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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Musical appreciation
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
So I saw and followed a link to a survey on musical appreciation form twitter the other day.
You don't have to follow, it is just for context, but it is quite interesting.
I think it raises some interesting questions. What is it that makes you go all chill over music. What stirs the emotions? And why - not about particular pieces, but about styles and feelings?
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Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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Barnabas62
Host
# 9110
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Posted
This may be a useful link.
I find that some music leaves me cold, some stirs me on very deep emotional levels, but I find it hard to analyse these variable reactions more deeply. The best word I can find is that I 'resonate' to some pieces of music more than others, and that 'resonance' can open the door to the most profound feelings of which I am capable; joy and sorrow in particular.
In my case, the resonance does not seem to be genre-specific. Classic and contemporary, secular and religious, with or without words, don't seem to provide much of a clue as to the depth of the 'resonance' I feel.
But I know what I like, and I know what moves me.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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hatless
Shipmate
# 3365
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Posted
A very interesting set of questions, and an interesting exercise to think about them.
I'm not sure that focusing on the chills is the best approach. I almost never get the chills from Brahms, say, he just isn't that sort of composer (though there's always the possibility of the next brilliant performance).
In fact my main physical responses to music are to want to dance or to produce tears.
I am also aware of having worn many pieces of music out. After the eighth time they no longer do it, and it gets harder and harder to find new pieces and new genres where I'll get that wonderful feeling again. It doesn't seem to matter, though. I still enjoy stuff that has a gentler effect.
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My crazy theology in novel form
Posts: 4531 | From: Stinkers | Registered: Sep 2002
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blackbeard
Ship's Pirate
# 10848
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Posted
it does seem to me that we are still a long way from saying why a particular piece of music has a specified effect. We do seem to have forgotten quite a lot since the Baroque era when composers could use particular techniques to convey the required emotion, but even then it was far from being an exact science. Part of the problem could be the complexity of human emotions, for instance a song with a feeling of sadness can bring with it an emotional release and ultimately joy; and music which on the face of it carries no emotional charge at all, for instance a Bach fugue or church plain chant, can nevertheless bring joy, or at least, a relief from sadness.
People can develop over time. For instance, vocal music used to hold little charm for this pirate, who preferred orchestral music; more recently, possibly as a result of trying to learn how to sing properly, I have come to prefer the sound of the human voice, at its purest when unaccompanied. YMMV.
I have also come to suspect that, while there is music and dancing, all is not lost.
Posts: 823 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Dec 2005
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
One of my comments was that it is very much at the time and place. It doesn't always work somewhere else or another time.
So I love November Rain - the first time I heard it it gave me a chill, but not any more. Still stunning, but doesn't grab me like it did.
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Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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Mark Wuntoo
Shipmate
# 5673
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Posted
This is a fascinating subject, one which I consulted whilst looking at the links between music and movement in charismatic churches. The composers of 'charismatic' songs certainly know how to elicit emtion (work people into a frenzy, get them weeping or jumping, for example). One common technique I observed was of rising melody line and crescendo. In my experience this is not confined to charismatic congregations but it is found more frequently there.
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Blessed are the cracked for they let in the light.
Posts: 1950 | From: Somewhere else. | Registered: Mar 2004
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Rocinante
Shipmate
# 18541
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
I almost never get the chills from Brahms, say, he just isn't that sort of composer (though there's always the possibility of the next brilliant performance).
I must leap to the defence of Brahms. Two pieces I cannot listen to if I am not in a robust emotional state are the Adagio of his first piano concerto and the final movement of his German Requiem. There is pretty much no other music to which this applies.
Posts: 384 | From: UK | Registered: Jan 2016
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Amanda B. Reckondwythe
Dressed for Church
# 5521
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Posted
I am currently learning this Brahms piece. Every time I ask my piano instructor to illustrate a point of technique or interpretation, she ends up playing the entire piece herself. She has said that it is the most beautiful thing she's ever heard.
