Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire: il Surrealismo Sardonico dell’Arte

DSM: The UMKC Schoenberg Ensemble (Jessica Goldring, soprano; Brendan Kinsella, piano; Luke Fitzpatrick, violin & viola; Wilfredo Pasamba, cello; Jonathan Borja, flute & piccolo; Mauricio Salguero, clarinet & bass clarinet; all exuberant 20-somethings) gave quite a nice performance of Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire Op. 21 last night.

CMT: Yes! Composed in 1912, it’s a musical setting for singer-speaker(s) and chamber ensemble—a setting of 21 poems by Albert Giraud—and still, almost 100 years later, one of the most important music theater works written so far. What about the artistic environment around the turn of the century from which Pierrot emerged? What about Schoenberg’s working methods and intentions in composition at the time—he would’ve been 65 years old then. It’s clear and imaginative—each one of these twenty-one melodramas is very imaginative. But how to understand the music and the narrative?

DSM: It’s one of the first pieces of program music ever written for a chamber ensemble. To this day, Pierrot Lunaire is one of Schoenberg’s best-known works. I think it’s often said that it’s an ironic-satiric work. Schoenberg uses all of his notorious atonal composing techniques and the spoken-singing delivery called ‘Sprechstimme.’ This took the hinges off.

CMT: Though freely atonal, it doesn’t fully bear Schoenberg’s trademark tonal style: it includes canons like “The Moonspot” written in traditional canon form, as well as meandering duets like “The Sick Moon.” Just the same, Schoenberg managed to capture the sense of the poems through their surface and texture. Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire is a liminal sketch inspired by the text. It can’t really be a German satiric commentary on French elite aesthetics, could it? It can’t really be taken as an ironic broadside against Romantic artistic values. This isn’t shock-art at the audience’s expense. No, there’s a dark, surreal pulse to Giraud’s poems, just as there is in Schoenberg’s music. The liminality of it is sculptural. Isn’t Pierrot Lunaire musically coherent with the work of Picasso and Braque and other Cubists and Expressionists at about this same time?

DSM: I have no way of knowing if Jessica Goldring’s rendering of the Sprechstimme – Schoenberg’s invention of a style between speaking and singing – was performed as intended by the composer. I might give a listen to one or more of the recordings in the links below, to take stock of others’ interpretations. I know from Schoenberg’s own writings that he wanted razor-sharp rhythm as well as speech in a musical form. Schoenberg also warned that the performer must not produce singing speech but speech in a musical form, as he put it. Though Schoenberg was at pain to notate his score with great accuracy, the interpretation of his Sprechstimme instructions seems to be pretty variable. Unfortunately, Schoenberg’s full instructions are lost, and last night there were no subtitles to help us to understand the German text. And it was too dark in White Recital Hall to read the translation that was provided in the program.

CMT: And, unfortunately, Jessica Goldring’s German diction was not easy to understand. At one point in between two of the poems one of the UMKC recording staff approached the stage to check the microphone. White Recital Hall is a bit cave-like.

DSM: Looking at Schoenberg’s own writing, Pierrot’s character is in the music. But, surely you’re right, the words are crucial. Though I was unable to follow the score in the dark auditorium, the ensemble between singer and instrumentalists appeared to be fine. And I can definitely vouch for fine instrumental playing by the musicians.

CMT: The ad hoc flood-light they improvised from a hardware-store trouble-lamp and covered with a film of yellow plastic, sitting on the floor near Jessica’s feet and casting an upward glare on the underside of her chin and cheeks, and on beyond to the other players! The eerie shadow cast against the white acoustic reflection panels upstage from the piano! In shadow, Luke Fitzpatrick’s bowing looked like someone gleefully slicing a turkey on a Cotters’ Saturday Night! Or maybe Vladimir or Estragon in Waiting for Godot, sucking chicken bones clean . . .

W  ith a giant bow grotesquely
Scrapes Pierrot on his viola –
Like a stork on one leg standing
Sadly plucks a pizzicato.”
  —  A. Giraud, Serenade.

