erhebt, samt der Moderne auch den Bestand der jüngeren Vergangenheit nach gegenwärtigen Maßstäben zu sichten, wird von Brahms gesagt: »Für die 'Moderne' ist er zweifellos der einflußloseste aller Meister, was seiner Größe, der Erfüllung seiner geschichtlichen Mission, nicht den mindesten Abbruch tut.« Die Logik des Satzes, eingegeben von jenem fröhlichen Eifer zur Neuheit, der endlich das Neue um des in Wahrheit Abgestandenen willen preiszugeben geneigt ist, wofern es nur für noch neuer ausgegeben wird, zeugt gegen sich selber: denn was soll wohl die »Erfüllung der geschichtlichen Mission« eines vor wenig mehr denn dreißig Jahren Verstorbenen bedeuten, wenn gleichzeitig gesagt wird, er habe keinen »Einfluß« mehr? Trotzdem verlohnt es sich, sachlich zu widersprechen: nicht um Brahmsens willen, der der Verteidigung nicht bedarf, sondern der stichhaltigen neuen Musik zuliebe, die durch solche Thesen mißdeutet und diskreditiert wird und um so eher sich rechtfertigt, je weiter sie tatsächlich von jener eilfertigen Gesinnung abliegt, die da nicht bloß Undankbarkeit vorm Gewesenen, sondern mehr noch Oberflächlichkeit im Heutigen erweist.
Zunächst, selbst die historische Rückschau auf den Ursprung der neuen Musik vermag die These nicht zu rechtfertigen. Reger, von dem das gleiche Lexikon generös versichert, er sei »geschichtlich das eigentliche Bindeglied zwischen der Nachklassik und Nachromantik und der Neuen Musik«, ist ohne Brahms schlechtweg undenkbar: die Wiederaufnahme der absoluten Musik im Rahmen der kammermusikalischen Sonate, der Klaviersatz in 'Griffen', tieferhin aber die Technik der motivischen Aufspaltung der Themeneinheit, ihre Verwandlung durchs überall waltende Prinzip der Durchführung, und vor allem der Stil der harmonischen Polyphonie ist ohne Brahms nicht zu denken; selbst das radikalste Ergebnis Regers, die musikalische 'Prosa' durch metrische Lockerung, ist den Brahmsischen Dehnungen und Kürzungen verpflichtet. Wieviel der junge Schönberg ihm verdankt, kann selbst der oberflächliche Blick noch an dem Lied »Am Wegrand« aus op. 6, also bereits der evolutionären Periode, erkennen. Weniger bekannt ist, daß auch die ersten kammermusikalischen Arbeiten Hindemiths (vor op. 10) sich offen mit Brahms auseinandersetzen. Das sollte historisch genügen; immerhin könnten Historiker auf den Einfall kommen, Brahms sei eben 'überwunden' worden. Wie steht es nun damit?
Gewiß, keiner schreibt mehr die lastenden Sexten über nachschlagenden Triolen; wenige die treulichen Reprisen, gar im kürzeren Klavierstück, und der Brahmsische 'Ton', die mühsam gelöste Stummheit, das schwere Atemholen eines gleichsam unablässigen Alterns der Musik, wird als Nachahmung kenntlich, wann immer ihn einer versuchte - eben weil er so tief dem Brahmsischen Ursprung, und das sagt zugleich: seiner Verfahrungsweise, verschwistert ist. Aber das zeigt doch nicht mehr von Brahms, als was, nach seinem eigenen Ausdruck, »jeder Esel hört«.
Das Eigentliche ist nicht ebenso kenntlich, in Verborgenheit jedoch um so wirksamer. Es erschließt sich am ehesten der Besinnung auf Brahmsens Ausgangsmaterial. Es war das Schumannsche, jene melodische Homophonie, die dem Gesang und dem harmonischen Fund zuliebe die große Beethovensche Sonatenkonstruktion durch subjektiven Ausdruck aufgeweicht, ihre Kontraste in lyrisches Liederspiel, ihre tektonischen Wiederholungen in den kreisenden Wiederholungszwang des eingeschlossenen Ich verwandelt hatte.
