I keep on listening to the sonata.
“What do you think? Kind of boring?” he asks.
“Kind of,” I admit.
“You can appreciate Schubert if you train yourself. I was the same way when I first listened to him—it bored me silly. It’s only natural for someone your age. In time you’ll appreciate it. People soon get tired of things that aren’t boring, but not of what is boring. Go figure. For me, I might have the leisure to be bored, but not to grow tired of something. Most people can’t distinguish between the two.”
April 5, 2019
"People soon get tired of things that aren’t boring, but not of what is boring."
From "Kafka on the Shore" by Haruki Murakami:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
50 comments:
Schubert is not boring. Ever.
But that's an interesting observation. People can consume triviality endlessly but substance takes more effort
Uh, yes, agreed. Schubert, even when lengthy, is not boring.
Here's another thing that's said about the Schubert D Major Sonata: “A dense, artistic kind of imperfection stimulates your consciousness, keeps you alert. If I listen to some utterly perfect performance of an utterly perfect piece while I’m driving, I might want to close my eyes and die right then and there. But listening to the D major, I can feel the limits of what humans are capable of—that a certain type of perfection can only be realized through a limitless accumulation of the imperfect. And personally, I find that encouraging."
Murakami, Haruki. Kafka on the Shore (Vintage International) (p. 103). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Here's the sonata, with the character's preferred performer.
The first commenter at that YouTube link is Фјодор Александар saying "Murakami from Kafka on the Shore "sent" me here. Beutiful piece."
“You can appreciate Cognac if you train yourself. I was the same way when I first drank it —it bored me silly. It’s only natural for someone your age. In time you’ll appreciate it.
Most Americans think I am trying to kill them when I offer them cognac - even Courvoisier VSOP.
Sadly, I'm too superficial to enjoy this. I'm 'Twisting the night away' on Youtube.
BTW, just remember an author is NOT his characters.
Some get a kick from cocaine,
I'm sure that if,
I took even one sniff,
It would bore me terrifically, too,
My theory about Schubert is that the fewer people it takes to perform a piece, the better it is. Two is the practical lower limit to this, otherwise the best Schubert would be Air Schubert.
Not boring. But then I like Phillip Glass...
Again essential Zen. The best music makes no sound.
Is Althouse bored of blogging?
Schubert’s orchestral music is nearly always boring. His piano music is often boring. His chamber music is usually not boring. His songs are almost never boring.
BTW it is possible to sing the lyrics of On Wisconsin to the tune of Schubert's An Sylvia. Conversely, the German text of An Sylvia can be sung to the tune of On Wisconsin. It helps to have a few drinks first.
I think a lot about this kind of thing, and it always seems to me there's deep relativity in how music effects us. Critics often write as if they're unaware, or uncaring, of others having different, but equally valid for them, reactions to a performance - we all bring something different within ourselves for the music to interact with. And even the same person over time might react to the same music differently. I think we get tired of things that aren't connecting, for whatever reason, either from the side of the music or from our side. Murakami's book with Seiji Ozawa, Absolutely on Music: Conversations, is terrific, and lets you know he's listened deeply to music over his life. So I think the "kind of" modifier to boring is important, suggesting the character (if he's like Murakami) is simply being more analytical than immersed, on that particular listen.
During WW 2, people often read some boring author like Henry James to relax and take a break. Maybe, Trump is having the same affect. People are so involved in the political world, the noise and strife of Trump vs. Anti-trump, that they need a break in the "boring" world of 19th Century classical music.
Shubert really isn't boring, just complex. If you want boring sit through a Mahler Symphony.
There are Murakami playlists on Spotify that are quite interesting. Lots of jazz, eclectic stuff. Some are taken from specific books. People have taken the time to reference every piece of music in each of his works. Fascinating stuff.
http://haruki-music.com
https://theweek.com/articles/444246/literary-playlist-guide-music-haruki-murakami
Rcocean
I just listened to Mahler’s Das Lied Von Der Erd which is claimed by critics to be his ninth and his best. Not boring except, as my mother would say, to the boring.
Golf is never boring. Many believe that Paradise is probably an eternal Golf Course with TRUMP written over one of its 12 Gates.
