Surviving as a Writer in the British Empire

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Richard Strauss.

His father was the best horn player of his time, and his teacher was the best conductor of his time.

He was a rare genius and masterpiece in the German music world, which boasts the best of the present era, but in 1894, in his mid-thirties, which could be said to be his heyday—

I was having the worst year ever.

＜Strauss’ challenging work ‘Gundram’, the worst challenge!＞

＜The shock of the opera world, the blatant obscenity and sensation of ‘Guntram’＞

＜This is the worst failure… performance challenge＞

“Damn you bastards.”

It’s like people who don’t know anything about art.

Richard muttered as he crumpled the newspaper he was reading.

Of course he knew. His ruined opera, ‘Guntram’, is a tragedy caused by his excessive greed.

Too difficult scores, too precise chords, too complex virtuosity.

It was the evil of the so-called gold spoon in music.

The eye level was too high, and even when composing, he demanded absurd techniques from the performers.

The results were self-evident. However, he still couldn’t come to his senses.

‘If you can’t do that much… why do you do music?’

It was an arrogant thought that if the musicians heard it, they would break their heads with the instruments they were holding.

A beautiful white ivory arm wrapped around his neck as he couldn’t decide between reality and self-love.

“Are you still thinking about it?”

“huh? Oh, Pauline! my love!”

Richard jumped up and lifted up his beloved bride.

They shared a sweet kiss like a newlywed couple, and the two shared eyes as if sesame seeds were falling.

And Pauline could find the worry in the eyes of her beloved groom.

She asked, looking at him with low eyes.

“Are you still reading that newspaper?”

“huh? Ahahahaha. Well, should I also communicate with the world…?”

“Communication while trembling in agony…”

Big, big.

Richard coughed and averted his gaze.

Pauline de Ana.

She was a good wife enough to be considered the greatest achievement of Richard’s late work, ‘Guntram’.

It’s just that, perhaps because of having a military father, it’s a little… intuitive, so sometimes it shakes his delicate mind.

Pauline held the groom’s face as if he knew all about him, fixed his eyes, and said,

“It’s not like a man is talking about things that have already been done. Now, what happened to the next song we talked about before?”

“Ah, that’s…”

“that is?”

“Big, big. I heard that ‘Gundtram’ will be screened in Munich this time, so rehearsal for that…”

“Excuses. It would have been obvious if I had gone anyway.”

big. Richard had to swallow his tears at the factual violence of the unstoppable priest.

She was definitely a very lovable wife… but at times like this, she sometimes comes up with tears.

Couldn’t you say something nice? It is also an opera in which he played the lead role.

To put it even more exaggeratedly… isn’t it the same work as proof of the love that connected the two?

Just when it seemed like her pride was going to crack, Pauline said quietly.

“So… honey, what do you think of operetta?”

“operetta?”

Richard looked at Pauline with a puzzled look.

Operetta is a genre that lies between a musical and an opera.

There was a time when it was a boom, but it was also a genre that has subsided a lot now. One of the reasons must be that the delightful content has been changed to frivolity and vulgarity at the baguette soup next door, which is of no help.

Now, at most, it is a genre enjoyed only in England, the periphery of culture, and in the United States, its colony.

But why would you suddenly bring up such a story?

He knew very well that his partner never said anything without reason.

As expected, Pauline pulled out a flyer from her bosom and said,

“Now, wasn’t it difficult to compose because of the rumors that have been heard here and there lately? So I wanted to change the environment.”

“Well, let’s see… the Savoy Theater?”

What appeared on the flyer was none other than an advertisement recruiting composers for the Savoy Theater in London.

If he was the usual Richard Strauss, the rising star of the German music scene, he wouldn’t have paid attention to the commercials for composing music recruited by theaters in rural areas like this.

But Pauline had a different reason for showing him this ad.

“You’re making ＜Peter Perry＞ into an operetta at the Savoy!?”

Richard jumped to his feet.

＜Peter Perry＞, read in German as ＜Peter Perry＞.

After the death of the great Germanic nationalist, mythologist, and musician Wagner, the German cultural world was in great sorrow.

—Wagner is dead. Germanic culture also died.

—How long do we have to lose Wagner? Can’t the music that makes Thor’s sledgehammer sound reappear!

─It doesn’t have to be an opera. It’s okay if it’s not a play. Even if it’s in the form of a novel like ＜The Sorrows of Young Werther＞, I want a work that can inspire German culture!

