How many more times will you watch the full moon rise?…

…Perhaps twenty.
…Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless
…Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless - from the Sheltering Sky

This weekend, I watched Bertolucci’s reduction of Paul Bowles’ novel, the Sheltering Sky. The movie makes a nice compliment to the book but not a good replacement. With enough film and time I think Bertolucci could have fulfilled more of the book’s promise. I give you 1900, Bertolucci’s 6 hour masterpiece, as proof.

The movie made a nice compliment to the goings on of the week. It was shot in Niger – the homeland of Etran Finatawa.

Of course I wrote about them last Wednesday. This was a happy accident since I neither selected the movie nor knew anything about it until the author’s name popped up in the opening credits.

Didn’t know until recently that Paul Bowles was himself a composer like his character Port Moresby.

NAP Label News: Corn sprouts popped from the ground this very morning. They were sown ten days ago. (note: due to the risky nature of this crazy label business, we cannot take pre-orders at this time)

This interview with Mr. Bowles regarding music, I found amusing.

A short excerpt:

Yes, and there is no entertainment without charm.

But others might consider, for instance, an earnest Beethoven quartet
entertaining.

[Laughing] You’re not interviewing those others.

Why do you find Beethoven’s music distasteful?

For one thing, because you have to wait so long for it to change.

Is it too serious and determined for you, not episodic enough?

Probably.

Of course, generally speaking, Beethoven was uninterested in charming the listener. More in impressing him.

Ah, I was afraid of that!

You don’t care for impressive, self-important music.

How could I? In my own music I never liked to raise my voice. It was
often more in the manner of an aside. That’s partly why I prefer French music to German. The French were not striving to be impressive. It was something else they sought: exactitude of tone, starting with Couperin and continuing to Debussy, Ravel and Poulenc. The German aesthetic is foreign to me.

So you have never attempted to write any “serious,” “impressive” music.

It would embarrass me too much. I would be ashamed of it. It would be like writing prose that seeks to impress.

Then your music is not meant to be taken seriously?

I don’t mind if other people take it seriously, but I don’t. I certainly
never intended it to be impressive. But, of course, you can take the
lightest piano piece of Satie seriously.

Although Copland had his lighter side, basically he was a serious
composer. I know that you admire many of his works, especially the Piano Variations.

Aaron was very serious, and most of his music is meant to be impressive. It expounds, often using rhetoric familiar from the nineteenth century, even from Beethoven. The Piano Variations is my favorite of all his serious concert music, and certainly its gestures are meant to impress the listener. But I admire the Variations for another reason: as I listen, I am aware of every detail of its construction; its beams and struts are beautifully visible, unmarred by any ornamentation. You cannot say that about “impressive” music by Germanic composers such as Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss and Jan Sibelius.

I knew you didn’t like Mahler, but I didn’t realize you felt strongly
about Strauss and Sibelius.

To my mind, Richard Strauss is a perfect example of what shouldn’t be.

I remember Copland saying that during the 1920s and 1930s he considered Sibelius to be “the Enemy.”

As far as I’m concerned, you can have all seven of his symphonies, with my compliments.

Sibelius is said to have composed an eighth symphony and then destroyed it.

He finally caught on.

Am I right in thinking that Igor Stravinsky is your favorite composer?

Yes, although I don’t suppose I would put him ahead of Johann Sebastian Bach. But certainly ahead of anybody in the past two centuries.

I think it’s extraordinary the way Stravinsky kept reinventing himself.

So do I. When I was a kid, I liked the early Russian phase, especially
L’Oiseau de Feu. But the later neo-classic works seem to be more solid
and interesting, for instance, the Concerto for Piano and Wind
Instruments—a great piece. I very much admire Stravinsky’s intellect. I think he was brighter than other composers and you find that quality especially in the neoclassic scores. He had a wonderful gift for orchestration, perverse orchestration. He made the instruments sound as they hadn’t sounded before, by using the “wrong” registers, by which I mean unusual registers. And his music was emotionally cool, which I appreciate.

As a young man, were you bowled over by Le Sacre du Printemps?

Of course. Like everyone else. Except that the first time I heard the
music I had the misfortune to see it danced, by Martha Graham. If I’d
just been listening to an orchestral performance, I probably would have been even more bowled over by Le Sacre. But there was this visual thing on top of it that got in the way of enjoyment.