I've been listening to Mozart and Liszt a lot lately.
Printable View
I've been listening to Mozart and Liszt a lot lately.
I’ve not been listening much, but when I have it has been Beethoven’s piano sonatas and various Mozart pieces – I can see myself listening to a lot of Beethoven over the coming weeks though.
I have also started to tune the TV into radio 3 which is often quite good for music and the arts - often they play the full works, not just selections which I like the idea of. At least I have found a use for the TV aside from the odd good film or DVD.
I've been listening quite a bit to a number of absolutely gorgeous vocal collections. The first of these, in my opinion, is an absolute must-have disc... an expression of the triumph of love... even in the face of tragedy... and death:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2757/...baf13943_o.jpg
This recording is is an absolutely heart-wrenching experience. The composer, Peter Lieberson (born 1945), studied music and composition with Milton Babbitt and Charles Wuorinen at Columbia. In spite of the strict and rigorous Modernism of his mentors, Lieberson's own music evolved in a far more accessible, lush, and sensuous manner. Lieberson had been enamored of the love poems of Pablo Neruda after having bought the bright pink volume of 100 Love Sonnets for his wife, the mezzo-soprano, Lorraine Hunt-Lieberson. While lying in bed, Lorraine would often read the sonnets to her husband in Spanish. The Neruda Songs were co-commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Boston Symphony, and the world premiere was given on May 20, 2005, by the Los Angeles Philharmonic with Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting and Hunt Lieberson as soloist. The Boston Symphony performed the work in November 2005 with James Levine, a great supporter of Lieberson's music, conducting.
Lieberson and his wife selected 5 of Neruda's 100 sonnets which he then set to an absolute lush and romantic orchestral arrangement. The music is at once modern and eminently accessible. There are elements of drama, passion, exoticism, Spanish rhythms, sensuality... and ultimately sadness and loss. Each poem and its musical setting reveals a unique and distinctive facet of love as the suite as a whole moves from the most openly rapturous to inevitable and inconsolable grief at separation.
Lieberson obviously composed these works as a great expression of his love for his wife, and one cannot help but draw parallels between the emotional arc of the compositions and Hunt Lieberson's long-running bout with cancer and her pending fate. My thoughts upon first hearing this disc went immediately to the devastating recording of Der Abschied, the final song from Mahler's Song of the Earth as recorded by Bruno Walter and Kathleen Ferrier, who like Hunt-Lieberson was fully aware that she had but a short time left and put forth such emotion into her singing as to be almost unbearable.
The cycle begins with an expression of unadorned joy that clearly registers in Lorraine's voice as she sings "If your eyes were not the color of the moon", conveying the unreakable bond between composer and performer. It is the fifth poem, "My love, if I die and you don't", which truly tugs most at the heart-strings the most deeply as she sings of the eternal fate of true love in spite of... and in the face of mortality. The most sublime moment comes when she repeats the word "amor" at the end with a dream-like, faraway tone. This is magnificent, transcendent work from a singer for the ages and a composer whose enduring love for his wife has inspired his most profound work. There are some critics who have suggested that Lieberson's Neruda Songs might just rival Strauss' Four Last Songs. As much as I love Strauss, I would not be quick to challenge the assertion. This is an absolutely stunning piece of music and an unquestionably moving performance.http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2691/...387de650_o.gifhttp://farm3.static.flickr.com/2691/...387de650_o.gifhttp://farm3.static.flickr.com/2691/...387de650_o.gif
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3n5A...eature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgiMe...eature=related
Shostakovich is one of my favorites. Although it is a bit overwhelming at times, I find his intensity incredible and moving, even sexy. His music sounds like an existential crisis.
I'm absolutely infatuated with the Emerson String Quartet's recordings of Shostakovich's string quartets. Just bought the 5 CD set. Not only is the music gorgeous in the first place, but the recording quality is incredible and resonant. My personal favorites are the 8th and 3rd quartets.
One of my favorite movements: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khpm7RLFnGw
I have the Fitzwilliam recordings of the same quartets myself and they are certainly marvelous... but I must admit that I'm not enough of a quartet fan to even think about a second version of the same works. Shostakovitch is indeed a powerful composer... one that I have been exploring more recently as I have... it must be admitted... never been a great fan of Russian music (give me the Germans followed by the French and the Italians!). I was especially blown away by his audacious opera, The Nose (based on Gogol's tale) and as one obessed with Bach I was especially enamored of his Preludes and Fugues... the composer's marvelous response to Bach's Well Tempered Clavier.
I spite of the presence of our so-called "musicologist", I cannot allow today to go by without recognizing it as the birthday of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1/27/1756) although by the time I hit the "submit reply" button it will already be the 28th.:p I say I couldn't allow Mozart's birthday to pass unrecognized because it is somewhat obvious that his work has been been avoided here... (I'll admit to such myself) perhaps out of a desire to avoid encouraging more wacky conspiracy theories involving Free Masons, Illuminati, and the Flying Elvises.
Nevertheless, upon having it drawn to my attention that it was Mozart's birthday, I set about to choose some of his work as part of the evening listening. Undoubtedly Mozart's operas were among his finest achievements, and so I elected to listen to a favorite old recording of arias sung by the brilliant Elizabeth Schwarzkopf dating from the late 1940s and early 1950s:
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4049/...583027e6_o.jpg
I wouldn't promote this as a first choice for anyone first coming to these arias as the date of the recordings truly shows in the sound quality... but Schwarzkopf is certainly one of the great singers of the century... and one whose work is worth experiencing however flawed the technology of the time may have been. Her youthful voice is so full of devotion to these works. The disc offers a nice array of arias stretching from earlier operas such as Idomeneo through the great late works. Sadly there are no selections from Cosi fan tutte. I am especially enthralled with Porgi, amor from The Mariage of Figaro:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iUSEvp1mNU
Of course Voi che sapete and Dove sono i bei momenti (from the same opera) are not far behind:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMAlbDeph7M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dixJPYUJuHo
Beyond the operas, and various isolated masterpieces (such as the clarinet quintet, the clarinet concerto, the Requiem and the Mass in D) it is the piano concertos (not the symphonies) that I have long thought of as providing the greatest body of Mozart's work (and the strongest argument for his stature). I thus sat about listening to some of the great later piano concertos this evening, as well. Alfred Brendel is probably my favorite performer for these works (although I have the highly-acclaimed Murray Perahia recording of the complete piano concertos on my "wish list"). Tonight, however, it was a Russian (!!?) Vladimir Ashkenazy that I was listening to:
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4062/...f900043e_o.jpg
The Piano Concerto no. 20 has long been one of my absolute favorite pieces of music... by anyone... and the slow middle movement... the famous Romance must be one of the most exquisite few minutes of music ever laid out. Here is a particularly nice recording... and video... with the great pianist Friederich Gulda:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lPrap4xsyg
But then we have the great Andante from the Piano Concert 21... the so-called "Elvira Madigan" concerto... so named as a result of its use in a Swedish film of the same name. Here is the great Alfred Brendel's performance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45drOlTTTA8
Indeed, these concertos are just laden with some of the strongest and most memorable music in the whole realm of "classical music"... especially the slower movements. Enjoy!:thumbs_up
Yes, I just love Mozart, he was probably the one who first really pulled me into classical music along with Chopin and Liszt, magical stuff. I think it would be hard to find someone (apart from...) who doesn't appreciate it though.
French Mélodies Part 1
In our repeated debates as to which nation or culture has produced the greatest body of literature (or any sub-genre such as poetry or novels) our attempts to come to any sort of consensus have ultimately been thwarted by our limitations of language and the realization that we must almost certainly rely upon translations... some of which are unreliable... some of which are lacking in aesthetic merits... and some of which are non-existent. Music... however... would seem to be a different beast altogether. There is almost no way to dispute the fact that the Germans/Austrians literally own music. No other culture (at least in the West) even comes near. We could eliminate the three immortals of music (Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart) and we should still be presented with an entire slew of the most highly regarded composers: Wagner... Brahms... Handel... Haydn... Schubert... Schumann... Mahler, Richard Strauss...etc...
Over the past year I have been greatly broadening my collection of classical music... especially within areas and genres that I felt may just have possibly been underrepresented. As such, I have made a concerted effort to explore British and American composers, Modern and Contemporary composers, Russian opera, and Medieval music. At present I am experiencing something of a love affair with French music, and as a long-time lover of vocal music I have been especially seduced by the French Mélodie.
The Mélodie generally refers to French art songs of the mid 19th century to the present, and is something of an equivalent to the German Lied. Like the German Lied, the Mélodie was commonly composed for voice and solo piano, allowing for intimate performance in private homes and salons. As with later examples of the German Lied (one thinks immediately of Mahler and Richard Strauss) there are instances in which these Mélodies were composed with various other accompaniments: flute, violin, harp, small chamber ensembles, or with entire orchestral settings.
