You said, "nobody loves me!"
And I said, "wanna bet?"
The night you can't remember
The night I can't forget.
Well, love or no, nobody's beating down my door to offer me employment, despite the not-inconsiderable range of uncollected salaries advertised in the libraries at H*rv*rd. Another hour slinks by, I have another caffeinated drink, the sky has changed color again, and I still don't know how I'm going to pay for Momus tickets on Thursday.
One of my groups is doing some music by the diplomatist, homme de lettres, and knight Constantijn Huygens (the best pages on him are nederlans, but this one's English and way too grovelly, despite his colossal fabulosity). Intensely weird music [a feature it shares with most music by educated dilettantes--and that's a whole entry. Remind me some time to do my spielundtanz on James Clerk of Penicuik], and quite moving. There are a few Latin liturgical texts, some passionate Italian songs, and a scintillating little French snuff-box that never stays in the same time signature for more than two bars. Baroque composers, for the most part, were a cosmopolitan bunch, and by far the best part about playing early music for me is the art of dragging other cultures and time-periods, a pursuit in which the very forebears we're trying to ape indulged. It was of the essence to mix styles, to know the past, to play around in the libraries: Handel was a German who wrote Italian operas in England with French overtures. There are also these marvelous scriptural interpolations JSB wrote for an earlier performance of his Magnificat, each of which takes on a different historical style of music from the Prima Prattica to the Galant. The early music movement's greatest success, in my opinion, is that players have become conscious of the shifts in genre early composers exploited. Rather than relying heavily on familiar, "fully-developed" instruments and modern notation, by picking up old or foreign instruments, we live for a few minuets in somebody else's shoes, which, (shush the tragedy of subjectivity) which ... helps. There's a real history-of-the-body emanation from playing on original instruments. Understanding pops up in the back of our minds parthenogenetically. Which is why we should all learn how to play the violls da gamba and read through a couple fancy-suites. Then we'd get it. We'd get it all. The whole world, playing Lawes on Wednesday nights. First week, my place. Bring some cake.
I mean, the last twenty years' worth of intellectual history claims that Early Modern Europeans were pathologically uncomfortable with "the Other", uncomfortable enough, presumably, to buy export china and play [German] Allemandes, [French] Courantes, and [African/Spanish/New World] Sarabandes in their parlours. But there's a freeing delight in adopting a non-native style of music; not to wax too wet-eyed on the universality of music, there's a lot to be learned from the art of consorting --tuning together, learning to communicate wordlessly, so on and so forth. Although the argument can be made (and presumably has been, since I'm not that brilliant) that early modern Europeans colonized other cultures' musical styles as effectively as their land and resources -- certainly it holds true later in history: uh, Elvis Presley, anyone? -- they developed, concourantely, an almost hypochondriac investigation of their own musical bodies. So, where was I? Oh, yeah, splendid Constantijn Huijgens and his musical costumes: it was simply expected that he should speak the musical languages of every nation with total fluency. Which, I suppose, he did, but with a slight accent.
Oh, for the days when dilettantism got you somewhere, and ambassadors wrote poetry. Mope, mope, mope.
JK and I were discussing the lack of common education that has had such a divisive effect on the last few generations of Thought -- in this case, our golden age was the Reformation and the heavily-attended public debates on Redemption by Faith and Sacerdotal Authority, usw. I did come out with a cool point about how the 'net is like the explosion of religious pamphlets under the abolition of censorship during the English Civil War. Out-dated and chock-full-of-nutters, just to begin with.
Right now, I'm putting off swincking, much to my purse's complaynt; I'm missing SLB, who at least gave me her knee-high Fluevogs to babysit. (We wear the same size, curiously) DS left his score of the French Suites here -- he's watching his tyke again this afternoon. ShW is getting all martyr-y because I haven't spent any time with her, since it is apparently my responsibility to track her down.
Suggested Reading:
Hollander, John. The Untuning of the Sky: I think it's Princeton, 1961.
THE study on music, poetry, philosophy, in a crumbling world--in this case, early modern England. Besides, poets are the only writers left who still know something.
Current mood: chronic anomie
Current music: Leclair's Scylla et Glaucus.
Current food: "Viennese Cinnamon Breakfast Treats"
Recent movie: Bedrooms and Hallways.