“So?” is Säure’s customary answer to that one. “Which would you rather do? The point is,” cutting off Gustav’s usually indignant scream, “a person feels good listening to Rossini. All you feel like listening to Beethoven is going out and invading Poland. Ode to Joy indeed. The man didn’t even have a sense of humor. I tell you,” shaking his skinny old fist, “there is more of the Sublime in the snare-drum part to La Gazza Ladra than in the whole Ninth Symphony. With Rossini, the whole point is that lovers always get together, isolation is overcome, and like it or not that is the one great centripetal movement of the World. Through the machineries of greed, pettiness, and the abuse of power, love occurs. All the shit is transmuted to gold. The walls are breached, the balconies are scaled—listen!” It was a night in early May, and the final bombardment of Berlin was in progress. Säure had to shout his head off. “The Italian girl is in Algiers, the Barber’s in the crockery, the magpie’s stealing everything in sight! The World is rushing together. …”
so it goes, with this epic debate, beethoven or rossini.
i agree with gustav, and do not think it is even a fair debate. beethoven is everything; rossini is bourgeois nonsense.
so, when the dso set up rossini and beethoven on the same night, it set my pynchon senses tingling. surely, i'd have to crack it open again, right?
but, alas - this is merely beethoven's first, which is fairly well composed for classical music, but before beethoven's peak, and not going to drag me out of the house.
i'll still take it over rossini, though.
as for prokofiev, i expect nothing less than prancing russian unicorns.
it's a little light...
