Enough Schubert

[gurnemanz]

Also, here is the Sean Rafferty piece interviewing Dr Beatrix Patzak, director of the Federal Pathology and Anatomy Museum, about Schubert's syphilis.

Fascinating stuff here and above. The idea of artistic creativity being akin to disease pervaded Thomas Mann, especially in its German romantic form of unfulfillable longing ("Sehnsucht"), being ultimately a death wish and an urge that places the artist not just apart from normal society but from life itself (I can't help thinking of Kafka's Gregor Samsa waking up to discover that he had turned into a beetle overnight). The incipient artistic bent of Tonio Kröger, the hero of Mann's novella of the same name, is seen by his patrician Hamburg family as like becoming a "gypsy in a green wagon", a phrase which becomes a recurring leitmotiv. When Hans Castorp visits the sanatorium on the Magic Mountain he puts aside his wholesome reading matter, a technical volume about ocean steamships, and succumbs to the delights of the artistic speculations of the gallery of "sick" people who inhabit the place. Gustav Aschenbach went off to the festering but seductive plague-ridden Venice to die an artist's death, like Richard Wagner had done in real life.

[Serial_Apologist]

DUKE
For "toffee" read Schubert.[/I]

WS Gilbert, Patience, Act One.

And today's April 1st....

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

And today's April 1st....

[kernelbogey]

Fascinating stuff here and above. The idea of artistic creativity being akin to disease pervaded Thomas Mann, especially in its German romantic form of unfulfillable longing ("Sehnsucht"), being ultimately a death wish and an urge that places the artist not just apart from normal society but from life itself[....]

The blessed Sean also referred in his interview with Dr Patzak to Schubert being 'manic depressive' (bipolar disorder). I haven't come across that idea before, but it would be consistent with his sister being schizophrenic. There is a fascinating book about bipolar disorder and creativity, Touched with Fire, by Dr Kay Redfield Jamison, an american clinical psychologist who is herself bipolar.

[kernelbogey]

Is there a recognisable theme? Do you by any chance have access to Dictionary of Musical Themes by Denys Parsons? Marvellous book. Take a theme and write down the first 15 notes. No musical knowledge required. Just the ability to decide if each note, relative to the preceding note, is Up, Down or Repeat (ie the same). Write down the sequence such as UUDDR RDUUD DRDRU and look it up in the book. I have said book so if you'd like to PM me the theme I can have a stab at locating it for you.

Resurrection Man - thanks for that information, which is new to me, and for your kind offer. It wouldn't have worked for me in this case, as my earworm was just a few piano chords - which turn out to be from 'Die Taubenpost' from Schwanengesang.

[Oddball]

Did they come second in a talent contest won by André Rieu?

Just an afterthought on this Schubert Lieder business.

Basically a foreign import, like Mercedes motor cars. But I don't think that the British people in general have the same depth of feeling for song, in the same way as Central Europe. So classical lieder may seem a bit of an anomaly to many listeners.

At least I can't see an english audience reacting in this way to Andre Rieu: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoewoJlG--A

[gurnemanz]

Just an afterthought on this Schubert Lieder business.

Basically a foreign import, like Mercedes motor cars. But I don't think that the British people in general have the same depth of feeling for song, in the same way as Central Europe. So classical lieder may seem a bit of an anomaly to many listeners.

At least I can't see an english audience reacting in this way to Andre Rieu: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoewoJlG--A

I think I can see what you mean. I am well steeped in German language and culture, having lived in Germany for five years and married a German from Leipzig. I didn't really get into Lieder (subsequently becoming hooked) until I started studying German as an undergraduate. We were studying many of the poems set and one of our lecturers was a great expert with infectious enthusiasm for Lieder.

[Pianorak]

At least I can't see an english audience reacting in this way to Andre Rieu: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoewoJlG--A

Too true, English audiences demand more substantial fare:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ha7SXUeEen4