Composer of the Week - any thoughts on the format?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Well, utter tosh or not, it's what many nineteenth century artists believed, and it's no accident, in my view, that much of the best music we have comes from that period. When artists stopped believing it, with the advent of modernism, music took a nosedive.

I presume that the second sentence here is also "in (your) view, JFLL?

In my view the second sentence is also "utter tosh".

[vinteuil]

Oh, absolutely, & I should have been a bit more clear & expansive (but not perhaps as much as Proust ). What I meant to suggest was that Proust bu on his 'self', ie his biography, but that that was the foundation of his great work - he didn't try to overcome his 'self', nor ignore or negate it.

... but, Flossie, isn't the whole point of Contre Sainte-Beuve that Proust rejected the biographical approach - Sainte-Beuve becoming for Proust the personification of a false view of art - Sainte-Beuve's famous 'method', which consisted in interpreting works of literature by reference to the external features of a writer's biography, - his philistine, worldly, patronising approach ( "nice fellow, Baudelaire, perfectly correct manners") which disqualified him as a judge of truly original artists... ?

[John Skelton]

For me Schwitters is a genius and the youtube excerpt a work of great beauty.

Completely agree - I love Schwitters .

[Flosshilde]

... but, Flossie, isn't the whole point of Contre Sainte-Beuve that Proust rejected the biographical approach - Sainte-Beuve becoming for Proust the personification of a false view of art - Sainte-Beuve's famous 'method', which consisted in interpreting works of literature by reference to the external features of a writer's biography, - his philistine, worldly, patronising approach ( "nice fellow, Baudelaire, perfectly correct manners") which disqualified him as a judge of truly original artists... ?

Ah, well, it was my understanding that there were strong biographical influences in À la recherche du temps perdu, but no doubt I'm wrong. I would agree that interpreting, & judging, a work of art only through reference to the artist's life is limited, but not that the artist's life is seperate from & independent of their art & is therefore irrelevant.

[vinteuil]

it was my understanding that there were strong biographical influences in À la recherche du temps perdu,.

o of course there are! But Proust argues that the biographical approach does not help in understanding what the artist is doing - that at an important level the artist's life is indeed 'separate from and independent of' the art.

Which of course has not stopped hordes of critics and commentators using Proust's own 'life' as an explanation of his 'work' - notoriously George Painter...

[umslopogaas]

#55 vinteuil, why is Painter's biography "notorious"? Notorious for what? Its a long time since I read it, but I recall at the time thinking it was a fine piece of work and something of a tour de force. Of course, there will be more, but surely Painter gave future scholars a tremendous help? It seemed to me when I read it to be a fairly dispassionate, objective yet sympathetic scan of the life and work. It didnt disguise Proust's less pleasant aspects, but neither did it allow them to detract from his achievement - which is incomparable.

[vinteuil]

umslopogaas - it is indeed a tour de force, and I remember enjoying it immensely back in the 1970s. The problem with it is that it sees A la recherche as an autobiography; he uses the book to interpret Proust's life, and he uses what he was able to find out about Proust's life to interpret the book. Very tempting, and it produces a satisfying read. But dangerous and unreliable - the book is not an autobiography, and you can't use it to fill out aspects of Proust's life for which there isn't other evidence - and equally you can't use what we know of Proust's life to 'explain' A la Recherche - whose importance is as a work of art - as Proust himself would say, the biography can get at the moi superficiel but not at the moi profond which is what, ultimately, A la Recherche is about.

If you're looking for a good (more recent, more reliable, more scholarly, very readable) biography of Proust I wd recommend Jean-Yves Tadié's 'Marcel Proust', available in French and English.