A question to composers: Do you feel moved by your own music?

[Maciek]

Inspired by an exchange on Luke's thread I propose this new topic for discussion. Here we, the un-composers, will be allowed to torment the composers of this forum with questions about their feelings towards their own music. The poll-question obviously does not cover all the possibilities and does not take into account all of the subtleties of the possible answers. So please feel free to discuss!

Also, I'd like to ask those of you who are not composers NOT to take part in the poll. You may freely take part in the discussion but please refrain from taking advantage of the poll. I know you may feel very tempted but what would the point of messing it up be?

To start us off here's a quote (Guido, I hope you don't mind?):

I recently read a story that Shostakovich started weeping when he first heard his string quartet no.8 being played because he was so moved, and I found the story very strange, but I couldnt't say why. I suppose I think its more normal now, but still I find it a little odd...

Cheers,
Maciek

[greg]

excellent thread, Mr.Osa!
that's interesting about Shostakovich.....

i chose: Yes, Often...... but definetely not always. All of the ten works i've written have completely different moods, except for a few which i think sound similar (and are probably the most characteristic of my style).

actually, now that i think about it, it's during the time that i'm composing the music that i feel the most affected, though it diminishes over time  in fact, i can remember a few moments where it seemed i was writing some of the greatest moments in music i've ever heard! But now that i revisit those moments, they just seem distant, and they're not at all bad, just something i can't understand right now.

[lukeottevanger]

Well, I suppose I can't do much more than cut-and-paste my response to Guido's question over on 'my' thread. The usual long-winded nonsense....:

Well, yes, I am, but it would be hard to say whether that was because of their own intrinsic qualities or simply because of associations the piece may have for me, which are presumably stronger in the composer of a piece than in any other listener. In fact, as you'll have noticed I do sometimes get very bound up with my pieces and find it hard to disentangle myself from then when I've finished, to step back and adjudge them coolly. Witness my last two or three posts.

In the spirit of humilty I'd suggest that the latter is more true than the former; that is, that if some of my pieces move me it is because they have associations more than because they are particularly good. But also, in fact, I'm sure that the power of association is much stronger than we tend to realise anyway, so that even a bona fide masterpiece by a proper composer might move me more because of an association it has for me than because of the piece itself. Quality doesn't necessarily come into it at all, in fact - remember Noel Coward's line about the potency of cheap music? In the end, then, it's hard to say where one ends and the other begins.

That was a bit of a ramble, wasn't it?  Anyway, FWIW, the pieces of mine which move me most, if that is the word, are:

the Four Paz Songs - in this case, apart from happy student memories, the music doesn't really have any assocations for me; I still tend to think this is one of my better works and the formal trajectory of the music is quite affecting, I feel.

the Through the Year children's pieces - these are bound up with my own children, with memories of my own childhood; they are mild, gentle and also I think very English pieces. Again, I find it hard to judge their quality - part of me thinks they are the best thing I've ever done, perhaps because they affect me so strongly. Part of me thinks, don't be stupid, man.

the Unfinished Study for 'autobiographical' reasons gone into on the previous thread

the Nightingale Sonata - I've put this one up on the previous thread and again in this one, but for some reason hardly discussed it. In contrast to the first two works I mentioned, I'm pretty sure this one must be full of holes and flaws. But over and above that, it says exactly what I wanted it to say (and you know I think that directness, humanity and honesty is more important than mere slick technique any day, as I've said recently about Tippett and as I've repeated ad nauseum about Janacek). The piece springs from a deep place and experience, I think, and I can't hear it without their being summoned up again.

the recent piano Sonata as much as any of these pieces, because in my mind it is very much bound up with my grandmother who died earlier this year. Again I obviously find it hard to hear this piece without those thoughts in mind, but I do think that this piece too, thanks partly to that modal technique, probably has quite a strong formal trajectory like the Paz Songs and the new Canticle Sonata which are quite affecting in themselves.