I wouldn't go that far but I have to agree that it is incredibly beautiful. The piano was Brahms' instrument, and he knew how to draw out of it the sweetest sounds and the darkest tones at the same time.
Schubert did almost the same thing with his Impromptus, and Chopin with his Nocturnes and Preludes.
I think that what makes memorable, as opposed to forgettable music, is a composer who completely understands not only music theory but also his instrument, inside and out.
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"I take prayer too seriously to use it as an excuse for avoiding work and responsibility." -- The Revd Martin Luther King Jr.
Posts: 10542 | From: The Great Southwest | Registered: Feb 2004
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Mark Wuntoo
Shipmate
# 5673
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Posted
Visuals, whether in the mind or virtual, can be part of experiencing those heart-string pluckings. We had to anticipate that an item (or four) in our carol service this year was likely to result in applause by some so the congregation was asked at the start of the service to remain silent. The piece in question which we anticipated would elicit tears / chills, was 'Gabriel's oboe' played beautifully by a student trumpet player with her grandfather on the organ, accompanied by a video clip of the journeying of the wise men (produced by a well-known church). Emotions were certainly present and the moment was not lost in the minute or two of silence that followed.
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Blessed are the cracked for they let in the light.
Posts: 1950 | From: Somewhere else. | Registered: Mar 2004
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Amanda B. Reckondwythe
Dressed for Church
# 5521
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Posted
Good to see you posting, Mark Wuntoo.
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"I take prayer too seriously to use it as an excuse for avoiding work and responsibility." -- The Revd Martin Luther King Jr.
Posts: 10542 | From: The Great Southwest | Registered: Feb 2004
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mark Wuntoo:
This is a fascinating subject, one which I consulted whilst looking at the links between music and movement in charismatic churches. The composers of 'charismatic' songs certainly know how to elicit emtion (work people into a frenzy, get them weeping or jumping, for example). One common technique I observed was of rising melody line and crescendo. In my experience this is not confined to charismatic congregations but it is found more frequently there.
I disagree. Music and the situation in which one experiences it in cannot be separated easily. ISTM, charismatic composers are in no way special, the expectations of a charismatic service are the main elements of the reactions.
But this is not unique, because we do not experience anything as an isolated phenomenon.
ETA: the most frequent place to experience the link between music and heightened emotion is the cinema.
[ 24. December 2016, 17:26: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Mark Wuntoo
Shipmate
# 5673
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:
Good to see you posting, Mark Wuntoo.
Thank you and a very happy Christmas to you, too.
I remain 'far off' and getting further but my reading of the Ship remains constant, whilst not posting so frequently. Occasionally, a thread grabs me and this is one. You will know from my MW reports that my style is usually based on and written out of my own experience (for good or ill).
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Blessed are the cracked for they let in the light.
Posts: 1950 | From: Somewhere else. | Registered: Mar 2004
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
Context can be a big thing in appreciation.
Up until the age of 45 I did not understand country. To me it was the music that fat middle aged business men put on stetsons and listened to harking back to the Old West of Roy Rogers and John Wayne. Either that or the music middle aged women line danced to. Living in the UK gave me no other context.
Then I found myself in the Arizona Desert with the car radio on. The music choice was, to quote from The Blues Brothers, both sorts, Country, and Western. The context had changed and I had a better understanding, I even own some country.
I still can't stand the stuff that women in the UK line dance to though.
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Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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hatless
Shipmate
# 3365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:
I am currently learning this Brahms piece. Every time I ask my piano instructor to illustrate a point of technique or interpretation, she ends up playing the entire piece herself. She has said that it is the most beautiful thing she's ever heard.
I wouldn't go that far but I have to agree that it is incredibly beautiful.
