John Ashbery’s Music Library: A Playlist

 
“During the more than thirty years that the American poet John Ashbery (1927-2017) served as an art critic for New York Herald Tribune, Art News, Newsweek, New York and other publications, the highest compliment he gave to a work of art was that it achieved ‘the condition of music.’ ...  Ashbery was not a trained musician, but he had a musician’s ear, which he developed further by listening.  He first heard songs on Sundays, accompanying his grandparents to the famous St. Paul’s Church in Rochester (which had a great organ) or the more modest St. John’s in nearby Sodus where the Ashbery family lived on a fruit farm.  His first exposure to classical music was through movies. ...”

No comments:

Post a Comment