Showing a mischievous sense
humor not commonly asso-
lated with him, Yevgeny Yev-
Shenko charmed the Decem-
fr 6 audience at Toronto’s
ork University. Yevtushenko’s
it to Canada is part of a cul-
Tal exchange program between
ur two countries arranged on
itchell Sharp’s recent visit to
ne Soviet Union. Planned only
yo_weeks in advance, the
ckets were sold out and pros-
ective buyers crowded the
bby of Burton Auditorium in
€ hope of purchasing unused
Kets.’ -
British actor Barry Boys, a
ngtime friend of the poet, tra-
els with him reading English
frsions of the poetry. The
anslated versions read expres-
Wely by Boys, retained some
| the rolling beat that Yevtu-
lenko incorporates into the
iginals. It was not clear as to
70 was the translator.
‘Unrestricted by texts, Yevtu-
1enko was superb. Caressing
ch poem, showing an enthus-
sm which broke the language
aIrier, he carried the audience
© his world of rolling rhythm.
€vtushenko holds the Russian
“guage in complete command.
5S Poems flow like waves,
bilding to a climax of word
tterns than falling, only to
Lild up again.
_,lere were an equal number
ight and serious works pre-
*nted, contrasting extremely in
tent and force, but both
‘Pes with the same strength
5. Worth. “An Attempt at
asphemy” is a farce that de-
iets “God” -as an insecure
Bure Continually bombarded
Mth petitions from “slobbering”
ans. The laughter that Yev-
Shenko’s performance evoked
used Boys to comment that it
eared as if only three people
1 the audience did not under-
@nd Russian. Both men read
English version ‘of a humor-
love poem called “From
sire to Desire.” “Stolen Ap-

Yevtushenko's zea
Stimulates audience

i i Smt a.
afew 9? Se

Yann Whi Bory Se
; /

ples” was a_ beautiful piece
lauding the joys of apples pil-
fered rather than bought. It
brought back memories of simi-
lar adventures which everyone
must have enjoyed in his child-
hood,

A section was presented from
the epic poem ‘Kazan Univer-
sity.” The poem deals with the
lives of former students of this
university, the piece recited
describing the experience of a
woman who was jailed by the
Tsarist government. “Dwarfed
Birches” attacks countries who
give “moral support” to the
Soviet Union, feeling pity for
what they feel to be a weak na-
tion, without seeing the strength
which is rooted in the society.
“Babiyar,” a poem condemning
anti-Semites, suffered in its
translation, with the awkward
use of “anti-Semitism” through-
out. The serious works were
powerful and angry, bringing to
light the more well-known side
of Yevtushenko.

Much new material was pres-
ented during: the 90 minutes re-
cital. An ambiguous broadsheet
condemning Yevtushenko as a

“lackey of the Soviet hierar- -

chy,” which had been distrib-
uted before the show, had little
effect on the enthusiastic aud-
ience.—J.G.

BEETHOVEN AND THE AGE
OF REVOLUTION. By Frida
Knight. 205 pp. International
Publisher, New York. Hard-
cover $7.95.

If any of the arts seems to
provide the Marxist analyst
with a tremendous number of
pitfalls, that art is music.

On. the one hand, there is the
tendency, with even less success
(if-one may call it that) than in
the plastic arts, to postulate a
one to one to one relationship
between society, a composer
and his works.

Using this formula, unfortun-
ately prevalent among Marxist
at one stage in history, some
bad and astonishing results oc-
cur. The favorite example of
this reviewer is the title (and
the contents, for that matter) of
a book written qa number of
years ago by one of North Ame-
rica’s most respected Marxist
critics, author Sidney Finkle-
stein. Finklestein’s title is How
Music Expreses Ideas, and al-
though he makes a valiant ef-
fort, his methodology and con-
clusions are open to just as
many questions as they. answer.

The other tendency, more pre-
valent these days, is for critics
to ignore Marxist musical aes-
thetics and subsequent analysis
altogether. Little wonder, when
in North America one is blasted
by the inanity of John Cage’s
silence or has his sensibilities
reduced to the state of curdled
milk by. the whining strains
concocted by certain modern
vocal composers.

But back to Beethoven. Mil-
lions of people have been enth-
ralled by his music for almost
two centuries. Much has been
written about him, more or less
unsuccessfully, from every pos-
sible angle. Two literary giants
of the twentieth century, Ro-
main Rolland and Thomas Mann,
were fascinated by him.

Beethoven and the Age of Re-

volution, fortunately, falls into
none of the categories mention-
ed earlier. It neither attempts to
pose dogmatic conclusions, nor
does it negate in any way crea-
tive methodology and analysis.

Frida Knight modestly places.

the question herself in the fore-
word, and sums it up in a
thought - provoking conclusion.

What the book does do, in her

words is “to look at Beethoven
and his work specifically in the

1812

“, He was an artist but
a man as well, a manin
every sense, in the
highest.

“But to the end his heart-
beat warm for all men,

in fatherly affection for
his kindred, for the world
his all and his heart’s
blood.

