Commentary III The Student as Conductor

When we see Georges Pretre conduct, we get a very strong sense that for
him, the music exits in some distant place which he is imagining, and so
allowing to come into existence in the concert hall.
Think of the foreign language like that. It is a collection of elements,
stacked up somewhere, packed away somewhere, and we must call them
from that place to our place.
The poet T.S. Eliot talks of looking into the heart of light, the silence.
I think that this is what we must do, too.
Look for some silent and shining place at the heart of things, where,
somehow, all that language, stacked up, and waiting to be spoken or
written by people, exists
If I wanted a picture of what it looked like I migh choose a painting by
Frank Auerbach or Mark Rothko.


Mysterious, ever-changing, inaccessible and yet profoundly welcoming!
Life is like that! Languageis like that! Yet, at times its cold and
frightening, as well
*
You asked about Ireland and island. Why does island has the s? They are
both pronounced the same really, aiilllndd . No real r
Both ASG, really, because land is a very famous ASG word. In German it
is das Land, the land. See this wonderful link which is about a poem, Do
you know the land (or country) where many wonderful things may happen?
(A poem by Goethe) sung in German and teaching you in five minutes all
about ASG ; and how things are in German, and might be in English
Teaching you far better and more beautifully than anything I could ever
dream of or do. Enjoy it and let it be absorbed.
Online Etymology Dictionary shows us:
island (n.)
1590s, earlier yland (c.1300), from Old English igland "island," from ieg "island"
(from Proto-Germanic *aujo "thing on the water," from PIE *akwa- "water;"
see aqua-) + land(n.). Spelling modified 15c. by association with similar but
unrelated isle. An Old English cognate was ealand "river-land, watered place,
meadow by a river." In place names, Old English ieg is often used of "slightly
raised dry ground offering settlement sites in areas surrounded by marsh or
subject to flooding" [Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names]
and
Irish (n.)
c.1200, Irisce, from stem of Old English Iras "inhabitant of Ireland," from Old
Norse irar, ultimately from Old Irish Eriu (accusative Eirinn, Erinn) "Erin,"
which is from Old Celtic*Iveriu (accusative *Iverionem, ablative *Iverione),
perhaps from PIE *pi-wer- "fertile," literally "fat," from root *peie- "to be fat,
swell" (see fat (adj.)).

so the answer is, land rising out of the water ; and land which produces
many good things like cheese, milk, butter, crops, flowers, cattle, sheep
Ireland certainly does. If you still want divertissement as the French say,
here is another link
About denotate. R long verbs like de notate work from the end:
LINK
Stress is first or maybe even the same for the first two syllables: DE NO
tate because in words like this English speakers are actually thinking in
Latin.
Like Pretre, at the end of the first movement:

thinking as a percussion player, really, waiting for a slight tropical-
sounding crash! link (we here just a flute upward rush (yellow moment
on the pianos) and at the end a simple chord made from two
pianospurple emphasis ) [see score excerpt above]

He does the same at the end of the second movement (from which this
clip is taken) only then it is a stronger sound, a stronger crash. [example
is at 4:28; 4:40 (lingering horn note) ; and especially about 5:03 to 5:04
where he has waited for almost three seconds for a sustained chord to
happen, before cutting it off]
(1) Wait and listen

(2) Start playing the chord

(3) Stop playing the chord


*
Ireland can actually be thought of as a special case of hard consonant
squeezing: and a copy in sound of one or two similar Emglish words
like fire, mire, ire
(For Powerpoint see link ; and download and play to get the
animationswhich are great fun!)

*
More primordial vowel sounds:
mid lid sit cit(y) did rid kid for i
low blow no know for o

*
Also remember that English spoken fast deletes the word from the end as
much as possible significant=> significntl here fic (meaning make) and
ant (meaning, what we just had was an adjective, by the way!) cannot
be allowed any stress (think of them as just the HOUSE NUMBERS in
the address ) the main meaning is in the word-part s i g n but if you
pronounce it with a long vowel i aiii the word will just stop !!! just
stop !!!

*
Georges Pretre would not do that so you must not do it either!
Aerial view of Poulencs place in France (it was his music we enjoyed!)

This is Poulenc when he starts playing his own music:


Finally a picture of the Javanese gamelan instruments which
inspired Poulenc, and a picture form the Powerpoint I
mentioned just now. provident, prevalent, imminent current,
accident and national would have starting stress to, but destination
not, probably because it sounds like nation and de and sti sound
like (propositional) prefixes, even if they are not. Anyway, R.




Thank you for your attention during this very musical lesson!