Evening star., 1948-10-31

through it's intricate, sometimes
majestic passages and absorb the
distractions on art and life which
flow through the $40 close printed
pages. But there is much to reward
q careful assimilation.
Music in Germany.
In his boyhood Leverkuhn showed
only a superficial interest in music.
He went to college to study theology.
He was diverted to music, largely
through the influence Of his teacher
of piano and theory, Kretschmar,
who was aware of the youths un-
canny grasp of all the elements
of composition. But Leverkuhn's
studies of theology and philosophy
Influenced his later life and his
musical conceptions. He was not
devout, but he was fascinated by
theological ideas, medieval and mod
ern, deif1cation and demonology. He
was cynical, aloof, inclined to irony,
even burlesque, in his talk and in
the music he began to write. Though
he conceded the perfection OF alb
solute music in a composer like
Brahms, he felt that ''the whole de-
velopment of music in Germany
strove toward the Word-tone drama
of Wagner and therein found its
goal" Yet, though Leverkuhn
wanted to write music with words,
his ideas were as "un- -Wagnerian as
possible" far from grandiose inter-
pretations of Nordic myths. His first
ambitious work was a setting OF
Sheakespeare's comedy, Loves
Labor Lost" His last great compost
tions were an oratorio, "The Apoc-
alypse," and a symphonic cantata,
The Lamentation of DR.. Faustus."
The Faustus theme develops from
an amorous adventure which Lever
kuhn had in his youth. The con-
sequences were neglected and in
later years spirochetes seeped into
his brain, first stimulating a daZ-
zling creative period, then bringing
on the inevitable disintegration and
death. He had sold himself for
some "a productive years. There is
q satirical scene, supposed to have
been written by the composer him.
self and later found among his ef-
fects, describing conversation with
the Devil. This is the most sardon-
ically humorous, the most fantasti-
cally brilliant, chapter in the book.
Not Novel,
In the sense that novel is a fluid
succession of episodes and develop
ments-in the form dramatized by
Turgenev, Flaubert, Dickens and
Conrad, to name at random few
diverse practitioners-"Doctor Faus-
tus" is not a novel at all. In its re-
Elective erudition it is more like
Wagner's book on Beethoven Every
thing is subordinated to ideas, ab-
stractions. And how could it be
otherwise? The teller of the story
and man on whom it centers both
live in that Intangible world. Some
pages are downright dull. Others
glow with creative fire. None of
1t is small or shoddy. For, after all,
1t is the work of one of the fine in
tellects Of our times.
H. T. Lowe-Porter has carried out
brilliantly the difficult assignment
of translating the book from the
German. Leverkuhn had a habit of
lapsing into quaint old German in
his letters, often quoted, and in his
conversation, and the translator has
approximated these moods by ex-
pressing them In Elizabethan Eng
nsh.
4 &A
JOAN OF ARC
Edited by Edward Wagenknecht.
(CreattUe Age; $450.J
An excellent anthology from the
writings, out Of history and utera-
ture. on the Maid Of Orleans. There
are excerpts from such diverse writ
ers as Mark Twain and Schiller,
Robert Southey and Maxwell An
derson, Herbert Thurston, S. j., and
Anatole France, Henry van Dyke
and Hilaire Belize. There are crit
ical studies of such works as Shaw's
saint JOAN" Thus, many vary
ing conceptions of Jeanne and her.
mes are offered.