Lady Ann Bothwell's Lament, a gorgeous thing. And, Rocinante, Brahms is one of my favourites. The survey SC linked to asked for my three favourite composers and after Bach and Schumann I put Brahms. The second subject of the first movement of his 1st piano concerto gave me one of my most powerful musical responses while I was still in my teens. I felt as if my spine had been gripped by an electric charge. The adagio is wonderful, too.
In 'Unapologetic' Francis Spufford talks about Mozart's clarinet concerto saying that it doesn't sound as if Mozart finds this music difficult to write, or as if he can only just do this. It isn't effortful. Brahms has this, too, except when it's me playing it.
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My crazy theology in novel form
Posts: 4531 | From: Stinkers | Registered: Sep 2002
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Gramps49
Shipmate
# 16378
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Posted
I do like a number of classical pieces, but the songs that give me chills are really in the American Folk genre. I think the closer I experience what is described the more likely I will experience chills
Posts: 2193 | From: Pullman WA | Registered: Apr 2011
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
I'm always carried away by Variations on a theme of Haydn by Brahms. Chills isn't the exact word, the music has a sweeping inevitability.
[ 25. December 2016, 02:37: Message edited by: Palimpsest ]
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anoesis
Shipmate
# 14189
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
What is it that makes you go all chill over music. What stirs the emotions? And why - not about particular pieces, but about styles and feelings?
In short, I don't know, but some observations. I listened to much the same sort of music for most of my teenage years and through my twenties, into my early thirties. Then it started to change - well, broaden, I think, to the point where there isn't a hell of a lot I don't listen to.* I have asked myself about the musical metamorphoses I have been through.
I think it's worth observing that in the last ten years, I have 1.) become a parent, 2.) not had a 'career' in any usual sense, although I have had 'work' for much of the time; 3.) been quite ill for a year, and 4.) lost my father. Obviously all of this stuff has enormous emotional impact.
When my daughter was young she was very hard to settle, sleep, entertain, etc. I dealt with this by playing and/or singing nursery rhymes to her, and playing her classical music (long a favourite genre of mine). I found that when she was finally asleep I would jam some headphones on, sit down at my computer, and listen to the loudest, crashiest, raw-est, yelling-est, most primitive sounding stuff I could find and just eat it all down. Which is to say, I developed quite an appreciation for punk, not just its sound but its whole anarchistic ethos.
In the year after my father died, I listened to music, by myself, with headphones on, in just about every spare second I had. I was shutting other people out, and escaping into a kind of emotional space where I could actually deal with being emotional. I mostly listened to the sort of stuff he would have listened to, at the beginning, Irish folk music and so on, and that blossomed out into other related genres, all of which were good to experience.
I'm not in a bad place emotionally at the moment, and what I'm listening to and how much of it I listen to is absolutely all over the place, literally all over the place. YouTube is good for this - always throwing up some thematic suggestions at the end of a piece, along with some totally random ones. I have gone on some simply glorious tangents by clicking on a random one.
If I had to pick one thing that consistently, consistently, gives me the chills, it would be the sound of massed pipes. It's, like, why I have ears - it's that good.
If I had to pick one favourite song - well, that's really hard, but I think it would be 'America' by Simon and Garfunkel. There is just so much going on with it, I don't get sick of hearing it.
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*The main thing I can't (yet) take is dance/electronic/hardstyle etc., coincidentally my husband's music of choice. We make extensive use of headphones in our house.
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The history of humanity give one little hope that strength left to its own devices won't be abused. Indeed, it gives one little ground to think that strength would continue to exist if it were not abused. -- Dafyd --
Posts: 993 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Oct 2008
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:
I am currently learning this Brahms piece. Every time I ask my piano instructor to illustrate a point of technique or interpretation, she ends up playing the entire piece herself. She has said that it is the most beautiful thing she's ever heard.
I wouldn't go that far but I have to agree that it is incredibly beautiful. The piano was Brahms' instrument, and he knew how to draw out of it the sweetest sounds and the darkest tones at the same time.
Schubert did almost the same thing with his Impromptus, and Chopin with his Nocturnes and Preludes.
