For all the classical music snobs on the list, how might one go about acquiring an ear for it? As an added bonus, this might allow me to reread Mann's Faustus and actually understand what was going on. Matthias Wasser
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Take an intro music class at night taught by a piano player. They can play the themes and explain them. Or if on your own... Below is a rough outline, built around the idea of getting more out Doctor Faustus.
As terrible as it may sound, start with Peter and the Wolf. Each of the characters in the story has an instrument-theme, so you follow the development of the story through the character themes. If you have kids, you can play it with them. This was where I was introduced to the whole idea. My mother introduced me to music in two directions: classical and jazz.
The underlying point is to recognize a dual dimensional narrative. Part is a story-like thing, the other a musical equivalence in themes and motifs. Another easy entry is Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony No 6. In Mann's Magic Mountain there is a section called Snow. If you have the book re-read that section. Snow has much darker implications than a jaunt in the outdoors and sudden spring storm, but never mind. The link with German romanticism, nature, nation and individual are all covered in both.
Then there is the No. 5, and that dreaded knock at the door, fate has arrived, son. Oh shit, now what? Try some of the piano sonatas for their ennui, meandering subjectivity and a sensibility honed by a lot of internal struggle and pain.
Next try Mozart's Requiem (first part). Get one that has the words written in the CD notes so you can follow. Amadeus is a good movie, When you watch the movie, you can see a lot of Mozart's narrative themes played out.
Also listen to the same pieces several times. The stuff grows on you after awhile. If you can, go through Beethoven in more or less chronological order to get a sense of his internal development.
After you sort of get the narrative parts and `hear' the development and elaboration, then work backward to Bach. He is more `abstract' so there are few verbal correspondences with any `story' line. Try the Goldberg Variations done on a piano (easier on the virgin ears). Then maybe the Orchestral Suites.
It takes a lot of concentration to follow all the shit going on in Bach. If you get this far, try The Well-Tempered Clavier. I like the first one especially because it does have a sort of narrative, which is about a music lesson and reminds me of a Matisse painting called the Music Lesson. But these preludes and fugues are all lessons, it just that they get wilder and wilder, sort of opening up your imaginative doors, here try this, or that or this other thing. Here's an explanation:
http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~tas3/fugueanatomy.html
So then try some of modern stuff, one of Arnold Schoenberg's string quartets. You'll hear these strange motifs that weave around much like Back but don't conclude. Since this stuff is stark and expressionist, it's a lot like modern painting and takes a lot of getting used to. For me, these quartets where just too damned dark. I spent almost a whole day in the library at CSUN and came out in late afternoon, by head buzzing, ready to shot myself.
Now all that sets up the background for Mann's Doctor Faustus. You should probably read Goethe's play first. And, read some historical sketch of Germany between about the 1880s to the Nazis. (If you don't know this stuff already.)
Mann's novel is structured a lot like a large musical work with multiple dimensions. Mann wrote a companion to the novel, The Story of a Novel. I can't remember all the detail, but think of each of the friends and groups that Leverkuhn pals around with. These represent the various art, music and intellectual movements going on in German as it entered the Wiemar period.
To over simplify Leverkuhn is much like the great Nietzschian promise of a bold, expressive `modernity' writ large, where a new renaissance was supposed to break out, which it did briefly during Wiemar. But what followed ... The novel is seen through the historical development of German music, philosophy, the arts and sciences (the intellectual classes) which were all gutted and corrupted, aka, the German romantic spirit had a hidden disease, like Nietzsche and went mad in the end. Here this guy tells it much better:
http://www.logosjournal.com/issue_7.1/grothus.htm
CG