Nach dem Schumannschen Opfer besinnt in Brahms der objektive Sonatengeist sich gleichsam auf sich selber. Seine ganze Größe ist darin gelegen, wie streng solche Besinnung sich an den Ort und die Stunde bindet, da sie sich vollzieht. Der unmittelbare Rückgriff auf Beethoven ist, im Namen der Schumannschen Subjektivität und ihres verwandelten Musikstoffes, nicht möglich; die neudeutsche und Chopinsche Chromatik, die noch nicht vom Theater her ihr großes Gelingen im reifen Wagner gefunden hat, scheint einstweilen, im Bereich der Sonatenform, bloße Steigerung der Schumannsituation. Der sprengende Weg hindurch ist nicht der Brahmsische, aber auch nicht, oder nur gelegentlich, der zurück: vielmehr die Versenkung. Tiefsinnig schaut seine Musik ihr Material, eben das der Schumannschen Hochromantik, in seiner Selbstgegebenheit solange an, bis aus dessen eigenen Forderungen die Objektivation gerät: Objektivation des Subjektiven. Was bei Wagner der dynamische Sturm vollbringt, leistet bei Brahms die hartnäckige Insistenz. Seine Resultate aber haben um so mehr Dauer, Dauer gerade für die nachfolgende kompositorische Praxis, je weniger sie an der Außenfläche des Klangphänomens haften, je weniger sie darum der Abnutzung als 'Reiz' ausgesetzt sind.
Ihre genaue Analyse wäre ein großer kunsttheoretischer Gegenstand: gewiß kein geringerer als die Bruckners. Mögen nur Stichworte gegeben sein: die harmonischen Funde Schumanns werden aus ihrer expressiven Vereinzelung gelöst und nach ihnen die harmonische Struktur neu bestimmt: sie bilden selbständige Nebenstufen, die sinnvolle akkordische Gleichgewichtsverteilung auch über lange Strecken ermöglichen und, gegenüber dem 'klassischen' Schema von Subdominante, Dominante und Tonika, gleichwohl den subjektiv erschlossenen Reichtum halten. Beethovens symphonischer Lapidarstil mit der Sequenzierung identisch durchgehaltener Motive (erster Satz der Fünften) ist mit solchem harmonischen Bewußtsein so wenig vereinbar wie die Wagnerische chromatische Sequenz: statt dessen wird Beethovens spezifische Durchführungstechnik weitergebildet und zu einer Kunst der Variation gesteigert, die in den Expositions- und Durchführungsteilen aus dem Bewahrten, Bekannten unablässig Neues entwickelt, ohne eine 'freie', konstruktiv zufällige Note sich zu gestatten. Dem entspricht eine Kunst der ökonomischen Themenaufteilung in kleinste Motive, die als Konsequenz aus der Sonate ähnliches entwickelt wie Wagner aus dem Zwang der dramatisch prägnanten Charakterisierung, ohne doch, zwischen Motiv und Großform, das gestalthafte Thema als Träger der Substanz zu opfern. Es ist eine großartige, unbequeme, doch im heutigen erhellten Materialbewußtsein wahrhaft erst fällige Unnaivetät des Komponierens, die Brahms, im entscheidenden Gegensatz zu Bruckner, beherrscht und deren seltsamer musikalischer Erkenntnischarakter seine heilende Kraft erst beweist, wenn der schmerzhaft romantische Drang der Affekte abgestorben ist. Die Umschmelzung und Rekonstruktion der Sonate selber bleibt als dessen bis heute noch unbewältigte Idee zurück: in dem unver-gleichlichen ersten Satz von Brahmsens Vierter Symphonie ist sie aufs genaueste formuliert.
Die Situation der gegenwärtigen Musik aber und die Problemgeschichte ihrer besten Vertreter macht die Wiederaufnahme jener Brahmsischen Intentionen unabweislich. Nachdem unsere Dissonanzen nicht als Reiz mehr frommen und nicht mehr als Ausdruck chaotischer Seelenverfassung, sondern bloß als neuer Musik-Stoff; nachdem der neoklassizistische Rückgriff als zu kurz, als materialfremd sich herausstellte, werden jene Kategorien musikalischen Bewußtseins fällig, die Brahms aus dem Material entwickelte und die, unentdeckt bis heute, eben darüber hinausweisen. Das Brahmsische Stufendenken gibt den Grund ab aller legitimen Reihenkomposition; seine verschlossen abwandelnde Dynamik wird zum Korrektiv der imitierten Terrassenstarrheit; die Ökonomik seiner Variationskunst lehrt zwangvoll die Ökonomik materialgerechten Verfahrens; und die in Brahmsens besten Werken geforderte Umorganisation der großen Form bleibt, mit Nachdruck sei es wiederholt, noch erst zu leisten. Leicht könnte es sogar geschehen, daß man die Substanz der Neuen Musik gerade in der Erfüllung jener Brahmsischen Postulate - die gewissen Theorien des späten Hölderlin verwandt sein mögen -finden wird, während die beunruhigenden Klänge als notwendig zwar, doch bloße Akzidentien ihre Selbstverständlichkeit gewinnen.
