Pierre Ryckmans (born 28 September 1935, in Brussels, Belgium), who also uses the pen-name Simon Leys, is a writer, sinologist, essayist and literary critic.
Simon Leys is the pen name of Pierre Ryckmans, who was born in Belgium and settled in Australia in 1970. He taught Chinese literature at the Australian ...
To the Editors: I am shocked by your recent articles on Vietnam and China, the likes of which one might expect to appear in Commentary or the Readers Digest. Apparently it is intellectually chic again to be anti-communist, especially in regard to third world countries. The authors of both pieces had profound personal biases against their subjects. One of your readers has already pointed this out in reference to the Vietnamese piece (NYR, May 12). I shall therefore focus on Simon Leys’s China pieces (NYR, May 26 and June 9). There is a proclivity among European intellectuals going as far back at least as Hegel to see China in terms of oriental despotism. It does not matter whether it is contemporary or historical China—it is all the same, there is always that terrible oriental despotism that the Chinese cannot escape. The most articulate of the twentieth-century European exponents of this point of view was Etienne Balazs. In a brilliant series of essays he argued that the Chinese had chances to escape oriental despotism through the Sung dynasty (end 1368). After that it has been all down hill. The weight of the past is such that contemporary China can in no way escape it—any revolution is a false one. Usually this view is derivative, as it was in Balazs’s case, of his own disillusionment with European politics and the left in particular. At bottom the Oriental Despotism view of China is Europe-centered. The genuine social and political revolution must come first in the West. Since it has not happened in the West, it is preposterous to talk of genuine revolution in such a place as China. I shall be specific on three points. 1) Walls, the walls that Leys mourns so bitterly. Is it not just possible that city walls symbolize the oppression of the past to most Chinese? Both Chiang Kai-shek and the Japanese hid behind these walls for decades—used as bulwarks against the guerrillas in the countryside. It was their custom also to put the ordinary inmates of these marvelously walled cities up against these walls and shoot them for some crime real or imagined. The heads of dissenters were displayed on these wonderful walls. And then there was the squatter housing squashed up against Mr. Leys’s walls. 2) Wang Shi-wei, the dissident who was shot in Yenan in 1947. True enough Wang was shot in Yenan in 1947 and Mao afterwards talked about it. What Leys fails to say is that Mao considered the execution a serious error which should not be repeated. In China, as elsewhere (even Europe), dissidents are persecuted, but they are rarely executed. In the 1950s we executed the Rosenbergs and today we publicly regret it. Eisenhower advocated executing American communists and we are embarrassed. Does this mean that Stalinist purges are the rule in either China or the US? Perhaps your readers would be interested in Mao’s full statement in 1962 about Wang Shi-wei’s execution:
There was another man called Wang Shi-wei who was a secret agent working for the Kuomintang. When he was in Yenan, he wrote a book called The Wild Lily, in which he attacked the revolution and slandered the Communist Party. Afterwards he was arrested and executed. That incident happened at the time when the army was on the march, and the security organs themselves made the decision to execute him; the decision did not come from the Center. We have often made criticisms on this very matter; we thought that he shouldn’t have been executed. If he was a secret agent and wrote articles to attack us and refused to reform till death, why not leave him there or let him go and do labor? It isn’t good to kill people. We should arrest and execute as few people as possible. If we arrest people and execute people at the drop of the hat, the end result would be that everybody would fear for themselves and nobody would dare to speak. In such an atmosphere there wouldn’t be much democracy. [from “On Democratic Centralism” in Stuart Schram, ed., Chairman Mao Talks to the People (Pantheon, 1974), pp. 184-185]
3) It is well known that the diplomatic community in China lives an isolated existence and receives formal and bureaucratic treatment from the Chinese. The ordinary visitor is received in a much more friendly, relaxed manner—and often sees much more than the cloistered diplomat like Leys did. There are other foreigners living in China as well. Teachers, students, “experts,” and writers have a much less isolated existence and often a rather integrated life among the Chinese people. Has Mr. Leys ever met Sid Engst, Jim Veneris, Israel Epstein, and others like them in China? Their perspective on the foreigner in China is rather different than Mr. Leys’s, although not without problems and barriers (see for example the excellent book by David and Nancy Milton, The Wind Will Not Subside [1976], which revolves around the foreign community in Beijing). No doubt Mr. Leys knows all this and that is what angers. His rigid preconceptions about the nature of past and present Chinese society and politics force a level of dishonesty which is unworthy of The New York Review…. Stephen R. MacKinnon Tempe, Arizona
