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Re: Pages of VN lecture still AWOL?
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Dear Carolyn,
It sounds as if Beethoven wasn't dead in his grave after all, merely Haydn.
I can't speak for Nabokov's views (the ones you find distasteful), but I
can sympathize with them. However, I can also sympathize with Mozart's, if
death means not simply bodily dissolution but spiritual liberation from
punishing puns.
The puns Beethoven himself littered his letters with aren't the most
inventive, no matter how one editor spins it (unless he's just picked out
the lamest examples):
"Of puns, and various plays upon words there is abundance, one might say
superabundance.... To take a simple example, Beethoven speaks of a person
named Traeg as *traeg,* i.e., slow. The mere fact of having to explain such
mild specimens of humour is, of course, fatal, yet as this punning
propensity runs through the whole of the letters, some attempt had to be
made to show it in translation. Of Beethoven's puns, as one can well
imagine, some were very good, others very bad. He never missed an
opportunity with names of composers. We need not call attention to familiar
jokes, but would note two in connection with Bach. The composer hears that
Anna Regina Bach, the last surviving child of the great composer, is in
distress, and in writing to Hofmeister expresses the hope that something
may be done for this bach ("brook") before it dries up....The other is a
play upon the *basso ostinato* of the Crucifixus in Bach's B minor Mass.
Beethoven tells his publisher Steiner, that this basso resembles him, i.e.,
in his obstinacy with regard to terms. He writes to Ries that he hears J.
B. Cramer does not approve of his (Beethoven's) music, and so calls him a
Counter-subject, the Society of Musical Friends (Gesellschaft der
Musikfreunde) is a Society of Fiends, and so on. --A.C. Kalischer, *The
Complete Letters of Beethoven*
Brian Tomba
On Fri, Jul 13, 2012 at 12:45 AM, Carolyn Kunin <chaiselongue@att.net>wrote:
>
> On Jul 12, 2012, at 2:27 PM, Brian wrote: The tantalizing lacuna:
> "...That human life is but a first installment of the serial soul and that
> one’s individual secret is not lost in the process of earthly dissolution
> ..."
>
> Dear Mr Tomba,
>
> Odd that you should send this in just at this time, as I have recently
> been wondering if VN's antagonism to Freud hasn't been mis-interpreted. In
> other words I wonder if it isn't Freud's belief in what he called *Todestrieb,
> *that is the death drive, that VN actually objected to. Jansy kindly
> published two essays on music that I had written back in the '90s on her
> web site* aetern.us*. One of them is entitled "Purcell - death and the
> music." In this essay I quote my great mentor Vladimir Markov's belief that
> at the heart of Mozart's music lay death, and also Mozart's own words, "*Death
> is the true goal of our existence, and mankind’s best friend. The thought
> of it does not frighten me, but comforts me and brings me peace."*
> *
> *
> Personally I find this a very sane and healthy attitude, and if I may be
> allowed my own prejudices, I find it rather 'Jewish,' although we too have
> our seekers after immortality. This inability to allow nature to take her
> age-old course I find very distasteful in VN. It is in an odd way a life
> defeating attitude. Our works should live on after us, not our selves.
>
> In this case, I think Freud got it right.
>
> Carolyn Kunin
>
>
> p.s. But all seriousness aside, did you hear that when Beethoven's grave
> was dug up, they found the great composer going through scores of his music
> erasing, erasing, erasing. When asked what he thought he was doing, with a
> straight face the old man explained that he was de-composing.
> Google Search the archive<http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en> Contact
> the Editors <nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu> Visit "Nabokov
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> L-Soft Search the archive<https://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A0=NABOKV-L&X=58B9943B29972AFF64&Y=nabokv-l%40utk.edu>
>
> ****All private editorial communications are read by both co-editors.
>
Search archive with Google:
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Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
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Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/
It sounds as if Beethoven wasn't dead in his grave after all, merely Haydn.
I can't speak for Nabokov's views (the ones you find distasteful), but I
can sympathize with them. However, I can also sympathize with Mozart's, if
death means not simply bodily dissolution but spiritual liberation from
punishing puns.
