“I always put it that they’re in two different rooms,” he told biographer Millicent Dillon.2 “And I go out of one, shut the door, and go into the other. Bowles discouraged discussion of the subject by often asserting the complete separateness of the two pursuits, writing and composing music. His biographers, when treating it at all, have generally glossed over the subject. Bowles himself never spoke of it much and remained modest about his accomplishments. It has been considered a minor episode in the life of the composer (whose music is now garnering renewed interest) and the celebrated writer of fiction. In his three and a half years there, he wrote more than four hundred music reviews and columns.1 Until now, however, Bowles’s stint as a music critic has received scant attention. Then, from 1942 through early 1946, Bowles served on the music reviewing staff of the New York Herald Tribune, where another friend and teacher, Virgil Thomson, reigned as chief critic. Aaron Copland, Bowles’s teacher, friend and, probably, one-time lover, was the guiding light of both the League and the journal.
From 1931, he had contributed translations of articles on music, then his own music criticism, to the journal Modern Music, a publication of the League of Composers. From 1939 through the first part of 1945, in fact, he published nothing in prose but music criticism, and quite a substantial amount of it. And Bowles knew all about auditory irritations. The coloratura soprano becomes an auditory irritation. After New York, the silence of these locales, among other things, appealed to the writer. The novel was written in Fez, Tangier, and the Sahara in nine months in 1947–48. For Bowles had literally left music behind, quitting the New York musical scene where he had been an admired and prolific composer (of ballets, incidental music for plays, concert works) to take up the life of the expatriate fiction writer. Indeed, the passage might be considered as yet another nod towards autobiography (in a book teeming with it). The phrase “orthodox preparations” is a give-away. In writing the passage, the author also betrays a certain amount of musical learning. The aria serves as an obvious symbol for what the three Americans are leaving behind- Western civilization-as they journey ever deeper into the Sahara. It is just a passing moment, but an interesting one. Presently Kit said: “Now that that’s over, I’ve got to have another bottle of Oulmès.” “Maybe we can escape that.” They listened fascinated as the aria, drawing to a close, made the orthodox preparations for the inevitable high final note. “Let’s hurry up and get there,” she said. Across the street a radio was sending forth the hysterical screams of a coloratura soprano. They sit drinking in a North African café. Įarly in the novel The Sheltering Sky, Paul Bowles introduces the reader to his itinerant trio of characters, Port, Tunner, and Kit. Interview with Paul Bowles, by Irene Herrmann PREFACE viiĪrticles and Reviews by Paul Bowles 1. It meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48–1992 (R 1997) (Permanence of Paper).∞ Manufactured in the United States of America 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 The paper used in this publication is both acid-free and totally chlorine-free (TCF). London, England © 2003 by the Regents of the University of California Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bowles, Paul, 1910 –1999 Paul Bowles on music / Paul Bowles edited by Timothy Mangan and Irene Herrmann.
University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. ĮDITED BY TIMOTHY MANGAN AND IRENE HERRMANN
Paul Bowles on Music Includes the last interview with Paul Bowles. Roth and Sukey Garcetti have endowed this imprint to honor the memory of their parents, Julia and Harry Roth, whose deep love of music they wish to share with others.
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