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Horizons, v. 3, issue 3, whole no. 11, March 1942
Page 5
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HORIZONS 5 In Defense of US A long story lieth behind this article. A good many moons ago, way back in 1939 or thereabouts, when some of you fans were looking up in the dictionary the meaning of strange words as you ran across them in Thrilling Wonder, I wrote an article on fantasy and stf in music, The article was published in Tom Huget's fanzine, The Scientinal, in its first Issue. (I think It was the first of the rash of fantastic music articles that broke out around that time—but that's besides the point.) In the next issue was published an article by Peter Duncan (it was actually merely a letter from him turned editorially into an article), refuting a lot of the things I said and making me look dreadfully Ignorant, but I wasn't to blame. There was _one_ error In the article as I wrote it. The rest of the things Sir Duncan complained about were misprints or misinformation on his part, I wrote a rejoinder, asking Tom to publish it. But no more issues of the Sciential have ever appeared. Bob Studley took it over, and eighteen months ago swore he'd have it out soon and my article in that issue. Before the Denvention, I asked him about it again, it would be out In time for the Denvention. Now, since that was five or six months ago, I'm not going to be patient any longer. Probably most of you don't even remember the thing, but I do, and this will reach most of the fans still active who saw the affair originally. I'll send a copy of this issue of Horizon to Pater Duncan, and we can argue minor points out between us if he wants to. And I'll feel vindicated. First, the one error I made In the article. I stated that the symphony to Dante's Divina Commedia was by Berlios. It wasn't, and Duncan pointed out my error. If I i remember correctly, that mistake was made In a list of fantastic pieces (I haven't the published version of the article before me; merely a copy of my never-published rebuttal). I may have accidentally omitted "Liszt's" before the title of the composition, or I may have just forgotten. No matter; I made the error, and am sorry. I'm not sorry for any of the other things mentioned as wrong by Duncan, though. Because: There was a Hoguet error in the published article that omitted the name of Salnt-Saens before mention of several of his fantastic tone-poems; that made it appear as if I thought them the work of another composer. The carbon of my original manuscript shows that Mr. Saint-Saens was given due credit; possibly Hoguet still has the original article. Another piece of sloppy stenciling completely missed the sense of a sentence about Tristan und Isolde, and gave Peter reason to chide me some more. In the manuscript, the sentence read: "And of the three, one can be considered as out of the ordinary, to say the least—"Tristan and Isolda" though in it the mystical and the real are so blended, and everything has so many different meanings, and there are so many possible interpretations of many scenes, that it is not certain just what Wagner _did_ mean there." When published, that was garbled hideously. Of course, I was trying to put across that the opera can be as considered fantastic. Even if you claim that the love potion is the only thing in it giving it possible claim to being fantastic, you can't prove that Wagner meant that the love potion merely caused Tristen and Isolde, believing death imminent, openly to avow their love; it's a point over which there has been much hemming and hawing. Duncan said something about "Tho Swan of Tucnela" not being the most popular of Sibelius' works drawn from the Kalevala epic, or the most popular section of the Lamminkainen symphonic poem, if you want to put it that way. I still think I'm right, unless you want to judge popularity by some other criterion than the number of performances and recording sales, As a matter of fact, "Lamminkainen Homefaring* is the only other section of the big work at all well known; I've heard the other two sections only three times between them, in a lot of listening to classical music. Tschaikowsky's "Manfred" is a symphony, regardless of what Duncan says, he called it one, and if you complain that it's program music, then Beethoven wrote only seven symphonies. Too, I take issue about "Francesca da Rimini" 's not being a tone poem. Peter Ilyitech originally conceived it as an overture to an opera, but he never got around to writing the opera, and later referred to this projected overture as a "symphonic poem" and "symphonic fantasia". But it's a foolish thing to argue over; when does a kitten become a cat? I'd dearly love to know
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HORIZONS 5 In Defense of US A long story lieth behind this article. A good many moons ago, way back in 1939 or thereabouts, when some of you fans were looking up in the dictionary the meaning of strange words as you ran across them in Thrilling Wonder, I wrote an article on fantasy and stf in music, The article was published in Tom Huget's fanzine, The Scientinal, in its first Issue. (I think It was the first of the rash of fantastic music articles that broke out around that time—but that's besides the point.) In the next issue was published an article by Peter Duncan (it was actually merely a letter from him turned editorially into an article), refuting a lot of the things I said and making me look dreadfully Ignorant, but I wasn't to blame. There was _one_ error In the article as I wrote it. The rest of the things Sir Duncan complained about were misprints or misinformation on his part, I wrote a rejoinder, asking Tom to publish it. But no more issues of the Sciential have ever appeared. Bob Studley took it over, and eighteen months ago swore he'd have it out soon and my article in that issue. Before the Denvention, I asked him about it again, it would be out In time for the Denvention. Now, since that was five or six months ago, I'm not going to be patient any longer. Probably most of you don't even remember the thing, but I do, and this will reach most of the fans still active who saw the affair originally. I'll send a copy of this issue of Horizon to Pater Duncan, and we can argue minor points out between us if he wants to. And I'll feel vindicated. First, the one error I made In the article. I stated that the symphony to Dante's Divina Commedia was by Berlios. It wasn't, and Duncan pointed out my error. If I i remember correctly, that mistake was made In a list of fantastic pieces (I haven't the published version of the article before me; merely a copy of my never-published rebuttal). I may have accidentally omitted "Liszt's" before the title of the composition, or I may have just forgotten. No matter; I made the error, and am sorry. I'm not sorry for any of the other things mentioned as wrong by Duncan, though. Because: There was a Hoguet error in the published article that omitted the name of Salnt-Saens before mention of several of his fantastic tone-poems; that made it appear as if I thought them the work of another composer. The carbon of my original manuscript shows that Mr. Saint-Saens was given due credit; possibly Hoguet still has the original article. Another piece of sloppy stenciling completely missed the sense of a sentence about Tristan und Isolde, and gave Peter reason to chide me some more. In the manuscript, the sentence read: "And of the three, one can be considered as out of the ordinary, to say the least—"Tristan and Isolda" though in it the mystical and the real are so blended, and everything has so many different meanings, and there are so many possible interpretations of many scenes, that it is not certain just what Wagner _did_ mean there." When published, that was garbled hideously. Of course, I was trying to put across that the opera can be as considered fantastic. Even if you claim that the love potion is the only thing in it giving it possible claim to being fantastic, you can't prove that Wagner meant that the love potion merely caused Tristen and Isolde, believing death imminent, openly to avow their love; it's a point over which there has been much hemming and hawing. Duncan said something about "Tho Swan of Tucnela" not being the most popular of Sibelius' works drawn from the Kalevala epic, or the most popular section of the Lamminkainen symphonic poem, if you want to put it that way. I still think I'm right, unless you want to judge popularity by some other criterion than the number of performances and recording sales, As a matter of fact, "Lamminkainen Homefaring* is the only other section of the big work at all well known; I've heard the other two sections only three times between them, in a lot of listening to classical music. Tschaikowsky's "Manfred" is a symphony, regardless of what Duncan says, he called it one, and if you complain that it's program music, then Beethoven wrote only seven symphonies. Too, I take issue about "Francesca da Rimini" 's not being a tone poem. Peter Ilyitech originally conceived it as an overture to an opera, but he never got around to writing the opera, and later referred to this projected overture as a "symphonic poem" and "symphonic fantasia". But it's a foolish thing to argue over; when does a kitten become a cat? I'd dearly love to know
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