Word: alban
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Esoteric works, Prague linguistics, the letters of Alban Berg, and forgotten masterpieces like Baudelaire's Pauvre Belgique are elevated to the level on indispensable texts; like letters discovered several decades after their author's death, which then prompt a revision of his life and work these documents compel the reader to reevaluate his library and his notebook, those two vessels of humane learning. In time, he realizes that what he has collected represents no more than a mere portion of what there is, and resolves to devote his labors to the subjective, to whatever mirrors and enhances his own suspicions...
...Alban Berg could not find an opera house willing to produce Wozzeck. On Hermann Scherchen's suggestion, Berg produced a three-movement suite about Wozzeck's mistress, Marie. From 1924 (the first performance date) to the present, the opera has remained Berg's most popular work all because of the initial spark provided by the suite. The public must have acted on faith to hail Wozzeck on the strength of the suite excerpts: they contain only a fraction of the tragedy and sarcasm that pervades the opera. The last suite movement in particular loses nearly all its power...
...Nowhere in the Bible, not even in Revelation, is it written that black people have to vote Democratic. McGovern went to France to get a running mate before turning to a black brother here at home."-Alban Niles, a black Democrat for Nixon, speaking at a Republican dinner in Los Angeles...
...arrogance for Arnold Schoenberg to dismiss the historical tradition of music and invent an entirely new one. Of course there are uses for the twelve-tone system. For a composer like Alberto Ginastera, who always sets extremely violent texts to music, the system becomes rather appropriate. There is also Alban Berg, especially in Lulu, and Luigi Dallapiccola. To me, these three are the most impressive twelve-tone composers. My feeling is that the twelve-tone system is incapable of expressing anything but violence...
...Cardinals filed into the Vatican's Pauline Chapel for a solemn Mass in honor of Cardinal Zacchia, who was considered a shoo-in for election as the next Pope. The incumbent, Pope Urban VIII, supposedly lay dying in his villa at Castel Gandolfo 17 miles away in the Alban hills, and the cardinals were eager to show their esteem for the heir apparent. Just as the Mass was about to begin, the doors of the chapel swung open and Urban VIII, clad in full pontifical robes, strode in. Cardinal Zacchia abruptly collapsed, stricken with a heart attack. Wrote Urban...