Classics and the Western Canon discussion

Now we know what it took to rouse HC from his stupor into almost a state of frenetic dynamism.

Okay, a literary question. Has Mann's presentation of Hans Castorp over the past 750 pages -- and there are very few of those pages in which HC doesn't feature prominently -- justified the sudden assumption of command, control, of domination he exercises in not only taking over the management of the gramophone, but even going so far as to pocket the key? Have we been adequately prepared for this aspect of his personality?

Our opera buffs should be in seventh heaven here. (Laurel, are you still with us?) I will be waiting eagerly for their analysis as to why Mann selects these particular operas for HC to focus on. And why, oh why, no Wagner? HC, Mann, even Behrens, are all German. Why is the preeminent German opera composer totally overlooked? My near total ignorance of opera doesn't help me at all in understanding the subtleties of this section.

I know that Mann told us early on that he was going to tall the story with great detail, but still, I'm not sure I know any other author (except Proust) who could take four pages to describe a gramophone.

Everyman wrote: "...I'm not sure I know any other author (except Proust) who could take four pages to describe a gramophone. ..."

:-) Now if it were an IPOD or a Smartphone?

Everyman wrote: "... justified the sudden assumption of command, control, of domination he exercises in not only taking over the management of the gramophone, but even going so far as to pocket the key? Have we been adequately prepared for this aspect of his personality? "

Hm, HC learned something from Mynheer Peeperkorn, I think. And then, by being so long on the mountain, he has gained a natural authority over all newbies. He has grown up ... but to what?

Everyman wrote: "I will be waiting eagerly for their analysis as to why Mann selects these particular operas for HC to focus on. And why, oh why, no Wagner? "

I am waiting eagerly, too. I could not decipher all peaces.

Ohhh, is Wagner really the "preeminent German opera composer"? I was not aware of that ... :-)
Maybe you are right, we Germans tend to make no difference between German and Austrian composers because its both in German and at their time (!) Austria was still a part of Germany. I strongly assume that Thomas Mann did not make this difference, too. So Wagner stand next to Mozart, etc.

Hm, Händel counts as British, only? Mozart's family came from Bavaria ... but ok this does not count. Beethoven was composer of "Fidelio". Hm. Maybe Wagner is indeed the most known German composer of operas if we omit the Austrians. Hm. Hm.

In the 1920s the homosexual son of Wagner, Siegfried Wagner, directed Bayreuth, and the plays became a modern look and feel. His wife, Winifred Wagner, met Hitler in 1923 and started a personal relationship to Hitler, but this is too late to have entered into this book. She said later: "To have met him," she declared, "is an experience I would not have missed." She was also interviewed that year by David Irving, who reported that she had said she would still welcome Hitler at her door, and also that she had discussed with Hitler the saving of some individuals.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winifred...

What I find strange: When industrialists asked Hitler to save a Jew because they needed him for research, Hitler was strict and said "No" - when a woman asked him, he decided otherwise. Very "peeperkorny" behaviour, I would say.

I happened to be listening to my ipod while reading part of this chapter (only because I was waiting at the car dealership and the TV was blaring), and I noted that the "diminution" metaphor--peering through "the wrong end of opera glasses" still applies! Despite our highly advanced technology, there is still nothing like being at a live concert. Later in the chapter, the narrator claims that some of the records *were* as big as if the musicians were really there, but I would have to dispute that experience myself. This whole musing on the records, the mechanism of the gramophone, HC's attention to it, really brought my appreciation back to analog music. I couldn't help but feel that something has been lost. We now get our music from the same source as our photographs and our documents and so many other things. There is nothing special about it.

Kathy wrote: "I happened to be listening to my ipod while reading part of this chapter (only because I was waiting at the car dealership and the TV was blaring), and I noted that the "diminution" metaphor--peer..."

And I'm pretty sure he's using the very old, heavy 78 rpm records. You young'uns don't remember those, but they were still a force when I was young (along with the small 45s that only held one song). It wasn't until I was in my teens that we got a record player that could play the long play 33 rpm disks, and that had to have a lever to select multiple speeds so we could still use the library of 78s and 45s we had. Even into his 70s my father was leading square dances using his old 78 rpm records from the 1930s and 40s.