Just as the German Lied flourished during a period in which German lyrical poetry was also blossoming (Goethe, Schiller, Novalis, Heine, Hölderlin, etc...) so the French composers of song also greatly benefited by the wealth of beautiful, lyrical poetry being written in French in the late 19th and early 20th century. Composers could not help but be inspired by the poetry of Baudelaire, Gautier, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Mallarme, Sully Prudhomme, Pierre Louÿs, and others. Indeed, the delicious merger of exquisite music and resplendent poetry cannot help but tantalize the lover of literature and song. "Where are some examples of song lyrics that stand alone as poetry?" another thread asks. Here. Here! Here is poetry in word and song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNs8H60vQTM
S'il est vrai, Chloris, que tu m'aimes,
Mais j'entends, que tu m'aimes bien,
Je ne crois point que les rois mêmes
Aient un bonheur pareil au mien.
Que la mort serait importune
De venir changer ma fortune
A la félicité des cieux!
Tout ce qu'on dit de l'ambroisie
Ne touche point ma fantaisie
Au prix des grâces de tes yeux.
Théophile de Viau (1590-1626)
French Mélodies have been embraced by a broad range of the finest singers active today. One of the most unique must surely be Philippe Jaroussky. One of the most delightfully decadent recordings I have come across recently is his Opium: Mélodies françaises...
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4040/...289a250c_o.jpg
This disc presents performances of songs by Reynaldo Hahn, Jules Massenet, Gabriel Faure, Ernest Chausson, Camille Saint-Saëns, Cesar Franck, etc... the greatest composers of France of the fin de siecle. These songs represent a rare and heady bouquet... perfumed and laden with the silk and satin and velvet of the French salons. The lyrics are commonly drawn from the delicate poems of French symbolism: Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Verlaine, Mallarme, etc... while the music speaks of the sophisticated and artificial world of the French ballet... the theater... the opera... and of the sun-dappled world of Impressionism.
Jaroussky takes these songs to an even greater height of decadence with his high falsetto. Along with Andreas Scholl, Alfred Deller, and Rene Jacobs, Jaroussky is one of a recent number of highly talented countertenors who are taking their vocal range into an oeuvre previously reserved to sopranos, mezzo-sopranos, and tenors... or even baritones. The artificially high male voice almost immediately recalls the use of castrati and/or young male choir-boy vocalists in the operas and other vocal works of the baroque age (from which period the poem in the above song comes). Jaroussky brings a sense of the extreme artifice of Rameau, Lully, Couperin, and French Baroque to the 19th century Parisian salons. While I would not be without the performances of such mezzos and sopranos as Cecilia Bartoli, Janet Baker, Sandrine Piau, Veronique Gens, Anne Sofie von Otter, and Dawn Upshaw in the performance of these works, Jaroussky admittedly brings an added edge of decadence... artifice... and debaucheries to this delicate French bon-bons.
Another gorgeous song from this disc is Jules Massenet's Elégie. Massenet has himself been long underrated among music critics... in spite of the fact that he is one of the most exquisite masters of melody, and has been credited by many with the revival of the French language in song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9X3H6mZcDY
Rêve d'un bonheur effacé,
Mon coeur lassé t'appelle en vain dans la nuit
Tendres serments échangés,
Soirs enivrés, vous reposez dans l'oubli...
C'est la fin des beaux jours, ô souvenir de nos brèves amours !
La nuit descend lentement sur nos coeurs
L'automne effeuille les fleurs,
La paix du soir vient adoucir nos douleurs
Tout nous trahit, tout nous fuit sans retour
Tout nous trahit sans retour ........
Pierre Louÿs (1870 - 1925)
French Mélodies Part 2: Gérard Souzay
My preference has long been for female singers... at least when dealing with the repertoire of the French Mélodies. The music and the poems both have such a degree of sensuality that they seem to call out for the female voice. Obviously with Philippe Jaroussky I have made an exception... then again, his artful and artificial countertenor is almost a perversely decadent exception.
Recently, however, I discovered Gérard Souzay. This great baritone was once touted as the French answer to the German Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. For anyone who loves classical vocalists and especially German lieder, Fischer-Dieskau is the inimitable pinnacle of song. As such, I took the comparisons with a large grain of salt. A single disc, however, changed my opinion:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2800/...e2d2bbdf_o.jpg
Where Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau was often contracted out to Deutsche Grammophon and EMI... two of the finest classical recording labels with the greatest sound engineers... Souzay, unfortunately, does not seem to have developed such a relationship with a major label. This particular disc of Mélodies by Claude Debussy is his sole recording for DG... but what a marvelous disc it is. The collection includes songs that set poems of Verlaine, Charles d'Orleans, Baudelaire, and even original poems by Debussy himself. Souzay's voice is absolutely marvelous... never gruff... but always polished... warm... enveloping... and expressive.
Unfortunately, there are no examples of Souzay's performances from this disc available on YouTube. On the other hand, there are any number of marvelous performances available on-line:
Chanson triste by Henri Duparc:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mms29...eature=related
Gabriel Fauré's classic song, Après un rêve:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRrdW...eature=related
Duparc's Phidyle:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DQdHTwCjo8
and Fauré's magical setting of Paul Verlaine's most famous poem, Clair de lune:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGf0w...eature=related
French Mélodies Part 3
I was looking over my CD shelves today and found myself somewhat (OK... not really) surprised that I own far more music by Russian composers than I do by French composers... in spite of my expressed preference (and in spite of the fact that my collection of the greatest Russian composer, Tchaikovsky, is woefully malnourished). What I have come to recognize is that there is a huge gaping void in French music and that void is the symphony. There are few (if any) French composers who are truly masterful symphonic composers. Even the British do a better job at this. But perhaps that brings us back to the French Mélodies for certainly it seems (with the exception of opera... at which the French excel to a certain extent) that the strength in French music lies with the miniature... the cameo... the lyrical musical poem: chamber works, works for solo piano, shimmering concertos for flute and harp (instruments all but ignored in other musical traditions), and of course the mélodies... chanson.
While I have long loved French music, I have never been overly impressed with French performers, orchestras, of conductors... with a few exceptions:
Pierre Boulez, André Cluytens, René Jacobs (who's actually Belgian) and Charles Dutoit (who's actually Swiss). The English, Germans, Americans, and Russians have seemed to lead the field in classical musical performance. Nevertheless, reacting to several stellar reviews in Gramophone and other classical music periodicals I recently decided to check out two French singers: Sandrine Piau...
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2793/...3138a057_o.jpg
and Véronique Gens...
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4037/...110321cc_o.jpg
Both women are brilliant sopranos. Neither currently may lay claim to the sort of star status of a singer like Anna Netrebko or Renee Fleming... but from the example of their recent recordings both are every bit worthy of, and quite likely well on their way to such recognition.
Sandrine Piau trained as a harpist and studied voice at the Collège Lamartine and the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique du Paris. She is best known for her performances in Baroque opera, having worked with many of the leading European conductors of the Baroque revival, including William Christie, Marc Minkowski, Philippe Herreweghe, Christophe Rousset, and René Jacobs. She collaborated with Ton Koopman and the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir to record the complete vocal works of Johann Sebastian Bach. Piau's recording of Handel arias...
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4008/...41eb9157_o.jpg
was greeted with glowing praise by all the major music critics and periodicals.
It is her recording of Debussy mélodies, recorded for Naïve records with Jos van Immerseel on piano that I am concerned with here...
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4054/...d317a2f6_o.jpg
as well as her disc, évocation, which includes further performances of Debussy, as well as Ernest Chausson, Charles Koechlin, Richard Strauss, Alexander Zemlinsky, and Arnold Schoenberg...
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4035/...32608511_o.jpg
Among the marvelous works and performances to be found on these two discs I especially admire Debussy's Les papillons in which the poem of Théophile Gautier is interwoven with shimmering and glittering piano trills which suggest the fluttering of the wings of the butterfly:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zX19e...eature=related
Another exquisite song by Debussy (from évocation ) is the wistful L'âme évaporée... taken from Debussy's last song cycle, Deux Romances... his farewell to the genre:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PqmQ3KIb4s
Both of these discs are exquisite and I cannot recommend them highly enough. I have been playing them repeatedly since they first arrived... in spite of having some 1200 other discs to chose from.
Having made such claims for Sandrine Piau, I should note that if anything the collection, Nuit d'étoiles (Mélodies française)...
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4027/...decdace3_o.jpg
performed by Véronique Gens, is even more delicious! Gens studied at the Conservatoire de Paris and won first prize of the school. Her debut in 1986 was with William Christie and his Les Arts Florissants, and like Piau, she has spent much of her career recording and performing Baroque music, collaborating with conductors such as the already mentioned Christie, Marc Minkowski, René Jacobs, Christophe Rousset, Philippe Herreweghe, and Jean-Claude Malgoire. While she began as a Baroque specialist, she has become in demand for roles in Mozart operas, and an interpreter of songs by Berlioz, Debussy, Fauré as well as Joseph Canteloube's Chants d'Auvergne.
