Significant Moments: Part 13

"What are the characteristics? . . . "
W.D. Howells, The Rise of Silas Lapham.
Tell me.
Arrigo Boito, Falstaff.
One of them was that peculiar kind of melancholy, a melancholy amounting almost to panic, which so often haunts the isolation of genius. Mozart felt it quite young. The other characteristic was almost the opposite: a passionate interest in human beings, and in the drama of human relationships. How often in Mozart's orchestral pieces—concertos or quartets—we find ourselves participating in a drama or dialogue; and of course this feeling reaches its natural conclusion in opera.
Kenneth Clark, Civilisation.
In Cosi fan tutte, our disquiet extends to the moral universe, overthrowing traditional expectations of love and fidelity, valorizing irony as the condition humaine.
Maynard Solomon, Mozart: A Life.
. . . revolutionary ideas . . .
Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams.
Precisely!
Arrigo Boito, Falstaff.
The social order remains intact, the marriages take place, but the heart is permanently seared. Here the untangling at the close leaves a bitter residue, a sense of love's uncertainty, a universal sense of betrayal and moral instability.
Maynard Solomon, Mozart: A Life.
. . . but the libretto written by da Ponte is frankly a farce—a farce with deep underlying meaning, to be sure, but nevertheless a libretto with an artificially arranged construction.
Harold C. Schonberg, The Lives of the Great Composers.
—one is amazed by the soul he managed to breathe into such a text.
Cosima Wagner's Diaries (Sunday, May 29, 1870).
The conversation veered and tacked to and fro . . .
Thomas Mann, The Blood of the Walsungs.
—but then . . .
William Shakespeare, King Lear.
. . . it circled round a point of purely abstract interest, . . .
Thomas Mann, The Blood of the Walsungs.
—namely, . . .
K.R. Eissler, Talent and Genius.
. . . the emergence of the English title:
Peter Gay, Freud: A Life for Our Time.
"Cosi" is the one about the two lotharios who make a bet that their girlfriends will be faithful, disguise themselves as Albanian soldiers, try to seduce each other's girlfriend and find that the women aren't faithful after all.
Jeffrey Rosen, The New Look of Liberalism on the Court.
That . . . seems very familiar to me.
Lorenzo Da Ponte, Don Giovanni.
. . . talk of love affairs . . .
Peter Gay, Freud, Jews and Other Germans.
" . . . Yes, . . . very familiar . . . "
Peter Gay, Freud: A Life for Our Time.
I suggested . . .
Jeffrey Rosen, The New Look of Liberalism on the Court.
. . . to the others . . .
Henry James, The Turn of the Screw.
. . . that perhaps . . .
Jeffrey Rosen, The New Look of Liberalism on the Court.
. . . the conceit of . . .
William Shakespeare, Sonnet No. XV.
. . . Cosi fan tutte . . .
Maynard Solomon, Mozart: A Life.
. . . was hard to reconcile with the sexual double standards of the 18th century, which were central to the plot and reflected in the traditional translation of the title: "Never Trust a Woman."
Jeffrey Rosen, The New Look of Liberalism on the Court.
Frau Cosima . . .
Arthur Rubinstein, My Young Years.
. . . as I recall, was wearing a black velvet cape, and she looked at me indulgently with her unblinking eyes. The Italian title, she pointed out, was in the third person plural. "They are all like that" would be a more accurate translation, she suggested. And so, she said, . . .
Jeffrey Rosen, The New Look of Liberalism on the Court.
. . . like a judge who is compelled to judge . . .
John Fowles, The Aristos.
. . . there was no reason to assume from the title that Mozart and his librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte, approved of male infidelity any more than they approved of female infidelity, or that they thought women inherently more or less trustworthy than men.
Jeffrey Rosen, The New Look of Liberalism on the Court.
Well now, I hope you followed that.
Arrigo Boito, Falstaff.
The lady protests too much, methinks.
William Shakespeare, Hamlet.
Cosi fan tutte le belle!
Non c’e alcuna novita.
Lorenzo Da Ponte, Le Nozze di Figaro.
. . . or translated,
Stanley Maloy, The Central Dogma: DNA Makes RNA Makes Protein.
Every woman's alike!
There's nothing new about it.