DSM: The references to night and the apparent madness of many of the Giraud poems also has echoes of Beckett’s Godot or maybe Kafka. Kafka’s Metamorphosis was 1915. Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon was 1907; Kirchner’s Self-Portrait with Model was 1910; Juan Gris, The Guitar, was 1914; Kasimir Malevich, Suprematist Painting, was 1916. Vasily Kandinsky, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, was 1912; Georges Sorel, Reflections on Violence, was 1907); Fillipo Marinetti, Futurist Manifesto, was 1909; Wilfred Owen, Dulce et Decorum Est, was 1918; John Singer Sargent, Gassed, was 1918; Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring was 1913, Satie’s Parade, 1917. What we see in Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire is a snapshot of the cultural and political milieux circa 1912! Alienation was in the air! When was Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time? Does that piece not owe some intellectual debt to Schoenberg?

CMT: It was 1940-41, while Messiaen was imprisoned. But there is much humor in Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire compared with, say, the Hölderlin-Gesänge.


DSM: Well, it’s a black, bad, dodgy humor then. Whatever mirth there is is suddenly dispelled in the outbursts in several songs. The English text of ‘Gebet an Pierrot’ reads: “My laughter have I unlearnt! The picture’s brightness dissolves. Black flies the standard now from my mast.” This has echoes of the outcry on ‘Pallaksch’ at the end of the Hölderlin settings: a final cry of frustration. The bleakness is all the more palpable for this sudden contrast. Despite the humorous touches, though, Schoenberg resists the temptation to overdo the comic effects—except for the moments of comic vocalisation where words are sung glissando and ‘quasi-Flatterzunge.’

T hrough the bald pate of Cassander,
As he rends the air with screeches –
Bores Pierrot in feigning tender
Fashion with a cranium-driller.
He then presses with his finger
Rare tobacco grown in Turkey
Into the bald pate of Cassander,
As he rends the air with screeches –
Then, screwing a cherry pipe stem
Right in through the polished surface,
Sits at ease and smokes and puffs the
Rare tobacco grown in Turkey
From the bald pate of Cassander.”
  —  A Giraud, Gemeinheit

CMT: You don’t imagine that the translation of Giraud’s French by O. E. Hartleben, in Leipzig and Berlin between 1887-1893—which was then the basis for Cecil Gray’s translation of the poems into English in the 1920s—had an effect? No possibility of translators’ errors in accurately rendering Giraud’s intentions, transmuted through those different languages and cultures? These 21 songs have predominantly restrained dynamics and gentle textures in spite of the array of percussive passages. The timbres that Schoenberg devises for the ensemble are often very beautiful. The song “Mondestrunken” combines a flowing, gentle vocal line above four-note chords played tremolo. The song “Enthauptung” combines the soprano at the bottom of her register with quiet tremolo cello goo-gaws. Occasionally the texture is given impetus by loud outbursts from the piano. It is as if a malevolent troll were directing the proceedings. There are echoes of Pozzo’s aggression; in fact, the song “Gemeinheit” brings to mind Pozzo “riding” Lucky in Waiting for Godot. I wonder whether Beckett’s writing was informed by Schoenberg’s music . . .

DSM: Well, consider the evidence: Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot; two tramps are waiting by a sickly looking tree for the arrival of Godot; they quarrel, make up, contemplate suicide, try to sleep, eat a carrot, gnaw on chicken bones. Two other characters appear, a master and a slave, who perform a grotesque scene in the middle of the play. A young boy arrives to say that Godot will not come today, but that he will come tomorrow. Godot does not come and the two tramps resume their vigil by the tree, which between the first and second day has sprouted a few leaves, the only symbol of a possible order in a thoroughly alienated world.

CMT: Pozzo and Lucky, the master and slave—they are half commedia dell’arte characters and half marionettes. The language of the play has gravity, intensity, and conciseness—much like Pierrot Lunaire. And in Pierrot Lunaire we have bravura passages that are seemingly meaningless, reminiscent of Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake.

DSM: The simplicity of Pierrot Lunaire, in the histrionic sense, places it in the tradition of French playwriting. The adherence to three unities is evidence that this is Pierrot Lunaire’s dramaturgical lineage. The unity of place: Columbine and the other characters simply hanging around. This place is any place. It is perhaps best characterized as being the place where Godot is not. Godot—Pierrot Lunaire’s moonstruck unreasonable expectations—are not to materialize in any place comparable to the setting of Schoenberg’s play. The unity of time might be any sequence of days in anyone’s life. Time is really immobility, a social and existential molasses, although a few minor changes do take place during the play: the beheading, the journey home. But the act of waiting is never over. It mysteriously starts up again each day. Nothing is completed because nothing can be completed. The unity of alienation: despair is crucial to this piece, and it pervades all the lack of action and gives the piece its metaphysical color. In scene after scene the permanent, structural absurdity of the world is stressed. Absurd struggle, the human condition!