Simon Leys replies:
Mr. MacKinnon’s criticism bears on four questions. Let us discuss them in succession: —Concerning Balazs: Etienne Balazs was a great scholar and an admirable man. That Mr. MacKinnon in reading my modest little essays should be induced to compare me with him fills me with a mixture of confusion and pride. (I doubt however if Mr. MacKinnon did understand Balazs’s writings any better than mine.) —Concerning city walls: In underlining the fact that walls can symbolize oppression and that it was therefore right to pull them down, Mr. MacKinnon raises a very interesting point. Come to think of it—is it not a shame that, in a revolutionary capital such as Peking, quite a number of other (far worse) symbols of oppression are still allowed to stand: the Imperial Palace, the Summer Palace, etc.? Actually, in this respect, too many countries are still badly in need of a big clean-up: the London Tower, the Louvre, the Escorial, the Vatican, the pyramids of Egypt, etc., etc., are all awaiting the revolutionary intervention of Mr. MacKinnon’s pickaxe. If he intends to devote his energy to such a worthy cause, he has, without doubt, a most busy career ahead of him. —Mao’s quotation concerning Wang Shih-wei: three points
“Mao deplored the execution of Wang Shih-wei.” Nixon too deplored his “plumbers” initiatives at Watergate. Great leaders are so often done a disservice by clumsy underlings!
“Mao opposes random killings.” This in fact was the only point on which Mao significantly departed from Stalin’s doctrine. Mao always agreed with the principle of Stalinist purges; only, to his more sophisticated taste, their methods appeared rather crude, messy, and wasteful. Mao eventually developed his own theory of the efficient way of disposing of opponents—which is expressed quite clearly in the fifth volume of his Selected Works recently published in Peking: executions should not be too few (otherwise people do not realize that you really mean business); they should not be too many (not to create waste and chaos). Actually before the launching of some mass-movements, quotas were issued by the Maoist authorities, indicating how many executions would be required in the cities, how many in the countryside, etc. This ensured a smooth, rational, orderly development of the purges. Some people see in this method a great improvement by comparison with Stalin’s ways. I suppose it might be so—at least from Big Brother’s point of view.
“Mao said that Wang Shih-wei was a secret agent working for the Kuomintang.” And Stalin said that Trotsky was a secret agent working for the Nazis. Later on it was also said that Liu Shao-ch’i was a secret agent working for the Americans. And that Lin Piao was a secret agent working for the Soviet Union. And now we have just learned that Madame Mao had been working for Chiang Kai-shek. Why not? After all there are always people ready to believe these things—Mr. MacKinnon, for instance.
—Other foreigners living in China: I do have a wide circle of acquaintances who have been, or are still, working in China in various capacities. I do also keep in close touch with a number of Chinese friends, former citizens of the People’s Republic, who know Chinese realities from the inside, a thousand times better than either Mr. MacKinnon or myself will ever do. If it had not been for the advice and encouragement I received from those persons who kept telling me that I was right on target, I would never have felt confident enough to publish these subjective impressions of China. On one point, however, I agree with Mr. MacKinnon: I too think it most unlikely that a person living in Peking, and being employed by the Chinese government, would ever express publicly his agreement with my views (though I know some who do so in private).
There's no better season than the present to read books that bring good tidings, tested strategies and sound advice about how to live healthier, happier lives in the year—and years—ahead.
Here are our recommendations for the year's best books for staying fit in all ways as you explore the territory ahead.
Belly Laughs
"Still Foolin''Em: Where I've Been, Where I'm Going, and Where the Hell Are My Keys?" is comedian Billy Crystal's autobiographical musings on aging, decade by decade, and the perfect antidote for milestone birthday blues. Having trouble deciphering text and Facebook abbreviations? Invent your own, says Mr. Crystal, starting with GNIB ("Good news, it's benign"), OMG ("Oh, my gout") and WAI ("Where am I?"). He also has a full chapter on "The Five Stages of Forgetting Things"—a blank page.
Be prepared for some coarse language and a few rants too many, as well as a bit too much about his starring roles in films you may have missed. But his theme is on target: Whatever decade of life you're in, humor is the best strategy for keeping your own foibles—and everyone else's—in perspective.