Lorenzo Da Ponte, Le Nozze di Figaro.
No matter!
Oscar Wilde, Salome.
In any case, . . .
Mike May, Did Mozart Use the Golden Section?
We know for sure that . . .
K.R. Eissler, Talent and Genius.
The little man from Salzburg . . .
Harold C. Schonberg, The Lives of the Great Composers.
. . . Mozart . . .
Philip Roth, Portnoy’s Complaint.
. . . was a miracle.
Harold C. Schonberg, The Lives of the Great Composers.
. . . the light of inspiration . . .
James Joyce, Ulysses.
. . . all that he did is unparalleled, . . .
Gustav Mahler, Conversation with Natalie Bauer-Lechner.
. . . past all parallel—
George Gordon, Lord Byron, Don Juan.
unpar
James Joyce, Ulysses.
. . . certainly one of the most beautiful . . .
Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man.
alleled
James Joyce, Ulysses.
That's most certain!
William Shakespeare, The Tempest.
During the course of the eighteenth century, Western man woke up to the perception, discernment and enjoyment of psychological details of a subtlety and refinement such as the world had not known before. This, I believe, was brought about far more by Mozart's music than by the poetry of the time.
K.R. Eissler, Talent and Genius.
Well spoken!
Arrigo Boito, Falstaff.
"The poor fellow, with his broad nose and a mouth (so it's said) literally like a pig's snout, he had a real feeling for beauty! I'm only now learning to appreciate him fully. What aristocracy, what beauty . . . how everything in him was just instinct, not that he couldn't do it any other way."—
Cosima Wagner's Diaries (Friday, November 29, 1878).
. . . wherever he reached out his hand, the greatest art arose!
Gustav Mahler, Conversation with Natalie Bauer-Lechner.
. . . he had nothing but scorn for the musician who indulged in cheap or meretricious effects.
Harold C. Schonberg, The Lives of the Great Composers.
"There you see the true German . . ."
Cosima Wagner's Diaries (Sunday, April 14, 1872).
"Would you believe that Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, and Schumann are as alive to me as almost anyone I know? It has been true for many years, and there I am talking about men I do not know in life no less!"
Clifford Odets, Letter to Margaret Brenman-Gibson.
But . . . Mendelssohn . . .
Harold C. Schonberg, The Lives of the Great Composers.
My dear, dear Mendelssohn . . .
Richard Wagner, Letter to Felix Mendelssohn.
. . . half-Lutheran, half-Jew . . .
Herbert Kupferberg, The Mendelssohns: Three Generations of Genius.
. . . the marks of his race stood out strong in his face—
Thomas Mann, The Blood of the Walsungs.
"He has shown us that a Jew may have the amplest store of specific talents, may own the finest and most varied culture, the highest and the tenderest sense of honor—yet without all these preeminences helping him, were it but one single time, to call forth in us that deep heart-searching effect which we await from Art. . . . "
Herbert Kupferberg, The Mendelssohns: Three Generations of Genius quoting Wagner, Jewry in Music.
On such levels there is, however, no place for the gnat Mendelssohn to vaunt himself.—
Cosima Wagner's Diaries (Tuesday, July 6, 1869).
"He exaggerates more than a little," said Freud.
Joseph Wortis, Fragments of an Analysis with Sigmund Freud.
Everyone talked around Freud, glancing at him continuously to gauge his mood.
E.L. Doctorow, Ragtime.
Wagner did not let his denunciation rest; . . .
Herbert Kupferberg, The Mendelssohns: Three Generations of Genius.
. . . but rather, . . .
William Shakespeare, Cymbeline.
Would you believe it?
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Case of Wagner.
. . . started up once more . . .
Mark Twain, Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World.
. . . on the subject of Heine's remark . . .
Cosima Wagner's Diaries (Thursday, June 16, 1870).
. . . indeed harangued, like a possessed prophet, as though . . .
Primo Levi, The Periodic Table.
. . . a new world . . .
K.R. Eissler, Talent and Genius.
. . . had been revealed to him by Jehovah on Sinai or, rather, by Wotan on Valhalla.
Primo Levi, The Periodic Table.
Something terrible was going on inside him . . .
J. Moussaieff Masson, Final Analysis.
. . . for his . . .
William Shakespeare, Hamlet.