S  choenberg has created a whole world of strange fascination and enchantment, of nameless horrors and terrible imaginings, of perverse and poisonous beauty and bitter-sweet fragrance, of a searing and withering mockery and malicious, elfish humor, which the poet most assuredly never contemplated. All the diablerie of the Romantics pales beside its demoniac intensity, and the much-vaunted irony and cynicism of Stravinsky appear childish and insipid in comparison with the sardonic and inhuman laughter of Schoenberg’s sinister and menacing evocation. In all art and literature one can only think of Hoffman who has anything to compare to it. Even the creations of Poe seem colourless, mechanical, and soulless when placed by the side of Pierrot Lunaire.”
  —  Cecil Gray, Survey of Contemporary Music, 1929

CMT: Despite all that, Schoenberg’s portrayal of life’s obstacles asserts that the journey, while difficult, is worth the effort. It seems that Schoenberg’s expressed ‘pessimism’ is not so much a despairing of the human condition but instead a despairing of the established cultural and societal structures that stultify and depersonalize otherwise hopeful individuals. He’s inherently optimistic about the human condition, but acknowledging tension in a violent, oppressive world that strips people of their dignity, that robs their lives of meaning. The Giraud poems were a pretext for Schoenberg’s composing an incisive musical manifesto for the 20th Century! Amazing, for 1912! Well done, UMKC Schoenberg Ensemble!

• Luna Nova New Music Ensemble website
  
• Probeersel Comics, Joy of Atonality
  
• D’Hulst L, Herman J, Tack L. Les Pierrot Lunaire d’Albert Giraud, O.E. Hartleben et Arnold Schönberg: Pour une analyse des transferts interculturels et intersémiotiques. Neophilologus 1999;83:333-47.
  
• Contemporary Chamber Ensemble. Schoenberg: Pierrot Lunaire, Op. 21. (Nonesuch, 1992.)
  
• Da Capo Chamber Players. Schoenberg: Pierrot Lunaire, Op. 21. (Bridge, 1992.)
  
• Ensemble Intercontemporain. Schoenberg: Pierrot Lunaire, Op. 21. (Deutsche Grammophon, 1998.)
  
• Ensemble Modern. Schoenberg: Pierrot Lunaire, Op. 21. (RCA, 1993.)
  
• Herweghe P, et al. Schoenberg: Pierrot Lunaire, Op. 21. (Harmonia Mundi, 1991.)
  
• Veyrier I, et al. Schoenberg: Pierrot Lunaire, Op. 21. (Musique D'Abord, 2003.)
  
• Blood S. Baudelaire and the Aesthetics of Bad Faith. Stanford Univ, 1997.
  
• Bouveresse J. La Philosophie D'un Anti-philosophe. Clarendon, 1994.
  
• Dunsby J. Schoenberg: Pierrot Lunaire. Cambridge Univ, 1992.
  
• Froment-Meurice M. Solitudes: From Rimbaud to Heidegger. SUNY, 1995.
  
• Gavronsky S. Toward a New Poetics: Contemporary Writing in France. Univ California, 1994.
  
• Glissant E. Poetics of Relation. Univ Michigan, 1997.
  
• Higgins I. Anthology of First World War Poetry. Univ Glasgow, 1996.
  
• Hoffer P. Reflets Reciproques: A Prismatic Reading of Stephane Mallarme And Helène Cixous. Lang, 2006.
  
• Richter G, tr. Albert Giraud's Pierrot Lunaire. Truman State Univ, 2001.

