RE: GG: Beethoven/Liszt Fifth Symphony

[Tim Conway <tpconway@ozemail.com.au>]

Hello Junichi,

>>>This is a longish response so if anyone in f-minor is not interested
>>>in this thread, read no further. I was going to give a simple answer
>>>to Junichi's question but, on looking further into the matter, became
>>>intrigued.

>My question might have revealed my poor ability of English,
>for the poem seems to be very easy for native speakers.

Your English is good, GG's poem is bad. Well, the poem is not really bad 
but it certainly is difficult to understand. That is probably because it 
is self-contradictory and quite possibly deliberate nonsense (see below).

I have now read the full review from GGR and perceive a further problem. 
Gould is being very devious. He makes Dr K Heinkel refer to the infamous 
C played by the trumpet in direct competition with the D-flat of the 
bassoons in the 5th Symphony. If my memory is correct, it was this C that 
caused a famous musician/composer (I cannot remember which) in the 
audience at the first performance to shout 'Too early!' when the trumpet 
sounded. 

The Heinkel review alludes to the fact that Liszt apparently deliberately 
expunged that C/D-flat dissonance from his transcription by omitting the 
C. Whether that is true or not I don't know; neither do I know whether, 
if Liszt did omit the C, GG reinstated it in his recording.

What is also unclear is whether the Klopweisser poem was supposedly 
written (a) about the famous Beethoven C/D-flat dissonance, or (b) about 
the Liszt omission of it, or (c) about something else that was completely 
unconnected with Liszt and Beethoven.

One might ask, 'so where's the problem?' The problem is that later in the 
review Gould makes Heinkel say of the dissonance: 'With it we have a 
master stroke -- a truly ugly moment'. Heinkel likes the dissonance 
because it is ugly; presumably, he therefore dislikes the omission of the 
C because it is euphonious and is therefore '...such as any Hungarian 
composer could write'.

While it is clear that Gould is having great fun here by piling sarcasm 
on paradox and by showing Heinkel to be a true chauvinist, he is making 
your life as a translator very difficult. If the Klopweisser poem is 
about Beethoven's 5th Symphony (choice (a) from above), is he 
(Klopweisser) being ironic or sarcastic? Or is he being straightforward? 
Is he for the dissonance or against it? And is Heinkel being ironic by 
quoting Klopweisser? If Klopweisser is being ironic, does Heinkel realise 
that? And as the whole thing has been translated by Mathilde Heinkel (ex 
Mattie Green), are there any misconceptions arising from that 
translation? Et cetera.

Nobody knows the answers to these questions, probably not even Gould. GG 
was just having fun -- and while he may have often used too many words 
this mock-critique and its three siblings are extremely clever, and very 
good writing. 

I suppose my point is that even for a native English-speaker gleaning the 
full meaning and all its nuances from this piece and its poem is very 
difficult. One senses that Gould is merely pulling the reader's leg but 
one wonders (well, this one does, anyway) at whom the piece was directed 
(critics, fellow musicians, friends, enemies, the innocent buyer of the 
LP,...) and whether one should take it at least half-seriously and 
investigate the questions it raises or simply acknowledge that it raises 
a chuckle or two and leave it at that, depending on whom the piece was 
aimed at.

Given all these factors, how on earth is any translator to convey into 
his own language the myriad possible meanings and interpretations the 
critique contains? I am sure that GG laboured many hours over these liner 
notes. He must have put a lot of thought and sweat into getting them just 
right. GG's ability to mimic different writing styles is not as brilliant 
as his piano-playing but it's very close.

By now, Junichi, you're probably saying, Yes, yes, I know all that -- 
what about the poem? 

I think we have to take it at its face value, ie, as a serious albeit 
turgid ode in praise of conformity and middle C. But is it really in 
praise of middle C? It could quite easily be in thanksgiving for the fact 
that the middle C has gone ('Here was a note, here was a middle C' -- 
Was? Has it gone?) So the poem could be sheer nonsense, cobbled together 
by Gould as a whimsy. He doesn't care what its meaning is as long as it 
mentions middle C.

GG makes it worse than it need be by joining together the phrases into 
one long sentence. The key to understanding most poems like this is to 
first split them into shorter sentences, which is what you have done -- 
but perhaps you could take it a little further, thus:

-----------------------

With this oft-stringent note let man now pause,
That who shall hear it, sounding thus, shall see,
That euphony's the one, sure, sacred cause.

Let them who hear take leave of octave doublings.

Let them also flee to that secured and effortless repose,
The repose that comes with that tintinnabulating(*) key.

And let them do so with that quiet confidence which knows that
Here was a note, here was a middle C.

-----------------------

The poem is still not wholly intelligible, so I would try to simplify and 
modernise the English a little more. Doing so moves the words even 
further from the realm of poetry (no matter how bad) into the realm of 
prose, but we may get closer to the meaning (we can always re-poetify it 
later, if necessary). And let us also assume that the 'oft-stringent 
note' referred to in the first line is not middle C:

-----------------------

With this sometimes distressing note ringing in our ears let us now pause.

Let's hope that all people who hear the note sounding like that realise
That euphony is the only safe (and sacred!) cause.

May such listeners never use octave doublings.

Let's hope, instead, that they come to anchor themselves
On that nice-sounding key...

...the one about which we all can confidently say
Here is a *real* note for a key, here is middle C.

-----------------------

Does that make sense? I hope it helps, anyway. As I say, there are other 
interpretations. Because the whole thing is a spoof, a ruse, perhaps it 
doesn't really matter how you translate the poem. If if doesn't make 
sense in English, why should it make sense in Japanese or any other 
language? If that's the case, your paraphrase is perfect, although I 
confess I don't understand it any more than I understand Gould's original!

Any other views from the f-minor ranks?

Best regards,

Tim
<tpconway@ozemail.com.au>
Upwey, Australia