Mag immer der Brahmsische Ton ohne 'Einfluß' sein; was gilt überhaupt in Kunst jener offenkundige Einfluß? Er hat dafür Gesetze gestiftet, deren verpflichtende Genauigkeit mit ihrer wartenden Verborgenheit wetteifert. An künftigen Brahms-Aufführungen, die die Gesetze, und nicht das akademische Erbe oder die herbstlichen Farben realisieren, wird es wesentlich gelegen sein, ob sie aufgedeckt werden, so, wie sie bislang schon fruchtbar waren.
Adorno - Brahms aktuell
Wednesday, 16 August 2017
some sense
It is true that there are many occasions of real difficulty, there are some in almost every one of the hymns; but it is certainly not necessary that on every reading we should be able to resolve them all. The survival in a poem of unresolved difficulties need not hinder our enjoyment, but worrying over them will. These for the most part rather long poems have great variety of texture, and to concentrate anxiously on points of bafflement must be wrong. For a total appreciation of the poem it is important to go on from its difficulties to its passages of naive simplicity, and see what baffled us then in the poem's total context. We shall always make some sense even of the most intractable lines, and it may well be a good thing and in our own interest and conducive to the proper working of the poem if that sense shifts and alters, and on one reading seems more and on another less definite. Poems are not crosswords, and difficulties in them are not there to be conclusively solved. A reader who is sure he has solved something will most often in fact have suffered a loss, since thereafter, if he is sure of his acquisition, his reading imagination in that aspect will be closed. It is quite salutary to forget what one thought a difficult passage meant. The poem, as Hölderlin conceived of it, seeks to realize the condition of immanence. In an ideal reading this realization would take place in us, even as we read. In that experience retained knowledge may be more of a hindrance than a help.
David Constantine - Hölderlin
Lesen Sie! Immerzu nur lesen, das Verständnis kommt von selbst.
Celan
David Constantine - Hölderlin
Lesen Sie! Immerzu nur lesen, das Verständnis kommt von selbst.
Celan
Sunday, 13 August 2017
Tuesday, 8 August 2017
Wer sein Herz aus der Brust reißt zur Nacht, der langt nach der Rose.
Sein ist ihr Blatt und ihr Dorn,
ihm legt sie das Licht auf den Teller,
ihm füllt sie die Gläser mit Hauch,
ihm rauschen die Schatten der Liebe.
Wer sein Herz aus der Brust reisst zur Nacht und schleudert es hoch:
der trifft nicht fehl,
der steinigt den Stein,
dem läutet das Blut aus der Uhr,
dem schlägt seine Stunde die Zeit aus der Hand:
er darf spielen mit schöneren Bällen
und reden von dir und von mir.
Celan
Sunday, 6 August 2017
weerlos
Waarom begrijp je alles.... waardoor kleeft van zooveel het weten je aan? Je komt er niet meer af, je kunt het niet vergeten. Je kunt nauwelijks zoo ver teruggaan in de jaren, of het was er, het fluisteren op school, waarbij je moest blozen, waarbij je met je oogen knipperen moest, je werd warm en verward.... je voorhoofd besloeg. Waarom slaat elk woord als bliksem bij je in.... waarom heb je ooit naar de deuren gekeken, waarom schroeit er iets in je, gloeit er iets in je, terwijl je walgt....?
Eéns was genoeg en het kleeft je aan.
Waarom weet je jezelf schuldig, enkel doordat je begrijpt? Je komt pas tot rust, als je dien schuld bekent. Voor jezelf.... ‘Weet jij het al.... weet jij het al.... of geloof jij nog aan den ooievaar?’ Altijd dat. En het als met den vinger aanwijzen.... de ondraaglijke openbaringen. Je dorst het niet in je denken aan vader en moeder verbinden -, je verstoorde die draad, die zich toch telkens weer spon, van je uit en buiten je om.... Enkel door het te verwerpen, enkel door vader-en-moeder uit te zonderen, terwijl je beter wist, kon je het samenleven dragen. Je ondervroeg de menschen met je oogen, de getrouwde menschen, en zelf gaf je het antwoord. Neen.... Neen.... Neen. Een diepe twijfel -, tegen alle volhouden in -, een diepere zekerheid: wat zoovelen weten, staat vast. Alle menschen zijn gevloekt. Ze moeten het zwaarste voor het liefste lijden....
Later, langzaam aan is het heel-erge gekomen. Er stond een zin in een boek. De gevolgen van hun liefde bleven niet uit -, angst maakte zich van haar meester.
