Bukowski and Classical Music - anyone else at a loss...

[kilgore]

I think he wanted to stand apart from the crowd

I think that's true, and I think of it as similar to Crumb's 20's music thing. Both were pretty complete social outcasts. The 'popular' kids never wanting much of anything to do with either of them. So, eschewing that world, they found others. Crumb with old timey jazz, Bukowski with classical.

Of course, I'm projecting here. If it weren't for a bunch of hair metal loving jocks beating up on me in middle/high school, I would never have fallen in love with punk rock. :)

 

[gbsupbowl]

I find it strange to imagine him listening to anything but classical music

 

[Dora]

Such an interesting thread! Talking about the lack of human voice in classical music, this reminds me of a letter Buk wrote to the WEbbs in 1963.

"That is why I do not like opera. Somebody I know pretty good and who knows I like the classical symphonies [* * *]
asked me, "How come you do not like opera?" and I answered, "Because it contains the human voice." "What's wrong with that?" she asked. "I don't know. I just don't like the human voice. I think it's fake. Almost anything that comes out in voice is fake. I don't care if it is singing or the Gettysburg Ad., I don't like it.
Here you have some bitch singing ultra-soprano who beats her kids and squats over a bowl and drops turds like
the rest of us, and she is through the Art-form trying to become purified and trying to purify the
rest of us. I just don't like the human voice: it drags down, it wears, it will simply not let things
alone."

"But don't you realize that these instruments are played by human beings and that the
human voice is just another instrument?"
Which is a pretty damning argument, but I still say the voice is more direct, and that
something is gained (not lost) by letting it come down through the fingers (violin or piano)."
(my italics)

Sorry for the long quote ^^

 

[CoffinDodger]

There was a bluebird in his heart that wanted to get out.

that's the first thing that came to my mind when I read this thread, the Bluebird poem. I like the scene in Barfly too, very early on in the movie where he staggers from the bar, in a mess, into a room that is a mess, and turns on the radio to some beautiful classical music, to which he listens then becomes inspired and rushes over to the table to scrawl down some poetry (presumably)

 

[sgraham]

He seemed to have a good handle on the current pop music though, in concert reviews he was able to reduce the Rolling Stones fans to their base components/onstage hierarchy/bullshit factor based on just seeing how they behaved in concert.

 

[growing beard]

Bukowski - he drank, he wrote, he drank, he worked at a job he detested but paid the bills and let him, what, drink and write, not necessarily in that order. He was ruggedly ugly with the personality of a bull dog and the genius the likes of which we see one in a generation. Oh, and he bet on horses, every single day. Does anyone else have trouble connecting these dots to the gentile strains of Haydn and Debussy? Maybe I'm missing some Bukowski minutia - please friends, fill in this perplexing blank.

the poem 1813-1883 in "you get so alone at times" sums it up pretty good (reference to wagner).

also "gamblers all" (reference to mozart) and "it beats love" (wagner especially), and "1966 volswagon minivan" (bach) and "finally in "albums" he doesn't reference any specific composer but he talks about the role of classical music, right up there with wine, as the pillars of his toughest years. in "life, death, love, art" he mentions specifically that debussy (and chopin) don't interest him.

on the other side of the coin, in 'guitars' he says that he hates guitars and that "there is something about a guitar that I just don't like" and "only awful people play guitars."

aside from 1813-1883 all of those poems are from "the night torn mad" which is the one i've been using as a pillow the past couple of months.

incidentally, although the list is long, volkswagon minivan in the night torn mad is one of his more moving verses imo. gave me a spiritual sensation, anyway, and those are hard to come by any more.

http://savebukowski.org/manuscripts/displaymanuscript.php?show=poem1985-02-00-the_albums.jpg

 

[Dora]

Going back on my previous quote:
After reading more letters/poems/stories the theme of the hated voice seems recurrent. In fact, voice is presented as something intrusive, something that drills inside your reluctant soul -for ex. when the narrator in 'Post Office" says he can't escape the constant babbling of his colleagues.
Hence his yearning for silence and solitude.

But then that's another subject.

 

[procrastinator]

I'm sorry, I couldn't resist making this lame joke, but, you're a bit late, procrastinator!

Jesus Christ, your right! Hahaha. I gotta buy a computer so I can actually read all the posts. Even this goddamn post is late.

 

[Dr. Zorders]

he was born in 1920, so it may be more of a generational thing.

I don't know about that. Kerouac was born in 1922 and he was all about bebop. Then there's Fitzgerald and the 20's, the Jazz Generation. I just think that Bukowski was more of a 19th century personality: Think of the great German composers that he wrote about so often in the same context as the great poets: They were almost all brooding, solitary romantic figures. As opposed to jazz and especially rock that is a collaborative, community oriented thing. There may have been more of an awareness of classical music in his day compared to now, but when you think about the time of his early manhood---the 40's on through the 60's--- it was all about jazz, then early rock 'n roll and peaking with the Woodstock generation. His writing was so vital and free that only hippie rags would publish him at first, but he rejected the hippies. I guess it was just a matter of temperament. He reminds me of my father, who literally listens to nothing but Bach. He's always been kind of a loner. He was was born in 1950, and knows less about the music of his generation than I do. Aside from the Beatles, he wasn't even really aware of Jimi Hendrix, or Zeppelin. In fact he didn't own a stereo or listen to music at all until he was in college and bought some Beethoven records at a yard sale.

 

[lewis hc]

I'm sure I read somewhere that Buk said his favourite was Sibelius. Anyway I just picked up all seven symphonies on four cd's for bugger-all from a charity shop where I live. And..they're great..if you like classical..I do..maybe I'm just getting old.