There are still plenty of people who argue that analog music sounds richer and more nuanced than digital. So maybe Hans and his friends actually had better music than we do today from our ipods and other digital players.

Why these operas? Why not Wagner?

Figaro, Aida, and Carmen are three of the most popular, easily understood operas of all time-- immediate crowd-pleaders. They have achingly beautiful arias that can easily be plucked from the whole and recorded on vinyl. The arias Mann picks are the very ones that people have been humming on the streets and singing in the shower for a hundred years or more.

Wagner, on the other hand, wrote his musical dramas to be played and sung all the way through--no tenor or soprano will step up to center stage and break the action of his plays with show-stopper arias, thank you very much. Thus these early recordings, which could only include short excerpts of operas, were unlikely to include any Wagner other than the overture to The Flying Dutchman and a few other easily- lifted instrumentals.

Laurele wrote: "Wagner, on the other hand, wrote his musical dramas to be played and sung all the way through--no tenor or soprano will step up to center stage and break the action of his plays with show-stopper arias, thank you very much. Thus these early recordings, which could only include short excerpts of operas, were unlikely to include any Wagner other than the overture to The Flying Dutchman and a few other easily- lifted instrumentals. "

This is a great explanation! Of course ... yes!

Thanks, Laurele, for you assessment.

A very interesting read regarding TM and his relation to music is:
http://www.signandsight.com/features/...


With the understanding of TM's passion for music and TM's attempts to make music with language, it is most interesting to take note of the described conclusion in MM of one of HC's rhapsodic events; that being awareness by HC of his "sympathy with death".

Sue wrote: "Thanks Laurele for you assessment.

A very interesting read regarding TM and his relation to music is:
http://www.signandsight.com/features/...

See in particular:
It all started in 1920 wi..."

Thanks for the citation, Sue. But could you please edit your comment to add carriage returns in the quotation? For some reason, at least in some browsers it shows up as an unbroken line, which complicates reading it and affects the whole page of posts it's on.

Thanks.

Laurele wrote: "Why these operas? Why not Wagner?

Figaro, Aida, and Carmen are three of the most popular, easily understood operas of all time-- immediate crowd-pleaders. They have achingly beautiful arias that c..."

I knew you would know the answers. That makes perfect sense. Though I have to admit that I've never hummed or sung a single one of those arias in the shower or anywhere else! But I'll have to do an Internet search to see whether I can find good recordings of them.

Thank you, Sue, for that link.

Everyman,
I just took out the quote as I don't want it to complicate and affect the whole page(and as when trying to edit, it looks "okay" on my page). Thanks for letting me know!

Laurele's comment is a good start. However, I think the key piece of music is not one of the arias but, rather, Der Lindenbaum (The Linden Tree) by Schubert. Like the arias, it is very "hummable" and may have become popular as a (sad) folksong in its time.

It is from a song cycle by Schubert titled Die Wintereisse (Winter's Journey).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winterreise

Briefly, the cycle concerns a young man who comes to a town and falls in love with a young girl who spurns him for a wealthy suitor. An excerpt from the Wiki article is sufficient: The songs represent the voice of the poet as the lover, and form a distinct narrative and dramatic sequence, though not in so pronounced a way as in Die schöne Müllerin. In the course of the cycle the poet, whose beloved now fancies someone else, leaves his beloved's house secretly at night, quits the town and follows the river and the steep ways to a village. Having longed for death, he is at last reconciled to his loneliness. The cold, darkness, and barren winter landscape mirror the feelings in his heart, and he encounters various people and things along the way which form the subject of the successive songs during his lonely journey. It is in fact an allegorical journey of the heart.

The Linden tree outside her house had been his favorite place. He passes it as he leaves. Here is a translation. As with the grammophone, reading it without hearing the music is a gross diminution. Please, if you are unfamiliar with the cycle, seek this out on YouTube with a great singer, even if you don't listen to the whole (heartbreakingly beautiful) cycle.

The Linden Tree (Der Lindenbaum)

Before the doorway is a well
A Linden-tree stands there
Many times I’ve sought its shade
A place of rest and pleasant dreams

When dreaming there I carved
Some words of love upon the bark
Both joy and sorrow
Drew me to that shady spot

But today I must wander
Through this blackest night
In darkness I passed this tree
But couldn’t bear to look

I heard the branches rustle
As if they spoke to me
Come to me my old friend
Find peace with me

Cruel winds were blowing
Coldly cutting my face
My hat was blown behind me
I quickly sped on my way

I’m now many miles distant
From that dear old Linden-tree
But I still hear it whisper
“Come – find peace with me.”

