Thursday, May 30, 2013

MUSIC IS THE SIGN

"The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them,and what came through them was longing. These things — the beauty, the memory of our own past — are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols,breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited." - Clive Staples Lewis.

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

I PREDICT A RIOT...

Today (29 May) in 1913, Igor Stravinsky's ballet score The Rite of Spring received its premiere performance in Paris, France.

It provoked a riot.

This was a defining moment for contemporary music, and arguably the first revolutionary moment of the twentieth century.