Rewind to the Future
In her informative and witty "Counterclockwise: My Year of Hypnosis, Hormones, Dark Chocolate and Other Adventures in the World of Anti-Aging," journalist Lauren Kessler sets out to find "the best research and the worst scams" in the wannabe-fountain-of-youth marketplace.
"What exactly is possible in this brave new (scientific, medical and commercial) world full of tantalizing research, bold promises, controversial therapies, and perhaps a bit too much wishful thinking?" she asks.
She consults with plastic surgeons, seeks out medical tests that may (or may not) shed light on how her cells are aging, grows grumpy on a calorie-restriction diet, and investigates unsubstantiated claims of a multiplicity of vitamins and herbal supplements. Her conclusion: Ultimately, nothing beats "the sweaty truth" of exercise.
Mental Gymnastics
And don't forget to exercise your mind. "Our brain's health may be the most powerful indicator of how long you will live," begins "Your Best Brain Ever: A Complete Guide and Workout" by Michael S. Sweeney with Cynthia R. Green. It's a research-filled yet highly approachable guide to the scientific why and the practical how of keeping your brain in top shape whatever your age. The authors'"fitness regimen" for maintaining neural health through the decades can be summarized as: use your brain matter, or risk losing it. But they also provide numerous practical strategies for maintaining neuroplasticity—essentially, the ability to keep on learning and adapting—primarily through continued social, intellectual and physical engagement, but also via numerous "brain booster" exercises.
A Glass Half-Full
In "Up: How Positive Outlook Can Transform Our Health and Aging," physician and medical researcher Hilary Tindle promotes pragmatic optimism as a powerful tool for improving not just how we look at life, but how we age through life. No, it isn't about being a Pollyanna. It's about being "up"—cultivating an outlook and attitude that favors possibilities. Beyond the behavioral impact, Dr. Tindle presents an impressive array of research to show how the psychology of outlook affects the biochemistry of aging, down to the cellular level. Finally, she provides a practical seven-step plan for helping the glass look less empty, more full. Think of it not as a workout, she suggests, but as working "up."
A Guide For Guys…
At more than 500 pages, "A Man's Guide to Healthy Aging: Stay Smart, Strong and Active" by Edward H. Thompson Jr. and Lenard W. Kaye covers almost everything you need to know, but might be afraid to ask, about keeping fit mentally, physically, socially, intellectually and sexually through the decades. The authors directly address the necessity of a book focused solely on men: Because many men equate seeking medical help with weakness, they are about 50% less likely to seek out health services than women are.
Chapters give equal weight to mind and body, openly discuss issues of intimacy and aging, explore the stresses and costs of masculine stereotypes and present the latest medical and psychological advice for navigating a healthy course.
And One For Gals
"French Women Don't Get Facelifts: The Secret of Aging With Style and Attitude" is best-selling author Mireille Guiliano's latest follow-up to the series that began with "French Women Don't Get Fat." Her style is chic, her attitude is self-declared French. (And there are recipes!) Some of the advice is familiar (stay active, seek out new interests, most of all be comfortable in your own skin, even if it has a few more wrinkles). But her grooming and fashion tips on keeping hair, makeup and wardrobe both agelessly attractive and age-appropriate are choice and delivered with charm.
"This book isn't about actual face-lifts—or about not having them," she writes. "It is about face-lifts in the sense of aging with attitude and the decisions one makes through the decades." Sit down with the book as if with a girlfriend over coffee or a glass of (French) wine.
