A BITTER COLLECTION

McLaughlin, Richard

A Bitter Collection THE WRONG SET By Anuus Wilsons William Morrow A Co 2'A9 m> $.'{.00. Reviewed by RICHARD McLAUGHUN THE WORLD must be filled with literate Englishmen who attend boring...

...Sehoenbeig has recently proa,ted that there is too much t, Ik on (mm he writes rather than on U'liui or say...
...All of which may serve to show us, anyway, how alert Mis Wilson is to what the "curious and the curiouser" wish to read nowadays...
...Granted that Mr...
...The clues he sets forth to aid our understanding make difficult going and will discourage all but a limited number possessing strong interest and mental persistence plus the requisite theoretical technical background...
...A Radical Composer SCHOENBERG AND HIS SCHOOL...
...As for the pseudo-intellectuals, colonials, suburban eccentrics, Kensington ladies...
...Schoenberg's "compositional lucidity" rests upon "a profound reactivation of the most fundamental principle's of musical architecture" and by hits reactivating "the laws of polyphony in their inner meaning...
...This form of literary revenge may take the shape of a satirical novel or series of short biting character pieces...
...Wilson's stories are on the mordant, purposely decadent side, and, of their type, are perhaps more effective than those which are meant to be read for sheer amusement...
...THE EARLY CHAPTERS follow a sort of Hegelian logic as the author traces the evolution and progress of musical theory...
...Nina Hamnelt and Con rad Aiken were the "onfants terribles" of London's bohemia...
...The author's thesis...
...This, despite the admirable translation* from the French by Dika Newlin, who has elsewhere written pel - ecptively herself of Schoenberg...
...Wilson beb-ng.' to...
...They may be a bit bolder even somewhat cruder now since .servant girl appetites in Eng land have had to keep pace with tie rVeie.s o/ (lie World's scandals, and from what I have observed awhile ago in London, even Mayfair dowagers read its juicy gossip on the sneak...
...However, beruu.se he depends mainly for effects on quick timing and unexepected jolts of his reader's convictions -making Saki and Aldou...
...They have a cumulative power and a cruel, sarrlonical quality of their own...
...As radical as this innovation is and sounds in its musical forms, M. Leibowitz goes to great lengths to prove it a legitimate, logical outgrowth of Western musical tradition...
...To say that his exposition is logical does not mean that it is easy to follow, for logic is by no means ii common asset of the common man...
...His .sometimes obvious humor and clinical attitude toward life in all strata would not fare as well in novel form...
...No, Mr...
...which form the bulk of this book, may only increase the widespread criticism trial the ma nipulation of the twelve-tone row scheme precludes the expression ol emotion...
...Aside from an alive sense of tin- bizarre or the absurd, there is a curious anti-social intelligence behind the writing The following passage may possibly cause some eyebrow lifting "To the residents tineasy moral tone of the ttuff was more surprising, for how were they to Know that conditions of work in the hotel could only attract the scum of the gnat tide of labor which the depression has rolled into London " In fact, il may induce some re-ade i - to question which set Mr...
...Angus Wilson may be a brilliant newcomer to the literary scene in the eyes ol enthusiasts here and abroad, but these narrow aspects of the British working, lower and upper middli rlasses would disturb more had we not come upon them before...
...It is true that in their use of a .strict contrapuntal writing the Schoenbergiiins adhere to one of ime : tiad.Monal techniques...
...briefly and oversimplified, runs thus...
...Those who wish genuinely to pierce the thick veil which sets apart this music may turn eagerly to this hook by his pupil, a Polish born composer and conductor now living in France...
...SOME OF Mr...
...But these organizing devices are not necessai ily or generally perceived by the ear...
...Although technical analysis is not properly concerned with emotional overtones, the analysis of so many works involving a "new musical lan guagc," when tucked between the covers of a book, even with some musical examples, tends to become academic oi baffling instead of revealing To Leibowitz, their prophet, Schoenberg, Berg and Webern are "the only musical geniuses of our time...
...1.75...
...Crazy Crowd," 1 am sure, was meant to be- funny...
...then i- 'till missing that ingieilient he need- most to write a really sparkling hook He has little or none of the natural gift for wit...
...University dons and their wives whom he strips with an almost sadistic glee, and, frequently, with no emotion at all, they have been immortalized, or at least their types, back in the twenties...
...H).r> pp...
...Since "counterpoint and tonality could not i ide tandem," Schoenberg laced this problem and solved it with his special brand of atonal ity, the twelve- tone technique wherein no one' tone or chord acquires special tonal (dominating) function...
