Falling leaves

 

Green, green, green

 
 
 
 

the shiny beaches of Jibei

Kafka on the Shore & Schubert's Sonata in D Major

This weekend I lose myself in Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore. It definitely is a page-turner. A slight itch in the throat gives me a perfect excuse to do nothing but read, sleep, and listen to music. I read a few pages, doze off, and start reading again. The line between dreaming and waking blurs. Kafka on the Shore reads like a dream. I read it in a dreamlike state. How fitting.

As I read, I listen to the music mentioned in the book:

John Coltrane's My Favorite Things

Beethoven's Archduke Trio

Haydn's first cello concerto

Schubert's Sonata in D Major












(Alfred Brendel's performance deserves to be listened to again and again)



Murakami expresses his views about music through Oshima and the the owner of the cafe. Very interesting.


About Schubert's sonata, which was labeled, "heavenly tedious," Oshima says:

"If you play Schubert's sonatas, especially this one straight through, it's not art...Play it through the way it is and it's flat and tasteless, some dusty antique. Which is why every pianist who attempts it adds something of his own, something extra. Like this--hear how he articulates it there? Adding rubato. Adjusting the pace, modulation, whatever. Otherwise they can't hold it together. They have to be careful, though, or else all those extra devices destroy the dignity of the piece. Then it's not Schubert's music anymore. Every single pianist who's played this sonata struggles with the same paradox."
(translated from the Japanese by Philip Gabriel)


Interpreters struggle with this paradox all the time!

When speakers read lengthy papers in a monotone, interpreters have to break the sentences down, emphasize keypoints, punctuate the text with their voice, so as to keep themselves and the audience awake. But they also have to exercise restraint, just to make sure that the speech is still the speaker's and not their own!