And it was the same for Richard, a Vagnerian. No, rather, did you say that the late ‘Ideok’ is the saddest?

He had denied Wagner throughout his life because of his father who hated him, but he only opened his eyes to his beauty after he died.

The ideology of trying to break away from the existing stagnant music and show various aspects somehow resonated in his heart.

And the thing that touched me the most was none other than the title music.

─Music is not just a good sound to listen to. It should dissolve everything as a whole of culture and give a resonance to the soul!

As a native German intellectual, he loved literature and was proud of his culture, so it was not difficult to get inspiration.

＜Peter Perry＞ was also part of that.

A work that maintains an exquisite sense of balance while melting Christian culture, Greek culture, and even Germanic culture.

Just like Beowulf confronting Grendel or Siegfried defeating Fafnir, Peter fighting the dark fairy tends to be similar to Nietzsche’s ‘Übermensch’.

Perhaps that is why many Germans fell deeply into novels from this ‘culturally backward country’.

In a sense, even more so than England, which can be called the home country.

Even in England, there were quite a few people who rejected it for ignoring the rhyme too much, but this was resolved by translating it into German.

The translators have wonderfully translated it into the preferred sentence of German literature.

Richard Strauss was also deeply inspired by this work.

From noble mtl dot com

There was no work like this for him, who had been obsessed with many legends recently.

And, just like that, the shock was bound to be great.

“I-Do the island country’s Inselaffes dare to do this work?”

In fact, it was natural since it was a British film, but such primitive things were not important to him.

Britain is a barren land of music. That’s why you make such a great epic?

Nein. It’s something that can never happen.

That’s just the way those savage pirates often do, sprinkling muddy water on excellent ingredients and ruining them.

It was all the more so from his point of view, who wanted to create a story full of romance like ＜Peter Perry＞ someday.

Looking at her husband’s face like that, Pauline smiled.

“How about it, still can’t think of something to compose?”

“No, thank you. My eyes are open thanks to you Now was not the time to waste time like this!”

Richard breathed fire from his eyes.

It was also the light of the stars, and the light of passion that made Pauline truly fall in love with Richard.

***

“…so that’s why you came all the way here?”

“Yes that’s right!!”

Wow, you’re very active.

I was dumbfounded and looked at Strauss for a while.

Anyway, I never thought this person would be such an ardent fan of mine…

If it’s Strauss, that’s it, right? Who made the opening of 2001 A Space Odyssey?

I know it because I often heard it in commercials or videos that synthesized a scene where something jumps up.

By the way, would the music of the person who made it go well with my work?

“I am honored that you like my work so much.”

“No, rather, this is an honor. The identity of the author was honestly unexpected… but it’s amazing. No, on the contrary, it can be called a ‘superman’ even more because of that.”

“I’m not a superman. You are over-praised.”

“No, I know because I have heard a lot of different things. But the pain that doesn’t kill us only makes us stronger.”

“Uh, um… yes.”

Is it because I’ve seen Monty’s moves lately? I looked at him with strange eyes. It’s amazing how you can spit out words that would only come out at 2:00 in the morning without drinking.

“anyway! Now that I’m here, don’t worry! Because if it were me, I could make a song that would suit ＜Peter Perry＞ the most.”

“Ah, that’s what I mean anyway…”

To the overconfident man, I honestly told him what I was thinking.

“Seeing you say that, you seem to have a vision for something. Are you already preparing something?”

“Sure!”

“No, are you ready already?”

Surprised by his answer as if asking something too obvious, it was not me, but Mr. Carte, the owner of the theater company next to me.

“Yes, I have read Peter Perry countless times and have drawn necessary landscapes each time. Where would you like to hear it?”

“Yes, it is good.”

“thank you! then······.”

Strauss said confidently and looked around. Then, he approached the piano in Mr. Carte’s director’s office and started playing a tanju.

and.

‘Wow…’

I even forgot to breathe.

The fingers on the keys of the piano moved as gracefully and beautifully as a ballerino’s legs, yet as if a hungry leopard was running.

At the explosive sound that flowed from my fingertips, I was momentarily confused whether I was in the theater office in London or in a forest that held the breath of the ancient times.

Certainly, Strauss was not a genius composer whose name remained until the 21st century for nothing.

The melodies pouring down like water were free in their transitions and meanings.

