Edvard Munch: A Year in the Life, 1902

This article focuses on the year 1902 in the life of artist Edvard Munch with a calendar and short sections on the main issues.

                                                                                      Turning 37 in December of 1901, Munch was still trying to develop his career in conservative Norway. He had been considering moving to Germany, where avant-garde tastes were more acceptable. January. Buys his first Kodak camera.March/April.  German Secession Exhibition: Frieze of Life is shown for first time.Spring. Germany. After his success at the Secession Exhibition and with Albert Kollmann’s promotion, Munch starts to obtain commissions from rich clients, whom he called his Mycenaeans. Eventually he writes to his Aunt Karen, “Sitting penniless in Berlin and want to get home for the fine weather.” (Sue Prideaux, Edvard Munch: Behind the Scream, 218)

Larkin's Use of a Woolf Innovation

Woolf's innovation in two later novels was utilized by Larkin in A Girl in Winter.

    Larkin’s Use of a Woolf Innovation In two of her later books, The Waves (1931) and The Years (1937), Virginia Woolf began her chapters with a prose poem. These poems were separated from their respective chapters in the text, and they contained no material directly connected to the contents of the two novels. Ten years after The Years was published, Philip Larkin used the same technique for his 1947 novel A Girl in Winter. Since Woolf’s use of prose poems in her two novels was a clear innovation, I will argue that Larkin must have got the idea from Woolf.

Delius: Four Notes

Short entries on enchantment, change in personality, influences, and connections with Bartok

  1. Enchantment Delius’s sudden conversion from “callow dilettante” to “young enthusiast who applied himself so ruthlessly to the mastery of musical science” (Christopher Palmer, Delius: Portrait of a Cosmopolitan, 2) This happened soon after he arrived at Solano Grove in Florida (1884, age 22), having been sent there from England by his exasperated father. Palmer asks: “What had happened…to create so profound a change in him?” He says the answer is “the key to Delius’s musical personality.”

Tomas Tranströmer: Nocturne

Translation of Tranströmer's "Nocturne" with comments

     Nocturne I drive through a village at night, houses step forwardinto the headlight glare – they are awake, they want a drink.Houses, barns, signboards, abandoned vehicles – nowthey come to Life. – People are sleeping: some can sleep peacefully, others have strained facesas if in hard training for eternity.They don’t dare to let go, even in deep sleep.They rest like lowered barriers when mystery passes by. From the village the road continues a long time through forest trees.And trees trees are silent in unison with each other.

David Greig: Columba's Bones. Book Review

  Rich, suspenseful, funny, scatological, farcical, profound, adolescent, dramatic……. I’m using one of Scottish playwright David Greig’s techniques in his impressive first novel. Here’s one of his lists—names of some of the Viking raiders who land on the Scottish island of Iona in 825 AD at the beginning of the 183-page novel: Buttercock, Bloodnose, Eyeballs, Gore Dog, Puffin Face, One Ear, Chin Slitter, Fuck-a-Whale, Lead Fist, Shorty, Fat Dog, Denmark, Horse Boy, Madhead and Ghost Axe.

Duke Ellington Lets Down Ella Fitzgerald

Evaluation of the jazz albums Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Duke Ellington Songbook, vols. 1 and 2

  Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Duke Ellington Songbook, Volumes 1 and 2 (MGV 4008-2 and 4009-2),1957 In 1957 Norman Granz went to great lengths to set up a recording session for Ella Fitzgerald with Duke Ellington and his orchestra. It was to be the third in a series of Songbooks for Ella. The series had started extremely successfully with the Cole Porter Songbook and continued with the Rodgers and Hart Songbook. Ella had never recorded with Ellington before, so this must have been an exciting prospect for her.