...All we need do is glance through the pages of early issues of Coterie when Aldpus Huxley...
...And, moreover, logic has been defined as a systematic way of going wrong with confidence...
...just iis the old modal system under the pressure of increasing polyphonic complexity had to give- way to the tonal system (major and minor scales), so the latter, ovei powered bv its "subversive element," chromaticism, has run its course...
...Theirs is radical, progressive mufic expressed in a "coherent unit perfectly articulated musical language...
...The Wrong Set," i a frontal attack on the sort of people that live off their nerves and "gm and it" in a cheap London Soho nightspot It is good of its kind, managing to turn an unflattering mirror on the petty, drab social pretensions of a vulgar young woman from the provinces...
...or try to recall what it was that provoked Wyndham LeWis into attacking Huxley for pan deling to servant girls' passions, in order-to recognize these derisive ex posures of contemporary British mores for what they are...
...Richard McLaughlin is a regular contributor to the Saturday Heview oi Literature, his articles have appeared in The American Scholar...
...Will it e vcr speak lo the' masses of music lc vers...
...Huxley, at times, out to be company eligible for a curate's tea Mr...
...Reviewed by HILDA PINSON THE AVERAGE LAY MUSIC-LOVER, dismayed by his incomprehension and possible distaste for "advanced" music, may derive consolation from the knowledge that musicians themselves are divided in their attitude toward the most advanced composers, Arnold Schoenberg and his disciples...
...It only succeeded in bor ing this "reader with its perhaps accurate evidence of just what bores folk are who are self-consciously bent on living up to a reputation of being a "cili/.y crowd...
...Acceptance or rejection of Schoenberg ranges from fervent, about admiration, as in the case nf Rene Leibowitz, lo outright hostility...
...What is per .'ived aurally, the .niggling about of intervals in place of recognizable thematic material, the- queer, even freak ivh, textures created by them and the discarding of traditional tonal relationships, result in varying degrees of inaccessibility...
...Hilda Pinson is a music teacher and critic...
...Yet this is the only story when- the author lets us laugh freely, and also feel a nostalgic warmth blowing down the icy corridors of his caustic mind...
...By Row Lahowit...
...Wilson, who is always literate (which is more than can be said for many writers today), has wisely chosen the latter category to give vent to his spleen...
...Two gin .soaked old eccentric spinsters invite a little boy to tea and enteitain him by tearing to pieces a happed bullfinch before his stunned gaze The title story...
...Saturnalia" is my choice out of the whole collection...
...Wilson's brand is strictly Grant...
...Wilson should be very popular with the "new bohemia...
...The individual tone--i-ow selected for each piece is an arbitrary arrangement of the twelve .semitones comprising Ihe octave, and this now serves as the unifying principle...
...World Review, and New York Timr...
...Reviewed by RICHARD McLAUGHUN THE WORLD must be filled with literate Englishmen who attend boring parties and later compensate for such discomfiture bv flaying alive their hostesses in print...
...There is one in this group, "Raspberry Jam," which is specially unpleasant and re veals that the fey when mixed with the senile does not give us anything like the scatter brained charm of "TinMadwoman of Chaillot" or "Arsenic and Old Lace...
...However,unloved,un nucleistaood ami unperformed as Schor-nberg's works are in the wider musical circles, even today m his "(ith year there is general acclaim of Ins unwavering musical integrity, his technical mastery and his continuing influence as teacher and musician...
...The analyses ol his works and those of his .two most important disc .ides, Alban Berg and Anton Webern...
...it generates melody, harmony and counterpoint and provides in itself the structural laws formerly administered by the harmonic principles of tonality...
...Philosophical Library...
...A group of miserable Kensington hotel residents throw a New Year's party for the staff Liquoi finally succeeds in breaking down so c lal ban lers and showing up the mem Iters as lechers, nymphomaniacs and incurable snobs With the exception of a girl encumbered with a bandeau, and her doting mother who is pathetically funny with her querulous comment, about this bandeau, and a retired general who reminisces, it is fairly safe to conclude that a thoroughly sordid time has been had by all...
...Ciuiynul...
...Vi can rise above her lower-class back ground and "living in sin" in Earls Court, but she can't stomach her nephew's going with Reds, being in "the wrong set...
...Wilson writes with a sharp uonic twist to his deft pen...
...Although his perceptions are penitruting, and he shows us clearly what he wishes us to see and nothing more, his first book is provocative rather than profound...

Vol. 33 • April 1950 • No. 17


 
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