Duke University Press, Jul 20, 2007 - Art - 306 pages
DIVA Study of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University Kingdom of Beauty shows that the discovery of mingei (folk art) by Japanese intellectuals in the 1920s and 1930s was central to the complex process by which Japan became both a modern nation and an imperial world power. Kim Brandt’s account of the mingei movement locates its origins in colonial Korea, where middle-class Japanese artists and collectors discovered that imperialism offered them special opportunities to amass art objects and gain social, cultural, and even political influence. Later, mingei enthusiasts worked with (and against) other groups—such as state officials, fascist ideologues, rival folk art organizations, local artisans, newspaper and magazine editors, and department store managers—to promote their own vision of beautiful prosperity for Japan, Asia, and indeed the world. In tracing the history of mingei activism, Brandt considers not only Yanagi Muneyoshi, Hamada Shōji, Kawai Kanjirō, and other well-known leaders of the folk art movement but also the often overlooked networks of provincial intellectuals, craftspeople, marketers, and shoppers who were just as important to its success. The result of their collective efforts, she makes clear, was the transformation of a once-obscure category of pre-industrial rural artifacts into an icon of modern national style.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.【作者簡介】 柳宗悅（1889 1961），日本著名民藝理論家、美學家。1913年畢業于日本東京帝國大學文科部哲學科，在研究宗教哲學、文學的同時，對日本、朝鮮的民藝產生了深厚的 興趣，并開始對之收集、整理、研究：于大正十五年《1926）與富本憲吉（1886-1963）、河井寬次郎（1890-1966） 、浜田莊司（1894-1978）聯名發表《日本民藝美術館設立趣旨書》。1936年創辦日本民藝館并任首任館長，1943年任日本民藝協會首任會長。出 版有《柳宗悅全集》等著作。1957年獲日本政府授予的“文化功勞者”榮譽稱號。
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.【本書目錄】 叢書總序 代序·田中豐太郎 致朝鮮友人書 不能失去的一座朝鮮建筑 木喰上人發現之緣起 雜器之美 工藝之美 關于建立工藝社團的提案 大津繪之美及其性質 《工藝》雜志之緣起 民藝之旨趣 日本民藝館的成立與工作 琉球之富 看“喜左衛門井戶” 手工藝之國 美之法門 利休與我 收藏之辯 日本之眼 后記 關于“民藝”一詞 四十年的回想 校后記 注釋
《水流花靜》這本集子可以說是詩與科學的對話：有父女的對話，有夫婦的對話；有師生的對話，有朋友的對話。因為作者自己始終是學中國文學的，永遠站在詩 的一邊；而父親是北京大學學物理的，丈夫是劍橋大學學電機的，朋友有學科學的，有學文學的。涉及的地方，有香港、台北、英國的劍橋、美國的波士頓、法國的 南特等。談到的古人，是從李白、杜甫，而麥克士韋、愛因斯坦，而胡適之、錢鍾書，以及今人費孝通、楊振寧、韓南、宇文所安等。說到的話題是麥克士韋的詩， 不是方程式；是胡適之的愛戀，不是新文學；是愛因斯坦的少年狂飆，不是慈祥的藹然長者；是楊振寧、李政道，重修舊好的假想，不是沒完沒了的吵鬧。 作者簡介 童元方：台灣大學中國文學士、美國奧立岡大學藝術史碩士、東亞研究碩士、哈佛大學哲學博士。曾任教哈佛大學，現為香港中文大學翻譯系副教授。中文著作有 《一樣花開——哈佛十年散記》，譯作有《愛因斯坦的夢》、《情書：愛因斯坦與米列娃》與《風雨絃歌：黃麗松回憶錄》。英文著作有：Two Journeys to the North: A Comparative Study of the Poetic Journals of Wen T’ien-hsiang and Wu Mei-ts’un,（《文天祥與吳梅村——兩組北行詩的比較研究》）譯作有明代女子曹靜照，馬如玉以及清代女子吳規臣、梁德繩的詩，收在Women Writers of Traditional China（《中國古代女作家選集》）一書中。
獨行者手記：魯奧的藝術與生活 Georges Rouault, Sur l'art et sur la vie, Denöel, coll. « Médiations / Le métier de peindre », Paris, 1982 [1971]. Réédition : Gallimard, coll. « Folio essais », Paris, 2008 [1992].
ROUAULT, GEORGES Souvenirs intimes. Paris: Galerie des Peintres Graveurs, E. Frapier, 1927.
4to, rebound in 3/4 leather over cloth-backed boards, gilt title to spine, renewed endpapers. One of 385 copies signed by Rouault and Frapier to the limitation page. With six original lithographs by Rouault. First edition. Minor wear to boards; very minor spotting to some lithographs; offsetting from frontispiece lithograph; otherwise fine.
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1958
750 8008 / FAN : ヂョルヂュ・ルォ{69257e}; 傅斯年圖書館; Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
The final part of an epic dictionary of medieval Latin is to be published this week, bringing to a close a project initiated 100 years ago.
The Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources has more than 58,000 entries and currently spans 15 volumes, the first of which came out in 1975. The 16th and final volume is published by the British Academy on 11 December. Academy president Lord Stern called it "the most comprehensive study ever" of medieval Latin vocabulary. He said it had "enabled us to discover more about the English language and shown us that Britain has indeed been at the heart of humanities and social science since the 6th Century". According to the British Academy, Latin was used by scientists, diplomats, philosophers and lawyers for more than 1,000 years after the end of the Roman empire. The dictionary details the Latin language used in Britain between 540 AD and the year 1600, drawing its contents from the Domesday Book, the Magna Carta and thousands of other documents. "During this project we were sometimes the first people to have read these documents for centuries," said Dr David Howlett, editor of the dictionary from 1979 to 2011.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.The final entries of the Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources
"For the last hundred years the project has been systematically scouring the surviving British Medieval Latin texts to find evidence for every word and all its meanings and usage," said current editor Dr Richard Ashdowne. "Much of this fundamental work was done in the early years of the project by a small army of volunteers, including historians, clergymen and even retired soldiers." Dr Howlett has previously compared the task to "eating a bowl of concrete", telling The Oxford Times: "The task was huge, and has got bigger as we have gone along." The last full entry of the dictionary, which the Academy has overseen since 1913, is for 'zythum', a form of beer. The work's completion is being marked by a conference and a display at the Bodleian Library in Oxford.
史蒂文·帕特里克·莫里西(Steven Patrick Morrissey)來自英國曼徹斯特，一個「比世界上任何地方都要冷漠無禮的地方」，這位「史密斯」(Smiths)的前任主唱從過去到未來一直都是受 誤解者們的英雄，是弱者與動物們的捍衛者，也是一位極具創意的推銷者。他在自己的新書《自傳》(Autobiography)中說，「史密斯」唱片封面的 概念是「使用那些毫無魅力可言的圖像，為它們注入心靈與慾望，使『平凡』亦能成為傳達力量的工具——如有可能，亦可成為展現魅力的工具」。
這是全書精彩的前1/3部分，其中的莫里西就像一件敏感的樂器。 1982年，「史密斯」建立，他從樂隊核心的角度嚴格而中肯地評判着他們的作品。他爭辯說，樂隊的風格其實是強硬的，不是溫柔的；他討厭第一張專輯中的音 色；他解釋若干首歌的創作原因和創作方法；他還宣布《我們走上奇異的道路》(Strangeways Here We Come)是樂隊的傑作。他對「史密斯」的廠牌「艱難行業」(Rough Trade)表示不滿，認為都是因為他們的經營和人員（「一大堆牛津劍橋抽大麻的異見分子，滿口都是承諾」），才使得樂隊沒能獲得應得的知名度。這一切都 有趣而令人信服，直到關於誤解和被低估的抱怨成了厚厚一本書的主旋律。
Steven Patrick Morrissey of Manchester, England, a place “more brittle and less courteous than anywhere else on earth,” former singer for the Smiths, once and future hero for the misunderstood, and champion for powerless humans and animals, is also an inspired adman. The concept for the Smiths’ record covers, he explains in his new book, “Autobiography,” was “to take images that were the opposite of glamour and to pump enough heart and desire into them to show ordinariness as an instrument of power — or possibly, glamour.”
The best of them, with tinted black-and-white photographs and all-caps type, did exactly that. The cover for the single “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now,” in 1984, shows Viv Nicholson, a Yorkshire cake-factory worker, a winner and famously fast spender of a lucrative football pool in 1961, fully owning the middle of a rutted street. She has what looks like a camel’s-hair coat, teased and bleached hair, a grim face. In her apparent knowledge that she is fantastic amid wreckage, she radiates power. But the cover itself, declaring her importance as well as the band’s, radiates even more.
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Sonny Figueroa/The New York Times
“Autobiography,” as sharp as it is tedious, both empathetic and pointlessly cruel, has been published in England as a Penguin Classics paperback. (No American publication date has been announced.) And its cover also radiates power. It follows the design template of Penguin’s pre-20th-century titles, with orange lettering on a black panel. Morrissey has talked himself into a special clique of the dead. He may be a British national treasure etc., but how did he manage that?
