Old-time musicians

First of all, I would like to thank all the book friends who have patiently followed me here.

[At this point, I hope readers will remember our domain name Taiwan Novel Network →𝖙𝖜𝖐𝖆𝖓.𝖈𝖔𝖒]

This book was originally ranked bronze, and there were many criticisms before. I was too timid and almost wanted to throw down the keyboard and run away several times (don’t worry, I haven’t had this idea recently). If it weren’t for your support, voting and rewards, I might have been crying while writing until now.

Secondly, I would like to remind you that the summary is a summary of the plot, and there will be some spoilers at the current progress (reminding book friends who are in a wait-and-see subscription state and jumped here).

The first volume of "The Old Musicians" has finally been written, with 350,000 words, which is still a little higher than the expected upper limit, and it has just reached the full attendance in the first month after it was put on the shelves (wrong).

As a basic starting volume, it needs to complete the painting style foreshadowing, initially show the status of classical music (or art) in this old industrial world where mysticism is popular, and also needs to explain the world view and power system, and dig several important foreshadowings for the subsequent development, so when I was making the outline of this volume, I tried the narrative method of the dual main line structure.

The music main line is relatively clear. Fanning has determined the goal of premiering the "First Symphony" since the beginning of the journey, and has been A all the way to the work selection competition. The mysterious side main line tends to decrypt, spy and try, and the two lines intersect and explode at the final graduation concert.

In the ending, whether it is the "flash mob" premiere form or the conspiracy at the graduation concert, I have already decided since the beginning of the book, and the knife is only a small one. It should be still watchable at the moment when the lines are gathered, but during the serialization period, the experience of chasing reading may be a bit scattered.

I tried my best to do my own processing. First, let the protagonist solve some secrets every time he takes action, and leave new suspense, so as to attract everyone's attention as much as possible. Second, when filling in the pits and closing the lines, I made targeted choices - all those that do not affect the book friends' acceptance of the ending of the first volume will be put in the future and slowly shown. A little confusion is not a big problem. In this way, the rhythm can be faster as much as possible.

I just don't know how the actual effect is. If the book friends are not satisfied with it, I apologize here and will continue to adjust and improve it later.

Let's go back to the summary.

The title of the first volume "Giant" has three metaphorical meanings.

First, it comes from Mahler's First Symphony of the same name, so the prototype of the protagonist Carloen van Nin is Gustav Mahler, and his teacher Anton Konar is based on Anton Bruckner.

According to this concept, the blue planet before the protagonist crossed over was set by me as a parallel world similar to the earth: it has a similar history of classical music, but without Mahler and Bruckner, so that I can write a life journey based on them in another world, but completely different.

This also allows readers to stand in the composer's perspective and experience the feeling of creating a symphony, and find the corresponding appreciation template in reality, in addition to the small event of "plagiarism reappearance and upgrading".

For the above reasons, I wrote a lot of things related to classical music and humanities.

For example, in each plot stage, I fabricated a lot of "serious" professional music reviews, rather than making the art world seem to only shout "666", such as the description of the debate between salon culture and title music at the salon night, such as the tortuous and complicated process of Fanning's creation of "First Symphony". At the beginning, I used a few single chapters to describe how he got inspiration, disassembled inspiration, and built a framework, and later I used nearly 10,000 words to write about how he drew nourishment for creation in the pastoral countryside.

I was going to write a more complete storyline here, but considering the length of the article, I only kept a few key points: such as the tribute to Mahler's "Composition Hut", such as the second song "I Walked Through the Fields in the Morning" in the vocal song collection "Traveler's Songs", such as the predecessor of the waltz, the Leander Dance (Leandre), such as the two tigers (Jacques Brothers), and Fanning's inspiration from the woodcut "The Funeral of the Hunter", etc.

In fact, these things are really not as easy to write as fighting and decryption. I can just say that the protagonist burst into inspiration overnight, "duang" and wrote a stunning work, and then showed his saintliness in front of people, and shocked everyone.

But I said that I would explore the connection between "classical music" and "mysticism" in this book, so I must not write it like this.

