5/8/08

We Are the Dohnanyi, You Will Be Assimilated

I don’t know if he meant it that way, but Mark Swed made a curious reference concerning London Philharmonic conductor Christoph von Dohnányi and his old-school ways.

One can fight Dohnányi's stern approach. I tried. But the players clearly revere this conductor. And in the end, when the brass stood and played too loud for the hall, when the clotted strings and winds became a sonic army, when Dohnányi's sense of mission produced a startling climax, resistance seemed futile [it. mine].

If anyone was to deserve this reference, musically speaking, I thought maybe Hanz Pfitzner would be the ideal candidate. Or even, Richter. Klemperer. Strauss. Furtwängler.

Sheesh. How jejune. Anyway, silly Germans.
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4 comments:

Sator Arepo said...

Hilarious. The German Borg translation was particularly keen.

Also, Pfitzner was a huge jerk, apparently.

Anonymous said...

Some other references that Swed could have gone with: "...when the clotted strings and winds became a sonic army, when Dohnanyi's sense of mission produced a startling climax...

"...his wrath will be terrible, his retribution swift. The battle for Disney Hall is over. Who now has the strength to stand against the armies of Isengard and Mordor?"

or

"...On a mountain of skulls in a castle of pain, I sat on a throne of blood. What was will be, what is will be no more. Now is the season of evil! Find me a child that I might live again!"

or

"...I'd never done a crazy thing in my life before that night. Why is it that if a man kills another man in battle it's called heroic, yet if he kills a man in the heat of passion it's called murder?"

or

"...Well, it got so that every piss-ant prarie punk who thought he could shoot a gun would ride into town to try out the Waco Kid."

Murderface said...

or

"...when the clotted strings and winds became a sonic army, when Dohnányi's sense of mission produced a startling climax..."

"...he crushed his enemies, saw them driven before him, and heard the lamentations of their women."

WNGQU: The retarded cousin of Samuel L. Jackson's character in Star Wars: Episodes So Crappy I Won't Bother To Italicize Them

AnthonyS said...

Mark Swed is totally Vigo the Carpathian. Thanks Gustav-- the world makes sense now.

FhtrDgXe: A new modifer in the most recent Dungeons and Dragons Rulebook, whereby upon rolling a natural 20 on a 1d20 to-hit roll, a fighter equipped with Mugruth's Axe of Righteous Cleaving will be rewarded a "cleave bonus", which is the fighter's experience level added to the subsequent damage roll.