Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Family and Formation
- 2 Langlais, and a Beginning
- 3 Messaien, and Friendships
- 4 Sonata
- 5 A Nietzsche Sequence
- 6 Musique Concrète
- 7 Foucault
- 8 The Death of Virgil
- 9 You
- 10 Time Regiven
- 11 … Beyond Chance
- 12 Since Debussy
- 13 Silence
- 14 Debussy
- 14a Citation: Hommage à Claude Debussy
- 15 Song After Song
- 16 Concerto
- 17 The Man Lying Down
- Notes
- Chronology
- Catalogue
- Writings
- Bibliography
- Index
- The Sea on Fire: Jean Barraqué
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Family and Formation
- 2 Langlais, and a Beginning
- 3 Messaien, and Friendships
- 4 Sonata
- 5 A Nietzsche Sequence
- 6 Musique Concrète
- 7 Foucault
- 8 The Death of Virgil
- 9 You
- 10 Time Regiven
- 11 … Beyond Chance
- 12 Since Debussy
- 13 Silence
- 14 Debussy
- 14a Citation: Hommage à Claude Debussy
- 15 Song After Song
- 16 Concerto
- 17 The Man Lying Down
- Notes
- Chronology
- Catalogue
- Writings
- Bibliography
- Index
- The Sea on Fire: Jean Barraqué
Summary
Many of those who knew you felt compelled to leave some record.
His friendship, as with all the great egocentrics, was difficult and exacting.
He was obsessed with music. He lived in music, for music. He said you couldn't love it enough. Every musical reverse was, in his view, caused only by an insufficient love of music. But his love of music was very selective. He loved only the great classical and romantic masters, plus a few modern composers, from Debussy to Webern inclusively.
He had his opinions, in musical history as in life. He had a curious weakness for Tchaikovsky, yet could not abide Ravel. He also detested Stravinsky, but when he heard the Requiem [Canticles] he admitted to being very impressed.
He read less in the last years; but in his youth he had been a great devourer of books, more attracted by the novel (Dostoevsky) or the theatre (Genet) than by poetry. He had little love for the cinema, except for Dreyer (Jeanne d'Arc) and Visconti (Death in Venice).
He was a being of extreme sensitivity, often moved by impulsive passions. [André Hodeir]
Difficult and exacting. You had a great need of love—more than of esteem. Esteem you knew to be your due. Of love you were not so sure. You had a great need of love, and a great way of alienating your friends. Your recriminations, fired by a ruthless perception of people, could be ferocious.
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- Information
- The Sea on Fire: Jean Barraqué , pp. 89 - 97Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2003