As for music I prefer a good romp through a 19th century Brit brass city park band more than most. Not quite as self important as Sousa. My Mother told me I was High and Mighty and too Self Satisfied so much so that it sunk in. In Statistics complexity means that the output is not a linear combination of the inputs, so Shubert is indeed complex. Copeland is not complex.
I just listened to Mahler’s Das Lied Von Der Erd which is claimed by critics to be his ninth and his best. Not boring except, as my mother would say, to the boring.
"Someday, some real friends of Mahler's will ... take a pruning knife and reduce his works to the length that they would have been if the composer had not stretched them out of shape; and then the great Mahler war will be over ... The Ninth Symphony would last about twenty minutes"
Someday, some real friends of Mahler's will ... take a pruning knife
Ich hab' ein glühend Messer,
Ein Messer in meiner Brust,
O weh! Das schneid't so tief
"Someday, some real friends of Mahler's will ... take a pruning knife." Makes me think of Abalard and Héloïse. And what her family did to him, in respect to his alleged student teacher interaction. Another good Wagner stage piece.
I feel like the concept here is off?
So let me pose an example from something I know. Consider the album "Ego Trip" by MacDara Ó Raghallaigh. It's 13 tracks of traditional Irish fiddling, accompanied only by his tapping foot and occasional exclamations from the live audience. https://macdara.bandcamp.com/album/ego-trip
So -- if you don't know this music, except for I think one air, this is all reels, jigs, and hornpipes -- simple dances. I'm fairly sure it mostly sounds like a bunch of quick notes going by and the crowd making noises that make little if any sense. Boring.
But if you do know the music, you know his playing is killer and his instincts for playing with the tunes audacious. A rock-steady base with little pauses that fold the rhythm around on itself. He takes a very well known reel, "The Maids of Mt Cisco" built normally around an ornament called the roll, and then essentially re-composes the tune so it has no rolls at all, and yet is still clearly itself. The very opposite of boring.
When listening to a 9th Symphony, always chose Beethoven's. It ain't ever boring. Ludwig could inspire anybody. Roll over Beethoven!
When I was a kid I was all into all sorts of early 20th Century American Classical Music, based on early cinematography and Nadia Boulanger. Brahms was too over the top for me. A much older friend told me to give myself about 20 years or so to calm down about Brahms.
***
When one ages, what one loses in "openness," one gains in discipline. It's been incredible how my untutored tastes have changed over the past few decades, leading to a blooming in different than originally planned areas. (Don't know if this makes any sense.)
Hagar said...
Most Americans think I am trying to kill them when I offer them cognac - even Courvoisier VSOP.
4/5/19, 6:29 PM
I find the big merch brands to be meh. I always look for Pierre Ferrand. Although they have diversified their offerings recently which confuses me. But even the entry-level Ambre is great stuff.
Duh of course yeah.
What is neverending is me.
8000 times the Coen's best is the my best thanks to them.
Most Americans think I am trying to kill them when I offer them cognac - even Courvoisier VSOP
After 30 years of trying, I finally give up drinking. Miraculously, I do not miss it in the least with the exception of Courvoisier. Probably the one alcoholic beverage that I drank for taste (and smell: swirl-swirl) and not to get drunk.
Though it could also give you a glorious, glorious drunk.
As to music, I have found if I like something right off the bat, it doesn't stand up. Boredom very quickly. But give me something that is difficult, and it tends to stay on my turntable (iPod to you kids) for a long time.
Neil Young's Tonight's The Night spent a long time there after I almost threw into the trash upon first listening.
nICK CAGE IS THE MOST BEST ACTOR OF ALL TIME
That's not true anywhere
https://youtu.be/F_Dbl3SWFLM
I remember this from wide world of sports
Schubert songs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9depSfA8AZw
Japanese Pianist woman Mitsuko Uchida accompanying
Thanks, rhhardin. I have that recording. Bostridge’s Das Wandern is two and a half minutes of Schubertian perfection.
"There are Murakami playlists..."
Thanks!
We get tired right away of what we understand right away but what we have to struggle to understand takes us to new levels - maybe.
I feel that if I ever understand or like Henry Adams this will indicate that I have suffered a concussion with brain damage without remembering it. But I test this theory but so far he is still worthlessly boring. I got to like olives and good French wine. That was worth the struggle. Darwin's Origin of Species is the most boring book I ever read all the way through. It took over a year and it was well worth it. It is an education in biology to to understand all the different issues which he raises and what he was actually saying about them.
