| Popis: |
Musicians are always talking about ‘shape’ in reference to phrasing, but mostly I think they merely mean that something has shape rather than being ‘shapeless’—always a derogatory term. Shape in this sense means direction, a start and a finish with something pleasing in the middle. Seldom are the visual patterns of a draughtsman or an artist relevant to a musician. Nevertheless, only today I was doing an interview and trying to describe to the journalist a CD I recently recorded of music by Scriabin and Janáček. Strange bedfellows, it would seem, despite some parallels in their Slavic origins and their eccentric visions. But what makes them so different from each other (and therefore fascinating in juxtaposition) is actually related to shape. Scriabin is all seductive curves (across the phrases and up through the exotic harmonies), whereas Janáček is angular and fragmented, motives repeated and insisted on like an army of elbows. Perfumed ... |
