he'd scream to the heavens above

[calimac]

Yesterday, I am reminded, was the centenary of the death of Gustav Mahler. And about time, say I; had he not died at 50, he might have written another ten symphonies more tedious than the first ten, as his proficiency at this arcane art was rapidly improving. By the time of his death, he was writing music ten times as tedious as ten years before.

I've written about Mahler before now, so I'll just cede my space to Edmund Crispin, the mystery novelist who, under his real name of Bruce Montgomery, was a working composer himself. Chapter ten of his Gervase Fen novel, The Glimpses of the Moon (1977):

To its left stood a transistor radio, which was emitting, and indeed had been emitting for some considerable time, a symphonic movement of vaguely romantic cast; from the movement's excessive length, vacuity and derivativeness, Fen judged it to be by Mahler.

In another couple weeks, I'll be sure to mark the centenary of the passing of a much greater artist.*

*ETA - whoops, no, I forgot. W.S. Gilbert, May 29, 1911.

Comments

That takes me back...

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

... to 1975 and the days before car radios, when my brother insisted on bringing a transistor on the long summer holiday drive to my aunt and uncle in North Wales. It was tuned to Radio 3, and to Mahler, whom I now can think of only in the context of very bad reception and hot weather.