Goode: Whitman-esque Voyager-Prophet of the Universal ‘Want’

I  considered how best to describe to you Richard Goode’s unique accomplishment; how best to characterize that quality which makes his a distinctly American voice. And it occurred to me that he is, in many ways, the musical equivalent of Walt Whitman. Richard Goode is, among pianists, the epitome of a Whitman-like ‘voyager ego’—someone who is able to take the specifics of one individual’s feeling and experience and, through his playing, make them universal. In doing so, he transforms us . . . ”

  —  Cynthia Siebert

CMT: The human brain, according to Nussbaum, is a living record of its evolutionary history. Relatively recent cognitive developments derive from older representational functions, about which the science is all less than forty years old and of which we are hardly aware. But consideration of music performance can shed light on ancient cognitive functions that underlie modern human cognition. The biology, psychology, and philosophy of musical representation have much to tell us about what we are, and what, as a species, we have been.

DSM: It isn’t just music that offers us revelations like this. ‘Poets Thinking’, one of Helen Vendler’s books, argues that poetry is a mode of thinking that reveals not just our aesthetic values but also our psychology. Vendler is a wonderful elucidator of individual poems. Nobody writes more insightfully about a poem’s stylistic structure, and the emotional and intellectual purposes that the structure serves. And by examining the distinctive strategies of thinking in the work of such radically different poets as Pope, Whitman, Dickinson, and Yeats, Vendler makes visible aspects of style and language that other critics simply haven’t seen.

CMT: This is what Cynthia Siebert was hinting at in her introduction of Richard Goode. Music, like poetry, has often been considered an irrational genre, more expressive than logical, more meditative than given to coherent argument. And yet, in each of the four very different composers Richard Goode performed last night, he reveals a style of thinking in operation. Although they may prefer different means, he argues, all composers of any value are thinkers. He convincingly traces a trajectory from Bach’s Partitas, through late Mozart, through Brahms, to Debussy. Admittedly, Goode’s Bach is a more romantic account than is usual. But it’s a very plausible interpretation.

DSM: Whitman was writing as a poet of repetitive insistence—someone for whom thinking must be followed by rethinking. Goode shows us Brahms thinking in images, using montage in lieu of argument. He shows us Debussy as a satiric miniaturizer, remaking in verse the form of the essay. He shows us Mozart experimenting with plot to characterize life’s unfolding. The repetitions that Goode localizes in each of these composers’ works become, in his mind and hands, coherent arguments—ones that are set forth, defended, critically turned over, reiterated after deliberation and reflection. This is part of what makes Goode so ‘new’.

C   ome, said my soul, such verses
for my Body let us write, (for we are one,)
That should I after return,
Or, long, long hence, in other spheres,
There to some group of mates the chants resuming,
(Tallying Earth’s soil, trees, winds, tumultuous waves,)
Ever with pleas’d smile I may keep on,
Ever and ever yet the verses owning
 —as, first, I here and now
Signing for Soul and Body, set to them my name . . .
The untold want by life and land ne’er granted,
Now, voyager, sail thou forth to seek and find.”

  —  Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

CMT: It’s also, I think, what makes his playing so universal, so meaningful to each person, and fresh for each person upon repeated listenings. With his characteristic lucidity and spirit, Goode traces through these composers’ expressions to find evidence of thought in lyric; the silent stylistic measures representing changes of mind; the condensed power of poetic thinking. His work argues against the reduction of performance to well-worn and long-since elucidated themes and demonstrates, instead, that there is, ideally, in music a serious process of thinking, a deliberated style—however ancient the theme may be—and one that is powerful and original, fresh and new.

DSM: Whitman seeks the redemption of America through the reconstruction of individual subjects in conversion. Would Cynthia Siebert say that Goode seeks to redeem us by inducing ecstatic, regenerating experiences in his audiences?

CMT: Yes. That is the consequence of her opening remarks—consummate presenter that she is. She gives us not merely an introduction, but a capsulized lesson. There are the de rigeur honorifics, of course. But then she invariably gives the audience a ‘pearl,’ some unique bit of insight, a provocation, even. She cautions us that Goode is about to spin an emotional tale. You know a well-known “rule system” has been developed at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm (Sundberg et al., 1983), for characterizing emotional content in music performances. The KTH model consists of a set of performance rules that predict or prescribe aspects of timing, dynamics, and articulation, based on local musical context. The rules refer to a limited class of musical situations and theoretical concepts (simple duration ratios between successive notes, ascending lines, melodic leaps, melodic and harmonic charge, phrase structure, etc.). Most of the rules operate at a low level and look only at very local contexts and affecting individual notes. But there are also rules that refer to entire phrases, much apropos of Richard Goode’s expressive playing. The rules are parameterized with a varying number of parameters. Originally, the KTH model was developed using the so-called “analysis-by-synthesis approach” that involves a professional musician directly evaluating each tentative rule brought forward by the researcher. Musician and researcher engage in constant feedback to iteratively find the best formulation and parameter settings for each rule. This method has the advantage of modeling a kind of performer–listener interaction, but it falls short by placing high demands on the evaluating expert musicians and by not permitting reliable evaluations due to the small number of judgments.

