Revisiting Mikrophonie I
Maconie, Robin, Musical Times
STRAVINSKY EMBRACED THE SAYING 'Credo quia absurdum'. This is a musical statement. In a literal sense it means ? believe because it is inharmonious' - because it does not fit the pattern. Stravinsky may be saying that harmony is a human construction, and therefore incomplete. Or that life involves change, which in music is distortion or dissonance. He may also be paraphrasing the uncertainty principle, that there are truths of which we can never be certain or precise, and can only take on trust.
What matters is not the object but the principle. Of the story of Noah and the Flood Stravinsky also remarks 'Noah is mere history [...] less important than the Eternal Catastrophe'.1 He …
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Publication information:
Article title: Revisiting Mikrophonie I.
Contributors: Maconie, Robin - Author.
Magazine title: Musical Times.
Volume: 152.
Issue: 1914
Publication date: Spring 2011.
Page number: 95+.
© Musical Times Publications, Ltd. Autumn 2008.
Provided by ProQuest LLC. All Rights Reserved.
This material is protected by copyright and, with the exception of fair use, may not be further copied, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means.
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