Friday 21 March 2014

Musical Moments 1 - Dannie Abse

Musical Moments 1 (The Last Piano Lesson)

From within this poem we see the boredom and dismay caused by having a regular piano lesson showing us that one of the key themes is music. From this we see that music is not enjoyed within this poem unlike Larkin who shows a more positive aspect towards music. Larkin portrays music within poems such as Love Songs in Age and Reference Back. From Love Songs in Age we see the theme of memory come up with how music brings back the good memories whilst Reference Back is to do with the relationship between a mother and son who share this strong bond with music. Although Abse links into the theme of music to Larkin, he does not portray the sense of memory or a connection towards people. Within his we find a negative impression brought out due to various words and phrases he uses. Examples of this would be "Numbly bored" and "pointless" suggest to us that for the child this is not enjoyable but is really a chore. Music is placed as being dull and boring in this piece with the continuous flow of scales and pieces that the child is use to is being played. Whilst in Broadcast we get the difference from Larkin of the shocking and gripping music piece that allows the audience to be hooked into.
We see that music is not loved in this house due to the phrase, "a coffin of music" which portrays to us that music is dead and unwanted making the connection to Larkin on the theme death. Poems that link to the theme death would be Ambulances for we associate these vehicles with being the choice of life and death towards people.
From this poem we see a different side of Abse as he portrays a negative feel to the audience instead of the more positive poems he has created before. This is also a link towards Larkin for Larkin portrays a lot of his beliefs and ideas in his poems as being negative. There is also the notion of the child being rebellious with how he does not wish to do this lesson and we see a sudden change of mood when the lesson comes to an end.

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