Sunday, January 27, 2013

Mary Jane Phillips-Matz, 1926-2013

NYT obituary here. Her biography of Verdi illustrates perhaps better than any other the fact that the man could be kind of a prick at times.

5 comments:

  1. "illustrates perhaps better than any other the fact that the man [Verdi} could be kind of a prick at times"

    As if anyone should give a rat's hindquarters about that...

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    Replies
    1. lol It's okay, Anonymous, you can say "rat's ass", we're all sailors here.

      The bio is actually a really balanced, non-hagiographic and exhaustively-researched job o' work. Anyway MJPM thought it was worth adding that angle to the discussion, and she was a founder of the AIVS, so... [shrug]

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    2. I actually do give a rat's ass for things like that. Oeuvre = the person + the output. Art doesn't come disembodied and out of thin air.

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    3. I think any serious discussion of an artist's work can't preclude that discussion, whatever our Barthesian visitor insists a proper approach should be.

      Moreover, there is a certain tendency to be selective about the application of such an argument. So for instance it's apparently okay to discuss all sorts of extra-curricular things about Wagner, because in the end they're not really all that irrelevant. But Verdi, who -- if you take the MJPM line -- was every bit as Type A (and evidently had no problem with using the word "Jew" as a negative epithet himself) must be spared at all costs? Because why? As much as I can agree that there are limits to biography -- and as much as I am a fan -- I'm not sure I can agree with that.

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