Holst, Freud, Oedipus, and Grainger... an odd crew!
I'm listening to my recently acquired album of music by Gustav Holst, which I'm pretty much in love with at the moment. It has First Suite in E-flat and Second Suite in F as well as several other orchestral pieces. I'm quite taken with the two suites, having played First Suite in high school band and Second Suite last year in my college band. They're just really good pieces of band music, not to mention catchy and fun to play. I was quite hung up on the "Intermezzo" movement of First Suite when we played it. I've also come to appreciate Holst's other assorted pieces. Everyone associates Holst with The Planets--and don't get me wrong, I think The Planets are fabulous, especially "Jupiter"--but he wrote a lot of other good stuff. My cd of The Planets has another piece called "A Somerset Rhapsody" on it, which is just wonderful. I don't think I've yet run into anything by Holst that I didn't like.
So in my Human Development in Education class, we're talking about various theories of development, and right now we're looking at Freud. As far as I'm concerned, Freud was a weird guy. I think he had some unresolved issues that he was projecting on to everyone else....
Anyways, we were discussing various aspects of his theory in class, including the Oedipus complex, which is kind of messed up in and of itself. (Side note: I've always felt bad for Oedipus. I mean, honestly, how was he supposed to know that it was his father that he killed and his mother that he married? After all, they more or less created a self-fulfilling prophecy by trying to kill him in the first place. As another side note, why can't these people in stories ever seem to do away with their enemies effectively? They always make silly mistakes--anyone could tell them that their little plans wouldn't work! But I guess we'd never have a story if everything worked out right the first time. End of tangent...) Supposedly, the superego can only develop after the resolution of the Oedipus complex, which occurs in the phallic stage. (According to Freud.)
Anyways, that got me thinking about Percy Grainger, another English composer of band music. According to a rather disturbing story our band director told us in high school when we played "Lincolnshire Posy" for a state festival, I would say that Percy Grainger never resolved his Oedipus complex. I'll leave the rest to your imagination. Suffice it to say that none of us who were in band that day will ever be able to play think of Percy Grainger in the same way again. I can't help but shake my head every time I play a piece by him. Not that I don't like his music, mind you. I think he was a very talented composer, and I love the feel of his music. But I think that he was a very odd individual.
Well, now that I've rambled for a while, I should probably get some sleep. I have a quiz on Freud's theories tomorrow morning, and of course I wouldn't want to miss that!
So in my Human Development in Education class, we're talking about various theories of development, and right now we're looking at Freud. As far as I'm concerned, Freud was a weird guy. I think he had some unresolved issues that he was projecting on to everyone else....
Anyways, we were discussing various aspects of his theory in class, including the Oedipus complex, which is kind of messed up in and of itself. (Side note: I've always felt bad for Oedipus. I mean, honestly, how was he supposed to know that it was his father that he killed and his mother that he married? After all, they more or less created a self-fulfilling prophecy by trying to kill him in the first place. As another side note, why can't these people in stories ever seem to do away with their enemies effectively? They always make silly mistakes--anyone could tell them that their little plans wouldn't work! But I guess we'd never have a story if everything worked out right the first time. End of tangent...) Supposedly, the superego can only develop after the resolution of the Oedipus complex, which occurs in the phallic stage. (According to Freud.)
Anyways, that got me thinking about Percy Grainger, another English composer of band music. According to a rather disturbing story our band director told us in high school when we played "Lincolnshire Posy" for a state festival, I would say that Percy Grainger never resolved his Oedipus complex. I'll leave the rest to your imagination. Suffice it to say that none of us who were in band that day will ever be able to play think of Percy Grainger in the same way again. I can't help but shake my head every time I play a piece by him. Not that I don't like his music, mind you. I think he was a very talented composer, and I love the feel of his music. But I think that he was a very odd individual.
Well, now that I've rambled for a while, I should probably get some sleep. I have a quiz on Freud's theories tomorrow morning, and of course I wouldn't want to miss that!