“Over and over, Music & Literature is a gift, its subjects deep and generative, its tone intensely curious.”
—Ben Ratliff, New York Times music critic
Digital editions of Music & Literature are available through Exact Editions
The seventh volume of Music & Literature opens with a celebration of the prolific Welsh novelist, music critic, and librettist Paul Griffiths. Two exclusive interviews and generous selections of his musical and creative writings offer insight into Griffiths’ extensive career and his many sources of inspiration, from Shakespeare to Japanese Noh theatre. Recent collaborations, including the song cycle let me tell you, based on Griffiths’ Oulipian novel containing only the words spoken by Ophelia in Hamlet, and Gulliver, based on Jonathan Swift’s classic satire, receive their own mini-portfolios, testifying to Griffiths’ status as one of the Anglophone world’s premiere—and under-acknowledged—talents. Meanwhile, Ann Quin published just four novels before her death at the age of thirty-seven, but in the decades since has come to be recognized as one of the most original voices of her no-longer-modern, not-quite-postmodern generation. Collected here, alongside a pair of Quin’s provocative and darkly humorous short stories, are new critical appreciations of her life’s work by leading contemporary writers, who pay tribute to Quin’s enduring legacy and influence. Finally, the compositions and performances of Russian-born artist Lera Auerbach have filled the most prestigious halls and stages around the world, while her visual art has been exhibited in some of its most renowned spaces. From the opening act of her play Gogol to appreciations of her poetry, this portfolio surveys the work of a genuine Renaissance woman.
CONTENTS
I. PAUL GRIFFITHS
“Each a hand’s breath on” / Oli Hazzard
Singing in the Chains: A Tongue-Tied Heroine / Boyd Tonkin
Ophelia in 483 Words: A Conversation with Paul Griffiths / Veronica Scott Esposito
A Chorus of Me: Ophelias in let me tell you / Elodie Olson-Coons
let me tell you: The Beginning / Wiebke Busch, Anne West Griffiths, and Barbara Hannigan
let me tell you: The Song Texts / Paul Griffiths
From Hamlet Stories / Paul Griffiths
I went to the house but did not enter / Paul Griffiths
From Fugue on Bach: 1750: July 28th—Wilhelm Friedemann / Paul Griffiths
Stabat Mater / Paul Griffiths
Les Autres / Paul Griffiths
They are not like you and me / Paul Griffiths, trans. Daniel Levin Becker
From Moon Pavilion / Paul Griffiths
in memoriam György Ligeti / Paul Griffiths
“a bizarre kind of solace” / Paul Griffiths
Writing towards Music: A Conversation with Paul Griffiths / Matthew Mendez
On Bach’s Six Solo Pieces for Violin / Paul Griffiths
Hearing György Kurtág Reading Samuel Beckett / Paul Griffiths
The Disgraced World: Krasznahorkai’s Seiobo There Below / Paul Griffiths
Gulliver: The Origins of a Collaboration / James Wood
The Making of Gulliver / James Wood and Paul Griffiths
From Gulliver: Laputa: Scene 6 / Paul Griffiths
From Gulliver: Lilliput: Scenes 1–2 / Paul Griffiths
II. ANN QUIN
Ann Quin and Me / Deborah Levy
Every Cripple Has His Own Way of Walking / Ann Quin
Eyes that Watch behind the Wind / Ann Quin
“Much More Purposeful Than Anything I Could Write” / John Hall
Beyond Berg: On Ann Quin’s Short Fiction / Jennifer Hodgson
The Ventriloquist / Kate Zambreno
Unpacking Ann Quin’s Comic Tragedy / Danielle Dutton
Fundamental Uncertainties: On Three / Juliet Jacques
Passages / Jesse Kohn
Q & A / Joanna Walsh
Limbo / Ian Patterson
III. LERA AUERBACH
The Ages, Coming to Bear / Michael Kazinik, trans. Ian Dreiblatt
On a Molecular Level: An Appreciation / Vadim Gluzman
“Each Generation Must Confront These Questions”: A Conversation with Lera Auerbach / Doris Weberberger, trans. Isabel Fargo Cole
A Foreigner / Gidon Kremer, trans. Damion Searls
“Something Essential, When One Is Looking Back” / Hilary Hahn
Gogol: Act I / Lera Auerbach, trans. Antonina W. Bouis
A Selection of Artwork by Lera Auerbach
Both Domestic and Exotic: On Lera Auerbach’s Visual Art / Greta Berman
A Gentle Refutation / Sergei Yursky, trans. Shushan Avagyan