Sublime Noise: Musical Culture and the Modernist Writer PDF
Preview Sublime Noise: Musical Culture and the Modernist Writer
Sublime Noise HSM HHopOkinsP StKudIieNs inS M oSderTniUsmDIES IN MODERNISM Douglas Mao, Series Editor HSM HOPKINS STUDIES IN MODERNISM HSM HOPKINS STUDIES IN MODERNISM Sublime Noise Musical Culture and the Modernist Writer Josh Epstein Johns Hopkins University Press Baltimore © 2014 Johns Hopkins University Press All rights reserved. Published 2014 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Johns Hopkins University Press 2715 North Charles Street Baltimore, Maryland 21218-4363 www.press.jhu.edu Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Epstein, Josh, 1981– Sublime noise : musical culture and the modernist writer / Josh Epstein. pages cm. — (Hopkins studies in modernism) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4214-1523-9 (hardcover : acid-free paper) — ISBN 978-1-4214-1524-6 (electronic) — ISBN 1-4214-1523-2 (hardcover : acid-free paper) — ISBN 1-4214-1524-0 (electronic) 1. Modernism (Literature) 2. Modernism (Music) 3. Noise in literature. 4. Music and literature. 5. Music—Philosophy and aesthetics. I. Title. PN56.M54E67 2014 809'.9112—dc23 2014004991 A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. Special discounts are available for bulk purchases of this book. For more information, please contact Special Sales at 410-516-6936 or [email protected]. Johns Hopkins University Press uses environmentally friendly book materials, including recycled text paper that is composed of at least 30 percent post-consumer waste, whenever possible. Whose silence is our hubbub? Beauchamp, in Tom Stoppard’s Artist Descending a Staircase The rapids were near, and an uninterrupted, uniform, head- long, rushing noise filled the mournful stillness of the grove, where not a breath stirred, not a leaf moved, with a mysterious sound—as though the tearing pace of the launched earth had suddenly become audible. Marlow, in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness This page intentionally left blank Contents Acknowledgments ix Introduction xiii 1 Orchestrating Modernity: Musical Culture and the Arts of Noise 1 2 Beating Obedient, Thinking of the Key: Adorno, The Waste Land, and the Total Work of Art 46 3 The Antheil Era: Ezra Pound’s Musical Sensations 100 4 Joyce’s Phoneygraphs 150 5 Performing Publicity: Authenticity, Influence, and the Sitwellian Commedia 191 6 Aristocracy of the Dissonant: The Sublime Noise of Forster and Britten 235 Notes 279 Bibliography 301 Index 325 This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgments To quote Lina Lamont from Singin’ in the Rain, if this book brings “a little joy into your humdrum lives, it makes us feel as though our hard work ain’t been in vain for nothin’. ” The hard work of producing this book has indeed been “ours,” in the plural (though any remaining missteps are mine alone). To be able to thank the friends, colleagues, mentors, students, and interlocutors who have shared in this work is the foremost of many joys and reliefs of finishing this project. First, I am exceedingly grateful to know Mark Wollaeger. Without his encyclopedic knowledge and his Carlylean exhortations to sustain courage with work, I struggle to say what this project would look like. I am forever thankful for the guidance of Carolyn Dever, an inexhaustible source of in- sight and magnanimity; and Joy Calico, an omniscient fount of knowledge and wit, and a lifesaver at those moments where my musical competence started to meet its limits. A 2013 performance of Antheil’s Ballet Mécanique at the Blair School of Music, which Joy organized and which Mark and Paul Young helped me to attend, provided a spark of energy and morale in the late stages of a long process. Thanks to Paul also for introducing me to Irma Vep; I’ve never been the same since. Jonathan Neufeld—an improvement on Adorno, Hanslick, and Habermas—helped me, especially in the early stages, to define an inchoate mass of quasi-thoughts. It is impossible to exaggerate how much I benefited from these terrific mentors. I am forever indebted to Doug Mao, series editor extraordinaire, who has been more patient with this project than I had any right to expect. My thanks also to Matt McAdam, Katie Curran, Helen Myers, and Melissa Solarz for their editorial help, and to Scott Klein for his exceedingly perceptive reading of this work. I always learn something new from Scott, and am glad to have, as a cordial ally, such a luminary in the study of words and music.
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