Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Carl Nielsen's "Living Music"

At last, I have found a reasonably priced copy of Carl Nielsen's little book Living Music, which has been out of print for what seems like forever. I hope to have more to say about it after I give it a second read (it's only 76 pages), but I was struck by this paragraph, which seems to me prescient from a man who died in 1931:

The rests, then, are just as important as the notes. Often they are far more expressive and appealing to the imagination. For this reason one could wish that many modern composers would confine themselves to rests — but perhaps this is too much to ask.

Hmm. Whom does this remind us of?

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