DSM: Thinking of the performance that Richard Goode just gave last night, consider just one particular rule: DURATION CONTRAST. This rule modifies the ratio between successive note durations in order to enhance and make more easily perceivable the differences in duration. Most commonly it changes the durations of a long and a short one so that the longer becomes a bit longer, and the shorter becomes shorter. As for every rule, there is a quantity control parameter (k) to be set by the analyst. This parameter is designed so as to give a fairly good result when its value is around 1. With a k value of 0, a particular rule is effectively switched off; when k is set to a negative value, the rules are inverted (in DURATION CONTRAST, it would blur the rhythmic contrasts)—which, by the way, can produce unmusical results. I can show you on my DAW synthesizer-sequencer if you like. An important aspect of the model is that it’s additive. For instance, there are several rules that influence the duration of a note, and the effects of the individual rules are added cumulatively to give the final duration. Sundberg and colleagues examined how well the KTH model can be fitted to a particular performance of a slow Mozart sonata movement (K.332, first 20 bars of the Adagio) manually, by trial and error. They focused exclusively on expressive timing of the melody (in terms of deviations from the score) and determined similarity between the performance and the model with the correlation coefficient. The PHRASE ARCH rule (shaping phrases on different structural levels) seemed to dominate the performance, although they could not find one single k parameter for these initial bars. Therefore, they tested k values for each phrase individually. Here it was mostly the PHRASE ARCH rule that got the highest correlations, as well as HARMONIC CHARGE and negative DURATION CONTRAST. The KTH model has also been used to model certain emotional colourings that might not be immediately inherent in the music structure. For example, the DURATION CONTRAST rule was found to especially distinguish between a sad and a happy performance. Some specifically selected subsets of rules and k parameter settings (“emotional rule palettes”, see Bresin & Friberg, 2000) were derived from measured performances in order to model emotional coloring of performances.

CMT: This extension to emotionality has led recently to more comprehensive computational models of expressive performances. These models include, besides the generative KTH model and the emotional models, also random variability within certain bounds, and analogies to physical motion. Recently, it was proposed to extend it with a factor of “stylistic unexpectedness” (see Juslin). To date, there is plenty of evidence that the KTH rule model is a viable representation language for describing expressive performance. To what extent it can account for the observed variations in large collections of performances of truly complex music is still an open issue. These other more recent quantitative models with more complexity and more degrees of freedom may ultimately capture more of the expressive range . . .

DSM: One of those recent models based mainly on mathematical considerations is the “Mazzola model”. The Swiss mathematician and Jazz pianist Guerino Mazzola developed his mathematical music theory and performance model beginning in the 1980s. His most recent book (Mazzola, 2002) extends over more than 1,300 pages and gives a comprehensive survey of the theoretical background as well as its computational implementation.

CMT: The Mazzola model builds on Mazzola’s mathematical music theory that includes various aspects of music theory and analysis and involves philosophical, semiotic, and aesthetic considerations as well. Every step is explained in specifically mathematical terms. He invents special terminology that is greatly different from what is commonly used in performance research, so musicologists do seem to hold it somewhat in abeyance. Engineers and mathematicians, like Bill Sethares at Wisconsin, seem to have greater receptiveness to Mazzola’s ideas . . .

DSM: The Mazzola model basically consists of an analysis part and a performance part. The analysis part involves computer-aided analysis tools for various aspects of the music structure as, e.g., meter, melody, or harmony. Each of these is implemented in particular plugins, the so-called “rubettes”, that assign particular “weights” to each note in a symbolic score. The performance part that transforms structural features into a synthesized performance is theoretically anchored in the so-called “Stemma Theory” and “Operator Theory” (a sort of additive rule-based structure-to-performance mapping). It iteratively modifies the “performance vector fields”, each of which controls a single expressive parameter of a synthesized performance. I’ve been playing around with that over the past couple of weeks on my old Ensoniq equipment . . .