. . . eyes were red and he looked slightly deranged.
Thomas Mann, The Blood of the Walsungs.
It had grown very still in the room.
Thomas Mann, Mario and the Magician.
There was a long pause. Then—
Judith Rossner, August.
—who knows what had come into his head!—he suddenly . . .
Natalie Bauer-Lechner, Recollections of Gustav Mahler.
. . . flared up . . .
Martin Gregor-Dellin, Richard Wagner: His Life, His Work, His Century.
. . . quite furious . . .
Natalie Bauer-Lechner, Recollections of Gustav Mahler.
What does that mean?
Oscar Wilde, Salome.
. . . Jews are like the people among whom they live . . .
Fritz Stern, Gold and Iron: Bismarck, Bleichroder, and the Building of the German Empire.
Bah – bah – bah – bah – bah!
John le Carre, The Night Manager.
What useless chatter all that is; as if you could answer!
The Diary of Richard Wagner: The Brown Book 1865-1882.
What?
Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil.
Just see how things look in that respect!
The Diary of Richard Wagner: The Brown Book 1865-1882.
Say it!
Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil.
—"they are drunken ideas." "If one were chemically to analyze this witticism[ of Heine's," Wagner said, "]which seems like a stroke of genius, one would discover at its base the Jewish outsider, who speaks about the conditions of our life as an Iroquois would speak of our railroads. Behind this 'drunken idea' lie experiences in student life, when someone is abused as a scholar, and out of this insult comes a drunken duel; here, too, the Jew is an outsider, he notices what is raw and flat, but he has no feeling for the ideals of our nature."
Cosima Wagner's Diaries (Thursday, June 16, 1870).
"Nonsense," says the Professor . . .
Thomas Mann, Disorder and Early Sorrow.
" . . . Among Germans, his type . . .
Martin Gregor-Dellin, Richard Wagner: His Life, His Work, His Century quoting Nietzsche.
. . . Wagner's type . . .
J. Kucera and M. Hajduga, Measurement of Carbon Diffusion Coefficients in Fe-C-Cr Steels by Chromatographic Method.
. . . is simply alien, peculiar, uncomprehended, incomprehensible."
Martin Gregor-Dellin, Richard Wagner: His Life, His Work, His Century quoting Nietzsche.
The Professor does not succeed in . . .
Thomas Mann, Disorder and Early Sorrow.
. . . concealing his . . .
Henry James, Hawthorne.
. . . anger and disgust at Wagner’s tactlessness.
Ernest Newman, The Life of Richard Wagner.
Our host . . .
Henry James, The Death of the Lion.
. . . becomes very, very annoyed
Cosima Wagner's Diaries (Monday, December 18, 1882).
Was he to be taught lessons in manners by a man . . .
Franz Kafka, The Trial.
. . . one generation . . .
Erik H. Erikson, Insight and Responsibility.
. . . younger than himself? To be punished for his frankness by a rebuke?
Franz Kafka, The Trial.
The Professor feels an involuntary twinge. Uppermost in his heart is hatred for . . .
Thomas Mann, Disorder and Early Sorrow.
. . . Wagner's tyranny.
Robert W. Gutman, Richard Wagner: The Man, His Mind, and His Music.
He wears a mechanical smile, but his eyes have clouded, and he stares fixedly at a point in the
carpet . . .
Thomas Mann, Disorder and Early Sorrow.
" . . . May heaven have mercy on the European intellect if one wanted to subtract the Jewish intellect from it."
Friedrich Nietzsche, Letter to His Mother or His Sister.
Attention must be paid!
Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman.
Aye, to whom?
O. Henry, To Him Who Waits.
. . . the Jews.
George Eliot, Daniel Deronda.
Why the Jews?
Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin, Why the Jews?: The Reason for Antisemitism.
. . . what is due them?
O. Henry, Schools and Schools.
What Europe owes to the Jews?—Many things, good and bad, and above all one thing of the nature both of the best and the worst: the grand style in morality, the fearfulness and majesty of infinite demands, of infinite significations, the whole Romanticism and sublimity of moral questionableness—and consequently just the most attractive, ensnaring, and exquisite element in those iridescences and allurements to life, in the aftersheen of which the sky of our European culture, its evening sky, now glows—perhaps glows out. For this, we artists among the spectators and philosophers, are—grateful to the Jews.
Fredrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil.
What does this mean? Is he just mad?
Richard Wagner, Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg.
—that’s all gibberish!—
Richard Wagner, The Brown Book: The Diary of Richard Wagner (September 11, 1865).
You should be boiled in oil. Then the oil should be boiled and your skin ripped off with forceps. After that they should rub salt over you and then bake you with a flour coating. Bake till brown and then serve with paprika dressing. You hound!
Margaret Brenman-Gibson, Clifford Odets: American Playwright (quoting a humorous letter).
Indeed!
Simon Gray, Butley.
This was more than Wagner could stand.
Robert W. Gutman, Richard Wagner: The Man, His Mind, and His Music.
"Oh, yes, our German culture would be completely icebound if it were not for this Schmierocco!"
Cosima Wagner's Diaries (Sunday, January 7, 1883).
Franz Liszt, who . . .
Gerald D. Turbow, Art and Politics: Wagnerism in France.
. . . has entirely succumbed to Herzl’s influence, . . .
Thomas Mann, Disorder and Early Sorrow.
. . . turned to his pupil August Stradel and remarked:
Alan Walker, Liszt and the Twentieth Century in Franz Liszt: The Man & His Music.
. . . because the Jews form a Nation that does not want to, can not, and should not disappear, that Nation must engender a State.
Theodore Herzl, The Jewish State: An Attempt to Solve the Jewish Question.
“This old humbug”, . . .
Ernest Newman, The Life of Richard Wagner.
. . . my dear father-in-law, . . .
Honore de Balzac, Cousin Bette.
. . . rows about the Jews . . .
Hans Christian Andersen, The Shoes of Fortune.
. . . and would have them . . .
Andrew Barton Paterson, White-when-he’s-wanted.
. . . reconquer Palestine through their “own efforts.”
Gottfried Wagner, Twilight of the Wagners: The Unveiling of a Family’s Legacy quoting Liszt.
The whole table stared at . . .
Honore de Balzac, Cousin Bette.
. . . Wagner, . . .
Bryan Magee, Aspects of Wagner.
. . . who was embarrassed at finding himself the cynosure of all eyes.
Honore de Balzac, Cousin Bette.
Wagner’s tactlessness . . .
Robert Gutman, Richard Wagner: The Man, His Mind, and His Music.
. . . would have wrung a reply from a lesser man. But Liszt remained silent.
Alan Walker, Liszt and the Twentieth Century in Franz Liszt: The Man & His Music.
The ensuing cacophony of fulminations . . .
Jon Ralston, When egos take control.
. . . is almost Schoenbergian.
Alan Walker, Liszt and the Twentieth Century in Franz Liszt: The Man & His Music.
The Jews . . .
Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil.
. . . Nietzsche remarked . . .
Robert W. Gutman, Richard Wagner, His Life, His Mind, His Music.
. . . are beyond any doubt the strongest, toughest, and purest race now living in Europe; they know how to prevail even under the worst conditions (even better than under favorable conditions), by means of virtues that . . .
Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil.
Enough! Enough!
Richard Wagner, Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg.
—That really is naive!
Richard Wagner, The Diary of Richard Wagner: The Brown Book 1865-1882.
Virtue . . .
Friedrich Nietzsche, Mixed Opinions and Maxims.
. . . Nietzsche says . . .
Robert W. Gutman, Richard Wagner, His Life, His Mind, His Music.
. . . has not been invented by the Germans.—Goethe's nobility and lack of envy, Beethoven's noble hermit's resignation, Mozart's charm and grace of the heart, . . .
Friedrich Nietzsche, Mixed Opinions and Maxims.
Have you finished yet?
Richard Wagner, Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg.
—are these in any way German qualities?
Friedrich Nietzsche, Mixed Opinions and Maxims.
No longer able to control his rage . . .
Robert W. Gutman, Richard Wagner: The Man, His Mind, and His Music.
. . . Richard Wagner, . . .
Albert Rothenberg, Creativity and Madness.
. . . the foremost moral bigmouth today—
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Genealogy of Morals.
Are you perhaps referring to me?
Richard Wagner, Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg.
. . . unexcelled even among his own ilk, the anti-Semites . . .