I think that what makes memorable, as opposed to forgettable music, is a composer who completely understands not only music theory but also his instrument, inside and out.
A beautiful piece and then that link with Radu Lupu playing, a master pianist nearly as good as Dinu Lipatti.
The music that does that extra for me are the Bach solo cello suites and in particular the fifth with its magnificent fugue. Casals described these suites as a conversation between performer and composer - not quite right as it's a 3 way conversation, with God as the third.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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Amanda B. Reckondwythe
Dressed for Church
# 5521
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Posted
Bach wrote for God, and God blesses us by allowing us to listen to his record collection.
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"I take prayer too seriously to use it as an excuse for avoiding work and responsibility." -- The Revd Martin Luther King Jr.
Posts: 10542 | From: The Great Southwest | Registered: Feb 2004
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Bach as recording artist?
How many albums did he release in his lifetime?
Ok, a pedantic point. Bach 'does it' for me.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
Which is interesting, because he doesn't for me. A few classical pieces do, but very few.
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Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
Which is interesting, because he doesn't for me. A few classical pieces do, but very few.
But is you listen carefully you will find something in your music collection where the bass line is ripped off JSB,
JS Bach, the greatest bass line writer in the history of rock music (Via Jack Bruce who at lest was open about being influenced by Bach.)
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Last ever sig ...
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Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Bach as recording artist?
How many albums did he release in his lifetime?
Shh! It was hoped nobody would notice it was more than it was actually possible for one man to write in that period ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy
Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by balaam:
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
Which is interesting, because he doesn't for me. A few classical pieces do, but very few.
But is you listen carefully you will find something in your music collection where the bass line is ripped off JSB,
JS Bach, the greatest bass line writer in the history of rock music (Via Jack Bruce who at lest was open about being influenced by Bach.)
Oh yes, undoubtedly. It isn't that I don't like any JSB, just that he is not who I go to for emotional zap.
The one I focussed on is Flaming Lips "The Castle".
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Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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Og, King of Bashan
Ship's giant Amorite
# 9562
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Posted
Being a parent will throw you entirety off.
We went to a Dolly Parton show this summer. She spends the first third of the show talking about being poor as a child, but mom and dad making sure that you had everything you needed.
Chills? A bit more than that. Absolute prolonged weeping.
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"I like to eat crawfish and drink beer. That's despair?" ― Walker Percy
Posts: 3259 | From: Denver, Colorado, USA | Registered: May 2005
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
Knowing the stories behind songs does sometimes help. The story behind "Tears in Heaven" is so sad, and the song so lovely, it has to give you chills, I think.
Which is, I think, about emotional connection.
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Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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Mili
Shipmate
# 3254
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Posted
I never get chills to music. In fact until reading the intro information to the survey I didn't realise people literally got chills up their spines and goosebumps from music. I thought that was just an expression to explain the strong emotions music can evoke. Unfortunately by answering honestly I couldn't do the listening part of the survey.
I do get strong emotions to music, sometimes from the style and sometimes from memories linked to the music I am listening too. I tend to daydream to music a lot too. Some music I can't listen to at all. Heavy metal and certain types of 1990s grunge music just make me feel depressed or angry. Certain songs from musicals, classical pieces, folk music (especially Irish or Scottish, but also 1970s music my parents played when I was a child)and pop ballads evoke the most positive emotions for me. Happiness or a feeling of relaxation or strength - sometimes just general positive feelings. Some music has tastes for me too, as I have a form of taste synaesthesia. Music I don't like in particular tastes like food or drinks I dislike. Boring music tastes like overcooked, bland meat.
It's interesting that different styles of music evoke different emotions for different people and that this can vary culturally too. Then there are some songs and pieces of music that seem to be very popular and evoke positive emotions for most people across many generations or even centuries.
