IMke was that however much music at
this time tried to describe and illustrate
it
could
not
do
so independently, no
mat–
ter what form it took. Without action or
text
it
remains an abstract art, one of
self-sufficient forms capable of being en–
joyed for their own sake. Mr. Carter
seemS to think that I conceive of Bach
and
Handel as consciously composing ab–
solute music, when I know as well as he
dces that they did not even dream of
TrlilkUlg such a distinction.
The difference between 17th and 18th
century music and program music is that
the first, although it attempted to describe
and
illustrate, was not <ophisticated
enough to violate its formal patterns–
any more than a Haida Indian can dis·
regard certain unrealistic conventions
when he depicts a bear on a totem pole
-while the second was
desabuse
enough
to seek onomatopoeia in the most imme–
diate sense. Whether or not program music
succeeds in describing and narrating, it
tries to so do
independently,
something
which 17th and 18th century music ar–
Umpts
only rarely.-C.G.
ZASULITCH'S DEED-A CORRECTION
Sirs:
According to Dwight Macdonald's arti–
cle on Trotsky, Vera Zasulitch assassi–
nated the Czar's prime minister in 1878.
Not so. She
killed
no one. Her deed was
shooting the prefect of St. Petersburg,
General Trepov; he was only wounded.
Too many students of the history of the
revolutionary movement are deficient in
a sound knowledge of Russian history.
(Unsigned postcard mailed
in
New
Haven, Conn.)
-My
anonymous correspondent is cor–
rect: Zasulitch shot General Trepov, not
the prime minister. I relied, without fur–
ther check, on Max Eastman's
Leon Trot–
sky: The Portrait of a Youth,
which refers
(p.
173) to "Vera Zasulitch, the heroine
of the Terror, who had shot the Czar's
prime minister for having her comrades
flogged." And I seem to have turned
"shot" into "killed" on my own hook.
-D. M.