Nuit d'étoiles (Mélodies française) contains performances of mélodies by Gabriel Faure, Debussy, and Poulenc. For me the most telling moment of this disc comes during shift from Fauré to Debussy. Gens rounds out her selection of Fauré's songs with Clair de lune and Les berceaux. Les berceaux is a marvelous setting of the poem by Sully Prudhomme... (unfortunately YouTube doesn't have a recording of Gens performance, but they do have a version by the inimitable, Janet Baker):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxdIr0gu9rQ
These final two songs are among the greatest ever written by Fauré, and both stand along with the strongest works in the entire genre of "art song"... including the lieder of Schubert. They also offer a perfect contrast to Debussy's sensuous setting of Pierre Louÿs erotic Chansons de Bilitis. From the very opening notes of the piano we are aware that this music is something new... more languorous... Impressionistic (once again I am unable to find a recording by Gens of this piece, but I can certainly recommend Victoria de los Angeles' version in order to give one a taste):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biNql1cHh7c
For an even greater sense of the contrast between the earlier Fauré and Debussy Gens offers both composer's interpretations of Clair de lune:
Fauré's version is lilting... wistful... but as brilliant as it is (and it is unquestionably that)...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Mjy3Fw5GJY
it is almost nearer in style to the lieder of Schubert and Schumann than it is to the Impressionism of Debussy...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cuaXqpsmoM
Once again... I cannot recommend either singer highly enough.
Can someone explain the appeal of opera to me? I keep listening to it. Every once in awhile I'll hear something I like, but most of the time it just sounds like a bunch of high-pitched women and low-bellowing men singing relatively the same song over and over again in a language I can't understand.
I feel like I'm missing something important to the appreciation of opera.
Of course France doesn't compare with the symphonic heritage of Germany, Austria or Russia but listening to Berlioz's Symphony fantastique, Cesar Franck's Symphony in D minor, or the youthful Bizet's symphony in C we must consider that perhaps the symphonic form's structure is not entirly condusive to the more flexible requirements of the latin temperament. However, as an antidote to the idea that the French are symphonically inferior, here is the finale to one of the greatest symphonies ever composed. It simply blows the listener away.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCKiZRWyv20
Drkshadow03... to an extent all art forms involve a language or vocabulary that must be learned. The average man-on-the street who rarely reads would undoubtedly have just as negative a perception of our passion for reading... of poetry, certainly... almost assuredly of Shakespeare, and unquestionably of James Joyce. To appreciate opera involves putting forth the effort needed to understand operatic form, classical vocals, etc... The voice in classical music is employed as a solo instrument... vocal lines are just as virtuosic and complex as one might expect of the violin in a violin concert. For this reason it sounds far different from popular music in which the voice is tied to a simple song structure. Of course there are classical song forms that are closer to the simple song structure... such as is used in many chorus works (ie. Handel's Hallelujah). Beyond thinking of the voice in classical music... and certainly in opera... as a solo instrument, you need to recognize that opera is a merger of theater, song, and symphonic music. The combination creates a whole greater than the sum of its parts. The best way for anyone serious about first coming to appreciate opera to do so is to attend an actual opera performance in real life. The more accessible (not to say less complex or profound) operas would include those of Mozart (especially Don Giovanni, The Marriage of Figaro, and The Magic Flute), Rossini's Barber of Seville, Puccini's Madame Butterfly and La Boheme, Verdi's Aida and La Traviata, and Bizet's Carmen. All of them are laden with beautiful, singable melodies. Wagner should almost certainly be avoided until you first have a grasp on traditional opera as he represents a huge rift and innovation upon this tradition leading to Richard Strauss, Alban Berg, Claude Debussy, and the whole of the thornier Modernist approaches to opera.
Hmm, I've been listening to a lot of Wagner lately. So I wonder if that might be the problem. Thanks for the reply.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
Wagner completely reinvented the opera. The traditional opera alternates between arias (solos) or duets/trios, etc... which are essentially song-like in form, choruses, and recitatives and/or spoken dialog. One might think of the format as not far removed from the classic musical. The woman/love interest sings a song of longing and loss, then there's a bit of dialog between the woman and her maid, the man (her love interest) enters and sings a joyful song about his impending marriage, all his friends join in for a rousing chorus, he leaves and she, heart-broken, speaks a few lines and then heads into a tragic love aria... etc... The orchestra reinforces the drama, but in the traditional opera it is the voice which drives the drama... in song, recitative, and spoken word. With Wagner the drama is driven by the orchestra in tangent with the voice. The music never stops... there is no break into dialog followed by a song. The entire opera is structured in a symphonic pattern employing the repetition and variation of motifs. Wagner's operas are the most magnificent constructions. There are many who have argued that the "Ring Cycle" may just be the greatest work of art the West has ever produced. He is generally ranked within the top 10 composers of all time... quite often just behind the "3 Immortals": Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart. His impact upon music... and upon art in general cannot be overstated. His fans are quite often fanatics... willing to pay hundreds of dollars to sit though 4 very long nights of performances of his Ring at Bayreuth... the great theater and temple built specifically for the staging of his work. In spite of all of this, he is not someone easy to jump into... especially for those new to opera. A greater appreciation of his achievements is almost certainly dependent upon having developed a good understanding and appreciation of earlier operatic form.
Drkshadow, for a man who enjoys musicals as much as you, opera should be a no brainer. After all, Rent is just an Americanized La Boheme. Unlike StLukesGuild I've never been a big fan of Wagner. Try Verdi instead. In fact, try any of these:
Handel's Hallelujah Chorus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnHksDFHTQI
Mozart's Queen of the Night
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2ODfuMMyss
Rossini's William Tell Overture
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkymTHSbWe0
Schubert's Ave Maria
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bosouX_d8Y
Verdi's La Donna e Mobile
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8A3zetSuYRg
Flotow's Martha
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoFAxX9OQa4
Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V92OBNsQgxU
Wagner's Tannhauser Overture
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDwiYOCnuao
Offenbach's Barcarolle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7czptgEvvU
Delibe's Flower Duet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Qx2lMaMsl8
Bizet's Habanera
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIQQakZPU3Y
Puccini's O Mio Babbino Caro
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rxy4qrnKwVo
Leoncavallo's Vesti La Giubba
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8WOKsdHuc4
Mascagni's Intermezzo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CVyf13B1vE
I freaking hate Rent! I loathe that show! Matt and Trey said it best!Quote:
Originally Posted by mortalterror
When you think about it, opera really should be one of the highest forms of art, if not the highest form of them all (maybe it really is?). It would seem to have everything on the surface, being a combination of music, song, dialogue, stagecraft, drama, costume - as penned by many of the greats, though I don't think for one minute that it is an easy form to immediately appreciate.
I seem to waver in and out of favour with opera. I would very much consider myself a beginner of it and tend to stick to the readily suggested "beginners" operas such as the Mozart's and the Puccini’s. I think that DVD performances are a good and inexpensive way to try to get into this area of theatre performance too and are worth checking out.
A large part of me however, for some reason I can’t quite fathom, thinks that I’ll never really be able to fully emerge myself in this particular form (like dance). Though I do hope that I am wrong here and begin to develop a taste for the opera because I feel it has so much potential that I would be missing out on something, if I couldn’t properly take to it.
That's a good idea too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Neely
Once I listened through most of these pieces, I realized I knew most of them already and like them. I think my problem isn't appreciating individual songs within operas, but individual operas as complete works.Quote:
Originally Posted by mortalterror
Neely... for all my love of opera... and vocal music in general... I am but an amateur aficionado. True opera fanatics are a breed unlike any other. The most nasty arguments I've seen here at Lit Net concerning this or that writer... no matter how bad (Ayn rand, Dan Brown, Bukowski...?) are but civil disagreements in comparison. Opera fanatics become absolutely vicious attacking this singer... often incredibly talented singers... because they personally prefer a different singer. Poor Anna Netrebko, Renee Fleming, and even Magdalena Kozena (all talented singers) get regularly bashed on opera discussion sites (as well as on Youtube) a called sluts, whores, and far worse... simply for having the audacity of not being Maria Callas or whomever the particular fanatics Diva of choice is. I have seen raging arguments about singers from the Paris Opera circa 1910 or La Scala from the 1890s... in spite of the fact that there are no recordings upon which anyone might base an opinion. The same cattiness applies to composers: this fanatic is a Wagnerian, and so he or she must mock Verdi or Puccini (although Strauss may be given the benefit of the doubt for having the good sense to have been a Wagner acolyte). Personally, I'm appreciative of all the singers and composers of real merit. Certainly I my personal favorites... but because I like Wagner does not mean that I dislike Verdi. On the less dark side of opera fanaticism one must credit the fanatics with an unmatched knowledge of opera history, the texts, the proper diction of a given text, and an unfailing support of their idols.
Yes that certainly seems obsessively wild and far from being the civilized connotation that gets attached to the lover of opera! There seems to be a general sneering towards Puccini too, even from Noddy guides to opera, like the one I read this morning, the author of which not only attacked him for his sentimentality, but for the fact that they were popular and thus keeping other operas from off of the stage!
I must say though, I am attracted to the Italian ideal that sees opera not as something possibly stigmatised by the “high” or “elite” label, (not that anybody cares about gossip) but as something which is simply part of daily life, enjoyed by the many. I think that for Italians, art is something that is just the lifeblood of the country - that the fantastic and beautiful are just part of their everyday lives - really, what fabulous people they must be! Of course I’m sure that’s a generalisation, in many respects, but I would just rather believe that regardless...and maybe therefore I should never visit Italy, apart from in my head?