“Thus he was, thus he
died, thus he will live to
the end of time.”

etry that reflects a lifetime of involvement

context of the social and poli-
tical events of the very stirring
times in which he lived.” What
it does not do, and rightfully so,
is to formulate stereotyped (and
therefore untenable) opinions as
to the technical aspects of the
actual music. ©

There is a considerable differ-
ence in looking on the Eroica
symphony as a result “of a mass
of impressions made by those
previous four years of war, ...
to proclaim with new rhythms,
combinations of instruments,
harmonies, phrases, a musical
revolution born of social revolu!
tion,” than to merely write it
off, intentionally or otherwise,

"as programme music.

Basically, this is the entire
content of Frida Knight’s excel-
lent, interesting and- well re-
searched book, which looks at
Beethoven throughout his life as
to his feelings about people, his
abiding and lively interest in
politics and social and economic
questions. That such considera-
tions influenced his music, his
creativity, is talked about at
length, and is a fascina'ing and
rewarding’ addition to tie volu-

“ minous material availat'e (To-

vey, Schweitzer, etc.) .n the
strictly technical side.

What Frida Knight tells us is
something new—that Beet 10ven
was a human being, creative,
attentive and inquisitive. He is
not consigned here to the “ivory
tower” of music, nor as simply
a passive recorder of historical
events through the evolved
social activity of writing down
ideas on five lines and four
spaces.

Her book is a fuller, more in-
teresting and human picture of
a great man.

For those interested in music,
or in an excellent example of
one area of Specific sociological
and artistic concern, this book
is a must:

—M. S.

i €r peoples is definitely

were are other voices
Poetry is not measured in
fgister receipts but ‘in
‘hat reach out to. the
~ merge it with the fut-
Se poetry captures the
2 Country’s people and
Be the. aspirations of

4 poet is Harold Griffin
atest volume of poetry,
Not Now, a collection
nS written since his first
Onfederation and Other
eet in 1966.

a nto several langu-
riffin’s first volume "of
Which spanned three de-
Eveloped the themes with
icity of imagery and
© whose force was in the

S of ideas. Now and
Ww, in many of its selec-
& ne pe ccriation of

¢ ut the imagery is

more Be Gndiy sche
more assuredly in his
Pression with the voice

» IS very much a part

al reality of which he
and the lines reflect his
Of ‘involvement, some-
N a searing anger in
ation of the ae of

ometimes with a rich,

generous beauty as when he
sings of his own country.

The title poem “Now and Not
Now” weaves the thread that

brings together all the poems in -

the selection with its opening
lines, deceptively simple yet en-
compassing in a few lines the
breadth of his vision:

The time for which I write

is now

and not now

a time becoming .. .

On several occasions, Griffin

visited the USSR at the invita-
tion of both the Soviet Writers
Union and the Armenian Writ-
ers and two poems in the selec-
tion reflect his impressions of
that country and give new mean-
ing to the friendship between

the two peoples that has flour-.

ished in the 1970’s. One poem,
“Rivers of Peace,” returns to the
theme of the common bonds be-
tween two continents that found
expression in an earlier poem
“Cuba,” but is invested with a

prophetic sense of the move-—

ment of history. Like the rivers,
the lines flow serenely at first
and then quicken in a torrent of
images, touching again on the
theme of the merging of past
and future:

Suspend in this vault of space

unhinged from time, I see

your Dnieper, ribbon steel

across
the plains, all that you were
and will become...

Where my river quickens
earth

I have communed with eagles,
walked

the heart of vanished glaciers,

stilled my turmoil at its font

upwelling from the caverned
deep. :

Guardian grasses

bow their blades to dragonflies
in pools the mosses
sponge from weeping rock:
unburdened by oppressive
snows.
Alpine flowers spread
their gift to color
where: its nascent streams
splash to the tumult of the
gorge.
Glowering canyons flank
its roisterous assault,
a victory of rapids thrust
in spume of fury through the
rock.
» Sandbars quiet
its entry to the plain
tranquil in the curtained light
of dawn.
and concluding with its vision
of hope and peace:
My river spills its flood, like
yours
upon the history of men
a surging flood of dreams
a peaceful striving poured
into our common sea.

Driving his poems forward
and giving them life and mean-.
ing is a growing political energy
and just as some of his lines
sing with light and warmth, so
others have stripped away the
wreath of. imagery to become.
direct powerful. statements

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, JANUARY 4, 1974—PAGE7

against oppression like the poem
“Goodwill to Men” written some
time before the fascist coup in
Chile
In the night a child dying,
the milk ee
of human kindness
snatched from her lips
to sooth
the ulcers
of copper barons in New York.
Dispossessed
the former owners
still wring the teats of the
Andes.
There is no goodwill for Chile.

While one occasionally senses
a certain repetitiveness in form
in some of the poems with the
use of “you” and “your” in the
subjects that Griffin addresses,
his poems are a rare achieve-
ment. in Canadian poetry; to
take the rough dreams and
hopes of a-country and its peo-
ple and transform them into
images of beauty and power. —

His new book should find its
way onto the shelves o§ every-

one who reads poetry. For when
the Mordecai Richlers have

counted their dollars alongside _

their contempt and have been
forgotten, Griffin’s poems will be
part of the history and people
of which he sings.

NAS TO aI