I'm coming to find the last pages of my new Canticle Sonata quite moving too, I must say; their simplified recollection of the opening of the first movement works quite well in this respect I think.

But, as I say, for the reasons I've outlined I often find it very hard to judge my own works, and am eager to hear other opinions.

[greg]

now THAT, Luke, is exactly what i'm always talking about when i write topics dealing with association and why you might like certain music.

a lot of music (an excellent example is Gorecki's 3rd) might be listened to, but not understood much, or you just don't know what to think on first hearing. Then maybe you listen a few times more and let your mind wander. You put yourself in a state of mind that matches the music, and then you totally understand.

and that reminds me- i guess those associations have faded with some of my old music, and i don't really know what to think- when most of my old music was written was during a time where my imagination just went everywhere, wildly, in a different way than it normally does now- though i could get back to that if i tried

[Maciek]

Well, I'm not a composer but I'll mention this anyway: I don't feel moved by music very often at all! There are very few composers (Brahms and Shostakovich for example) who ever manage to move me. In most cases even ostensibly "moving" composers such as Chopin are actually intellectually extremely pleasing but not very moving...

Is this weird or normal? Who cares!

(Or maybe I should start another poll, LOL! )

[karlhenning]

I think I will not go far wrong to say, that I try to write music which will not leave me  completely unmoved 

[Mark G. Simon]

Yes, I am often moved by my own music, and this is by design. I know what kind of music moves me and all I have to do is sit down and write it. It's my party and I'll cry if I want to.

If I'm writing vocal music I may choose a text which moves me. Most recently I wrote a song for my own wedding called "In Your Two Arms" to a text by Miklos Radnoti which had been suggested (and translated) by a friend of Hungarian ancestry.  A wedding is a pretty emotional time in any case, so it was very likely that I whatever I wrote would turn me into a puddle, but this particular poem resonated with conversations I had had with Owlice about how unfortunate it was that we met relatively late in our lives and that we would not have a full lifetime together. So when I got to the "grabber" line of the poem: "In your two arms, not even death will frighten me" I just let everything loose. The music had been pretty restrained up to that point, waiting for some kind of release, and there it was.

Another case was a pair of Emily Dickinson settings I wrote in memory of a dear friend named Carol, whose singing of my compositions had moved me to tears in the past. Carol died of ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease) and I had to watch her condition deteriorate rapidly over the course of only a year. I was part of a group of friends who shared the duties of caring for her with her husband during her last months at home. The Dickinson poem "The Last Night That She Lived" seemed like it was describing the scene exactly, and I could understand what was meant by the final lines "And we, we placed the hair, and drew the head erect, And then an awful leisure was belief to regulate". I knew fairly quickly what the music was going to be, but writing it down was slow. I'd write a few measures and cry, then I'd have to stop and come back to it later. The other song, "The bustle of a house the morning after death is solemnest of industries enacted upon earth", affected me similarly, especially the lines "The sweeping of the heart, the putting love away". The words are emotional to me, and so the music I set them to is charged with that emotion, at least in my mind.

[karlhenning]

Fine post, Mark.

One addendum I have . . . at least in my own case, it is true both that I know what kind of music moves me, and yet, that there is music in some ways (or even entirely) new to me, which will move me as well, quite apart from what I already know, from expectations.

And, lest that seem an off-topic tangent, I find this true in my own work.  There are times when, in my own work, I find new vistas, as it were, theretofore unimagined, which get right in amongst me.

[Mark G. Simon]

Fine post, Mark.

One addendum I have . . . at least in my own case, it is true both that I know what kind of music moves me, and yet, that there is music in some ways (or even entirely) new to me, which will move me as well, quite apart from what I already know, from expectations.

And, lest that seem an off-topic tangent, I find this true in my own work.  There are times when, in my own work, I find new vistas, as it were, theretofore unimagined, which get right in amongst me.