Anyway, personally I intend to keep digging into opera a little at a time.
I've been listening to a lot of 20th and 21st century music recently. There's such a wealth of amazing music in so many different styles.
Piano Concerto #1 - Charles Wuorinen
Symphonies - Igor Stravinsky
Synaphae - Iannis Xenakis
New England Triptych - Walter Piston
Symphony #9 - William Schuman
Pli Selon Pli - Pierre Boulez
Transfigured Wind - Roger Reynolds
Pierrot Lunaire - Arnold Schoenberg
Concerto for Bassoon and Orchestra - Ellen Taafe Zwilich
Time and Again - Tristan Murail
Septet - Ben Johnston
Dialogues - Elliott Carter
Violin Concerto - Unsuk Chin
Sons of Noah - Stephen Hartke
Requiem - Hans Werner Henze
I think it's unfair that people are still so biased against contemporary music that diverges too radically from the Romantic tradition. It's particularly disheartening to hear knowledgeable music fans smugly dismiss works for being too dissonant. I can't stand hearing people mock creative composers for their own unwillingness to meet them on their own terms.
My wife is an arts maven who loves Modernism in literature, art, and movies. But for some reason, musical Modernism irritates her immensely. We've gotten to the point where we joke about each other's tastes, but it still baffles me that she has such an aversion to music that doesn't toe the Romantic party line.
I think that movies bear a lot of the blame. Soundtrack composers have used Romantic-style music to convey sentiments like joy and grief, and atonal music only to convey confusion or anxiety. This has really reinforced people's negative opinion of non-tonal music. It's no wonder my wife calls it "mad slasher music."
I don't expect anyone to listen to exclusively avant-garde music. But the lack of appreciation for the great non-tonal music of the twentieth century is nothing to be proud of.
Regards,
Istvan
Last night my son and I enjoyed an evening with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra (DSO)performing Benjamin Britten's "Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 15" featuring Simone Lamsma on violin followed by the feature performance;
Dmitri Shostakovitch, Symphony No. 7 in C Major, Op. 60 - "Leningrad".
A coworker had given me a voucher for two tickets to any performance by the DSO this season. My son plays violin and he is currently in a Russian phase of life. (Don't ask, all I can say is he is consumed by everything Russian.) Givn that, we evaluated the performances for this year and settled on this one due to the emphasis on violin and the ties to Russia via Shotakovich and "Leningrad".
Samone Lamsma was amazing in the "Britten, playing with great emotion and passion.
"Leningrad" was magnificent in four movements described in Shotakovitch's words thus:
"The first movement tells how our pleasant and peaceful life was disrupted by the ominous force of war. I did not intend to describe the war in a naturalistic manner (the drone of aircraft, the rumble of tanks, artillery salvos, etc.) I wrote so called battle music. I was trying to present the spirit and essence of those harsh events. The exposition of the first movement tells of happy life led by the people...such as the Leningrad volunteer fighters before the war...the entire city...the entire country.
The second movement is a lyrical Scherzo recalling times and events tha were happy. It is tinged with melancholy.
The third movement, a pathetic Adagio expressing ecstatic love of life and the beuties of nature, passes uninterrupted into the fourth which, like the rest, is a fundemental movement of the symphony.
The first movement begins as astruggle, the fourth expresses approaching victory."
The symphony is conducted by Jaap van Zweden.
Here is a link to the performance program notes for further reading:
http://www.dallassymphony.com/attachments/Bk20_2.18.pdf
Next week (February 25th), we will be back at the DSO to see a one night performance by Itzhak Perlman:
http://www.dallassymphony.com/Ticket...1&selected=760
Gilliatt
I tried listening to the first couple of your selections and oh my god it was torture! I do not understand this movement in the arts where something should be repellent before it's considered any good. This is what modern music means to meQuote:
Originally Posted by Babbalanja
Morricone's Ecstasy of Gold
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV0wPBYDQ6Y
and Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xzf0rvQa4Mc
That stuff gets you pumped, gets you movin', makes you feel good. As far as the rest of the 20th century art movement goes, it's not all Mondrian squares, Duchamp's fountains, or Georgia O'Keeffe's silly vagina flowers. There's some good stuff still being made like
Leonetto Cappiello: Umbrella Dance
Franz Marc: Fate of the Animals
Edward Hopper: Nighthawks
Kawase Hasui: Shiba-Zozoji Temple
Max Ernst: Robing of the Bride
Rene Magritte: The Son of Man
M.C. Escher: Relativity
Tamara de Lempicka: Portrait of Mrs. M
Salvador Dali:The Hallucinogenic Toreador
John Biggers: Nubia, Origins of Business and Commerce
Frank Frazetta: A Fighting Man From Mars
Werner Tübke: Early Bourgeois Revolution in Germany
Dai Dudu, Li Tiezi, and Zhang An: Discussing the Divine Comedy With Dante
It's like modernism isn't just weirdos like Joyce. It's cool guys like Hemingway and Fitzgerald too.
It seems that not only don't you understand it, but you blame the music for your inability to understand it. Maybe not all music is there to make you "feel good" in the first place.Quote:
Originally Posted by mortalterror
Like I said before, to each his own. I'd personally feel silly criticizing Telemann or Gregorian chant for the fact that I don't enjoy them. However, when the subject is modern music, people feel well within their rights to revile composers for making music that's different, without taking more than a minute to engage with the work.
Regards,
Istvan
I've listened to plenty of Telemann, and I don't like him. I think I thumbed up one of his songs once on my pandora station and I've never heard the end of it. As far as Gregorian chant goes, some of it I kinda' like but I've never found a song that really clicked with me the way that say, almost anything by Tchaikovsky does.Quote:
Originally Posted by Babbalanja
My point is that I don't think the weirdest and most extreme examples should be the representatives of a movement. Lots of people that are turned off by Stravinsky, would probably like Prokofiev. When I see these modern art assemblages created using garbage and human feces, or splattered at random on a canvas, I think "Really, this is the best the age can produce?" 'Cause I know there are people out there with real talent who aren't getting the attention they deserve, since the only serious art is this new wave avante garde, over everybodys head type stuff. There have got to be great composers working in the traditional styles who are never seeing the light of day because of these freaks, these hacks, these worse than senseless things!
Besides, who says I'd like that type of music better if I understood it more. I think I have a pretty good read on the Goth scene without wanting to raid my mother's make up drawer and ritually cut myself, 'cause I'm all deep and full of ennui. Sometimes the more layers you peel from an onion the less impressive the onion becomes, and you're like "Damn, I knew this was an onion before I started peeling."
The exact opposite is true. Those composers who decide to create in an accessible, familiar, old-fashioned style are generally the ones whose whose work is played.Quote:
Originally Posted by mortalterror
The only composers who can afford to be uncompromising are people who've fought in the trenches for decades and are established pioneers: for instance, Elliott Carter, Charles Wuorinen, Harrison Birtwistle. And even their new works still garner criticism from people who resent even the smallest encroachment upon the musical museum that the concert hall has become. Praise is usually reserved for the interesting-but-unchallenging music of Osvaldo Golijov and Joan Tower.
You can't blame composers like Henryk Gorecki or Ellen Taafe Zwilich for creating in a much more listener-friendly idiom than they used to. If even mainstream modernists like John Corigliano, John Harbison, and Augusta Read Thomas are lumped in with the avant-garde by audiences who haven't kept up with the musical styles of the past half-century, what chance do composers like Unsuk Chin or Kaira Saariajo have for widespread acceptance?
I never said you would. But if you make no effort to understand it, and declare that you can't see the point of making the effort, it's pretty predictable that you won't like it.Quote:
Besides, who says I'd like that type of music better if I understood it more.
And that's not the music's fault.
Regards,
Istvan
Istvan... I take something of a middle ground here. As mortal suggests I'm not certain that increased experience and understanding of a given work or style of art leads to an increased appreciation. It may lead to the exact opposite. My understanding of what Andy Warhol and Damien Hirst have meant to art have led me to a degree of hatred for all they represent that goes well beyond my initial disinterest. 100 years after the fact it appears that Anton Webern was wrong about the future in which even the postman would be whistling atonal tunes. All art is a language and the audience needs to develop an understanding of the vocabulary before they may glean any "meaning" or appreciation from the work. The question becomes whether the pleasure derived from the work is worth the effort. Many artistic innovations left the initial audience somewhat perplexed... but in most cases the new artistic languages were quickly absorbed... by academia, by later generations of artists, and by later generations of art lovers. This is not true of a good portion of the most extreme aspects of Modernism. The museums are filled with audiences for the latest show of Impressionism, Picasso, and Matisse... but one will not need to fight the long lines to get into the show of Duchamp or Piero Manzoni. Joyce's Finnegan's Wake, whether we care to admit it or not, demands so much of the reader and offers a degree of pleasure that does not seem commensurate with the difficulty so that the book is virtually irrelevant outside of academia. The same seems true of a good portion of Modern and Contemporary music.
