My brother sent me the following quote ("I put the part I thought could apply to literature/translation in bold"):
Mozart belongs, like Bach, to the rare species of the conservative revolutionaries, or the revolutionary conservatives. We have seen that in the days when oblique parallels between music history and the history of the pictoral arts were favored, Mozart was compared with Raphael. But this is one of the most oblique of all parallels. For what Michelangelo said of Raphael is true: one sees in this young man what study can accomplish. Raphael's is an ideal, calligraphic, soaring perfection in which the soul is not involved. Mozart, too, was a great learner but his soul was never uninvolved. He took over a complete language, and used it in new combinations, giving it's words new meanings, to say things that were at once old and new, unknown and thrice known. Thus a great poet uses but the twenty-six letters of the alphabet, and without devising a single new word gives voice to thoughts undreamed-of.--Alfred Einstein, Mozart: His Character, His Work, 1945, Oxford University Press
This is a great passage! In writing, common words become uncommon in their relation to other words. But also, when it comes to writing, so much is in the arrangement of words on a page (or screen), the space between the letters, the font and kerning, the width of the margins. These relations shift meaning, redistribute weight.
Two music posts in one day! I luv it...lemme collect my thoughts, substitute the curse words for something more stingykidish, and I'll be back with the usual rant.
Posted by: Rythmik | April 11, 2007 at 05:44 PM