Revisiting old preferred works, and losing interest...

Started by m_gigena, April 08, 2007, 07:11:15 AM

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m_gigena

Having not heard Nielsen symphonies in a while (grammar?), I decided to listen to them again yesterday... Everything was fine with the third (still one of my favs), but whilst playing the sixth I realised it doesn't catch me as before. The opening bars I still find interesting, but the scherzo didn't appeal to me at all, the Proposta seria seemed not inteligible and the Theme and variations bored me to dead.
During the waltz variation my idea was "this is done better in Le festin d'Esope", and the last bars looked like a Marlboro tv ad.

Something similar happened while revisiting my Annees de Pelerinage by Ciccolini. Two years ago I would have listed it as the best piano cd I had. Now it's just sharing a shelf with many Marc-André Hamelin releases. ( ;D).

I'm kind of sad, because I did enjoy Nielsen in the past...

carlos

Stay with Nielsen concertos and chamber works. Have the
violin one by Telmanyi?
Piantale a la leche hermano, que eso arruina el corazón! (from a tango's letter)

DetUudslukkelige

The same thing constantly happens to me. Sadly, It seems to have happened with Mahler's Eighth in my case. I still like it, it just doesn't make me hold my breath anymore.

And I wouldn't worry about the sixth too much. You're just one of many Nielsen fans - including myself, to a degree - who listen to it less than his others. It's no big deal. Besides, it's just one work - I still consider myself a Mahler fan. In any event, at least the third still gets you. I love how driven, yet beautiful, it can be.
-DetUudslukkelige

"My heart, which is so full to overflowing, has often been solaced and refreshed by music when sick and weary." - Martin Luther

m_gigena

Quote from: carlos on April 08, 2007, 07:13:44 AM
Stay with Nielsen concertos and chamber works. Have the
violin one by Telmanyi?

I have Tellefsen, Varga and the guy on Naxos.

But coming from you, I somehow suppose that Telmanyi comes from an obscure LP, available only in the gift shop of a somber Romanian castle.

gmstudio

I just had this experience with a new (to me) recording of Mahler 6.  I picked up the Budapest/Fischer recording from the library, after drowning in his stunning recording of Mahler 2.  I put 6 on in the car on the drive home and it just hit me, "I'm really sick and tired of Mahler 6."   

carlos

Not so; it's an CD (but I don't know label because
it's a copy a friend sended to me). Has 3 first recordings
v.c. by Telmanyi and Egisto Tango (!) (1947), the flute c.
by Paul Birkelund (58) and the clarinet by Eriksson (54)
Piantale a la leche hermano, que eso arruina el corazón! (from a tango's letter)

Brian

#6
When this happens to me (as, at the moment, with Mendelssohn's Octet and anything by Grieg), I quarantine the music for a few months and then after try it, but only when it seems to be of interest. I actually went over a year without hearing Tchaikovsky's Fifth, and since I moved to Texas a year and a half ago I have totally ignored a Tchaikovsky / Dutoit CD which used to be one of my favorites (and is the first CD I ever owned).

m_gigena

Quote from: brianrein on April 08, 2007, 05:04:55 PM
When this happens to me (as, at the moment, with Mendelssohn's Octet and anything by Grieg), I quarantine the music for a few months and then after try it, but only when it seems to be of interest.

I'll do that then. I hope my change of interests are because my mind is melting.

marvinbrown

Quote from: Manuel on April 08, 2007, 07:11:15 AM
Having not heard Nielsen symphonies in a while (grammar?), I decided to listen to them again yesterday... Everything was fine with the third (still one of my favs), but whilst playing the sixth I realised it doesn't catch me as before. The opening bars I still find interesting, but the scherzo didn't appeal to me at all, the Proposta seria seemed not inteligible and the Theme and variations bored me to dead.
During the waltz variation my idea was "this is done better in Le festin d'Esope", and the last bars looked like a Marlboro tv ad.

Something similar happened while revisiting my Annees de Pelerinage by Ciccolini. Two years ago I would have listed it as the best piano cd I had. Now it's just sharing a shelf with many Marc-André Hamelin releases. ( ;D).

I'm kind of sad, because I did enjoy Nielsen in the past...


  So sorry to hear that you no longer enjoy recordings that once gave you so much pleasure Manuel.  I would like to offer the following observations:

   1) Your musical tastes might have changed since the last time you heard this recording.
   2) You know the old saying "Familiarity Breeds Contempt".....this happens to me quite often, hearing a piece of music over and over and over again could reduce the initial "Buzz" you once got.
   3) Perhaps you are overestimating the enjoyment you once had.  We as humans have a tendency never to remember things the way they ACTUALLY were....we have a romantic notion of how GREAT things were hence the expression "the good old days"......

   

  marvin

m_gigena

Quote from: marvinbrown on April 09, 2007, 07:11:35 AM
hearing a piece of music over and over and over again could reduce the initial "Buzz" you once got.

I was surprised with this Nielsen affair just because of that: I haven't even heard the 6th in the last year.


Quote from: marvinbrown on April 09, 2007, 07:11:35 AM
   1) Your musical tastes might have changed since the last time you heard this recording. 