Personally, I like a good portion of Modern music... even a good portion of that music that is more "difficult": Takemitsu, Messiaen, Tristan Murail, David Lang, Phillip Glass, Julian Anderson, Erkki-Sven Tüür, Einojuhani Rautavaara, Henze, Peter Lieberson. I recently purchased John Cage's Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano, and George Crumb's Ancient Voices of Children and I will admit to be intrigued by both. Still there is a great deal that leaves me baffled and a great deal that strikes me as little more than experimentation for the sake of experimentation... difficulty for the sake of difficulty... or as a result of the misguided idea that difficulty is inherently more profound: if the peons don't get it, it must be deep. I also find that there is a certain presumption of superiority among the adherents of the extremes of Modernist experimentation. It is often presumed that the most experimental or Avant-garde is that which is the most important and that which will last. But who decides what is Avant-garde? When the experimentations of atonalism, dissonance, etc... are taught and promoted in academia, is it not quite possible that they are just as "academic" as any other musical language? There are those who dismiss Puccini, Rachmaninov, Copland... even Philip Glass (he uses tonality, after all), Arvo Part, etc... Of course Bach and Brahms were both accused of being too conservative.
SLG,
You're way ahead of most others in your degree of appreciation of modern music. There are few composers I admire more than Messiaen, Crumb, or Henze.
Once again, I never said that increased exposure to new music would necessarily make everyone a fan. What I did say was that a lack of exposure is certain to foster nothing but misunderstanding of new music.
However, I'll stick my neck out and say that I think new music would be a lot better understood if it were programmed more by orchestras. The Rite of Spring, for instance, is a radical work which still has the power to annoy conservative listeners. Not everyone loves it, but it's part of the standard repertoire. There's nothing mysterious about this, and it's got nothing to do with its musical character or artistic aims. Because it's frequently performed (thanks, Disney), it's familiar enough to audiences to make a dent in the popular consciousness. This, in turn, serves to motivate future performances.
I'm not even convinced that audiences resist new music merely because they can't understand its language. I don't honestly think that audiences understand the complex music of Beethoven, they're just familiar with certain parts of his works and are used to playing it as background music for whatever they happen to be doing. For people who claim that new music could be played wrong and no one would notice, I'd love to play a Beethoven work with a few bars missing or different and see if they notice.
I'm amused to hear that people object to the "presumption of superiority" that characterizes arrogant Modernists. This represents the same double standard I mentioned above. Listeners are not going to get much out of new music without hearing a little about the compositional methods, and that might seem overly cerebral to casual listeners. But how much are they getting out of Mozart or Schubert's painstakingly crafted works if they know nothing about sonata form, for example? I'm not a composer or music theorist myself, but I at least realize I have to know the basics about this music or I'm just using it as ear candy.
Once again, this isn't necessarily about avant-garde music. Serial techniques and dissonance have been around for the better part of a century, and in and of themselves don't make a work boldly experimental. New music isn't supposed to sound like Romantic music any more than Romantic music was supposed to sound like Medieval music. The bottom line is that there's a highly emotional quality to music appreciation, and new music just isn't as cozy and familiar to most listeners as Romantic music.
Regards,
Istvan
However, I'll stick my neck out and say that I think new music would be a lot better understood if it were programmed more by orchestras. The Rite of Spring, for instance, is a radical work which still has the power to annoy conservative listeners. Not everyone loves it, but it's part of the standard repertoire. There's nothing mysterious about this, and it's got nothing to do with its musical character or artistic aims. Because it's frequently performed (thanks, Disney), it's familiar enough to audiences to make a dent in the popular consciousness. This, in turn, serves to motivate future performances.
That is fair enough. I'll admit to having first been exposed to opera through Looney Tunes cartoons and the Little Rascals. I suspect that a great portion of the problem may be the dominance of popular music through the mass-media. Stravinsky, Bartok, Shostakovitch, etc... all benefited from exposure on TV, radio, film, etc... Little of late Modernism and Contemporary music has had this advantage (although I can think of exceptions such as Kubrick's use of Penderecki, Glass' and Tan Dun's film scores). I also suspect that the situation may be an evolution of an ever larger gap between the audience and the composers: the audience fails to support the given artist and so he or she in turn pays less and less attention to the needs or wants of the audience. The composers become increasingly irrelevant to the larger audience just as they become increasingly irrelevant to the composer. How does one stop this downward spiral? I often thought that this was a great part of the dilemma which Hermann Hesse presented in his novel The Glass Bead Game.
I'm not even convinced that audiences resist new music merely because they can't understand its language. I don't honestly think that audiences understand the complex music of Beethoven, they're just familiar with certain parts of his works and are used to playing it as background music for whatever they happen to be doing. For people who claim that new music could be played wrong and no one would notice, I'd love to play a Beethoven work with a few bars missing or different and see if they notice.
Of course the audience I am referring to is not that of the disinterested masses, but rather those who are passionate about classical (or "serious"?) music. Certainly there are those who would be quite happy with those discs of excerpts: Mozart's and Tchaikovsky's "greatest hits" that contain all the famous bits that they are familiar with. Still there are a good number of those who are quite knowledgeable of classical music who have little interest in most contemporary classical. There are others, such as myself, who have invested a good deal of time and effort into the exploration of contemporary classical and who admit that there are certain styles and composers who simply do not resonate just as there are certain artists and art styles that I have little or no use for.
I'm amused to hear that people object to the "presumption of superiority" that characterizes arrogant Modernists. This represents the same double standard I mentioned above. Listeners are not going to get much out of new music without hearing a little about the compositional methods, and that might seem overly cerebral to casual listeners.
I understand... and I agree that there are those who make judgments of contemporary art, music, literature, etc... without having made a serious attempt to explore it. I agree that there are incidents in contemporary art that strike me as worthy of the overused analogy with the "Emperor's New Clothes"... but quite often this analogy is presented by those who have made little or no attempt to understand, let alone appreciate, what they would denigrate. Where the "presumption of superiority" irritates me is when academics or tied-in-the-wool Modernists would dismiss the opinions of anyone who does not embrace their musical idols or artists/composers who dare to work within an accessible (hence outdated) style. It is quite possible to be well acquainted with and knowledgeable of Modern art and dislike Duchamp, DeKooning, and Warhol, just as it is quite possible to be knowledgeable of contemporary classical music and not be all that fond of Ligetti or Stockhausen. (By the way... I actually quite like Ligetti's Mechanical Music... elements of Bach and contrapuntal structure... but found the 100 Metronomes piece so retarded as to virtually ruin the disc)
But how much are they getting out of Mozart or Schubert's painstakingly crafted works if they know nothing about sonata form, for example? I'm not a composer or music theorist myself, but I at least realize I have to know the basics about this music or I'm just using it as ear candy.
Again, I agree... but doesn't this come to the issue of whether the artist can make the appreciation of the art seem worthy of the effort? That which intrigues or piques the interest of the audience surely has a far better chance of being further explored than that which seemingly assaults the senses. I have long been intrigued with medieval music... even plainchant... but admittedly it was little more than "ear candy"... something which established a given relaxing and seductive mood. But this eventually led me to a further exploration of the forms and history and individual composers. I was struck with the manner in which composers such as Pérotin and Léonin made the first forays into polyphony the results were rejected as being as Godless and Satanic as Elvis and Little Richard.
Once again, this isn't necessarily about avant-garde music. Serial techniques and dissonance have been around for the better part of a century, and in and of themselves don't make a work boldly experimental. New music isn't supposed to sound like Romantic music any more than Romantic music was supposed to sound like Medieval music.
Again I agree. Atonalism, serialism, Musique concrète, and even electronic music has been around long enough to now be just as academic as Romanticism or Impressionism. The problem is that we cannot know what the new music which most resonates and lasts will or should sound like. Certainly it shouldn't sound like Romanticism... but it may employ Romanticist elements just as Neo-classicism (in art and music) employed classical forms and some camps of minimalism employ elements of modal music derived from Medieval or even non-Western sources. As for a work being "boldly experimental" one never knows where such experimentation lies. Bach is surely one of the most boldly experimental and original composers who ever lived... in spite of the fact that his music clearly adheres to the Baroque traditions he inherited.
Right now, by the way, I'm listening to Hindemith's Kammermusik no. 2. He is someone I have been making a concerted effort as of late to explore in greater detail.
I'm glad someone else thinks the "Emperor's New Clothes" metaphor is overused. It demonstrates another facet of the double-standard that works against new music. It seems there's no amount of suspicion that's unwarranted when it comes to contemporary music: people seem quite content to be wary of the motives of unfamiliar composers, as if it's the worst thing in the world to find value in a work that the composer isn't wholly committed to. It never occurs to such listeners that the catalog of prolific composers such as Mozart and Haydn may be full of hackwork that sounds just fine to our ears.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
And the performance art stunts of Cage and Ligeti (which comprise only a small subset of their works) seem to be all that music fans care to know about their output. Instead of giving them credit for a creative sense of humor or for making comments on the nature of performance, listeners revile them for not being serious enough in their craft.