Sometimes tenderly, sometimes humorously. Sometimes with curiosity, sometimes with a sense of adventure.

‘This······!’

The scene where Peter enters the fairy forest for the first time. I was embarrassed to meet Leeru-Ril and Winky, but at the same time, I was delighted with their beauty and mystery, and a scene of admiration was drawn in front of my eyes.

Even if you don’t know much about classical music, you can only admire it.

“Whoa! How is it!”

“Awesome. Mr. Strauss.”

It wasn’t that I was overconfident. I was so amazed.

but.

“Um, as expected… Writer-nim, this is a bit difficult.”

“Is something wrong?”

The one who stopped it was Richard Doyle Carte, who was listening right beside him.

Strauss responded to Carte’s objection with an angry expression. It’s as if you know what you know about music.

“No, the music is good. great It’s really good… isn’t this too difficult?”

“ah······.”

Since I’m just a listener, I didn’t think much of it, but as a manager, it seems that I saw something different. I don’t know, but even if I listened to it, it was a song of great skill.

Besides, that wasn’t the end.

“And I would like to ask… by any chance, what do you think of the composition of the orchestra?”

“Well, shouldn’t stringed instruments be at least 90, even without the harp? As in ＜The Ring of the Nibelung＞, if you make a thick voice with 8 horns, it will be so good that it cannot be compared to now.”

Whatever Strauss said, to be honest, it sounded like an alien language to me.

But Carte nodded as if he understood everything and sighed.

“Yeah, I knew that. No one tuned an orchestra as well as your teacher.”

the problem is.

“No matter how large our troupe is, it is impossible to have such a large number of people. Besides, finding a musician who can play a song like that is… honestly, it’s close to impossible.”

“However, there is no way to lower the level of perfection!”

“Even if you say that, it can’t be helped that it’s impossible in reality. Haven’t you felt that lately too! I have heard the story of ‘Guntram’.”

“Mmm! but······.”

hmm. was there something I was scratching my head watching it.

I don’t know, but Strauss’s music was so great that it captivated even me, an outsider. To the extent that it feels regretful to leave it like this.

But the reality cannot be ignored.

In the meantime, the dispute between the two continued to intensify. If this continues, it is obvious that it will spread emotionally.

Is there any way?

“For now, both of you calm down.”

“Ha ha ha… Excuse me. You seem to have become a bit emotional.”

“No, it could be. Isn’t that the job of being a creator?”

Besides, Strauss is an artisan type of artist, as if he were painting. Compromising itself will not be tolerated.

Of course, that is not realistically possible.

So what is needed is arbitration.

I got stuck between the two and spoke out.

“First of all, this isn’t something you have to decide right away, is it?”

“Ummm…”

“That’s… that’s right.”

“So let’s find out first. Mr Carte?”

“Yes, writer.”

“As for the musicians, if necessary, I will make an additional investment, so can you find out as much as possible?”

“Umm, I see.”

Of course, top-class performers don’t just move with money. But that doesn’t mean I can’t stay idly by.

do you know If you have enough gold that you can’t refuse, maybe your faith will be broken?

and.

“Let’s proceed like that… Then, Mr. Strauss, why don’t you think of another way in the meantime?”

“The other way…….”

“Well, I don’t know because I’m not very good at music. If you can’t increase it, substitute it. Didn’t Wagner say ‘the human voice is an instrument’? That’s why I used the actor’s acting, or changed the arrangement of musical instruments.”

“Ummm, indeed…….”

For me, it was a light word. However, he started muttering for a while to see if it wasn’t so.

“Certainly, Wagner also made his own instruments when necessary. However, I simply followed his organization and did not worry about the essence. Ah, why didn’t I think of something so easy. If I had known earlier, there would have been a better way for ‘Guntram’…”

Then he exaggeratedly lifted his head, and before long he stared at me with sparkling eyes and grabbed my hand.

“Thank you, author, thanks to you, it seems like my eyes have been opened! Next time we meet, I will definitely show you my own version of ＜Peter Perry＞, not the half version like now!”

“Ah, yes… thank you?”

Then, he looks at Mr. Carte with strong eyes and goes outside. He was truly a stormy man.

By the way, uh, how to say… can I do that? No matter how much I am the original author, my direct employer is Mr. Carte?

anyway.

“Then, it seems that something has been done with the music, so let’s check the other ones, shall we?”