This presented a new edge of my music appreciation, in general. Up to this point I thought of my musical tastes as strictly additive or cumulative. And I was fond of this, as it makes my life* sort of... consistent.
Now I'm affraid some works I listen again may not catch my attention as they did in the past, and the situation looks a bit unstable...

(After this considerations I suppose I should stop smoking my granma's pills...)

*Ok, life could sound as an exageration.

Xenophanes

"You cannot step twice into the same river, for other waters and yet others go ever flowing on."--Heraclitus

http://community.middlebury.edu/~harris/Philosophy/heraclitus.pdf

According comedian Severn Darden, Heraclitus' wife, Helen, answered as follows:

"Don't be an ass, Heraclitus! Of course you can step into the same river twice-- if you walk downstream!"

In any case, change is a law of life and the first glow of enthusiasm often wears off.  Things become familiar. We change, and sometimes our tastes change.  There are lots of other things to listen to.  As you gain new experiences, you may later return to Nielsen with renewed insight.


marvinbrown

Quote from: Xenophanes on April 09, 2007, 07:32:29 AM

In any case, change is a law of life and the first glow of enthusiasm often wears off.  Things become familiar. We change, and sometimes our tastes change.  There are lots of other things to listen to.  As you gain new experiences, you may later return to Nielsen with renewed insight.


  I agree with this observation and I hope Manuel returns one day with renewed insight to the Nielsen  recording.


   marvin

rhomboid

Try different soloists and orchestras, and shift your approach of addressing the works within non-musical contexts.

vandermolen

Quote from: Xenophanes on April 09, 2007, 07:32:29 AM
"You cannot step twice into the same river, for other waters and yet others go ever flowing on."--Heraclitus

http://community.middlebury.edu/~harris/Philosophy/heraclitus.pdf

According comedian Severn Darden, Heraclitus' wife, Helen, answered as follows:

"Don't be an ass, Heraclitus! Of course you can step into the same river twice-- if you walk downstream!"

In any case, change is a law of life and the first glow of enthusiasm often wears off.  Things become familiar. We change, and sometimes our tastes change.  There are lots of other things to listen to.  As you gain new experiences, you may later return to Nielsen with renewed insight.
Nice quotes!
Vaughan Williams told his admiring pupil Arthur Butterworth that if his (VW's) music did not mean so much to him in later life he should not think that this was in any way disloyal - a lovely comment I think.
I was obsessed/infatuated with VW's music as a late teenager, then lost interest as I got older and then regained interest in recent years.
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

Mirror Image

Quote from: vandermolen on June 08, 2022, 12:08:13 PM
Nice quotes!
Vaughan Williams told his admiring pupil Arthur Butterworth that if his (VW's) music did not mean so much to him in later life he should not think that this was in any way disloyal - a lovely comment I think.
I was obsessed/infatuated with VW's music as a late teenager, then lost interest as I got older and then regained interest in recent years.

That is a rather lovely quote from Vaughan Williams. For me, the reality of classical music is that one's tastes are in constant flux and those of us that like to explore more unknown territory will continue to find music that we enjoy and want listen to again and again. On the other hand, I do think we do form a core group of composers that we always come back to at some point. With you it was Vaughan Williams. For me, it was Strauss and this is because it was his Eine Alpensinfonie I heard when I was a teenager and it had a powerful effect on me --- an effect I still carry with me today. We never forget these early experiences and even though we may find there's a point where we've kind of left the composer behind, we always find a way back eventually. So this is why it's important for me to never completely close doors on past musical experiences and to embrace them with open arms. As Delius said "Always stick to your likings --- there are profound reasons for them."

Dry Brett Kavanaugh

Quote from: Xenophanes on April 09, 2007, 07:32:29 AM
"You cannot step twice into the same river, for other waters and yet others go ever flowing on."--Heraclitus

http://community.middlebury.edu/~harris/Philosophy/heraclitus.pdf

According comedian Severn Darden, Heraclitus' wife, Helen, answered as follows:

"Don't be an ass, Heraclitus! Of course you can step into the same river twice-- if you walk downstream!"

In any case, change is a law of life and the first glow of enthusiasm often wears off.  Things become familiar. We change, and sometimes our tastes change.  There are lots of other things to listen to.  As you gain new experiences, you may later return to Nielsen with renewed insight.

Biologically, all of our cells constituting our body, including brain, are replaced by new cells every 12-15 years. Some scientists say that our sense of same, continuous self is illusory.

relm1

Quote from: vandermolen on June 08, 2022, 12:08:13 PM
Nice quotes!
Vaughan Williams told his admiring pupil Arthur Butterworth that if his (VW's) music did not mean so much to him in later life he should not think that this was in any way disloyal - a lovely comment I think.
I was obsessed/infatuated with VW's music as a late teenager, then lost interest as I got older and then regained interest in recent years.

Lovely quote - there is more to the story.  Butterworth also apologized for the music he shared with RVW being imitations of the octogenarian's music to which RVW replied "Oh! you must not worry about that. I have been the greatest cribber since Handel!"