Je begreep het eerst niet recht -, maar het bleef in je steken. Het omgonsde je, als een vlieg. Het maakte je duizelig, warrelig, verward. Soms, in de nacht, zwol het gonzen tot een schreeuw. Het schreeuwde in tegen zichzelf. Wat beduidt dit.... ‘De gevolgen van hun liefde’? De woorden werden spookselen, die je omfluisterden. Wie kan het mij zeggen.... mij zeggen, wat dàt.... met liefde te maken heeft? Liefde.... liefde.... je kuste den rug van je eigen hand. Ze heetten Ewald en Dorothea, en ze kusten elkaar in het rozenpriëel. ‘De gevolgen van hun liefde bleven niet uit....’ En het staat er, het gilt naar je toe: die ‘gevolgen’ zijn: een kind. Het liefste, waar je het zwaarste voor moet lijden? Het zwaarste....? ‘De gevolgen van hun liefde’.... en het is datzelfde, waar je niet over spreken moogt, waar je niet aan denken moogt, waar de gemeene woorden op doelen, die de stalknecht schreeuwt. Maar dat kan toch niet.... er moet de uitweg van een verborgen dubbele beteekenis zijn. Je moest dat alles niet hoeven weten. Het moest zich niet zoo in je kunnen hechten, je moest geen gemeene woorden begrijpen. Is het niet gruwelijk, dat je zoo weerloos voor het vuile open staat? Zonder zelfs de zekerheid, dat het in je besloten blijft. Dit laatste weet ze sinds verleden jaar pas goed.
Carry van Bruggen -- Eva
Eéns was genoeg en het kleeft je aan.
Waarom weet je jezelf schuldig, enkel doordat je begrijpt? Je komt pas tot rust, als je dien schuld bekent. Voor jezelf.... ‘Weet jij het al.... weet jij het al.... of geloof jij nog aan den ooievaar?’ Altijd dat. En het als met den vinger aanwijzen.... de ondraaglijke openbaringen. Je dorst het niet in je denken aan vader en moeder verbinden -, je verstoorde die draad, die zich toch telkens weer spon, van je uit en buiten je om.... Enkel door het te verwerpen, enkel door vader-en-moeder uit te zonderen, terwijl je beter wist, kon je het samenleven dragen. Je ondervroeg de menschen met je oogen, de getrouwde menschen, en zelf gaf je het antwoord. Neen.... Neen.... Neen. Een diepe twijfel -, tegen alle volhouden in -, een diepere zekerheid: wat zoovelen weten, staat vast. Alle menschen zijn gevloekt. Ze moeten het zwaarste voor het liefste lijden....
Later, langzaam aan is het heel-erge gekomen. Er stond een zin in een boek. De gevolgen van hun liefde bleven niet uit -, angst maakte zich van haar meester.
Je begreep het eerst niet recht -, maar het bleef in je steken. Het omgonsde je, als een vlieg. Het maakte je duizelig, warrelig, verward. Soms, in de nacht, zwol het gonzen tot een schreeuw. Het schreeuwde in tegen zichzelf. Wat beduidt dit.... ‘De gevolgen van hun liefde’? De woorden werden spookselen, die je omfluisterden. Wie kan het mij zeggen.... mij zeggen, wat dàt.... met liefde te maken heeft? Liefde.... liefde.... je kuste den rug van je eigen hand. Ze heetten Ewald en Dorothea, en ze kusten elkaar in het rozenpriëel. ‘De gevolgen van hun liefde bleven niet uit....’ En het staat er, het gilt naar je toe: die ‘gevolgen’ zijn: een kind. Het liefste, waar je het zwaarste voor moet lijden? Het zwaarste....? ‘De gevolgen van hun liefde’.... en het is datzelfde, waar je niet over spreken moogt, waar je niet aan denken moogt, waar de gemeene woorden op doelen, die de stalknecht schreeuwt. Maar dat kan toch niet.... er moet de uitweg van een verborgen dubbele beteekenis zijn. Je moest dat alles niet hoeven weten. Het moest zich niet zoo in je kunnen hechten, je moest geen gemeene woorden begrijpen. Is het niet gruwelijk, dat je zoo weerloos voor het vuile open staat? Zonder zelfs de zekerheid, dat het in je besloten blijft. Dit laatste weet ze sinds verleden jaar pas goed.
Carry van Bruggen -- Eva
Saturday, 5 August 2017
Insel-Bücherei Project: No 73 L. N Tolstoi - Der Schneesturm. Die drei Tode. Zwei Novellen
unable to finish this book.
might come back to it.
the cover, however, is very beautiful and fitting.
Insel-Bücherei Project
Tuesday, 1 August 2017
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