You imply that I just recycle what I already know. But it's not an either/or situation. You have to start from what you know before you proceed to those new vistas.

[karlhenning]

. . . You have to start from what you know before you proceed to those new vistas.

Certainly.

(No, though, I don't think I implied any "recycling" nor "only";  my remark was offered as neutral amplification.)

[AnthonyAthletic]

The question should be amplified by saying "Do your Audiences and Listeners feel moved by your music"

After all, your compositions are there not only for you, but hopefully the Masses to enjoy as well 

[karlhenning]

And specifically, Mark, even though I cannot know more than a small part of your work, I much enjoyed both "In Your Two Arms" and the Carnival of the Particles, neither of which suggests anything remotely like mere recycling!

[Mark G. Simon]

The question should be amplified by saying "Do your Audiences and Listeners feel moved by your music"

One can always hope!

[AnthonyAthletic]

Any ideas where one of our other 'Resident Composers' went to.  David Stybr (?), I recall he was an Engineer, his Wife a Novelist, whom he helped support in her work.

[Guido]

The question should be amplified by saying "Do your Audiences and Listeners feel moved by your music"

well that might be a more obvious goal, or happening, but the question is rather more subtle - whether something that you create can move you...

That was a very interesting post Mark. Would you care to post the works that you mention online?

Maciek (sp.?) - I know what you mean. I suppose I am mostly the same - I need to actually really focus on letting the music affect me to actually directly feel emotions. But there are composers (like Shostakovich) that I produce more emotions in me than others. Generally I suppose I experience music mainly aesthetically, and as moods and colours (not visual colours), perhaps intellectually too, though less so. I usually mostly appreciate the beauty/joy/pain or whatever is trying to be expressed, but as a performer there's a difference between interpreting the music and expressing what you want to express and letting the music move you. Really, music is only representational of emotion, it's not actual emotion - there's nothing intrinsically happy or sad about the major or minor modes, or intrinsically mysterious about shimmering textures... etc. etc.

It's all very difficult to express because it all so subjective. Maybe this post was a mistake.

[AnthonyAthletic]

well that might be a more obvious goal, or happening, but the question is rather more subtle - whether something that you create can move you...

Of course, granted.  I am talking about wether or not composers write for their own satisfaction/love of their art (of course they do) as well as wanting to be heard, surely that is the aim of any composer, who would compose today and simply shove it in the draw without trying to get it performed?...but sadly, if you haven't got an audience or means of performing your works...

What was it somebody once said?  "I wish I could be around 50 years from now, to hear my music"

[karlhenning]

Maciek (sp.?) - I know what you mean. I suppose I am mostly the same - I need to actually really focus on letting the music affect me to actually directly feel emotions. But there are composers (like Shostakovich) that I produce more emotions in me than others. Generally I suppose I experience music mainly aesthetically, and as moods and colours (not visual colours), perhaps intellectually too, though less so. I usually mostly appreciate the beauty/joy/pain or whatever is trying to be expressed, but as a performer there's a difference between interpreting the music and expressing what you want to express and letting the music move you. Really, music is only representational of emotion, it's not actual emotion - there's nothing intrinsically happy or sad about the major or minor modes, or intrinsically mysterious about shimmering textures... etc. etc.

It's all very difficult to express because it all so subjective. Maybe this post was a mistake.

Not at all; most interesting, Guido!

[Maciek]

Very interesting indeed but what does sp. mean??????? I'm not even going to tell you some of the stuff I found in dictionaries... (One was interesting and relevant in a funny way though: SP - [civil aircraft marking] Poland)

Thinking more about the subject I come to the conclusion that perhaps I am moved more often than I admit but in a slightly different direction - not towards tears but towards a sort of amazed elation (a sort of "this is wonderful!" state)...

[karlhenning]

. . . but what does sp. mean?

Abbreviation for "spelling."

[Maciek]

Ah, in that case - no need to worry, Guido, everything is fine!

Maciek