lilee + want to read some posts

Dear class,
Come on, post something! Aren't we supposed to post something on Watkins? I haven't found any questions from Dr. Smith on the Watkins reading, but I might be missing something. Mahler's songs Der Schildwache Nachtlied and Revelge (on listening week 2) are perfectly suited for this weather; somehow, I have always viewed German/Austrian soldiers in the snow and ice. Seriously, the listening selections are amazing company for this weather. I somehow managed to complete my earlier undergraduate and graduate studies without listening to Mahler; in my twentieth-century music courses, he was accorded recognition for his influence upon the Second Viennese School without much more than passing acknowledgment--his worth was measured in his influence only. In my nineteenth-century music courses, he was accorded worth in his own right, but unfortunately fell into the latter part of the courses, and we always seem to run out of time for latter parts of courses, don't we? One thing that I had never thought about was Viennese fin-de-siecle and early twentieth-century interest in what used to be called "The Orient," although I knew about Bethge's "Chinese Flute," of course; I always thought only about France's/Debussy's interest through the Paris International Exposition for that time period. Watkins had some interesting things to say about Klimt and Loos in this vein. Of course, interest in "the East" (another term not used now because it implies "the other") is an important part of twentieth-century appropriation, similar to the historical appropriation from one's "own tradition," for example, the appropriation that we studied with Brahms' Symphony 4 Mvmt. IV/Bach. Any thoughts? Lisa Lee