CMT: What about quantification of individual style? Predictive models like the KTH or the Mazzola models generally focus on fundamental, common performance principles—that is, on those aspects that most performances have in common. Of course, there have also been attempts at measuring, quantifying, and describing stylistic performance differences. Statistical analysis can reveal a number of characteristic and distinctive phrasing behaviors, some of which could be associated (in a statistical sense) with a particular pianist. Can we do that with Goode?

DSM: Well, yes. After the concert last night, I extracted some tracks off Goode CDs that we own. We can examine visualization performance trajectories from those mp3s. Basically, the detailed performance data – beat-level tempo and dynamics curves – can be represented in an integrated way as trajectories in a two-dimensional “tempo–loudness” space that show the joint development of tempo and dynamics over time (see Langner & Goebl, 2003). This plot shows a trajectory from Richard Goode’s recording of a performance of the Mozart Rondo in A minor (K. 511) that we heard last night at the Folly Theater in Kansas City.


CMT: The line is produced by interpolating between the measured tempo and dynamics points that you captured off the CD, and smoothing the result with a moving-window Gaussian to make the trends visible. The degree of smoothing controls the amount of local variation in the plot. This is similar to Dixon’s “Performance Worm” (Dixon, 2002) that computes and visualizes performance trajectories. But the trajectory representation here also provides the basis for more detailed quantitative analysis, with data analysis (data mining) methods. So for Goode’s ‘voyager ego,’ as Cynthia Siebert called it, we should be able to map his (or other artists’ – ) expressive voyages after the fact, catalogue them, compare them.

• Goode R. Mozart. (Nonesuch, 2005.)
  
• Goode R. Bach Partitas 1, 3 & 6. (Nonesuch, 2003.)
  
• Goode R. Bach Partitas 2, 4 & 5. (Nonesuch, 1999.)
  
• Goode R. Beethoven. (Nonesuch, 1993.)
  
• Goode R. Brahms. (Nonesuch, 1992.)
  
• Goode R. Schubert: Sonata in B-flat; Impromptu in A-flat. (Nonesuch, 1992.)
  
• Goode R. Schubert: Sonata in c; Ländler. (Nonesuch, 1992.)
  
• Bresin R & Friberg A. Emotional coloring of computer-controlled music performances. Computer Music Journal 2000; 24:44–63.
  
• Deutsch D, ed. The Psychology of Music. 2e. Academic, 1998.
  
• Dixon S, et al. "The Performance Worm: Real time visualisation based on Langner’s representation," in: M. Nordahl, ed., Proceedings of the 2002 International Computer Music Conference, Göteborg, Sweden. International Computer Music Association, 2002, pp. 361-4.
  
• Folsom E, Price K. Re-Scripting Walt Whitman: An Introduction to His Life and Work. Blackwell, 2005.
  
• Horsley P. Goode puts the 'master' in Friends of Chamber Music master pianist series. KC Star, 01-APR-2007.
  
• Jensen B. Leaving the M(other): Whitman, Kristeva, and Leaves of Grass. Fairleigh Dickinson Univ, 2002.
  
• Jourdain R. Music, the Brain, and Ecstasy. Harper, 1998.
  
• Juslin P, Sloboda J, eds. Music and Emotion: Theory and Research. Oxford Univ, 2001.
  
• Killingsworth M. The Cambridge Companion to Walt Whitman. Cambridge Univ, 2007.
  
• Kivy P. Authenticities: Philosophical Reflections on Musical Performance. Cornell, 1998.
  
• Kivy P. Sound Sentiment: An Essay on the Musical Emotions. Temple Univ, 1989.
  
• Kummings D, ed. A Companion to Walt Whitman. Blackwell, 2006.
  
• Madell G. Philosophy, Music and Emotion. Edinburgh Univ, 2003.
  
• Martin D. A Study of Walt Whitman's Mimetic Prosody. Edwin Mellen, 2004.
  
• Matravers D. Art and Emotion. Oxford Univ, 1998.
  
• Mazur K. Poetry and Repetition: Walt Whitman, Wallace Stevens, John Ashbery. Routledge, 2005.
  
