Playing by Ear E-Book

Peter Brook

• Herausgeber: Nick Hern Books
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

'Listen!' In this collection of new essays, the world-renowned director Peter Brook offers unique and personal insights into sound and music – from the surprising impact of Broadway musicals on his famous Midsummer Night's Dream, to the allure of applause, and on to the ultimate empty space: silence. It is studded throughout with episodes from the author's own life and career in opera, theatre and film – including working on many of his most notable productions, and intimate first-hand accounts of collaborating with leading figures including Truman Capote, Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh – and ranges across musical styles and cultures from around the world. Playing by Ear is full of Brook's shafts of insight and perception, and written with his customary wit and wisdom. It is a rich companion to his earlier reflections on Shakespeare in The Quality of Mercy and on language and meaning in Tip of the Tongue.

Leseprobe

Peter Brook

PLAYING

BY EAR

Reflections on Sound

and Music

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Acknowledgements

Prologue

Part One

The Birth of Form

My First Teacher

Tradition

Field of Battles

Fat Paunches

A Long Phrase

Hit or Miss

Quarter-ear Music

Life is In Between

Incidental Music

Two for One and One for All

Part Two

The Speed of Thought

No Business Like Show Business

House of Flowers

Irma la Douce

The Beggar’s Opera

Words and Music

Don Giovanni

A Magic Flute

The Prisoner

Labour of Love

The Sound of Silence

Keep Silence

About the Author

Copyright Information

Listen!

Acknowledgements

For three out of the countless fine people to whom I am eternally grateful. Three are very close as I write:

Olivier Mantei, not only for his close friendship over so many years, but also for the special sensitivity he brings to every question, nourished by his life in music. But above all for his encouragement to write this book after I had spoken about music in a radio show he had asked me to do.

To Franck Krawczyk, as the inseparable partner in so many explorations.

And equally to Toshi Tsuchitori, who embodies listening with his eyes, his mind and his body until they emerge from the tips of his fingers. Whatever the style—ancient, traditional, Eastern, Western, classical or jazz—they are reborn every moment he plays.

And once again, for reasons I have already expressed in previous books—Nina.

‘The past is history, the future is mystery—the present is a gift, that’s why it’s called the present.’

Words I heard recited by a bus driver to his passengers at the end of a long day. Where he got it from I didn’t ask and will never know, but it has stayed with me over at least fifty years.

Astrology today is a despised science, yet we have come to realise that at the moment of birth we carry within us what is now called a genetic structure, which conditions our tastes, our prejudices, our compassion, our hatreds, our intuition. All of these thread their way through our life as we head towards a destination which we cannot know but which the stars and our genes lead us to—that point where the many threads intertwine, making a pattern that only appears when the last page is turned.

Prologue

‘Do you like music?’ The question is as absurd as saying, ‘Do you like food?’ There is food that is tasteless, indigestible, sits heavily on the organs, but there is the vast range of foods that can give relief, nourishment, often pleasure. As Orpheus discovered, every animal can respond to sounds. For us, the living question is ‘Which sounds? What music?’ In this book we will try to explore together the infinite range of experiences that can sometimes touch us deeply, sometimes leave us cold.

PART ONE