menubar

Friday, October 25, 2024

Did Joyce Try to Make Finnegans Wake a Fugue

29 April 2021

Bob | 1:19:06
Why is the fugue a significant form of music? What is it telling us? Is it close to the memory and reality?
iON | 1:19:15
It's 128. Fugue in the... fugue in A minor is where you pull out 128. The 128, you pull out all the stops, 128. That's when you get the tonal capacity that little men can hear.
Bob | 1:19:34
Right, so you're hearing overlapping of voices. It's like your intestines, different areas touching.
iON | 1:19:39
No, we're talking about organs, fugue.
Bob | 1:19:45
Oh, how an organ plays it.
iON | 1:19:48
Uh-huh.
Bob | 1:19:49
Is that what you mean?
iON | 1:19:50
128, yeah.
Bob | 1:19:53
What's 128? You mean hertz?
iON | 1:19:55
When you pull out all the stops, 128 pipes.
Bob | 1:19:58
Oh, I didn't know.
iON | 1:19:59
When you pull out all the stops on an organ.
Bob | 1:20:04
Well, what about the literary technique where they show overlapping echoes?
iON | 1:20:09
There isn't one.
Bob | 1:20:11
So the fugue is not an accurate representation of our intestinal reality.
iON | 1:20:17
Correct.
Bob | 1:20:19
Our intestinal experience.
iON | 1:20:21
Okay. You would call it a contrapuntal compositional technique.
Bob | 1:20:30
You mean what the organ does, we'd call it that? Or what the fugue was doing.
iON | 1:20:35
No, a theme. It becomes a theme. It's a form of texture.
Bob | 1:20:42
Right. And that is not relevant to the organ fugue statements you were making.
iON | 1:20:49
Correct. But see, what you're trying to say, you're trying to say it's recapitulation. It's not.
Bob | 1:20:57
Okay. Did Joyce try to make Finnegans Wake a fugue? In the correct way you're defining it.
iON | 1:21:04
He did that. He did that. If you look at it close and when you figure out the Playfair cipher, you're going to notice that it has the repetition constantly of the different pitches. It would be a representation of the ultimate fugue in D minor.
Bob | 1:21:29
And Joyce, as a musician, knew what he was doing on that level.
iON | 1:21:33
Oh, no. He didn't have a fucking clue, Bob.
Bob | 1:21:36
He got it from one of his friends.
iON | 1:21:40
So, Toccata. T-O-C-C-A-T-A. Toccata.
Bob | 1:21:50
All right.

No comments: