because hearing a Haydn piano sonata on the harpsichord sounded like a fun thing to do lately ...
Saturday, August 26, 2023
Thursday, August 24, 2023
Alan Jacobs is still going through Jacques Ellul's work, Princeton Theological Seminary has published a book on Ellul recently, and the theme of building cities as legacies of defiance as a theme in Jacques Ellul and a sermon by Richard Sibbes
Longtime readers of Wenatchee The Hatchet know I've cited Ellul's work prodigiously in blogging about the former Mars Hill Church, and made a case, drawing upon Propaganda, that Mark Driscoll is best understood as a propagandist rather than a pastor. I stand by all of that.
I do wonder, not that Alan Jacobs reads this blog (that I know of), if he knows of Matthew Prior's relatively recent book about Ellul that is available by Wipf & Stock
Confronting Technology: The Theology of Jacques Ellul was published back in 2020 and is part of the Princeton Theological Monograph series.
There's more than one series, maybe, because I read a great little book by Charles Twombly from PTS on perichoresis and personhood in the writings of John of Damascus that, eventually, will have some relevance to my follow-up to Ragtime and Sonata Forms, working title is still Perichoresis in Musical Time and Space. But first, I admit, I must slog through Jason Yust's Organized Time. ;) His book is more into some of the literal math of temporal organization in graph/chart form whereas I've leaned toward a chain of blocks as visual metaphor for temporal/spatial correspondences of large chunks of musical timespace.
Anyway, I have The Meaning of the City, and I am a little puzzled that Jacobs spent so little time on Ellul's observation that Jerusalem was a city that was captured and claimed by David that David did not build or found. An Augustinian re-reading of Ellul would say all earthly cities function as the City of Man (including Jerusalem) and that momentary phases of repentance don't exactly change the long-term nature of cities.
That Cain chose not to be a wanderer across the face of the earth but to found a city is pretty important to Ellul's polemic. Descendants of Cain created the lyre and pipe, as well as forged instruments of bronze and iron. If you've read a few Ellul books the relationship of the lineage of Cain to technique is not hard to spot but sometimes Ellul digresses into purple prose that is a bit more allusive and elusive than plainspoken. Now Ellul, being the Christian anarchist that he was, didn't bring up David and Jerusalem to say believers should seize cities a la some kind of 2023 dread of Christian nationalist stuff. His point was that people of faith may capture or "capture" cities but they do not found them. Founding a city is part of the City of Man, to stay Augustinian, and when biblical texts mention a man re-founding Jericho at the cost of two sons The relevant biblical texts are ...
Joshua 6:2626 Joshua laid an oath on them at that time, saying, “Cursed before the Lord be the man who rises up and rebuilds this city, Jericho. “At the cost of his firstborn shall he lay its foundation, and at the cost of his youngest son shall he set up its gates.”1 Kings 16:34In Ahab’s time, Hiel of Bethel rebuilt Jericho. He laid its foundations at the cost of his firstborn son Abiram, and he set up its gates at the cost of his youngest son Segub, in accordance with the word of the Lord spoken by Joshua son of Nun.
And because I actually do like reading Puritans I commend to you the Richard Sibbes sermon called "The Unprosperous Builder", from Volume 7 of his complete works. Sibbes preached that there are some men so covetous of glory and renown they will sacrifice their own children in the most literal and also in other ways to assure their own legacies. Some men are so heedless of curses and warnings they go out and seek to rebuild Jericho, whether in the literal way described in the biblical texts or metaphorically. At this point in my life I am reminded that there's some preacher in the Seattle area who claimed to dig the Puritans but as I've read some of those Puritans I see this thread where any actual Puritan pastor would think the Seattle bro was too depraved and self-seeking to ever be fit for ministry to begin with. But, ahem, I digress.
I admit I wanted an excuse to plug Richard Sibbes while I discussed Alan Jacobs discussing Jacques Ellul since the motif of the city ties it all together.
another passing thought reading through Philip Ewell's recent book
He mentions early in the book how Spain was basically erased from the history of Western music. That immediately got me thinking about Richard Taruskin in The Ox saying the guitar is basically not part of the Western literate musical tradition. So ... that could sort of back up Ewell's claim since anyone who knows the least bit about the six-stringed guitar knows the Spanish perfected it and did a lot to codify its technique. Yes, there were French and Italian and Austrian guitarists who did a lot, too, and I'm not forgetting the Russian seven-stringed tradition, which is well worth checking out, too.
But for classical guitarists the idea of never learning an etude by Sor is basically a non-starter. In contrast to mainstream classical music Sor's influence is very nearly inescapable. Fortunately his guitar method is well worth reading and he claimed, for those who read it, that he transcribed the closing fugue from Haydn's Creation oratorio as a solo guitar piece. Anyone who could transcribe a B flat major double fugue and not transpose it was no slouch on the instrument. Editions Orphee published Mark Delpriora's reconstruction of Sor's claim.
But for classical guitarists the idea of never learning an etude by Sor is basically a non-starter. In contrast to mainstream classical music Sor's influence is very nearly inescapable. Fortunately his guitar method is well worth reading and he claimed, for those who read it, that he transcribed the closing fugue from Haydn's Creation oratorio as a solo guitar piece. Anyone who could transcribe a B flat major double fugue and not transpose it was no slouch on the instrument. Editions Orphee published Mark Delpriora's reconstruction of Sor's claim.
While I do like me the Prelude and Fugue in B flat major by Igor Rekhin for solo guitar, the Haydn transcription is, for the time being, the best fugue in B flat major for solo guitar in the repertoire that's something you can hear.
That Matiegka Op. 17 post/series is still incubating. I just realized this week there's some Robert Gjerdingen observations about the uses of the quiescenza I need to add to my thoughts on the expositional second transition in the first movement.
If in symphonic music and chamber music the hegemonic influence is German, I've not-really-joked that in guitar music Spain has the hegemonic influence, which is why I like to highlight guitar music written by Bulgarian, Yugoslavian, Bohemian, Russian, Polish, and Japanese composers (okay, so, Takemitsu mostly from Japan). Let's not forget Brazil and Argentina (Villa-Lobos (obviously) and Guastavino).
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