The puns Beethoven himself littered his letters with aren't the most
inventive, no matter how one editor spins it (unless he's just picked out
the lamest examples):
"Of puns, and various plays upon words there is abundance, one might say
superabundance.... To take a simple example, Beethoven speaks of a person
named Traeg as *traeg,* i.e., slow. The mere fact of having to explain such
mild specimens of humour is, of course, fatal, yet as this punning
propensity runs through the whole of the letters, some attempt had to be
made to show it in translation. Of Beethoven's puns, as one can well
imagine, some were very good, others very bad. He never missed an
opportunity with names of composers. We need not call attention to familiar
jokes, but would note two in connection with Bach. The composer hears that
Anna Regina Bach, the last surviving child of the great composer, is in
distress, and in writing to Hofmeister expresses the hope that something
may be done for this bach ("brook") before it dries up....The other is a
play upon the *basso ostinato* of the Crucifixus in Bach's B minor Mass.
Beethoven tells his publisher Steiner, that this basso resembles him, i.e.,
in his obstinacy with regard to terms. He writes to Ries that he hears J.
B. Cramer does not approve of his (Beethoven's) music, and so calls him a
Counter-subject, the Society of Musical Friends (Gesellschaft der
Musikfreunde) is a Society of Fiends, and so on. --A.C. Kalischer, *The
Complete Letters of Beethoven*
Brian Tomba
On Fri, Jul 13, 2012 at 12:45 AM, Carolyn Kunin <chaiselongue@att.net>wrote:
>
> On Jul 12, 2012, at 2:27 PM, Brian wrote: The tantalizing lacuna:
> "...That human life is but a first installment of the serial soul and that
> one’s individual secret is not lost in the process of earthly dissolution
> ..."
>
> Dear Mr Tomba,
>
> Odd that you should send this in just at this time, as I have recently
> been wondering if VN's antagonism to Freud hasn't been mis-interpreted. In
> other words I wonder if it isn't Freud's belief in what he called *Todestrieb,
> *that is the death drive, that VN actually objected to. Jansy kindly
> published two essays on music that I had written back in the '90s on her
> web site* aetern.us*. One of them is entitled "Purcell - death and the
> music." In this essay I quote my great mentor Vladimir Markov's belief that
> at the heart of Mozart's music lay death, and also Mozart's own words, "*Death
> is the true goal of our existence, and mankind’s best friend. The thought
> of it does not frighten me, but comforts me and brings me peace."*
> *
> *
> Personally I find this a very sane and healthy attitude, and if I may be
> allowed my own prejudices, I find it rather 'Jewish,' although we too have
> our seekers after immortality. This inability to allow nature to take her
> age-old course I find very distasteful in VN. It is in an odd way a life
> defeating attitude. Our works should live on after us, not our selves.
>
> In this case, I think Freud got it right.
>
> Carolyn Kunin
>
>
> p.s. But all seriousness aside, did you hear that when Beethoven's grave
> was dug up, they found the great composer going through scores of his music
> erasing, erasing, erasing. When asked what he thought he was doing, with a
> straight face the old man explained that he was de-composing.
> Google Search the archive<http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en> Contact
> the Editors <nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu> Visit "Nabokov
> Online Journal" <http://www.nabokovonline.com> Visit Zembla<http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm> View
> Nabokv-L Policies <http://web.utk.edu/%7Esblackwe/EDNote.htm> Manage
> subscription options <http://listserv.ucsb.edu/> Visit AdaOnline<http://www.ada.auckland.ac.nz/> View
> NSJ Ada Annotations <http://vnjapan.org/main/ada/index.html> Temporary
> L-Soft Search the archive<https://listserv.ucsb.edu/lsv-cgi-bin/wa?A0=NABOKV-L&X=58B9943B29972AFF64&Y=nabokv-l%40utk.edu>
>
> ****All private editorial communications are read by both co-editors.
>
Search archive with Google:
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q=site:listserv.ucsb.edu&HL=en
Contact the Editors: mailto:nabokv-l@utk.edu,nabokv-l@holycross.edu
Visit Zembla: http://www.libraries.psu.edu/nabokov/zembla.htm
View Nabokv-L policies: http://web.utk.edu/~sblackwe/EDNote.htm
Visit "Nabokov Online Journal:" http://www.nabokovonline.com
Manage subscription options: http://listserv.ucsb.edu/