Word: musicically
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1940-1949
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Remake of the 1941 Goldwyn production Ball of Fire, starring Barbara Stanwyck and Gary Cooper. In the original, a group of scholars writing an encyclopedia learned about slang from Nightclub Queen Stanwyck. In A Song Is Born, the scholars are writing a history of music, fill in the chapter on jazz from "live" studies...
Mocking Genius. Mann has chosen no conventionally flashy music-hall prodigy for his case history of a genius. Adrian Leverkühn, as his friend Zeitblom remembers him, was a brilliant, mocking, arrogant schoolboy who, even in his early teens, was constantly throwing off deep remarks. Sample: "Technique and comfort-in that state one talks about culture but one has not got it. Will you prevent me from seeing in the homophone-melodic constitution of our music a condition of musical civilization-in contrast to the old contrapuntal polyphone culture...
...uncle, with whom he lived as a schoolboy, was a dealer in musical instruments. Before long, Adrian had secretly mastered the keyboard, discovered double counterpoint on his own and become the apple of the local music teacher's eye. Author Mann, who played the violin as a boy, held long conversations with his friends Igor Stravinsky and Bruno Walter as "research" for Faustus, and has packed his book with an impressive and at times annoying display of musical knowledge that will be over the heads of most readers...
...deal with the Devil (he sells himself body & soul for 24 years of creative greatness) is a tour de force-translated from archaic German into archaic English-that is a unique reading experience in or out of context. So is the subtle, near-perfect sketch of the fast-talking music impresario Saul Fitelberg...
Adrian's music was modern and daring, brought him the fame the Devil promised. But as the 24 years come to an end, Adrian's sanity does too. In a terrible nightmarish scene, Mann describes the gathering where Adrian crazily tries to explain his last and greatest composition to his friends. By that time, the Devil had already claimed...