World Music in fiction
I've just been reading a collection of Robert Aickman's short stories called 'The Wine Dark Sea'. Much to my amazement, the very last story, 'Into The Wood' has a short description of listening to and considering the effects of (what we loosely call) World Music.
Our heroine, Margaret, is staying in a hotel called the Kurhus in Sovastad on the eastern side of Central Sweden. The other occupants are intriguing her - as is the location. As is often the way with Aickman, nothing very much happens. He is a master of subtlety, the odd rustling in the background as she walks along complex paths in the forest, strange glances and half-understood conversations with fellow guests.
Margaret is in the hotel after walking in the forest...
Our heroine, Margaret, is staying in a hotel called the Kurhus in Sovastad on the eastern side of Central Sweden. The other occupants are intriguing her - as is the location. As is often the way with Aickman, nothing very much happens. He is a master of subtlety, the odd rustling in the background as she walks along complex paths in the forest, strange glances and half-understood conversations with fellow guests.
Margaret is in the hotel after walking in the forest...
Margaret could again hear the sounds of the Kurhus kitchen.
A girl there was singing.
Margaret stopped and listened for a moment; which, as she reflected, she would not have done had she been able to understand the words. The song had some pure existence and beauty, which understanding of the words, while possibly bringing something else, would have destroyed.
Listening to the talk in the intervals at Hallé concerts, Margaret had suspected that too much understanding of musical theory can be similarly destructive.
And so often people said to her that when they travelled abroad they wanted really to meet and know the local population; in the same sort of way, as far as possible, as they knew and met their fellow English. They spend hard evenings learning languages for the purpose - or in the hope.
Margaret realised this was not her idea at all.
The song of this girl was precisely akin to the song of the forest: if one worked at it, one would cease to hear it.
In fact, now that Margaret came to think, she realised that she had been unconsciously disengaging the song from the loud clanging of pans in which, properly speaking, it was submerged.
She had been hearing only the song and nothing of the mechanism that, objectively, almost overwhelmed it; and assuredly put it in its place, So it had been in the forest.
One had to lose the noise of the mechanism, not least the ever-deafening inner echoes of it. One had to dispel practicality. Then something else could be heard - if one was lucky, if the sun was shinging, if the paths were well made, if one wore the right garments: and if one made no attempt at definition or popularisation.
A girl there was singing.
Margaret stopped and listened for a moment; which, as she reflected, she would not have done had she been able to understand the words. The song had some pure existence and beauty, which understanding of the words, while possibly bringing something else, would have destroyed.
Listening to the talk in the intervals at Hallé concerts, Margaret had suspected that too much understanding of musical theory can be similarly destructive.
And so often people said to her that when they travelled abroad they wanted really to meet and know the local population; in the same sort of way, as far as possible, as they knew and met their fellow English. They spend hard evenings learning languages for the purpose - or in the hope.
Margaret realised this was not her idea at all.
The song of this girl was precisely akin to the song of the forest: if one worked at it, one would cease to hear it.
In fact, now that Margaret came to think, she realised that she had been unconsciously disengaging the song from the loud clanging of pans in which, properly speaking, it was submerged.
She had been hearing only the song and nothing of the mechanism that, objectively, almost overwhelmed it; and assuredly put it in its place, So it had been in the forest.
One had to lose the noise of the mechanism, not least the ever-deafening inner echoes of it. One had to dispel practicality. Then something else could be heard - if one was lucky, if the sun was shinging, if the paths were well made, if one wore the right garments: and if one made no attempt at definition or popularisation.
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