Morrissey’s operation is built on doing extraordinarily attention-getting things while intimating vestigial modesty. Who gave him permission to put a yellow streak in his hair while attending what he describes as pretty much the grimmest Catholic school of the global 1970s? Or to figure that “only classical composers were known by just their surnames, and this suited my mudlark temperament quite nicely”? Or to let himself, untutored in music, be “free as a hawk to paint the canvas as I wish” while recording with the Smiths, creating extravagantly mannered vocal melodies over Johnny Marr’s exact song constructions?
Or, as he did after the release of the book last week, to issue a statement about his sexual orientation, for those still confused after reading his story for 457 pages? “Unfortunately, I am not homosexual,” he declared. “In technical fact, I am humasexual. I am attracted to humans. But, of course ... not many.”
He understands his own value — boy does he ever — and he understands the position of the superfan. The best stretches in this book, written in the excited present tense of teenage perceptions, comes from extremely close attention to music, movies, television and attitudes in England up to the late 1970s.
He watches the Eurovision Song Contest, taking notes for his own “private scoring system.” He lives for early Roxy Music, and his seven pages on the New York Dolls’s first record — they’re American, but they’ve got what he’s looking for — present a high level of celebratory criticism, the kind that shoots back and forth between researched fact and wild metaphor. Like this: “On an infinitesimal scale, Dolls songs are about life happening against us — never with or for us — and as agents of their own troubles they relate everything to themselves. Their eyes are indifferent. They have left the order of this world.”
His outsider gods include Iggy Pop, David Bowie, Patti Smith; also, Oscar Wilde and A. E. Housman. But he’s also as interested in pop’s matte-finish forgotten ones. You’ll read of Blue Mink’s “Melting Pot,”Sandie Shaw’s “You’ve Not Changed,” the Love Affair’s “Rainbow Valley.” You’ll read all about the TV show “Lost in Space,” particularly about the actor Jonathan Harris as Dr. Zachary Smith. (“Effeminate men are very witty,” he wrote in his notepad at the time, “whereas macho men are duller than death.”)
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In “Autobiography,” Morrissey, who played Radio City Music Hall in 2012, describes his life before, during and after the Smiths.
Richard Perry/The New York Times
This is Morrissey as supersensitive instrument; it’s a great first third of his book. The Smiths form in 1982, and from his central position he judges their work critically and well. He argues for an understanding of the band as tough, not soft; he hates the sound of the first album; he explains why and how various songs were written; he declares “Strangeways Here We Come” the group’s masterpiece. He feels perpetually let down by Rough Trade, the Smiths’ label, arguing that its management and staff — “an encouraging ragbag of Oxbridge ganja dissidents” — held them back from the popularity they merited. This is all believable and amusing, until being misunderstood and undervalued becomes the general tenor of a long book.
During his post-Smiths solo tour of the United States in 1991 and 1992, when he sells out Madison Square Garden, he professes to think that his admirers have gone crazy. He learns that Elizabeth Taylor has come to his concert. “Has she confused me for someone else?” he writes. Fans circle his car. “What do they think is about to occur?” he wonders.
In his extreme attitudes he seems exactly half-American, half-English: I-want-it-yesterday matched with self-conscious modesty and morbid, reflexive disappointment.
His relationships with other humans, famous and not, are tricky. As soon as he describes someone as having integrity, you’re pretty sure that person is going to die soon; that list includes his teenage friends Jon Daley and Anji Hardy, his manager Nigel Thomas and the onetime Bowie guitarist Mick Ronson. He describes a relationship with a man named Jake Owen Walters, who comes to his house after a mid-’90s dinner party; “he steps inside and he stays for two years,” but there’s not much about him after that.
Morrissey is a pop star of unusual writing talent, but he’s written a usual sort of pop-star memoir: fascinating until he achieves true power and earns enough money to want to protect it, at which point it turns dull and sometimes petty. His protracted legal battles with Mike Joyce, the Smiths’ drummer, over Mr. Joyce’s demands for an equal share of royalties, takes up nearly 50 pages. (You understand his position, but you don’t need nearly that much of it.)
And the book staggers to a close in a series of battles with the press, perceived slights from other musicians and adoration from fans, which gives him mixed feelings. “Why do you still question the love?” his keyboardist Mikey Farrell asks him, around 2007. “I wave the question away,” Morrissey writes, “the heart stuck in an ice-cold morning of 1970. I am impossible.”
