Spontini’s operas sound very intriguing. But do they sound
very intriguing?
After Suffolk: Grammar! Syntax!
Céline and Julie.
My loneliness that year.
The Works That Have Counted In My Life.
Large swathes of Boulevard
Solitude are pastiche Stravinsky (the chuffing woodwind, the wonky brass
chorales, the circus buzz) – especially reminiscent of Pulcinella.
Force people to
say something (about a book, a film, an essay, a building) and they will give a
negative opinion.
The whole of history is skewed. Look for traces of the
repressed and, in particular, of the feminine. (Can this appear only as a
trace?)
Autumn texts, from when I taught: Apollinaire, Baudelaire.
(Remember the quotation about it being a ‘révolution’, on the back of the GF
edn – and the face of the woman on the front – aet. 18 this seemed to me to
express the promise of perversity and secret desire).
What happens in a symphony? (E.g. Henze’s First?)
Google Earth: Pétaouchnok.
