Pessimism!

I am glad I've been on the Polish beer again! I can't take less than a grim grin from this and I will try to understand it in the morning! Fred

Phil said
"I think it'd have to be a complete return to basics in order to work."

and I agree. Which is why I refered to Mr Archer and Mr Fletcher.

All this talk of bonking for 700 quid a kid must be upsetting Earwicker?

Likewise schemes to preserve life in drought-torn Africa where life is clearly not sustainable in today's climate, or demographic collapse in Russia. He must also be thinking that China and India need to consider their position to avoid any further population growth and to seek reductions big-time, as does the UK which must be in the top-ten list of most densely populated nations on earth.

I think its called birth-control. But the last attempt failed leaving a surplus of transistor radios all over India and a thirst for technology that is now exploding...

We need to plan carefully and modern global politics is not up to it.......

Cheers

Don

quote:

Originally posted by Don Atkinson:
All this talk of bonking for 700 quid a kid must be upsetting Earwicker?

I don't know if "upsetting" is the right word, but it's the kind of idiot bastard policy that gets right up both nostrils. Rather like the IVF specialist who helped that stupid old crone who was in the news last week get up the duff.

EW

Ditto yeaterday's post. At this rate I shall leave this world young. Fred

Dear Friends,

I can see that I am not the only pessimist, which does not help me of course!

I know advise friends to follow their hearts, as much as their heads. Either way one will occasionally make a mess of things, but at least one stands a chance of really having some heart's ease, instead of the monumentally impossible impossible job of trying to please others...

Fredrik

Dunkel ist das leben, ist der Tod!

EW

Dear EW,

Please put an Anglo-Norse pleb out of his misery and translate that. Please don't expect that, because Norwegian is similar to German, some one so poorly versed at least in written Norwegian would get the German straight off...

Fred

Hang your head in shame Fredrik!

Dunkel ist das leben, ist der Tod!


Is a line from Das lied von der Erde

Dark is life, is Death.

Dear Basil,

I guessed it would be some high romantic stuff! Mahler is by no means my cup of tea! My loss, I know!

I have worked very hard with the German, which Bach set as you may imagine! All is Fullfilled, anyone?

Actually that was a title of a singularly ill-judged Thread by me: Aaaargh!

To be honest I am not terrible good at written foreign languages, but can follow spoken French and Norwegian. Polish is still a bloody mystery to me, but I amuse my collegues by occasionally getting something, and the fun is that they are not sure quite how much. One day I startled them by coming back on their chatter (albeit in English), which made them laugh. I said, "Just 'coz you are speaking bloody Polish, you don't fool me!" You can imagine where that went, and it was rather funny if not very PC, or even postable here truth to tell!

By now they would not take that as a racist comment as such! In fact they reckon I should go to Poland! I am not sure I agree. In many ways we share many attitudes, and that marks me out from your average English Joe I think. Strangely I feel less at home in UK than ever, which maybe is partly behind this whole Thread.

Anyway, a beautifully wet weekend awaits. Fredrik

Dear Fredrik,

You have simply got to hear the Bruno Walter - Kathleen Ferrier recording of Das lied.

Dear Basil,

I have it, though I did not list it in my record library, as I find it inexpressibly sad, and not the least uplifting. Last time it left me convulsing in Der Abschied. Probably I will never face it again.

I also have a version done by Klemperer in Vienna, on a strange labe called Tuxedo which no happier actually, and was given the set under Kletzki with Dietrich Fischer Dieskau and Murray Dickie, but it will take a hell of a run up to listen to this. Just now more than I copuld face to be honest.

I also have Mahler Nine under Walter in 1938, and the Adagietto from the Fifth with Walter as well, and these two works I can draw something from on very rare occasions...

Fredrik

Or more semantically, "Dark is life, dark is death" - from Das Trinklied von Jammer der Erde. Jammer indeed!

EW

For Earwicker & Fredrik

When the day is long and the night, the night is yours alone,
when you're sure you've had enough of this life, well hang on.
Don't let yourself go, everybody cries and everybody hurts sometimes.

Sometimes everything is wrong. Now it's time to sing along.
When your day is night alone, (hold on, hold on)
if you feel like letting go, (hold on)
when you think you've had too much of this life, well hang on.

Everybody hurts. Take comfort in your friends.
Everybody hurts. Don't throw your hand. Oh, no. Don't throw your hand.
If you feel like you're alone, no, no, no, you are not alone

If you're on your own in this life, the days and nights are long,
when you think you've had too much of this life to hang on.

Well, everybody hurts sometimes,
everybody cries. And everybody hurts sometimes.
And everybody hurts sometimes. So, hold on, hold on.
Hold on, hold on. Hold on, hold on. Hold on, hold on.
(Everybody hurts. You are not alone.)

Dear Basil,

REM isn't it?

That is amazing if I am right, because it means I recognise a pop lyric and not a Mahlerian one. Truly I surprise myself sometimes!

But seriously I am sure it is the question of being alone. Sometimes I find it more almost frightening to be in enforced company. I prefer a small group, or even just two people to bigger sets, and I often really enjoy solitude.

The thing is matching mood to the situation. Sometimes I feel sociable, when there is no one, and at other times I dread having to try to interact! The best socialising is impromtu. Yesterday for example I had a phone call and it was a request to pick up a friend and work collegue. We stopped and picked up two cans of beer. That was the nicest drink I have had for ages, and yes the shift flew by! Quite the ticket for a Friday afternoon and evening, though I was ready for a session afterwards, but apparently it was at a nightclub, which I could not enjoy so very easily...

