Nonsense

[petershott@btinternet.com]

I'm probably being very naughty, but all the way through my life I've always wanted to kick out against what struck me as nonsense.

How about this, from a 'blurb' promoting a new CD from Aeon:

"Raphaël Cendo's music seizes us bodily or, more precisely, captures all our senses! His biography is a legend. Upon graduating from the Paris Conservatoire, the jury dared not grant him his full legitimacy. The institution bestowed only a second prix, but his music was already first. He had turned his back on his peers quite some time ago and chosen shortcuts at the risk of being misunderstood. The radical nature of his thinking asserted itself, and he invented the saturation.

The principle of this music is 'a thwarting of the limit, thanks to an excess of energy'. Releasing the instrumental energy, bringing the performer's body into the field of the composition, making the concert no longer a simple disaffected representation but a basic musical act, a sound ritual in which the performer is the officiant. This calls for mad virtuosity from the performers. The sound is metamorphosed. It is no longer a matter of planning but of losing oneself; it is no longer a matter of organising but of cutting a path in an unstable, wild and unknown world, for what is written as much as for he who plays it and he who receives it."

[Lionel Harrsion]

What's worrying is that they clearly think such hogwash will encourage people to buy the CD.  The sad fact is, it might. 

[JimL]

Wha???    Sounds like a quote from a Japanese video game.  "All of your bases are belong to us"!

[Paul Barasi]

Wow: seize me bodily and capture all my senses ... ah, Moderator: it's music – but alas not as we'd know it. To be fair: there's good nonsense and bad nonsense, although there's little difficulty deciding in which bin this one belongs.

[JimL]

"Raphaël Cendo's music seizes us bodily or, more precisely, captures all our senses!

Is that kind of like Smell-o-vision? 

[Mark Thomas]

the jury dared not grant him his full legitimacy. The institution bestowed only a second prix

Sounds like the sort of excuse I used to cook up when I went home form school having failed dismally at some test or other. It's all pretty pathetic stuff.

[JimL]

the jury dared not grant him his full legitimacy. The institution bestowed only a second prix

Sounds like the sort of excuse I used to cook up when I went home form school having failed dismally at some test or other. It's all pretty pathetic stuff.

Yes, evidently the first prix wasn't good enough for him!  Or somesuch.

[kolaboy]

I'm guessing his mom wrote it.

[semloh]

Well, I agree it's nonsense but, as somebody with only 'war comic German' and 'Allo, Allo! French', I am in no position to mock anyone's efforts at a language which is obviously not their own. You would think that the CD company would check with an English-speaker before printing it, though! 

[Mark Thomas]

Quite. But then look at the tortured English of some cpo translations. Their mistake is to get an English-speaking German to translate German into English, whereas it should be translated by a German-speaking Englishman.

[semloh]

Yes, I agree.

I am reminded of the lengthy and increasingly amusing LP sleeves that used to accompany recordings of the trumpeter Maurice Andre, which were written in the wrong tense: instead of "at aged 16 he went to work in the mines" it would be "at age 16 he was going down the mines" and so on.   

[Mark Thomas]

We're the acoustics better down there, then?

[Latvian]

But then look at the tortured English of some cpo translations.

Ah, but let us not overlook all those classic Eastern European program notes, especially Supraphon and Melodiya!

[shamokin88]

There was once a French LP of the Chausson piano trio, amongst other works; an old catalogue of mine just tells me "CCV 1016." It came with something by a then-current young Frenchman, a name like Bourel or Bourelle. The playing was not up to par but the rendering into English of the French notes was beyond belief.
It came close to being altogether incomprehensible. I wish I still had it to treat you to the surreal prose. Some collectors obtained it for that alone, never mind it was the only available recording of both the Chausson and the young Frenchman's efforts.

Best from Shamokin88

[Christo]

Just read the first post. Hahaha!