Yang, C.N. (1963) [1961]. Elementary Particles: A Short History of Some Discoveries in Atomic Physics. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ASIN B000E1CBGG.
HANDEL. By ROMAIN ROLLAND. SCRIABIN. By the EDITOR. BEETHOVEN. By ROMAIN ROLLAND. BACH. By the EDITOR. (Shortly).
http://archive.org/stream/rollbeethoven00rolluoft/rollbeethoven00rolluoft_djvu.txt **** Beethoven - 7th Symphony https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MqrBauptrE
Classical Music
Beethoven's 7th symphony at 200
Vienna was in raptures over the rhythmic energy they encountered at the premiere of Beethoven’s new symphony. Was the composer finally mad? Or had the audience just experienced a musical victory over Napoleon?
Wednesday, December 8, 1813: in the sumptuous "Redoutensaal" ballroom of Vienna's Hofburg Palace, Ludwig van Beethoven celebrated one of the greatest artistic triumphs of his career - the premiere of his Symphony No. 7, op. 92. With its sweeping melodies and dominating rhythms, it was the talk of the town in 19th century Vienna. Just two months earlier, on October 19, 1813, the allied troops of Russia, Austria, Prussia and Sweden had scored a major victory over the French army led by Napoleon Bonaparte and forced it into retreat at the Battle of Leipzig. Even in Vienna, it was clear that the despot's days were numbered. After years of French occupation, the mood in the Austrian capital was jubilant. The Viennese were out to celebrate the freedom of Europe from Napoleon’s tyranny with a large-scale gala concert in which Beethoven's 7th Symphony was included on the program. With proceeds from the ticket sales set to be donated to the wounded soldiers who fought in the Battle of Leipzig, it's no wonder the biggest names in the city stormed the box office. Even the orchestra was filled with prominent musicians such as Antonio Salieri, Louis Spohr and Giacomo Meyerbeer.
The abyss of barbarism As with the premiere of any new Beethoven symphony, contemporary critics responded first with confusion. The rhythmic ferocity used in the first and last movements proved too taxing for even the most expert of writers. One critic from even questioned Beethoven's sanity, writing, "What has happened to this once great man recently? His latest symphony bears testament to the fact that he has fallen into some kind of madness. The whole work is a quodlibet of tragic, comic, serious and trivial ideas whose unnecessary bursts of noise which almost explode the listener's eardrums and send him into the abyss of barbarism." A funeral march as hit However, the response from the public was quite different. With the overwhelming power and exuberance of the symphony, Beethoven managed to tap into the zeitgeist of the time. The audience interpreted the work as a musical representation of the recent victory over Napoleon and saw it as mirroring their pleasure at having regained freedom and peace. If witnesses such as Beethoven's personal secretary Anton Schindler are to be believed, there were standing ovations before the performance had even finished. "The outbreaks of jubilation during the A major symphony exceeded anything I had ever seen in a concert hall before," Schindler said.
The audience was particularly overwhelmed by the second movement, with its rhythms suggestive of a funeral march. It was interpreted as a lament for the soldiers who fell at the Battle of Leipzig. Even during the premiere, this part had to be repeated several times due to popular demand and became a cherished hit during the composer's lifetime. Symphony of liberation Beethoven's contemporaries aren't the only ones to derive a sense of liberation from his Seventh Symphony. Many experts today believe Beethoven, a revolutionary and committed humanist, expressed his own joy over the end of tyranny in the work. They say Beethoven also expressed his attitude to Napoleon in an earlier work; in 1805, Beethoven had intended to dedicate his 3rd Symphony, Eroica, to the French consul. But when the composer found out that the power-hungry Napoleon had crowned himself emperor, he angrily tore out the dedication page with the words, saying, "Now even he will crush human rights underfoot!" Once the French conquest was underway, Beethoven is reported to have said, "A pity I don't understand the art of war as I do the art of music: I would defeat him!"
The music speaks for itself Beethoven himself always rejected requests to come up with a non-musical program to accompany performances of his 7th Symphony. What was important was the "character of the music" he said, adding that the work merely represented, "one of the happiest products of my weak faculties." Such programmatic additions were also rejected by many of his contemporaries. One critic in Leipzig had a tip, which still holds two centuries later. He said, "Simply listen to this latest work from the genius to appreciate all its beauties. Because the beauties of this splendid work, the spirit of the whole, can't be put into words."
