Ian Bostridge - Schubert's Winter Journey : Anatomy of an Obsession

Schubert's Winter Journey: Anatomy of an Obsession, by Ian Bostridge, isn't yet another book about Winterreise.  Like the cycle, it is a journey of exploration. charting Bostridge's lifelong saga into the heart of the music, and into the world from which it came. Goethe may have been more of a classicist than a true Romantic, but his never ending search for knowledge defined his era and remains an inspiration for our own. In an era of instant expertise, this spirit of eternal discovery seems to have been replaced by fast-food thinking, instant expertise and Tea Party Intellectuals. We need books that don't leap to conclusions but focus, instead,  on the process of learning itself.

Questions are far more important than answers. This book is a Rückblick on a never-ending journey, whose goal lies not in conclusion but in the search that goes into understanding. It's a journey that takes courage and integrity. There used to be a body of opinion that the protagonist in Winterreise must have been mad, and must die in the end because he doesn't conform. But the protagonist, poet and composer deserve more respect.  In each chapter, Bostridge engages with the background to the ideas in the cycle, and with the wider social and artistic context.  "Winterreise is a historical artefact", he writes, ""made in history, and transmitted through and by it".  The poet, Wilhelm Müller, was a soldier who served in the wars against Napoléon in Russia, a "winter journey" if ever there was one. The chapter Der Lindenbaum opens up a panorama of ideas, which range from the symbolism of the Linden tree and its associations in folk magic, to a particularly thoughtful essay on Thomas Mann and the winter journey in The Magic Mountain.  Bostridge then proceeds to a technical discussion of triplet assimilation, then forwards to geology and the physical phenomena that are so much part of the cycle.  Many interesting observations. "To write on ice is an image of ambivalence, like writing on water but not quite letting go,.....Freezing feeling is....both to preserve and to anaesthetize it". Utterly relevant to interpretation of meaning.

Bostridge's sensitivity picks up on details like "eine Köhlers engem Haus" in Rast. Why such a specific reference, and not something more generic? Bostridge discusses charcoal burning and its economic context. Obviously we don't "need" to know this to enjoy the song, but the knowledge opens up new vistas which deepen our appreciation, and exposes the political undercurrents in Schubert's world. Incidentally, charcoal-burners were men who worked alone in the wilds. Is the charcoal burner an invisible precursor of Der Leiermann? Or another expression of the lonely mission the protagonist is driven to undertake?  Or a metaphor for artist and intellectuals and their role in society?  These questions matter, if we really care about the cycle and its deeper meanings.  Schubie doobie doo Schubert and Mahlerkügeln may be more popular with the masses, but as has been observed , the
"m" in "masses" might be silent.  Lieder is an art form of the intellect, a voyage into emotional depth, which all can undertake if they so wish. For this reason, Bostridge's book, with its wealth of ideas on art, literature and history, informs and stimulates. Had Bostridge stayed in academia, he might have been one of those truly good teachers who teach students how to think rather than what to think.

He also writes in a clear, elegant style with little of the logorrhea too many writers use to hide the fact that they aren't really saying much. His translations are simple yet emotionally direct.  Although he digresses, he always returns to the music and to the point.  Physically, this is a beautiful book, with thick, satiny paper and relatively few words per page,  and extremely well-produced illustrations. It is a throwback to the time when reading was a sensual  pleasure, to be savoured without rush. In some ways. it's like poetry, to which one can return to again and again and find more inspiration. Schubert's Winter Journey: Anatomy of an obsession might enrage those who expect confirmation of what they already believe, but for me, and, I think, many others, it's a springboard for ever greater engagement with the miracle that is Winterreise.   

Richmal Crompton William Rebels with a cause

Short new BBC TV1 series on William, anti hero of Richmal Crompton's many collections of short stories. Crompton channels an eleven-year-old boy but what makes the books so wonderrful is their totally adult pungency and satire. Kids who read William may not get all the words, but they're captured by the sense that an adult is secretly on the side of the rebels.

Richmal Crompton herself grew up in genteel surroundings, seeming to conform. But she became crippled. battled cancer and didn't marry. So William was her rebellion. Much of the savagery of Crompton's wit springs from the spirit of the 1920's when the old Edwardian order was collapsing,. The Browns had a cook and maid and looked down on "new money", the Botts of Botts Hall, saucemakers. Meanwhile tramps roam the countryside, scavenging and doing crime. What Crompton doesn't need to state is that most of these tramps were ex soldiers or the unemployed of the Depression. With whom William, and Crompton, sympathise.

That's why stuffy pedants don't get off well in William books. Pillars of society, Heads of Brains Trusts, Bloomsbury wannabes, pompous officials, all get sent up.  But not the basically decent, even Mr Bott. Later when all society seems to become aspirational, Crompton's mayhem no longer fits.  Just William, William the Fourth, William and the Evacuees etc.flow spontaneously enlived by a sure eye for farce. William and the Pop Star doesn't work because the whole world's become parody. What makes Crompton's William so adventurous is that he has moral bearings, however uncivilised he seems on the surface. Look at the photo of Richmal Crompton - what a clear eyed,  fearless stare. "Don't try bluffing me!"

The difference between Richmal Crompton and Enid Blyton is huge. Blyton fans are defensive because they identify Blyton's pap with idealized childhoods. Crompton fans have fewer illusions. William has that wisdom that comes from being genuinely pure. He doesn't get any older, but his readers learn and grow. And are expected to.  If Richmal Crompton has a soul mate, it's Dr Seuss. Both tell funny stories, but both have sharp intellects and values. "LMF" or "Lack of Moral Fibre" was a common term in the past, but it could not apply to Crompton or Dr Seuss.

Last year a reader told me about the moment he saw through Enid Blyton. "What would Richmal Crompton do?" with the same premise of a plot? So between us we "wrote" a complete new Richmal Crompton story almost as true to the spirit of William as any adaptation. Please read it HERE ("Turkeys for Enid Blyton")

Europe's Tragedy - Simplicissimus

This is the "Defenestration of Prague", an incident that sparked off  the bloodiest conflagration in Europe before the 20th century.  It's a scary image, bearing  in mind what happened to Jan Masaryk in the early years of the Cold War. 

K A Hartmann's Des Simplcius Simplicissimus Jugend, (read my review HERE). ("Covert Resistance - An anti-facist, anti-war opera written in Germany while the Nazis were in power?") inspired me to find out more about the Thirty Years War.

By odd coincidence, the recording came out soon after the publication of Peter H Wilson's Europe's Tragedy : a history of the Thirty Year's War (2009)  It covers the period more comprehensively and intensively than anything else in English before. It shows how tensions in society erupt into conflict. This was the real "First World War" because all Europe was involved, and overseas empires. At 1000 pages it's not light reading, yet gripping enough that it can be followed as narrative.  Wilson's methodology is sound, his prose clear. A model reference work. This is an extremely important book because it shows how modern Europe was shaped. What happened nearly 400 years ago impacts on us today.

Back to Simplicius Simplicissimus  the saga that grew from The Thirty Years War.  There's a new edition. "Nun ist er lebendiger denn je. Denn in Reinhard Kaisers Übersetzung liest sich das Werk endlich nicht mehr verstaubt und verquält – man versteht, welcher Lebensquell damals der Bezug auf das abendländische Erbe war" Read more about it HERE