What do you feel, Richard, about Celan's Zionism (especially in the poem 'Denk Dir', written so as to lend a type of Biblical mythology to the Israeli conquest of Jerusalem in 1967) and how this might accord with the type of mystification of the Holocaust (in the sense of placing it beyond the boundaries of rational explanation) that can be argued to be implicit in his work?

There is an interesting bit of writing about that here: http://barbaricdocument.blogspot.com/2006/03/complicity-of-paul-celan.html

That's your prerogative, of course, but do you mind if ask why? I'm seriously very interested in your thoughts on that, as you have set texts of his that are related to this subject in one way or another.

I have, I just wondered why he didn't want to discuss it.

Actually, I think that Celan has become too sacred for various contemporary composers and as such, immune to more critical questions, political and otherwise, but I won't go into that now.

I wasn't saying that about you - there are a great many composers who invoke Celan, as you know. And I don't think what I say is nonsense in general. I'm just interested in the changing meaning of Celan and Holocaust-related work, with changing politicisations on the subject.

Oh no! It's not rolled copies of Socialist Worker at dawn again, is it?

    

Now that jumps off the screen and asks to be saved somewhere. It rings a very true-sounding bell to me. I am not saying I have come within a mile of 'making art' but I have occasionally written the odd thing, in the privacy of my own bathroom for my eyes only, for almost exactly that sort of reason. Some idea, or some connection, or some way of looking at something, gets hold of you, takes you over, and  - exactly as Richard says  - gets in the way of doing anything else until it is dealt with. And 'dealing with it' somehow involves exploring it, writing about it, and playing about with it to see whether or not it is as interesting or fruitful as you had a suspicion it might be. And you can't do that properly without making use of it and building it into something external to see whether it can stand up and walk by itself without help. And whether it does or doesn't, that process nonetheless 'gets it dealt with' and out of the way. [Note for future biographers: It should be pointed out in the interests of Mr Garnett's reputation that he had awarded himself several very small glasses of Laphroaig before tapping out the above and it may not reflect his more sober thoughts, if any, on these matters, or indeed bear much relation to what Richard meant or to the real world.]

Rather more importantly, I'm sure I can lay my hands on writings by other composers, poets etc that have said something along the same lines as Richard's comment. I might try and dig some out because it strikes me as all rather interesting.
 

And here's hoping 'Barratt in Basel' went well over the weekend by the way.

Ah, er, oh, um, I see..... Well, yes, I obviously meant the rehearsals. I thought that went without saying. Cough.    I hope they went well anyway .

Just going back to Richard's earlier comment again, I haven't yet had time to dig out related comments from other composers etc but here's a quote from the poet Randall Jarrell that is in the same sort of territory:

"A poem is, so to speak, a way of making you forget how you wrote it."