Posts: 1015 | From: Melbourne, Australia | Registered: Aug 2002
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simontoad
Ship's Amphibian
# 18096
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Posted
I use Sweet Honey in the Rock's Sing O Barren One when I can't control my thoughts properly. It's a truly beautiful song, and quite long. As soon as I realise that I'm not listening to the lyrics, I put it back to the start of the song and begin again.
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Human
Posts: 1571 | From: Romsey, Vic, AU | Registered: May 2014
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la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:
I think that what makes memorable, as opposed to forgettable music, is a composer who completely understands not only music theory but also his instrument, inside and out.
Not sure about this… I am currently doing battle with Rachmaninov’s cello sonata in G minor. I wanted to learn it because it is one of those fabulously beautiful pieces which reduces me to a gibbering wreck, but man is it hard in places. In relation to that wretched passage in four flats on which I have spent the last three lessons, my teacher just said to me, “What can you do? It was written by a pianist…”
Also Beethoven wrote stuff that isn’t really playable by anyone on any instrument at all ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif) To wit: when amateur orchestral musicians are faced with a Beethoven symphony, the frequent reaction is to turn up at one’s music lesson crying “helllllllllp, I’m trying to play this and my technique’s all over the place”. You then get a surprise when the teacher looks at it and says, “To be honest with you, in 60% of professional orchestras their technique’s all over the place as well. Do your best.” Beethoven was a chills-inducing genius, which is why people make superhuman attempts to play his works, but he never really considers their suitability for the instruments he scores them for. He wrote what he wrote and it’s up to the musician to deal, technique be damned
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Rent my holiday home in the South of France
Posts: 3696 | Registered: Nov 2005
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Amanda B. Reckondwythe
Dressed for Church
# 5521
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
I am currently doing battle with Rachmaninov’s cello sonata in G minor. . . . My teacher just said to me, “What can you do? It was written by a pianist…”
Also Beethoven wrote stuff that isn’t really playable by anyone on any instrument at all. . . .
The Rachmaninov anecdote proves my point. He was not a cellist.
I think that Beethoven's -- I hesitate to say problem -- was his hearing loss. He really couldn't hear much of what he wrote, especially in his later years. Even so, he managed to crank out works of absolute genius.
I've sung the Ninth Symphony and have always felt that Beethoven wasn't really hearing the parts. The bass part isn't bad, if perhaps a little pedestrian, but the poor tenors really have their work cut out for them!
I've heard it said that some of his later piano works were unplayable on instruments of his day -- that they'd fall apart if anyone tried to do it. The Waldstein and Appassionata sonatas are examples of that. Of course, today's pianos can take them in stride -- not that all pianists can!
Also, remember that all works of a genius are not works of genius. Mozart was unique in the genius world. His Symphony No. 40 is just one example. But a large percentage of his works are pure drivel, what would pass for Muzak today.
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"I take prayer too seriously to use it as an excuse for avoiding work and responsibility." -- The Revd Martin Luther King Jr.
Posts: 10542 | From: The Great Southwest | Registered: Feb 2004
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la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688
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Posted
I think we’re talking at cross purposes. Rachmaninov wasn’t a cellist, and consequently bits of his sonata are hell to play. Nothing forgettable about it though. This conversation was about “chills” – and if it doesn’t give you those, you should check you still have a pulse .
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Anselmina
Ship's barmaid
# 3032
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Posted
'Strange meeting' from Britten's War Requiem gives me chills, as does the repeated Devil's interval theme throughout the piece, sung by the chorus.
'Praise to the Holiest' chorus from The Dream of Gerontius, is another 'chills' place for me, though I have to have the run up to it from the Angel's introduction.
And 'Spring Offensive' from Bliss's 'Morning Heroes', though admittedly that's probably more to do with the words, as the music is very peripheral in that section.
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Posts: 10002 | From: Scotland the Brave | Registered: Jul 2002
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Clemency
Shipmate
# 16173
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Posted
How about links between place and music?