First of all, there is a problem of proportion involved here. I think a true classical music book should not overemphasize the role of "piano" in terms of instruments, while ignoring string, vocal, woodwind, brass and percussion instruments; it should not overemphasize the role of "piano solo" in terms of genre, while ignoring chamber music, concerto, symphony and opera; it should not overemphasize the role of "performance and singing" in terms of fields, while ignoring composition, conducting, music theory, music aesthetics and artistic operation, etc. (maybe another failed view?)

So in this volume, I want to let everyone feel from the perspective of composers as much as possible, how those masters in history, such as Mahler or Bruckner, wrote a large-scale work. I also want everyone to understand that there are actually many insurmountable gaps between "inspiration" and "final work".

Musicians first need to disassemble mystical revelations (religious, transcendental) into artistic inspirations (mundane, experiential), and then concretize them into scenes under musical vocabulary. They also need to draw nutrients from historical myths, philosophical poems, religious consolations, cities and villages, etc. according to the guidance of these musical scenes.

With these nutrients, they can create motives and melodies based on their talents and accumulation. The last step is to expand them into multi-movement works with strong logic through technical processing.

And the "Giant", Symphony No. 1 in D major, here in the first volume, is an extremely outstanding romantic masterpiece of Mahler's youth. Looking at many composers, you will find that very few people can reach such a mature level in their first symphony, and can be compared with their later symphonies - even Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Tchaikovsky, and Bruckner can't do this. The only one who can think of is Brahms, because he was 43 years old when he published the "First Symphony" and wrote it for more than 20 years.

Oh, and there is also the protagonist (wrong).

This pioneering work of Mahler has reached a very perfect state in terms of humanity and technology: Bach's structural logic, the complex texture of "Beethoven's Ninth Symphony", Bruckner's straight-forward misty soundtrack, Wagner's dramatic leading motive... From myths to rural customs, from urban legends to youthful love... He described the sound and picture images and landscapes of the integration of man and nature, and named it "Giant" metaphorically to explain his heroic view in his youth, commemorate vitality, vitality, pastoral, morning light, nature and youth.

This is also what Fanning thinks about day and night and wants to make up for. So I wrote the first volume in the background of a school. In that student age, people feel that they should be mature, but they still experience childish contradictions from time to time; they feel that they should cultivate a "sophisticated" temperament, but they still make inappropriate words and deeds from time to time; they feel that they should deal with all these situations rationally; but they still fall into some throbbing or emotionality from time to time...

Perhaps even those who have achieved some of their wishes in their student days are just "false victories", just like Fanning's previous life experience.

The "heroic view" at this stage is naturally controversial, but fortunately there is no need to blame yourself or argue, because no matter whether they are good or bad, as youth gradually comes to an end, they will all dissipate.

Mahler's First Symphony... This is the first metaphor of "giant".

The word "giant" is still a mythical creature similar to an elemental body that existed in ancient times in the world view of this book, and it has a homology with the pronunciation of "Turangalia" in the Noah language. When the two main lines intersected on the day of the graduation concert, it not only became the name of the protagonist's debut work, but also appeared in the final battle in the form of a mobile creature of the "Turangalia Magic Art", which echoed the ending of the first volume and also hinted that the secret history of the Turangalia Dynasty will be an important main line of the mysterious side of this book.

This is the second metaphor of "giant".

And Professor Anton Konar, Fanning's teacher, is not only his guide in his artistic career, but also the founder of his path into the mysterious side. The protagonist will always miss him, and his great works that have been coldly received will eventually be discovered by the world and will become immortal works that people will always follow and remember.

Teacher Anton himself is also a giant.

This is the third metaphor of "giant".

When the epitaph at the end is presented in a complete form, not only does it make the preface written in the first volume fit the title, but the second half of the sentence added by people, "Some people are born after death", also leads to the theme of the second volume.

Well, having said that, I guess most people have already guessed the title of the second volume.

The title of the second volume, "Resurrection", comes from Mahler's Symphony No. 2 in C minor "Resurrection" of the same name. Like the first volume "Giant", it also uses metaphors to hint at key characters, key plots or the tone of the ending.

I dare not write a new beginning. As a 996er, I have been working hard for two or three months in a row. My mental state is currently very bad... I have to think carefully and sort out the plot. I will take two days off and resume updating at 11 o'clock on July 6.

Cheers to the music.