Then there's the accusation of elitism that conservative listeners launch against composers of new music. Such listeners delight in rewriting history so that most of the 20th century becomes a Dark Age where noisy, avant-garde music was forced on hapless audiences by a totalitarian establishment. Conventional composers, according to this mythology, were harassed at universities and driven underground because of the stranglehold that serialism had over every aspect of musical performance, production, and broadcast. This comical fantasy allows conservatives to feel virtuous in cheering for the underdogs, even though their favored composers share the same Romantic musical values that have dominated serious music for centuries.
The passivity of the modern listener has to be identified as as a major problem in this matter. Thanks to modern recording, there's no limit to the amount of times a listener can hear a work. The prospect of gaining familiarity with new music has never been easier. However, instead of taking advantage of the possibilities of new technology in expanding their horizons, listeners have decided to use it merely to collect and compare countless different versions of the same warhorses. Though they'll claim that they're open to new music, most music fans adopt listening habits that ensure that they're exposed to and responsive to very little.
Regards,
Istvan
Ah, a little musical debate cropping up around the classical thread, eh?
Babalanja--I do sympathize with your point that it's important to keep music vital and innovative. Personally speaking, I can't say that I connect easily to more atonal music as a genre, but am open to listening to new music, and have been rewarded with finding some pieces and composers I really enjoy and/or find interesting as a result of giving things a try even when it doesn't sound like the kind of thing I would like. At the same time, I wonder about this:
I think it's unfair to point the finger at orchestras in this case, and not even the right analysis of why and how a piece can become "mainstream." Orchestras cannot actually spend huge amounts of their time putting on experimental pieces because they will go under. They need to put on programs that will sell tickets so that they can maintain their hall, pay their musicians, and keep in business. I know that I myself, while I enjoy hearing some unfamiliar music on a program, am much more likely to spend the money out of a modest budget and spend the time schlepping downtown for a concert made up mostly of pieces I know already or a style I am sure that I will enjoy than I am likely to take a gamble on a program made up entirely of new untested pieces that are probably atonal or experimental. I have had more unpleasant listening experiences with the latter than otherwise, and so I am not likely to invest time and money in trying more of the same. The majority of people interested in classical music (who are in turn a minority of the listening population at large) seem to feel the same way about taking a gamble when going out to the symphony, and I don't really see what the pay off is (either in terms of the tangible money intake or the intangible reward of an enthusiastic group of listeners to perform for) for an orchestra in putting on programs that are unlikely to draw the core music fans, let alone a portion of the more general audience. While I agree that it's a good idea for orchestras to be open to playing newer works, I do think that it's only reasonable for an orchestra to not put something on until there's a decent indication that there will be an audience for a work and that it's something a certain percentage of people will be receptive to.Quote:
However, I'll stick my neck out and say that I think new music would be a lot better understood if it were programmed more by orchestras. The Rite of Spring, for instance, is a radical work which still has the power to annoy conservative listeners. Not everyone loves it, but it's part of the standard repertoire. There's nothing mysterious about this, and it's got nothing to do with its musical character or artistic aims. Because it's frequently performed (thanks, Disney), it's familiar enough to audiences to make a dent in the popular consciousness. This, in turn, serves to motivate future performances.
The good news in this day and age is that the concert hall is not the only way people can hear music. Music has the chance to get into people's heads via film, TV, youtube, this thread, etc. You even suggest this in your comment above. Part of the reason that The Rite of Spring was able to become quite widely accepted was not because it was played more in orchestra halls, but because of the exposure it got in Disney's Fantasia and elsewhere. The orchestras began playing it because it had become popular and was something people were interested in coming to a symphony hall to hear, not the other way around. As I said above, I am unlikely to buy tickets to hear a purely experimental music programme, but I will certainly listen outside my comfort zone on Pandora or when watching a film, or when a friend plays a recording for me. That's the way music of almost any kind makes the transition to being something that will sell tickets. One can certainly see the effect of film as an influential place to draw listeners in the way one strand of modern orchestral music, that of movie soundtracks such as those by John Williams and others, has in recent years been increasingly performed in symphony halls and draws wildly successful crowds of listeners.
This brings us to your complaints about the "passivity of the modern listener" and the burden he or she should bear. Again, while I certainly understand what you mean when you say that some music will take more time and thought, even effort, to appreciate than others, I don't know that I agree with your basic assumption that it is fundamentally the fault of the listener for being too "passive." (I also don't know that the modern listener is, on average, significantly more or less passive than the listener of the past. There are certainly more potential listeners for any kind of music in the age of recordings than there ever were before.)
First of all, I don't agree with this. Mozart and Schubert can absolutely be appreciated without any knowledge of the sonata form. That is one of the reasons that they are composers who not only continue to be performed but to draw in people from outside the classical aficionado circles. It is one of the great things about music as an art form that it can speak to a person's emotions directly without any need for intellectual explanation. Absolutely knowing something about music will enhance a person's experience of it, and will help them to have a deeper, richer listening experience, but outside knowledge is not necessary to having a fulfilling listening experience. To refer to listening without knowledge as treating music as "ear candy" is to diminish the value of the fact that a person can have a very powerful and meaningful experience with music even when the intellectual side of the brain is turned off. Indeed, this is probably the part of the musical experience that all of us (knowledgeable and ignorant alike) treasure most. I think it's a great mistake as someone who appreciates classical music of any kind to say that a person cannot appreciate certain music without basic knowledge.Quote:
I'm amused to hear that people object to the "presumption of superiority" that characterizes arrogant Modernists. This represents the same double standard I mentioned above. Listeners are not going to get much out of new music without hearing a little about the compositional methods, and that might seem overly cerebral to casual listeners. But how much are they getting out of Mozart or Schubert's painstakingly crafted works if they know nothing about sonata form, for example? I'm not a composer or music theorist myself, but I at least realize I have to know the basics about this music or I'm just using it as ear candy."
This is what turns a large number of people off the idea of so much as trying a classical music concert. I cannot count the number of times I've brought a friend to a classical concert and had that person say that they've never been to something like this because they don't know enough about music, that they wouldn't ever have come at all if they weren't with someone like myself who knows about this stuff. When I'm with someone like this my policy is to say almost nothing about the intellectual side of the music, the form, etc. before we've heard some of the music. I always reply to this kind of comment that this music is not about knowing something, and that anyone can appreciate "classical" music, but that you do need to listen carefully and really give it your full attention. I let the person I'm with listen and feel what's going on in the music, and usually that person comes out at the interval with some kind of opinion and often a number of questions. That's the point, after they've got their feet wet, when it's helpful to start teaching someone about something like the sonata form and giving them a vocabulary to express things about what they've experienced. Yes, it's true that classical music is going to take more thought and attention to get into than the typical pop song that a more general audience is used to, so I agree that there may be more effort of some kind necessary on the listener's part, but I think attentive listening is a different thing than having to have specialized knowledge, and I think that's a distinction that it would be helpful for people to make when speaking to people who aren't classical music buffs and who may see this talk about needing to know certain things in order to appreciate music as, not only a barrier to ever being able to get into this stuff, but also a sign that the stuff will not speak to them on a non-intellectual or abstact level and thus may not be worth the effort of getting into.
I think this is a good point...though perhaps not in quite the way you mean. Yes, familiarity may play a part in this. It takes some time for people to adjust to new things. I'm not sure, however, that this is solely where you can lay the blame for more modern music not being as popular as, say, romantic music. There's also an issue with the way much of more modern music is aiming to make people feel. Many 20th/21st century pieces are trying to be disturbing, unsettling, generally set the listener off kilter, and though I think there are some brilliant pieces written in this kind of mode, I don't know that you can entirely blame people if they don't want to regularly submit themselves to being unsettled and shaken up by the music they're listening to. Frankly, I think it's this emotional component rather than anything to do with an intellectual challenge on the part of modern music that makes it less accessible to people. Speaking for myself, I do appreciate certain modern pieces, but I know I have to be in the right mood and frame of mind to experience them in a way that I don't have to when listening to other types of music. Last year my university had a four day series of concerts making up a Messiaen festival, and I attended nearly all of it. Having some inkling of what I was going into with all Messiaen all the time, I went into it in a spirit of intellectual interest and emotional openness as a listener, and that worked fairly well, but parts were still rough going. Some of the pieces were really wonderful and fascinating, but some of his work can become rather oppressive in its eerie and strained strangeness. On the final day of the concert series I already had a headache, I had been struggling with a bad case of writer's block most of the day, and the end of time was more or less the last feeling I wanted to embody. I've never felt that kind of reluctance coming into Mozart after a bad day, which I think speaks to one of the reasons that Mozart is more universally popular than Messiaen. I'm not a person who shies away from being intellectually challenged, but I do shy away from having uncomfortable emotional experiences when I'm just not up for them.Quote:
The bottom line is that there's a highly emotional quality to music appreciation, and new music just isn't as cozy and familiar to most listeners as Romantic music.