Fredrik

DAs Trinklied von Jammer der Erde, in a typically perceptive and poetc translation by Emily Ezust:

The wine is already beckoning in the golden goblet,
but do not drink yet - first, I will sing you a song!
The song of sorrow shall resound
laughingly in your soul. When sorrow draws near,
the gardens of the soul will lie desolate,
wilting; joy and song will die.
Dark is life, dark is death.

Lord of this house!
Your cellar is full of golden wine!
Here, this lute I call my own!
Strumming on the lute and emptying glasses -
these are the things that go together.
A full glass of wine at the proper moment
is worth more than all the riches of the world!
Dark is life, dark is death.

The heavens are forever blue and the earth
Will stand firm for a long time and bloom in spring.
But you, Man, how long will you live then?
Not a hundred years are you allowed to enjoy
in all the rotten triviality of this earth!

Look down there!
In the moonlight, on the graves crouch
crouches a wild, ghostly figure - It is an ape!
Hear how its howls resound piercingly
in the sweet fragrance of life!
Now take the wine! Now is the time - enjoy!
Empty the golden goblet to the bottom!
Dark is life, dark is death!

http://www.recmusic.org/lieder/

EW

Dear EW,

You will have worked I am no romanticist, let alone a romantic, and the problem for me with this sort of dark Germanic poetry, is that like the music of Mahler it sends me involuntatrily into a downward spiral.

There can be music that is darkly romantic that is somehow uplifting, and for me that includes the Pathetique symphony of Tchaikowsky, but mostly I avoid it. When I was younger I tried very hard to blend this dark wavelength with my own equally dark one, and it did not have a good effect, except in rather isolated cases, like the this symphony.

Though Bach' music can be rather serious, it always seems uplifting to me, which I cannot easily explain. There is something very different to the romanticism of the pre 1914 era and the sad reflections in Arias like 'All Is Fullfilled' or 'Make Clean my Heart...' from the Passions. These seem to me sadness nobly faced off, and an example to try to follow.

Some of the most strong purely instrumental music in the same way is, in my view, to be found in Handel (eg The Opus Six Concerti Grossi) and Haydn's symphonies, which have more shadows than are generally given credit for. I find performances which miss the tragic element unsatisfactory.

This is just me, and I know every one is different, but my heart salve comes from things musical which avoid too much thought on death or romantic ideas of life and its wretchedness. My favourite attitude is: Life is a bitch and then you die, but it is pleasant to smile before this happens, when the opportunity comes!

Fredrik

Dear Fredrik,

It is indeed REM, from "Automatic for the People"

Dear Basil,

Now that is a surprise, and it goes to show that I listen as carefully to pop as my favourite music, as I could not have told you where it came from exactly, and I don't own any REM records! But I still could not identify a Mahlerian lyric. No one can ever call me an elitist ever again, and be correct! [Smiley].

About two or three years ago radios were banned at work so I don't get a fix of daily pop music, but I get just as caught up by any music. It just happens!

I listen to the musak in supermarkets, which I guess is odd...

Hehe! Fredrik

quote:

Originally posted by Fredrik_Fiske:
Dear EW,

You will have worked I am no romanticist, let alone a romantic

Nor me really, but I wouldn't want to be without Mahler. Besides, his work can't really be classed as romanticism per se can it? (In the same way that Liszt's can.) Whatever you call him, he was one of the greatest song writers of all time.

quote:

this sort of dark Germanic poetry

It's actually Chinese!

EW

Dear Ew,

This is getting funnier and funnier! When I can pull a pop lyric back years on but not recognise a Chinese peom, set in German by Mahler!

I suppose I have the plebian touch!

Fredrik [Massive low bandwidth Grin!!].

Dear Basil,

Further to the comments Walter Ferrier recording, I gave it away today to a good musical friend (who gave me the Kletzky set) in the certain knowledge (after your post) that I would never face listening to it again.

He must think me odd, but then not everyone gets Mahler or the 'late romantic' fascination with easeful death! In a way this is reflected in 'Make Clean Within Me, My Heart,' from the Matthew Passion, but at least there seems the prospect of some life before the inevitable release of death!

I see that we are back on topic at last! Fredrik

quote:

Originally posted by Fredrik_Fiske:
'Make Clean Within Me, My Heart,' from the Matthew Passion, but at least there seems the prospect of some life before the inevitable release of death!

I think the idea is that one comes back to life after having died...

EW

Dear Ew!

It says something that I have to have a had a drink to see what you were trying to say!

I always assumed going to heaven was the 'bread today cake tomorrow' promise of that arch-politician in the sky, and therefore was sufficiently pessimistic to ignore that part of the deal. It would only be withdrawn for some footling reason later!

One must be an optimist to be a Christian I suspect!

Fredrik [They ought to use Polish Vodka at Communion, type of Smiley. They Church would be full]!

PS: Do you know the one about the German, the Russian and the Pole who all died the same time and were being interviewed by the devil prior to entry to hell?

First the German was led into a room with ten nubile virgins and ten bottles of deilishly fine Vodka. Satan addressed him, saying, "You can have one last party. Choise from here for your farewell to joy!" The German replies that he would like three virgins and three bottle, and would be happy...

The Russian gets the same drill and takes seven of each...

The Pole gets the same offer, but screws things up a bit by asking the devil for eleven of each! The devil pauses, but before he utters a word the Pole produces a bottle from behind his back!

The devil is momentarily caught off guard, and again the Pole beats him to breaking the second's silence, saying, "But my dear Satan! I rather fancy you, if that makes up the numbers!"

quote:

Originally posted by Fredrik_Fiske:
One must be an optimist to be a Christian I suspect!

Indeed, or a Christian to be an optimist. They always have a sort of happy look about them that gets right up my hooter.

EW