Driving around Iceland a few years ago with Sigur Ros on the car stereo....resonance indeed
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Who knows where the Time goes?
Posts: 90 | From: Northumberland, UK | Registered: Jan 2011
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Or music and activity. If I want my best performance on twisty roads, fast and "driving" music helps focus my effort.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Dal Segno
al Fine
# 14673
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:
Also, remember that all works of a genius are not works of genius. Mozart was unique in the genius world. His Symphony No. 40 is just one example. But a large percentage of his works are pure drivel, what would pass for Muzak today.
Could it be that, to get great music, you need to churn out a lot to work out what works and what doesn't.
That doesn't explain Beethoven, though.
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Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds
Posts: 1200 | From: Pacific's triple star | Registered: Mar 2009
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:
Also, remember that all works of a genius are not works of genius. Mozart was unique in the genius world. His Symphony No. 40 is just one example. But a large percentage of his works are pure drivel, what would pass for Muzak today.
Remember, too, that most composers do not write a work when "the music muse" strikes them - they are commissioned and given both a brief and a timescale. Many too have "day jobs" which may not even have anything to do with music - for instance Borodin was an outstanding medical chemist.
Of course composers will have ideas running round inside their heads and notebooks full of fragments - but it's a long way from those things to writing a work of genius. So it's not surprising if a large proportion of their work falls into the "competent" rather than "outstanding" bracket.
I'm sure that the same is true for artists in other genres - and, dare I say, for preachers who are charged with producing an inspirational and original magnum opus twice every Sunday.
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Or music and activity. If I want my best performance on twisty roads, fast and "driving" music helps focus my effort.
I've been listening to a New Wave station lately. Any time Blondie's "One Way or Another" comes on, my driving... changes. Like all of a sudden I'm in a car chase scene cut out of an episode of "The A-Team."
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dal Segno:
quote:
Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:
Also, remember that all works of a genius are not works of genius. Mozart was unique in the genius world. His Symphony No. 40 is just one example. But a large percentage of his works are pure drivel, what would pass for Muzak today.
Could it be that, to get great music, you need to churn out a lot to work out what works and what doesn't.
That doesn't explain Beethoven, though.
Or J S Bach, or Monteverdi either.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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sabine
Shipmate
# 3861
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Posted
I was on my way to Quaker Meeting on Christmas Day when a local radio station played a previously taped 2016 Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King's College, Cambridge.
When I heard the solo into to "Once in Royal David's City," I burst into tears.
I was overcome with a desire to pay attention and try to live well the values and ideals that have been important for so long (not talking about religious dogma here) and that seem to be lacking in modern western society with all its lack of civility and obsession on politics.
This song was what I needed for hope and uplifting.
sabine
[ 29. December 2016, 14:45: Message edited by: sabine ]
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"Hunger looks like the man that hunger is killing." Eduardo Galeano
Posts: 5887 | From: the US Heartland | Registered: Dec 2002
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blackbeard
Ship's Pirate
# 10848
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:
I've sung the Ninth Symphony and have always felt that Beethoven wasn't really hearing the parts. The bass part isn't bad, if perhaps a little pedestrian, but the poor tenors really have their work cut out for them! .....
My wife (soprano) knows the "Ode to Joy" as "Ode to Shriek". (In fairness to Beethoven, concert pitch as gone up quite a bit since his day.)
I have never felt that writing for the singing voice really came naturally to Beethoven. In contrast to Monteverdi, or Purcell, or Mozart, or ...
Posts: 823 | From: Hampshire, UK | Registered: Dec 2005
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Amanda B. Reckondwythe
Dressed for Church
# 5521
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by blackbeard:
I have never felt that writing for the singing voice really came naturally to Beethoven.
No, it certainly wasn't his forte. My choral group is going to do "Hallelujah" from "Christ on the Mount of Olives" at our upcoming spring concert series. In doing research to prepare program notes (which I do for our programs), I learned that Beethoven thought that the libretto was so bad that he couldn't think of ways to improve upon it. Critics and audiences agreed, and we never hear "Christ on the Mount of Olives" anymore except for that one chorus.
