Music in Literature
F you are writing a novel and wish to weave a musical aura around one of your characters, it might be as well to retain a skilled adviser. You would not then put your heroine into a small boat and set her drifting down the Nile playing a Tchaikovski symphony on her "’cello-a solecism instanced by Professor A. C. Keys in the first talk of his series "Music in Literature" from 1YA°’ the other night. Flitting around a little dizzily as people are apt to do when they feel their subject too vast and fascinating to. be covered in a few short talks, the speaker came at one point to
Thomas de Quincey. I. was interested to hear that this writer liked to hear singers using a tongue he did not understand, for in this way the beauties of the language struck him more forcibly. It is a controversy that keeps on cropping up
| and is never settled; I always find myself in de Quincey’s camp, but I seem to remember that Addison made himself uncomfortable at the opera in London by suspecting that the Italian singers, under cover of their foreign tongue, wefe warbling rude and mocking remarks about the audience.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 305, 27 April 1945, Page 12
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205Music in Literature New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 305, 27 April 1945, Page 12
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
Copyright in the Denis Glover serial Hot Water Sailor published in 1959 is owned by Pia Glover. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this serial and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the Listener. You can search, browse, and print this serial for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from Pia Glover for any other use.
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