Minimalism and 2312
Aug. 10th, 2013 09:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sawylIn Kim Stanley Robinson's 2312, whenever the Mecurial & mecurial Swan Er Hong takes the Quito space elevator up to orbit, she participates in what seems to be a continual performance of Philip Glass' opera Satyagraha. Significantly, the Saturnine and saturnine Fitz Wahram, whose temprament would seem to be more in keeping with the repetative minimalism of Glass is actually obsessed with Beethoven.
Both choices, I think, are intended to give us important insights into the core emotions of the characters: Swan's passion for justice, her activism, and touches her love of long, bird-like, swooping lines; Wahram's desire for the structure of sonata form or the grosse fugue, shows his love of inprovisation within a framework, while the choice of Beethoven indicates his deep streak of Romantic radicalism.
OK, this isn't Satyagraha, because it's not really possible to extract a bleeding chunk; instead it's The Window of Appearances scene from Akhnaten:
The performance, from Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, features Nicholas Tamagna as Akhnaten, Olivia Savage as Queen Tye, and Sarah Ballman as Nefertit and the whole thing can be streamedd from the university's web site...
Both choices, I think, are intended to give us important insights into the core emotions of the characters: Swan's passion for justice, her activism, and touches her love of long, bird-like, swooping lines; Wahram's desire for the structure of sonata form or the grosse fugue, shows his love of inprovisation within a framework, while the choice of Beethoven indicates his deep streak of Romantic radicalism.
OK, this isn't Satyagraha, because it's not really possible to extract a bleeding chunk; instead it's The Window of Appearances scene from Akhnaten:
The performance, from Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, features Nicholas Tamagna as Akhnaten, Olivia Savage as Queen Tye, and Sarah Ballman as Nefertit and the whole thing can be streamedd from the university's web site...
