I did
not rise warmly to it. Then I heard an extract from Parsifal which I
disliked very much. If Bach wriggles, Wagner writhes. Yet next
morning in the Times I saw this able, heartless failure, compact of
gnosis as much as any one pleases but without one spark of either
true pathos or true humour, called "the crowning achievement of
dramatic music." The writer continues: "To the unintelligent, music
of this order does not appeal"; which only means "I am intelligent
and you had better think as I tell you." I am glad that such people
should call Handel a thieving plagiarist.
On Borrowing in Music
In books it is easy to make mention of the forgotten dead to whom we
are indebted, and to acknowledge an obligation at the same time and
place that we incur it. The more original a writer is, the more
pleasure will he take in calling attention to the forgotten work of
those who have gone before him. The conventions of painting and
music, on the other hand, while they admit of borrowing no less
freely than literature does, do not admit of acknowledgement; it is
impossible to interrupt a piece of music, or paint some words upon a
picture to explain that the composer or painter was at such and such
a point indebted to such and such a source for his inspiration, but
it is not less impossible to avoid occasionally borrowing, or rather
taking, for there is no need of euphemism, from earlier work.
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