It’s the sound of human consciousness.
— An eighth-grader’s response to an initial hearing
of Elliott Carter’s Symphonia: Sum fluxae pretiam spei
All music — all art, all entertainment — requires empathy . . . .
— from the introduction to Jazz
(Gary Giddins and Scott DeVeaux)
I adamantly believe that rock in all of its forms is a critical problem which our civilization must get to grips with in some genuinely effective way, and without delay, if it wishes long to survive.
— curtain line to chapter 5, “Jazz and the Blues,”
from The Secret Power of Music (David Tame)
A tango is a sensual experience. Doing a tango with Al Pacino — I’ve never recovered.
— Gabrielle Anwar, recollecting work on Scent of a Woman
The tango is vertical rape.
— Astor Piazzolla
1 comment:
Hi Karl!
The 8th-Grade students had translated part of the Latin poem used by Carter for his inspiration.
The student in question is one of the most talented I have had in my career. He seemed somewhat frustrated by his classmates' responses to my Socratic-style questions on "what they heard," when we had finished listening to the work.
Suddenly with a little puckish exasperation he blurted out the quotation here!
The responses from his classmates were not all that bad!
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