Tuesday, June 28, 2005

Roll over Beethoven?

Western Classical Music. Is it for me?

Kubrick's movie, A Clockwork Orange made me, at least, give some attention to this genre of music. Music has a major role in this movie, especially Beethoven's 9th symphony.
The only other entry to my memory on Western Classical was what my friend told me when I was in college, that the electronic music you just heard while the car was backing up, was Mozart’s some symphony. Later i found out that it was Fur Elise by Beethoven.

Where I lived was with my Dada and Mum in municipal flat block 18-A Linear North. It had been a wonderful evening and what I needed now to give it the perfect ending was a bit of the old Ludwig Van.
Oh bliss, bliss and heaven. Oh it was georgeousness and georgeosity made flesh. It was like a bird of rarest spun heaven metal, or like silvery wine flowing in spaceship gravity all nonsense now as I slooshied I knew such pretty pictures.
-- Alex, A Clockwork Orange (Anthony Burgess )

Ludwig Van Beethoven. Ah, he is not for me. Music without words?

Two years later:
Satyajit Ray's My years with Apu is a good read, even though you are not interested in making movies. In this book, Ray tells us about his passion for Western Classical music. Unavailability of Western records in Calcutta and their heavy price tag made it impossible for him access more of this art, till he made acquaintance with this gentleman in Calcutta who had a vast collection of Western Classical records. They spent evenings listening to records and Ray could borrow them from him (He was none other than Nirad C. Chaudhary!).

Ray's passion for this art form made me more curious. But the curiosity faded away with time.

6 months later:
In the opening chapter of Pankaj Mishra's Romantics, he introduces this lady who spends her time reading and listening to Western Classical music.

One morning as she lay in her sagging charpoy, her legs partially exposed in a way i thought immodest, the oval frames of her sunglasses accentuating the whiteness of her skin, a mysterious haunting melody floating out of her room - Beethoven's Archduke Trio, I later came to know....
--The Romantics, Pankaj Mishra

Mysterious haunting melody. I couldnt wait any longer. I hooked on to Internet and downloaded the 9th symphony. The whole of A Clockwork Orange soundtrack. And some more Beethoven tracks.
Later, I told my brother about this new interest of mine. Was this a sign of getting old? Strangely, he had been listening to Western Classical lately and gave me some pointers to start with. He said that Vivaldi's Four Seasons - Summer rocked! (He is also a novice who thought that Vivaldi was nothing but some kind of bathroom wear, till recently!).
So, I have been listening to these tracks for a couple of weeks now. And they do rock!

PS: I still play those nursery-rhymish Paul McCartney tracks!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

dude, after reading the orange, i had the language in my head for days...
my mind was substituting normal words for things like yarbles and droogs :))
the language of the book is just amazing...same thing with trainspotting (the book not hte movie) influences ur mind's language :))
on the subject of classical western music, what i think makes the purist luv it is the predictability and structure....now the title helps you know in advance how the music's gonna be...like allegro or adiago etc. but then the new age composers -say like Ligeti- arnt like that and not many of the old school like that.
you can imagine how haphazrd and noisy "the yellow submarine" would sound to them :))
Ajay