• Mazzola G, ed. The Topos of Music: Geometric Logic of Concepts, Theory, and Performance. Birkhäuser Verlag, 2002.
  
• Meyer L. Emotion and Meaning in Music. Univ Chicago, 1961.
  
• Nussbaum C. The Musical Representation: Music, Ontology, and Emotion. MIT, 2007.
  
• Oliver C. A Critical Companion to Walt Whitman. FoF, 2005.
  
• Peretz I, Zatorre R. eds. The Cognitive Neuroscience of Music. Oxford Univ, 2003.
  
• Shibles W. Emotion in Aesthetics. Springer, 2003.
  
• Sloboda J. Exploring the Musical Mind: Cognition, Emotion, Ability, Function. Oxford Univ, 2005.
  
• Sowder M. Whitman's Ecstatic Union: Conversion and Ideology in Leaves of Grass. Routledge, 2005.
  
• Sundberg J, et al. Musical performance: A synthesis-by-rule approach. Computer Music Journal 1983; 7:37–43.
  
• Vendler H. Invisible Listeners: Lyric Intimacy in Herbert, Whitman, and Ashbery. Princeton Univ, 2005.
  
• Vendler H. Poets Thinking: Pope, Whitman, Dickinson, Yeats. Harvard Univ, 2004.
  
• Whitman W. Leaves of Grass. Oxford Univ, 2005.
  
• Whitman W. Mystic Poets. Skylight, 2004.
  
• KTH website, Stockholm

03 Mar 07

Thoughts of Freedom

Time seems to be passing faster the longer I’ve been inside. There is less than a year to go until I’m released. And then I go back to England, the country I left sixteen years ago. How England must have changed. Although I want to get out of prison, the prospect of being in such a different environment worries me sometimes.

At least I’ll soon be spending time with my family and friends. How interesting it will be to see how the faces of the people from my hometown of Widnes have changed over the years. Will the girls I grew up with and had crushes on still seem so beautiful and intimidating? Will the school bullies still be acting tough? Will I run into any of my old girlfriends? And sex. Sex. It’s been so long. I must have masturbated thousands of times.

There’s so much to look forward to, so I'll try not to stress too much over my return to England.

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Copyright © 2006-2007 Shaun P. Attwood

27 Feb 07

The Royo Romance (Part 6)

Click here for Part 5.

Some of what I wrote to Royo Girl after today’s visit:

Four Royo Girl visits in a row. How lucky am I? Your visit made me so happy. What more can I say about how beautiful you look without sounding trite? The different makeup you wear presents different images of you. Your eyeshadow emphasised your eyes, which had me mesmerized as usual.

Although we have sworn to be noncommittal, I still intend to make the most of your company while it lasts. After seeing you, I get to savour thoughts of you. Your eyes. Your face. Your intellect.

Thank you for making this weekend so special.

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Copyright © 2006-2007 Shaun P. Attwood

24 Feb 07


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Copyright © 2006-2007 Shaun P. Attwood

Jon answers readers questions

21 Feb 07

The Royo Romance (5)

Click here for Part 4.

Royo Girl visited today. I wrote:

I just awoke from a nap. After seeing you, I got back to my cell and tried to read but the words weren’t registering because my mind kept reverting to your visit. I was overwhelmed by a strange and happy urge to sleep. So I locked the door, buried myself under a blanket, hugged a pillow (the closest available substitute to you), and entered a relaxed kind of sleep - similar to how a Xanax pill makes you feel when it hits you just before it puts you to sleep. Thinking of you I was calm and shielded from the tension of prison. I slipped into the happiest of naps. The last thing on my mind was the visit.
I’m still half asleep writing this, but I wanted to get it down to accurately capture my emotions.
Thanks for another lovely visit. You looked as striking as ever.

Addendum.

Oddly enough, a few days later, I read about a similar sleep experience in Psychological Types by Carl Jung:

…Hermas, on his way to Cumae, was thinking of his mistress; while thus engaged, the repressed erotic fantasy gradually pulled his libido down into the unconscious. Sleep overcame him as a result of this lowering of the intensity of consciousness, and he fell into a somnambulant or ecstatic state, which itself was nothing but a particularly intense fantasy that completely captivated his conscious mind.



Jon answers readers’ questions

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Copyright © 2006-2007 Shaun P. Attwood