Music in Literature

[lenz]

Literature in music is all very well - harrumph! - but what about music in literature? I haven't found a thread for this so I'll start one. It goes something like this . . .



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Tolstoy's novella, The Kreutzer Sonata, in which Beethoven's sexy work leads to an adulterous affair.

 

[Mirabell]

Mann#s Faustus, which consists in part of Mann#s own musings on music, and ideas about Twelve Tone Music cribbed from Adorno

Hans Henny Jahnns magnum opus Fluss ohne Ufer, one of the best (or maybe THE best) German novel in the 20th century is about an organ builder and composer and even contains sheet music

 

[lenz]

Thanks, Mirabell. I read Faustus but understood nothing about the music - I'll try again.

 

[lionel]

A few years ago I spoke with someone doing a PhD in music and Alejo Carpentier's literature. This was at a literature conference, but her discipline was actually Music. I wouldn't normally point anyone to Wikipedia, but Carpentier's literature and music are, well...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alejo_Carpentier

Also, I heard of someone researching music and Shelley, but know less about that.

BLOG

 

[k2doggo]

thomas bernhard writing about glenn gould, or anyway "a" glenn gould, in the loser. also mendelssohn gets glanced at in yes (i think).

i, who shouldn't, will mention this book http://www.fuguestatepress.com/how.html

also louis zukovsky's poem A is in part musically scored. (his kid is paul zukovsky the violinist.)

 

[Mirabell]

fugue state published another novel on music by a fantastic writer http://www.fuguestatepress.com/cadenza.html

I admit, I've never read Mr. Chapman, but you'd be the wrong person to ask, huh.

 

[peter_d]

Maarten 't Hart - Het woeden der gehele wereld (The fury of the whole world)
The music of Johann Sebastian Bach plays a central role in this book. I would certainly recommend it, although it's only accessible for those who can read Dutch, German, Swedish, Danish, French, Spanish, Italian or Czech. For some incomprehensible reasons it has not been translated in English.

 

[peter oram]

....hindemith's settings of 6 of rilke's french poems for unaccompanied choir.....debussy's settins of 6 chanson by charles d'orleans for same medium.... boulez's settings of mallarme and rene char ... britten's nocturne on texts by shelley, coleridge, et several al., r. strauss's fantastic 4 last songs (hesse and eichendorff)... a minute fraction of millions of examples in the vocal repertoire... of you mean instrumental there are also loads: r strauss's "also sprach zarathustra," liszt' faust symphonie...in fact that list would be so endless that i'm not sure what the value of a thread actually is, unless you narrow it down to things like settings´for solo voice by 20 century composers, or tone poems,or serial music or whatever...

 

[Bjorn]

Maarten 't Hart - Het woeden der gehele wereld (The fury of the whole world)
The music of Johann Sebastian Bach plays a central role in this book. I would certainly recommend it, although it's only accessible for those who can read Dutch, German, Swedish, Danish, French, Spanish, Italian or Czech. For some incomprehensible reasons it has not been translated in English.

His Het Psalmenoproer uses music to good (though not great) effect too, letting the change in liturgy and psalms in the 1700s reflect the roots of the industrial revolution.

 

[hdw]

Maarten 't Hart - Het woeden der gehele wereld (The fury of the whole world)
The music of Johann Sebastian Bach plays a central role in this book. I would certainly recommend it, although it's only accessible for those who can read Dutch, German, Swedish, Danish, French, Spanish, Italian or Czech. For some incomprehensible reasons it has not been translated in English.

I think Eric should translate it as a change from Estonian and to take his mind off Julian and his Wicked Leeks (sounds like an unpublished story by Roald Dahl).

Harry

 

[learna]

This is an extract from The Glass Beard Game by Hermann Hesse:

"All the insights, noble thoughts, and works of art that the human race has produced in its creative eras, all that subsequent periods of scholarly study have reduced to concepts and converted into intellectual values the Glass Bead Game player plays like the organist on an organ. And this organ has attained an almost unimaginable perfection; its manuals and pedals range over the entire intellectual cosmos; its stops are almost beyond number. Theoretically this instrument is capable of reproducing in the Game the entire intellectual content of the universe."

 

[lenz]

peter oram

Re: Music in Literature

....hindemith's settings of 6 of rilke's french poems for unaccompanied choir.....debussy's settins of 6 chanson by charles d'orleans for same medium.... boulez's settings of mallarme and rene char ... britten's nocturne on texts by shelley, coleridge, et several al., r. strauss's fantastic 4 last songs (hesse and eichendorff)... a minute fraction of millions of examples in the vocal repertoire... of you mean instrumental there are also loads: r strauss's "also sprach zarathustra," liszt' faust symphonie...in fact that list would be so endless that i'm not sure what the value of a thread actually is, unless you narrow it down to things like settings´for solo voice by 20 century composers, or tone poems,or serial music or whatever...

I'm afraid you have the wrong thread. The closest one would be this:

References to Literature in Music


but it seems to be focussed on popular songs. You're right, a list such as yours would fill a large book - in fact, there probably is one.

 

[Ben Jackson]

Revisit an Old Thread

Music has always played a role in literary worls either influencing them in structure or having lengthy passages discussing them. Examples includee the lengthy discussions of, if I remember correctly, Debussy in Proust and even some Beatles references can be found in Walcott's magnum opus Omeros. Some of other works of music in literature include Tomas Transtromer's music poems: Balkariev's Dream, Schubertiana, Allegro, Elytis poem of Mozart, Jelinek's Piano Teacher, McEwan's Lesson, Beckett (I can't remember if it's in Murphy or Watt), Mann's Doctor Faustus, Ishiguro's Nocturnes, a story collection about the power of music, and so many others.