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"I take prayer too seriously to use it as an excuse for avoiding work and responsibility." -- The Revd Martin Luther King Jr.
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dal Segno:
Could it be that, to get great music, you need to churn out a lot to work out what works and what doesn't.
That doesn't explain Beethoven, though.
Genius/talent, like other traits, is varied and is only one aspect of a person's life.
Chuck Berry is rightfully considered a cornerstone of what rock music is, but many of his songs are derivative of his earlier works. So an important innovator, but not a constant one.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
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Dave W.
Shipmate
# 8765
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:
Also, remember that all works of a genius are not works of genius. Mozart was unique in the genius world. His Symphony No. 40 is just one example. But a large percentage of his works are pure drivel, what would pass for Muzak today.
This sounds pretty harsh! About what fraction of his music was pure drivel, would you say? And can you suggest any particularly heinous examples? (I ask not knowing if your statement reflects your understanding of criticism you've read, or your own experience.)
Posts: 2059 | From: the hub of the solar system | Registered: Nov 2004
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Amanda B. Reckondwythe
Dressed for Church
# 5521
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Posted
I'm not familiar with all of Mozart's output, so I couldn't attach a figure to my assertion. But for an example, the so-called "Church Sonatas" and some of the Divertimenti.
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"I take prayer too seriously to use it as an excuse for avoiding work and responsibility." -- The Revd Martin Luther King Jr.
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
And I'm sure a lot of his music was intended to be "background music" for Court and social occasions, rather than for Listening To Seriously.
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hatless
Shipmate
# 3365
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Posted
Mozart did start composing when he was two, so there is a lot of very early stuff. Brahms burnt a lot of pieces he was unhappy with. Beethoven moved through different styles, and his early work, while not drivel, is not trying to do the amazing things his later stuff does; the first piano sonatas are by someone not yet capable of writing the last handful. Beethoven's appeal is partly about the effort it cost him to write. His manuscripts are messy with corrections, and you can often hear the struggle in his music. Mozart's appeal is partly in the apparent effortlessness of his music, as if he was an alien receiving downloads from the mother ship.
R Schumann wrote many of his best pieces in his late teens and early twenties. Chopin was already firing on all cylinders when he started, the Etudes, for example, are quite early works. Mendelssohn wrote his famous Octet when he was not yet seventeen.
And then there's he tragedy of JS Bach, who wrote acres of music on demand, and still had to teach the local kids and argue for his firewood allowance. Somewhere between a quarter and a half of his output has no known musical value whatsoever, because we've lost it. Some of the stuff we do have, about a hundred and fifty CDs in a complete edition, must be mediocre, but it's very hard to find it.
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My crazy theology in novel form
Posts: 4531 | From: Stinkers | Registered: Sep 2002
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la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688
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Posted
You also have to factor in that Mozart was a lazy sod, who is frequently doing only as much as he has in order to get paid.
Take Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. It’s a pleasant enough little thing, but it is most definitely wallpaper. There are repeats flippin’ everywhere. In the last movement (which I quite like, but still), you play the opening theme no less than half a dozen times. Our Wolfie has written five minutes’ worth of music and spun it out to make it last a quarter of an hour.
Mozart’s truly great works are the ones where he’s actually applying himself and making an effort – the late symphonies and the operas, for example.
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Rent my holiday home in the South of France
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Some of the stuff we do have, about a hundred and fifty CDs in a complete edition, must be mediocre, but it's very hard to find it.
Must be mediocre?????? Go and thoroughly wash your hands.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
Of course, prolific composers such as Bach weren't above recycling or reworking their music. Much of the B Minor Mass is "second-hand" material - yet the piece has a unity which utterly transcends its origins.
(Having said that, the "Quoniam Tu Solus" with its horn obbligato always makes me giggle).
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