Some of you may recall my frustration with HC early in the book. On page 47 I even wrote a note to the effect that if this guy doesn't grow up in the next 700 pages I will shoot myself. Well, on page 641, after the discussion of HC's response to this music, I reminded myself to look back to page 47.

Does anyone believe that our ordinary hero, after a certain number of years of heremetic and pedagogic enhancement, had penetrated deeply enough into the life of the intellect and the spirit for him to be concsious of the "significance" of this [artistic] object and his love for it? We assert that he had.

The music, and especially this song, have moved HC in a way that none of the philosophies, nor MP's example could. He has become aware, through these arias, of "a world that stood beyond."

However, this is a world of "forbidden love" and of death. (Wagner may not be referenced in the chapter, but Tristan and Isolde is inescapable here.)

Mann is shocked. [Thomas, here is an example of the narrator as character.] He proclaims it "sheer madness," and "hatefull slander" that a beautiful song like this could prompt a death wish.

The narrator then goes back to his less intrusive role and tells us what is in HC's mind. I think the last paragraph of the chapter may be among the most important in the book. Without quoting the whole thing [well worth rereading] I would note: "enchantment of the soul...we could all do mighty things on earth by serving it...it was truly worth dying for, this song of enchantment...no longer dying for this song...a hero because ultimately he died for something new--for the new world of love and for the future in his heart."

The last song in the cycle is called Der Liereman (The Hurdy Gurdy Man). From Wikipedia: At the end of the village he finds the old barefoot hurdy-gurdy man, winding away his tunes, but no one has given him a penny, or listens, and even the dogs growl at him. But he just carries on playing, and the poet thinks he will cast in his lot with him.

A postscript: I've always thought that this song [and please check it out also] was an amazing foreshadowing of the absurdity of the twentieth century.

For me, this was the chapter where HC finally emerged as an individual. Previously, as in "Snow" and when he was visiting the dying, he was still being reactive to things he saw/heard. This is why it matters that he takes over control of the grammophone. Like Schubert, HC is now a Romantic.

How will he respond to the "realities" of the world?

Beautiful, Zeke. Here is Dietrich Fischer Dieskau singing "Der Lindenbaum."

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=jyxMMg...

Zeke wrote: "For me, this was the chapter where HC finally emerged as an individual. Previously, as in "Snow" and when he was visiting the dying, he was still being reactive to things he saw/heard. This is why it matters that he takes over control of the grammophone. Like Schubert, HC is now a Romantic. "

Really nice comment. Yes, this is indeed HC finally asserting himself in a more than casual way.

With some further reflection, I wonder if HC has become in some manner the antithesis of MP. MP is all about outward display and sensual pleasure. HC has found an aesthetic appreciation within his own heart and soul--one even worth dying for.

This is pretty speculative, because I really don't "get" MP as well as some others here have.

Zeke wrote: "The last song in the cycle is called Der Leiermann (The Hurdy Gurdy Man). From Wikipedia: At the end of the village he finds the old barefoot hurdy-gurdy man, winding away his tunes, but no one has given him a penny, or listens, and even the dogs growl at him. But he just carries on playing, and the poet thinks he will cast in his lot with him. ... Like Schubert, HC is now a Romantic."

Wasn't Settembrini characterized as an "organ grinder" / hurdy gurdy man at the beginning of the novel? Does Hans Castorp decide to stay with Settembrini in an intellectual romance? I tend to see a strange mixture of all influences in Hans Castorp. A Naphtanian romantic Settembrini liberal with peeperkorny personality?

Thank you for that post, Zeke. On your advice, I went back and reread the final full paragraph of the chapter, but I confess I have no idea what to make of it. All I know is that the final line--"Those, then, were Hans Castorp's favorite recordings"--has a religious rhythm for me, almost as if we are meant to respond, "Thanks be to God."

Nice thought Kathy. Without providing any spoilers your "religious rhythms" comment would seem to set you up for the shock I found in the closing pages.