English translation: constitutes the expressive effort, in its proper sense
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04:33 Jul 21, 2010
French to English translations [PRO] Art/Literary - Music / musique concrète
French term or phrase:constitue l’essai d’expression proprement dit
The final quote is once again from Pierre Schaeffer.
"Le titre est un anagramme de rhapsodie. Autant dire que cette Sphoradie est non seulement un bout à bout mais bout à bout sans dessus dessous ! Ce mouvement est celui qui, d’après l’auteur, « constitue l’essai d’expression proprement dit » "
Is "essai d’expression" a fixed phrase?
I'm also at pains to fit the "proprement dit " in.
Explanation: I don't think "essai d'expression" is a set phrase, I think it just means the attempt to express oneself, the stab at expression... "expressive effort" is my best... expressive effort!
"Proprement dit": properly speaking, properly understood... well, it's rhetorical, no? When people say that, they tend to mean "in my restricted understanding of the term, which I nevertheless believe is the only 'proper' meaning".
Maybe here he means that the expressive effort is necesarily convoluted - "bout à bout sens dessus dessous" - by the way, that is supposed to be "sens dessus dessous", isn't it? Someone pointed out the typo in one of the other queries but I didn't see your response and now it's repeated here.
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 7 hrs (2010-07-21 12:15:27 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
Points to Melissa for pointing out the sens/sans thingy. I also went wth the idea that it was an attempt at being expressive (phrased differently in context) 4 KudoZ points were awarded for this answer
... all of the suggested responses to your query on this expression have assumed "sens dessus dessous" as a matter of course, for good reason. So if you use those responses, you are implicitly accepting the reading "sens dessus dessous". The best authors make mistakes and all published texts have typos.
constitutes the expressive effort, in its proper sense
Explanation: I don't think "essai d'expression" is a set phrase, I think it just means the attempt to express oneself, the stab at expression... "expressive effort" is my best... expressive effort!
"Proprement dit": properly speaking, properly understood... well, it's rhetorical, no? When people say that, they tend to mean "in my restricted understanding of the term, which I nevertheless believe is the only 'proper' meaning".
Maybe here he means that the expressive effort is necesarily convoluted - "bout à bout sens dessus dessous" - by the way, that is supposed to be "sens dessus dessous", isn't it? Someone pointed out the typo in one of the other queries but I didn't see your response and now it's repeated here.
-------------------------------------------------- Note added at 7 hrs (2010-07-21 12:15:27 GMT) --------------------------------------------------
*necessarily convoluted
Melissa McMahon Australia Local time: 16:01 Native speaker of: English PRO pts in category: 4
Grading comment
Points to Melissa for pointing out the sens/sans thingy. I also went wth the idea that it was an attempt at being expressive (phrased differently in context)
The translation workplace 
