"Blish, James - A Work of Art" - читать интересную книгу автора (Blish James)

ume called Operational Aesthetics, which in turn derived from
a discipline called information theory; and not one word of
it seemed to touch upon any of the techniques and customs
of composition which Strauss knew. The ideal of this group
was to produce music which would be "universal"that is,
wholly devoid of any trace of the composer's individuality,
wholly a musical expression of the universal Laws of Chance.
The Laws of Chance seemed to have a style of their own, all
right; but to Strauss it seemed the style of an idiot child
being taught to hammer a flat piano, to keep him from
getting into trouble.
By far the largest body of work being produced, however,
fell into a category misleadingly called "science-music." The
term reflected nothing but the titles of the works, which dealt
with space flight, time travel, and other subjects of a romantic
or an unlikely nature. There was nothing in the least sci-
entific about the music, which consisted of a m61ange of
cliches and imitations of natural sounds, in which Strauss was
horrified to see his own time-distorted and diluted image.
The most popular form or science-music was a nine-minute
composition called a concerto, though it bore no re-
semblance at all to the classical concerto form; it was instead
a sort of free rhapsody after Rachmaninofflong after. A
typical one"Song of Deep Space" it was called, by some-
body named H. Valerion Krafftbegan with a loud assault on
the tam-tam, after which all the strings rushed up the scale in
unison, followed at a respectful distance by the harp and
one clarinet in parallel 6/4's. At the top of the scale cymbals
were hashed together, forte possibile, and the whole orchestra
launched itself into a major-minor, wailing sort of melody;
the whole orchestra, that is, except for the French horns,
which were plodding back down the scale again in what was
evidently supposed to be a countermelody. The second
phrase of the theme was picked up by a solo trumpet with
a suggestion of tremolo; the orchestra died back to its roots
to await the next cloudburst, and at this pointas any four-
year-old could have predictedthe piano entered with the
second theme.
Behind the orchestra stood a group of thirty women, ready
to come in with a wordless chorus intended to suggest the
eeriness of Deep Spacebut at this point, too, Strauss had
already learned to get up and leave. After a few such ex-
periences he could also count upon meeting in the lobby Sindi
Noniss, the agent to whom Dr. Kris had introduced him, and
who was handling the reborn composer's outputwhat there
was of it thus far. Sindi had come to expect these walkouts
on the part of his client, and patiently awaited them, stand-
ing beneath a bust of Gian Carlo Menotti; but he liked
them less and less, and lately had been greeting them by
turning alternately red and white like a toti-potent barber