If I'm in the right mood I can find a lot to appreciate in Crumb's Ancient Voices of Children, or Shoenberg's Pierrot Luniere, or one of Shostakovich's string quartets, but if I'm not in just the right mental or emotional state those works will make a bad mood worse, may even induce an emotional funk where none was before, and can simply drive me crazy. On the other hand, regardless of what my frame of mind is, if I turn on most pieces by Bach, Mozart, Brahms, Vivaldi, and many others, I know that I not only won't be dragged down by the experience, but have many times been lifted up and healed by such listening. I think it only stands to reason that people are going to more frequently seek out an experience that they know is going to be helpful and enjoyable than they are going to force themselves to undergo something that may be intentionally either forcing them to confront something painful or simply be unnerving on a more general level. No, not all modern classical music has this sort of disconcerting effect, but it is a huge characteristic of much of the genre, and I think it's this unnerving emotional quality rather than an intellectual knowledge issue that needs to be addressed regarding modern music.
It could indeed be a way into defending this sort of music as well as a way of understanding what turns people off about it. Clearly genres like heavy metal and punk rock have a huge mass appeal because they tap into angry, dissonant, negative emotions. Part of the catharsis and confrontation with the messier side of life that people get out of that kind of more popular music could also be a way into explaining to people some of the things one can get out of dissonance in classical compositions. Or, similarly, such "uncomfortable" music might be explained by an analogy to "uncomfortable" or unsettling themes in films or books, or other kinds of art. People get that you're not going to come out of Schindler's List or some of Bergman's darker films with an up feeling, but that it is still worthwhile to confront what is expressed in such films, and atonality and dissonance are sometimes used in very analogous ways to help us confront and deal with life's less pleasant or less "harmonious" aspects. Or, you might compare the sort of wry, sometimes dark, sometimes simply offbeat sense of humor in certain modern musical compositions to the writing style of someone like Vonnegut. These sorts of comparisons may be more helpful for conveying the sort of purpose this music serves than simply saying that a person simply can't understand it without being more intellectual/academic in his or her musical approach.
PL,
Thanks for the response. I really don't consider this a debate, just knowledgeable fans trading opinions.
Once again, I have a reply from a listener who is more open-minded than average! I envy you going to the Messiaen concert, and I commend you for being able to go outside your safety zone and enjoy it.
I think the analysis you made about the economics of symphony orchestras and modern music is an oft-told tale that doesn't jibe with the reality of the concert hall. Just look at what Esa Pekka Salonen did in his nearly two decades conducting the LA Phil: he programmed a lot of contemporary music (much of which had been commissioned by the orchestra) and his tenure was wildly successful. James Levine has done much the same here at the BSO. Am I saying that orchestras would do fine without the standard repertoire? No. But the notion that reliance on contemporary music is commercial suicide isn't borne out by the facts.
Sticking with the old warhorses is a compromise that bears a lot of blame for the state of symphonies today. In the long run, that tactic merely reinforces the impression that classical music is about the dead guys. As the aging audience that prefers their old favorites dies off, no new fans are taking their place. If the concert hall is to survive, it has to remain relevant and not merely become a musical museum.
I really disagree with this statement:
This is like saying that someone who hasn't developed a palate for fine wine can appreciate a rare Chateau Latour. He can drink it, and may even enjoy it (though chances are he's not going to), but the notion of appreciation doesn't enter into it. In the same way, just being in the room while Mozart is playing doesn't constitute appreciation.Quote:
Mozart and Schubert can absolutely be appreciated without any knowledge of the sonata form. That is one of the reasons that they are composers who not only continue to be performed but to draw in people from outside the classical aficionado circles.
Give Mozart and Schubert some credit for the depth of their genius: their music shouldn't be reduced to ear candy. If a listener doesn't even understand basics like sonata form, this brilliant, painstakingly crafted art is just pleasant melodies, nothing more. The same can be said of modern music: if you don't make the effort to engage this music, to understand its aims, and to condition your expectations of it, it will just be (as you said) an unpleasant listening experience and nothing more.
Regards,
Istvan
Babbalanja- I'm glad someone else thinks the "Emperor's New Clothes" metaphor is overused.
Overused... or misused. Before one goes about declaring that the emperor has no clothes... that contemporary art or music is a hoax... it might do well to make a concerted effort toward understanding it. Seriously, Chinese opera does nothing for me... and there are other art forms that leave me equally baffled or uninterested. Still I would avoid making a rush judgment about whether the aesthetic of Chinese opera or the Japanese tea ceremony were a joke without having made some attempt toward understanding it.
Babbalanja- It demonstrates another facet of the double-standard that works against new music. It seems there's no amount of suspicion that's unwarranted when it comes to contemporary music: people seem quite content to be wary of the motives of unfamiliar composers, as if it's the worst thing in the world to find value in a work that the composer isn't wholly committed to. It never occurs to such listeners that the catalog of prolific composers such as Mozart and Haydn may be full of hackwork that sounds just fine to our ears.
Yes... there may be "hackwork"... by the standards of Mozart's and Haydn's finer works... but these obviously are only truly recognized with experience... just as I assume that I could recognize the "hackwork" by Raphael, Rubens, or Modigliani far easier than someone with less experience in looking at art. But one cannot fully blame the audience. Art is a two-way communication. If the audience is expected to be willing to put forth a degree of effort, the artist also needs to consider the wants, needs, and expectations of the audience. We have the Romantic/Modernist notion where the artist needs not give the least concern to the audience as long as he or she follows his or her vision. "Self Expression" is the rallying call... but somehow I don't imagine that Michelangelo or Rubens or Haydn or Bach could have got away with churning out an art which left the audience baffled... or annoyed.
Babbalanja- And the performance art stunts of Cage and Ligeti (which comprise only a small subset of their works) seem to be all that music fans care to know about their output. Instead of giving them credit for a creative sense of humor or for making comments on the nature of performance, listeners revile them for not being serious enough in their craft.
I'll grant you this... admittedly not having explored Cage or Ligeti to the extent I have explored Mozart or Bach. Yes... there are sub-par works by the masters... even musical jokes... such as Mozart's pornographic lieder. On the other hand, the problem may owe much to the critics and historians who have made so much out of those jokes. Cage's 4:33 has become virtually the single piece which is always talked about... just as Duchamp's Fountain (the urinal)... is championed by the critics as some grand challenge to the notion of what art is, when in reality the work was never intended to be seen as an actual work of art, but rather as a prop in a comic performance piece.
Babbalanja- Then there's the accusation of elitism that conservative listeners launch against composers of new music. Such listeners delight in rewriting history so that most of the 20th century becomes a Dark Age where noisy, avant-garde music was forced on hapless audiences by a totalitarian establishment. Conventional composers, according to this mythology, were harassed at universities and driven underground because of the stranglehold that serialism had over every aspect of musical performance, production, and broadcast.
This accusation may be an exaggeration... but it certainly is rooted in a degree of fact. The avant garde always evolves into the academy... and quite often abuses its power... as a form of taking revenge for those years when they were the underdogs. One can easily document the ascension of Modernism to academia in American art schools. Drawing departments were dismantled. Even the tools of life drawing were destroyed: vast collections of plaster busts were ordered smashed. (The Pittsburgh Museum of Art houses one of the surviving collections of such casts of Greek and Roman sculpture and even entire facades of Gothic cathedrals. The collection is akin to walking through a 3-D art history book.) Figurative painters were muscled out of their positions. Students were pressured to conform to the teacher's vision. Joseph Albers at Yale was notorious, and his mistreatment of students who did not share his vision on art included students of a conservative bent to the most experimental (Robert Rauschenberg, for example). Such a prejudice against anything that did not fit in with the teacher's own vision of what art should be, remained even during the time when I earned my degree at one of the leading art schools in the nation. Obviously, the more experimental aspects of Modernism never supplanted the Romanticist drive in other aspects of the culture: in film scores, in the concert halls, or in the public tastes. Such a dominance by tied-in-the-wool Modernists is no longer a reality. We now live in an era when there is no clear notion of where the cutting edge is... (although now there is something of a rise in academia of faculty who were part of Pop and Post-Pop which was something of an antithesis of late Modernism). As a result we have Minimalists, Neo-Romantics, Late Modernists, Polystylists, Neo-Impressionists, etc... and none seems to have a clear hold on academia or the music press/critics.
Petrarch's Love- I think it's unfair to point the finger at orchestras in this case... Orchestras cannot actually spend huge amounts of their time putting on experimental pieces because they will go under. They need to put on programs that will sell tickets so that they can maintain their hall, pay their musicians, and keep in business.
This is where a degree of hypocrisy enters into the equation. One the one hand we have the artists who demand the right of "self expression"... the freedom to create whatever they wish without the least concern for the demands of the audience and patrons. One the other hand we have the same artists blaming this audience and these patrons when they refuse to financially support their experimentation. We live within a free market system. We cannot expect that the audience... the larger public... should be expected to financially support something that does not resonate with them... something that quite often makes no attempt to engage the audience. Of course the least suggestion that an artist should make an attempt to engage the audience... to consider their wants or needs... is dismissed under the Romantic/Modernist thinking as pandering... "selling out"... as if Shakespeare was a sell out... or Mozart was a sell out. I don't believe the gap between the audience and the Modernist artists can be solely blamed upon either party... but the reality is that I doubt that this gap is going to be closed by the disinterested audience. It needs to be the artists who make an attempt to engage the audience... to draw them in.
PL-The good news in this day and age is that the concert hall is not the only way people can hear music. Music has the chance to get into people's heads via film, TV, youtube, this thread, etc.
