John Eaton
John Eaton
John Henry Eatonwas an American politician and diplomat from Tennessee who served as U.S. Senator and as Secretary of War in the administration of Andrew Jackson. He was 28 years old when he entered the Senate, making him the second-youngest U.S. Senator in history after Armistead Thomson Mason. Eaton resigned as Secretary of War as part of a strategy to resolve the Petticoat affair, a social scandal that involved Eaton and his wife, Peggy, and hindered the effectiveness of the...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth18 June 1790
CountryUnited States of America
If you look at the timing of many of the Greek dramas from the theatrical point of view, it's all off, and I think the reason for that is that music played a very important part.
In other words, I think that if an audience listens to something as an experience of how in tune it is or something of that kind, that the whole point is somehow being missed, and the music has failed.
I'm thinking in terms of a point of departure, a field of action for performers to express an expressive need of mine which hopefully the context of music would convey.
However, yes, especially as one gets older, you know, you really hope that your music will become more generally available, even though some of the performances might be riddled with faults.
I think the composer and production staff of an opera have a real responsibility to use visual elements of all kinds to make clear to the American audience, at any rate, exactly what is going on.
I've just simply used what I've used because of the great, great expressive potential of it.
I think I was first to do live performances on a modern electronic sound synthesizer.
It's not important to me to found a school; it's not important to me to have disciples.
Well, the very best operas are the ones written by the very best composers.
Well, let me, first of all, say, that as a microtonal composer, I've never been much of a theorist.
Nevertheless, one doesn't have time to think, oh, well, this is a quarter tone sharp, or flat.
I think one of the greatest enemies in the use of technology, however, is the idea that if you use the technology you have to throw other things out of the window.
But nevertheless, it's music ultimately that matters in opera, and opera is a piece of music reaching out as a vision in sound reaching out to the world.
The way that I got involved with microtonal music was, frankly, through jazz.