In the film Conspiracy (HBO 2001) Stanley Tucci's Adolf Eichmann makes a sarcastic remark to the head butler of the SS meeting center and guest villa at Am Großen Wannsee 56–58 where the infamous Wannsee Conference was held.
EICHMANN (referring to a Schubert quartet playing on the phonograph): Does it tear your heart out?
BUTLER: Beautiful, sir.
EICHMANN: I've never understood the passion for Schubert's sentimental Viennese shit.
Much of the film's dialogue is taken from a copy of the conference transcript which survived destruction to be captured by American soldiers. As the conversation in the film about Schubert's music takes place after the conference adjournment of which there is no known record, the writers invented it as an illustration of Adolf Eichmann basic character. Their invention was inspired by comments made to Eichmann's Israeli captors in 1962.
Having been sentenced to death by hanging the previous December and reaffirmed by the appeals court, Eichmann was confined to a death row cell made reasonably comfortable by the guards as a humane gesture toward a man not famous for his humanity. To ease his wait for the hangman they played recorded music, including Schubert. Eichmann reacted to that offered comfort with characteristic revulsion with the words he is made to say in the film.
Eichmann was a man without curiosity. Anything he did not intuitively understand he found boring or disgusting.
I notice that Inga, Chuck, and the other usual suspects are now quite bored with their previous conspiracy theory, and have now turned their enthusiasm to theories and speculations involving the machinations of that obviously corrupt and thoroughly owned man called Robert Mueller.
Nick Cage's best role was in "Peggy Sue Got Married".
It was in fact at the level of Olivier if Olivier had played a California teenager.
It did have some bathos, I think leaving Las vegas had too much, same with bringing out the dead.
@Hagar:
If someone thinks you’re trying to kill them with Cognac, just pour them a glass of grappa next.
Anything that sends you to Schubert is a-ok. Like that riff on boring. But the sonata is not boring.
Children have the greatest tolerance for boredom ("Do it again!"), that's how they're able to learn by repetition. Adults have forgotten this, especially educators.
Well. This hits close to home. I grew up with Brendel. Had his complete Beethoven and Schubert. (Now someone will ask me which version.)
Boring? No. But: shades of interest, definitely. Especially if you are on your fourth or fifth disc. Not "soon." But the 960 is never boring.
People soon get tired of things that aren't boring. OK. While I am very willing to be provoked by writerly observations on music, real music, I also get a little irritated with these aphorisms--which people? how soon? what exactly isn't boring? I soon get tired of writers trying too hard to be interesting.
rcocean claims: "If you want boring sit through a Mahler Symphony."
I really thought you were going to say, "a Bruckner Symphony". I do have friends though, closer to the music world than I, who swear by Bruckner, especially when conducted by Sergiu Celibidache. But Bruckner is not my composer, alas, at least not yet. (I was 35 years old before the music of Brahms made any sense to me at all.)
Mahler's Fourth, in my opinion, is just about perfect in his strange way. And his second is full of interest, in every moment, as the composer tries to convince himself of the reality of life after death. Well performed, it is touching as well as a little sad.
There is no law of nature that says that one has to like Schubert, or Mahler, or any other composer. But I am very fond of Schubert, and am a bit baffled by those who find his music tiresome, but so be it.
I don't know... I got tired of your first three boring articles pretty quick. In fact this whole site is boring.
Ever notice that any Althouse post on cultural topics brings out great comments and, as a bonus, acts as a repellant to our lefty commenters. Odd that.
I've been meaning to listen to that Schubert piano sonata, since reading Kafka on the Shore, so thank you for the easy link. The opening, repeated throughout, sounds to me as the basis for the song Catch a Falling Star (and Put It in Your Pocket), but quick research attributes the inspiration for the pop song to Brahms's Academic Festival Overture (1880). Maybe Brahms lifted it from Schubert.
I'm not surprised people are making playlists of the music in Murakami's works, the music plays in integral part of the stories. I went though and listened to as much of the music from Killing Commendatore that I could find on YouTube or Amazon.
One quibble, though. I don't think Brendel is the preferred performer. The character does not identify the performer of the piece they are listening, and says only "Generally I'd have to say Brendel and Ashkenazy give the best performances, though they don't do anything for me emotionally.
Post a Comment