True... and we might do well to remember that while John Cage does not have the audience Mozart now has, neither of them have the audience share of Lady Gaga. Classical music has an admittedly limited, but still sizable audience, and if we measure the sales of CDs I might even suggest that John Cage and Ligeti and certainly Philip Glass may just have a larger audience than Mozart or Bach ever enjoyed during their lifetime.
Babbalanja- Listeners are not going to get much out of new music without hearing a little about the compositional methods, and that might seem overly cerebral to casual listeners. But how much are they getting out of Mozart or Schubert's painstakingly crafted works if they know nothing about sonata form, for example? I'm not a composer or music theorist myself, but I at least realize I have to know the basics about this music or I'm just using it as ear candy."
PL- First of all, I don't agree with this. Mozart and Schubert can absolutely be appreciated without any knowledge of the sonata form. That is one of the reasons that they are composers who not only continue to be performed but to draw in people from outside the classical aficionado circles. It is one of the great things about music as an art form that it can speak to a person's emotions directly without any need for intellectual explanation. Absolutely knowing something about music will enhance a person's experience of it, and will help them to have a deeper, richer listening experience, but outside knowledge is not necessary to having a fulfilling listening experience.
Yes... I agree. This is the "hook" or the "engagement"... "seduction"... of which I spoke. With nearly every work of art that I am enamored of there was something that engaged me from the start. I clearly remember first attending a Paul Klee exhibition just out of my teens. I had virtually no interest in Modernism and absolutely no use for abstraction... but something in Klee's work piqued my interest: perhaps it was the playfulness... the color... or the various elements that might attract a bibliophile such as myself. Whatever it was, I ended in purchasing the catalog for the exhibition (I still have it... two copies, actually) and kept looking at the work... eventually reading up on the artist... and then eventually looking at more and more related artists.
One does not need to know the history of the development of European painting to appreciate this:
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4070/...f32ed842_o.jpg
Standing before this huge canvas one can simply feel the joy and movement of the dance, the childlike abandon of the drawing, the sheer sensuality of the color. Later one can explore the history of this painting and where Matisse fit in within the tradition of French and European painting: his echoes of Cezanne's bathers, of Renaissance paintings of the dance, of the influence of Persian and Islamic art filtered through Ingres and Delacroix.
This is what turns a large number of people off the idea of so much as trying a classical music concert. I cannot count the number of times I've brought a friend to a classical concert and had that person say that they've never been to something like this because they don't know enough about music, that they wouldn't ever have come at all if they weren't with someone like myself who knows about this stuff.
I agree. It should not be presumed that great art is difficult or inaccessible and that it can only be appreciated by those "in the know." I'm not suggesting that great art cannot or should not be difficult or challenging... but I am questioning the notion that only that which is difficult or challenging can be great art... and that the audience can only appreciate such with the appropriate degree of experience. There is such a bias even now. There are those who would dismiss Puccini, Rachmaninov, Tchaikovsky, or even Mozart because they are too accessible... too popular... and as such they cannot be as good as they sound. I love Wagner and Mussorgsky and Stravinsky and Arvo Part... but I do not assume that they are more profound than Mozart. Mortal Terror has a quote he is fond of using of the two great Modernist writers, William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway:
Faulkner: "[Hemingway] has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary."
Hemingway: "Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?"
As much as I love Faulkner, I must agree with Hemingway... depth of meaning and emotional content does not demand labyrinthine complexities that challenge the audience.
Clearly genres like heavy metal and punk rock have a huge mass appeal because they tap into angry, dissonant, negative emotions. Part of the catharsis and confrontation with the messier side of life that people get out of that kind of more popular music could also be a way into explaining to people some of the things one can get out of dissonance in classical compositions. Or, similarly, such "uncomfortable" music might be explained by an analogy to "uncomfortable" or unsettling themes in films or books, or other kinds of art. People get that you're not going to come out of Schindler's List or some of Bergman's darker films with an up feeling, but that it is still worthwhile to confront what is expressed in such films, and atonality and dissonance are sometimes used in very analogous ways to help us confront and deal with life's less pleasant or less "harmonious" aspects.
Yes. the analogy with Schindler's List, in particular, is one that I have thought of myself. I have little doubt that Spielberg's masterpiece is one of the greatest films I have ever seen. The acting is superlative. The cinematography is stunning. Everything about the film is enthralling... but it is also such an emotionally draining film that I have not watched it many times. Casablanca, Some Like it Hot, Psycho, The Shining, are also all brilliant films... but I can watch them again and again. If I am taking the wife out for an evening of artistic entertainment I'm probably going to avoid Schindler's List, Schoenberg, or the Francis Bacon exhibition (which by the way... I did make the mistake of taking her to without much success, I might add. Screaming Popes and Sado-Masochistic Homoerotic icons just didn't resonate with her for some reason.) :ack2::frown2::lol:
I ruined a perfectly fine evening listening to Shoenberg, Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Messiaen, Cage, Xenakis, Ligeti, Penderecki, and Part, but since I'd rather hear Monteverdi or Schubert I'm some sort of small minded cretin? I guess open minded people are just the one's that agree with you. And what's all this talk about warhorses and museums? I like museums. Would it really be such a tragedy if the whole world happened to look like this http://www.flickr.com/photos/4725704...44816627/show/ ?Quote:
Originally Posted by Babbalanja
I don't appreciate the implication that I'm somehow backward or mired in the past. I'm totally open to change and the new if I think it's an improvement. High speed internet, iphones, and solar power: sign me up. I'm convinced. But I haven't heard one thing on this board to make me believe that these space age bums are better than Beethoven. I haven't heard anything to make me suspect they are superior to Elgar, Puccini, Mahler, Debussy, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Rachmaninoff, Holst, Ravel, Prokofiev, Orff, Copland, Barber, Morricone, or Williams. I don't trust the way these new historians frame the narrative. When it comes to write the history of 20th century film it's going to be all Stan Brakhage and no Stanley Kubrick, and the Beatle's best tune wasn't Hey Jude, it's Revolution 9.
You want the whole world to look like a bunch of Hindu statues having sex, while Jesus looks on?! :smilewinkgrin:Quote:
Originally Posted by mortalterror
Yes, yes I do.Quote:
Originally Posted by Drkshadow03
I've been listening recently to a lot of 20th century composers who fell into the black hole between the radicals and the Romantics.
The Second Symphony (1959) of Henri Dutilleux is an update of the decadent French music of Debussy and Ravel, from a composer who embraced Modernism.
George Perle was a Jersey boy who pioneered "twelve-tone tonality," as demonstrated in his String Quartet #5 (1960). Sonata form for the space age!
Carlos Chávez was a Mexican modernist who was associated with Copland in the Thirties. I really love his vibrant chamber music, but this performance of his Sinfonía India by Dudamel and the Berlin PO is phenomenal.
Regards,
Istvan
SLG,
I don't know what to make of the suspicion you seem to harbor against artists and composers:
Does this grotesque caricature really address the issue of why contemporary classical music is underappreciated? Am I wrong in thinking that creating an imaginary villian like this is a convenient way for certain listeners to evade responsibility for their own conservatism?Quote:
One the one hand we have the artists who demand the right of "self expression"... the freedom to create whatever they wish without the least concern for the demands of the audience and patrons. One the other hand we have the same artists blaming this audience and these patrons when they refuse to financially support their experimentation.
I wonder what it is about artistic self-expression that inspires such contempt in you. Shouldn't that be the artist's aim in the first place? It seems to me that artists who actively gauge the "wants, needs, and expectations of the audience" usually come up with derivative music. If that's what they want to compose, great. But I'd rather they create the way they want, and see if I can meet them on their own terms.
Regards,
Istvan
the only classical music I listen to is from Star wars but I do love it
I ruined a perfectly fine evening listening to Shoenberg, Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Messiaen, Cage, Xenakis, Ligeti, Penderecki, and Part, but since I'd rather hear Monteverdi or Schubert I'm some sort of small minded cretin? I guess open minded people are just the one's that agree with you. And what's all this talk about warhorses and museums? I like museums. Would it really be such a tragedy if the whole world happened to look like this http://www.flickr.com/photos/4725704...44816627/show/ ?
Great slide-show... but there are some rather abstract works there, Mortal, that would have been largely dismissed as crude or primitive until the advent of Modernism opened up the possibilities:
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4069/...5cee5b00_o.jpg
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4039/...82e7969a_o.jpg
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4055/...d56a0603_o.jpg
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4056/...4a26e34f_o.jpg
Surely such works, which I agree are quite marvelous, are no more or less "abstract" than these Modernist works:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2742/...32b11cc7_o.jpg
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4022/...1ddb90fc_o.jpg
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4036/...31ddb4b9_o.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2793/...34071efd_o.jpg
The name of the site, however, is something of a misnomer because I do find something there that certainly "sucks":
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4064/...2cac560c_o.jpg
Frank Frazetta is an artistic equivalent of Anne Rice, Dan Brown, or J.K. Rowling... with the sole exception that the man can certainly render, where Rowling and Brown certainly struggle to produce a well crafted paragraph.