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Genealogy of Morals.
Say on, say on—
George Gordon, Lord Byron, Manfred.
Well then! Wagner . . .
Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo.
. . . grieving over what he regarded as Nietzsche's . . .
Ernest Newman, The Life of Richard Wagner.
. . . latest defection . . .
Simon Gardner, Argentina Meets Debt Expiry, Fends Default For Now.
. . . turned on him viciously, demanding . . .
Leonard Shengold, Soul Murder.
. . . in a shrill, breaking voice . . .
Arnold Schoenberg, A Survivor From Warsaw.
. . . that he be quiet—how dare he make such a fuss about . . .
Leonard Shengold, Soul Murder.
. . . the Jews . . .
Robert W. Gutman, Richard Wagner: The Man, His Mind, and His Music.
. . . whom Wagner called . . .
M. Owen Lee, Wagner’s Ring.
. . . the congenital enemies of humanity and all that is noble in it . . .
Robert W. Gutman, Richard Wagner: The Man, His Mind, and His Music.
'Only the Aryan hero, incarnation of the Good, can rescue the world from the threat of destruction, and we Germans could be the nation, before all others, chosen to bring this salvation to pass.'
Joachim Kohler, Nietzsche and Wagner: A Lesson in Subjugation.
Then, incredibly, . . .
Fred McMillin, WineDay.
. . . when somebody said that Jesus was a Jew, . . .
Cosima Wagner's Diaries (Wednesday, January 12, 1881).
. . . Wagner . . .
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Case of Wagner.
(stamping his foot.)
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust.
. . . replied that this was more or less like saying Mozart was a credit to the people of Salzburg.
Cosima Wagner's Diaries (Wednesday, January 12, 1881).
Such insolence!
Moliere, Tartuffe or the Hypocrite.
The illogic is patent.
U.S. Supreme Court, Zellman v. Simmons-Harris (dissenting opinion of Justice David Souter).
Nietzsche took his castigation with surprising humility, perhaps because the very thoroughness of it took his breath away . . .
Ernest Newman, The Life of Richard Wagner.
I feel the urge to open the windows a little. Air! More Air!—
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Case of Wagner.
There was instant silence.
Thomas Mann, Mario and the Magician.
Freud rose quietly . . .
Joseph Wortis, Fragments of an Analysis with Freud.
Such are the . . .
James Fenimore Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans.
. . . implications in that row . . .
Leonard Bernstein, The Unanswered Question.
. . . Nietzsche contra Wagner . . .
Friedrich Nietzsche, Nietzsche contra Wagner.
. . . that obviously the whole . . .
Leonard Bernstein, The Unanswered Question.
. . . Night . . .
George S. Kaufman and Morris Ryskind, A Night at the Opera.
. . . is going to be filled with . . .
Leonard Bernstein, The Unanswered Question.
. . . anti-Semitic dogma and agitation . . .
Fritz Stern, Gold and Iron: Bismarck, Bleichroder, and the Building of the German Empire.
. . . as long as that row has anything to say about it.
Leonard Bernstein, The Unanswered Question.
"It's unspeakable," thought the doctor.
Boris Pasternak, Dr. Zhivago.
The time had come, he knew and acted.
Peter Gay, Freud: A Life for Our Time.
"I can no longer endure this!"
E.L. Doctorow, City of God.
"It's to show me," he thought, "what would happen to me—"
Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence.
. . . I and my people, . . .
The Book of Esther.
. . . us Jews . . .
Sigmund Freud, Letter to Charles Singer.
"what would happen to me—"
Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence.
And now—now finally, at last—
Thomas Mann, Mario and the Magician.
. . . a deathly sense of the superiority of implication and analogy over direct action, and of silence over rash words, closed in on him . . .
Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence.
For Freud, . . .
E. James Lieberman, Acts of Will.
The hour ended here, . . .
Joseph Wortis, Fragments of an Analysis with Freud.
The doctor got up . . .
Boris Pasternak, Dr. Zhivago.
. . . turned to his host . . .
Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence.
. . . and tremulously wondered . . .
W.D. Howells, The Rise of Silas Lapham.
. . . with amazement, with incredulity, with indignation, . . .
H.G. Wells, The Research Magnificent.