{"id":1375,"date":"2010-02-15T04:38:09","date_gmt":"2010-02-15T09:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/s265039441.onlinehome.us\/philpaine\/?p=1375"},"modified":"2018-08-06T21:53:32","modified_gmt":"2018-08-07T01:53:32","slug":"william-bolcoms-songs-of-innocence-and-songs-of-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=1375","title":{"rendered":"William Bolcom\u2019s Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Musi\u00adcians have long been attract\u00aded to William Blake\u2019s inter\u00adcon\u00adnect\u00aded poems known as the <em>Songs of Inno\u00adcence and of Expe\u00adri\u00adence<\/em>. Allen Gins\u00adberg has assert\u00aded that a study of the rhyme and meter of the poems reveals that Blake intend\u00aded them to be sung. They cer\u00adtain\u00adly have the feel\u00ading of Eng\u00adlish tav\u00adern bal\u00adlads strange\u00adly mutat\u00aded into moral and meta\u00adphys\u00adi\u00adcal med\u00adi\u00adta\u00adtions. This mix\u00adture of seri\u00adous pur\u00adpose and pop\u00adu\u00adlar form is exact\u00adly the stuff that best suits Amer\u00adi\u00adcan com\u00adpos\u00ader William Bol\u00adcom.<!--more--> Bol\u00adcom is prob\u00ada\u00adbly the least stuffy of Amer\u00adi\u00adca\u2019s mod\u00adern com\u00adposers \u2014 eas\u00adi\u00adly com\u00adpa\u00adra\u00adble to Charles Ives. His mas\u00adsive musi\u00adcal set\u00adting of the poems (three hours) employs an eclec\u00adtic array of tech\u00adniques [and inter\u00adview\u00ader notes \u201ccoun\u00adtry <span class=\"amp\">&amp;<\/span> west\u00adern, the blues, Broad\u00adway, Russ\u00adian, Jew\u00adish, hints of Mahler, neo\u00adclas\u00adsi\u00adcism, atonal\u00adi\u00adty, even a reg\u00adgae anthem ded\u00adi\u00adcat\u00aded to Bob Mar\u00adley\u201d]. But this is not just a grab-bag of ran\u00addom gim\u00admicks. Every\u00adthing works togeth\u00ader, every\u00adthing is there for a good rea\u00adson. The work nev\u00ader bores, nev\u00ader wastes time, and is nev\u00ader dri\u00adven by musi\u00adcal \u201cthe\u00ado\u00adry\u201d. It\u2019s dri\u00adven by the ideas of the poems. Bol\u00adcom comes much clos\u00ader to their spir\u00adit than, say Vaugh\u00adan Williams, who suf\u00adfused them with his own pas\u00adtoral piety, and defanged them. Though his work sounds noth\u00ading like that of the Cana\u00addi\u00adan com\u00adpos\u00ader Chris\u00adtos Hatzis, Bol\u00adcom resem\u00adbles him in com\u00adbin\u00ading intense emo\u00adtion, seri\u00adous intel\u00adlect, and a rejec\u00adtion of the crude dichoto\u00admy between \u201cpop\u00adu\u00adlar\u201d and \u201cart\u201d music. I strong\u00adly rec\u00adom\u00admend lis\u00adten\u00ading to the record\u00ading avail\u00adable on the inex\u00adpen\u00adsive Nax\u00ados label, which com\u00adbines superb tech\u00adni\u00adcal and per\u00adfor\u00admance stan\u00addards with a rea\u00adson\u00adable price \u2014 quite appro\u00adpri\u00adate to the com\u00adposer\u2019s ethos.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Musi\u00adcians have long been attract\u00aded to William Blake\u2019s inter\u00adcon\u00adnect\u00aded poems known as the Songs of Inno\u00adcence and of Expe\u00adri\u00adence. Allen Gins\u00adberg has assert\u00aded that a study of the rhyme and meter of the poems reveals that Blake intend\u00aded them&nbsp;to&nbsp;\u2026<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=1375\">Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[946,14,947,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-b-reading","category-bq-reading-2010","category-c-listening","category-cq-listening-2010"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1375"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1375\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3334,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1375\/revisions\/3334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}