The Classical Chat Thread

Started by DavidW, July 14, 2009, 08:39:17 AM

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nesf

I'm glad to see the Civ obsession stretches to even the most cultured amongst us. ;)

Thanks, this is proving most educational. :)
My favourite words in classical: "Molto vivace"

Yes, I'm shallow.

DavidW

I'm going to throw in a rec for Ligeti, I don't know if he is described as atonal but he is pretty out there when compared to pre-20th century music, but rarely does he sound abrasive.  Many of his works have an eerie atmosphere that is hard to find elsewhere.  Sounding beautiful in a very unique way. :)

[asin] B0016A8E1K[/asin]

Karl Henning

Quote from: jlaurson on January 31, 2012, 04:48:21 AM
True dissonance presupposes tonality. That's why pan-tonal music has such a difficult time. (Well, one of the reasons, at any rate.) There needs to be a consonance from which to deviate to create that delicious (or jarring) tension... and then to release it (to induce that smile or the relief). That's why many works toy with so-called a-tonality but the way the notes work together, we are drawn toward making sense of their relationship and -- like magnets, or the 'magnetic lines' in Photoshop -- are ready to snap to the nearest 'tonally logical explanation'. The music can then take us into other directions, suggesting to our ears that they were misguided... only for them to snap onto the next chord-like structure that comes along.

Schoenberg used (or rather: theorized about) his tone-row system to un-train the ears from doing that and to make sure that no accidental tonality allowed them their bad habits. That was new... not the sounds themselves. There's plenty of tonally ambiguous work that preceded him... not the least in Debussy where there's often no more than a diffuse tonality-cloud that shape-shifts as it goes along. Berg, of course, 'ruined it' right away when he used Schoenberg's strict system and showed how it could still be utilized to do something rather romantic with it.

Or indeed, rather that Romantic was Schoenberg's idiom, whether he worked in a 'more straightforward' late-tonal idiom, or in his method of using twelve tones equally.

Nice thumbnail, Jens.  From here we pivot to the manner/method of those points of repose, whether a matter of within (or orbiting) Common Practice, or of (for instance) Hindemith's interesting ideas of a hierarchy of intervals, arranged by their power to assert a tonal center. There's more ways to the woods than one.
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Opus106

Quote from: nesf on January 31, 2012, 04:56:35 AM
Thanks, this is proving most educational. :)

Same here. It's at about this stage of the development of 20th C. music that I stopped reading Ross' book -- one that I would recommend to you, nesf, if you haven't already read it -- because he fooled me into thinking that I would end up liking all this 'honking' and I wouldn't be able to follow the 'line' of the book if I stopped to listen every piece listed in it. ;) (Actually, it was through this work that I eventually started listening to Berg.) And staying on the topic of atonality, I remember reading that the earliest signs of <music-technical mumbo-jumbo> can be traced back to a piece by Liszt.

Regards,
Navneeth

nesf

Quote from: Opus106 on January 31, 2012, 06:51:17 AM
Same here. It's at about this stage of the development of 20th C. music that I stopped reading Ross' book -- one that I would recommend to you, nesf, if you haven't already read it -- because he fooled me into thinking that I would end up liking all this 'honking' and I wouldn't be able to follow the 'line' of the book if I stopped to listen every piece listed in it. ;) (Actually, it was through this work that I eventually started listening to Berg.) And staying on the topic of atonality, I remember reading that the earliest signs of <music-technical mumbo-jumbo> can be traced back to a piece by Liszt.

I have that book on my shelves waiting for my concentration to be good enough to read it!
My favourite words in classical: "Molto vivace"

Yes, I'm shallow.

North Star

Quote from: Opus106 on January 31, 2012, 06:51:17 AM
Same here. It's at about this stage of the development of 20th C. music that I stopped reading Ross' book -- one that I would recommend to you, nesf, if you haven't already read it -- because he fooled me into thinking that I would end up liking all this 'honking' and I wouldn't be able to follow the 'line' of the book if I stopped to listen every piece listed in it. ;) (Actually, it was through this work that I eventually started listening to Berg.) And staying on the topic of atonality, I remember reading that the earliest signs of <music-technical mumbo-jumbo> can be traced back to a piece by Liszt.

The Bagatelle sans tonalité
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b29qCN3rFIE

I haven't been listening to more modernistic music too long either, but lately I've been listening to the Second Viennese school, and occasionally tipped my ears in Dutilleux, Ligeti, Penderecki, Xenakis.
"Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it." - Confucius

My photographs on Flickr

DavidW

Quote from: nesf on January 31, 2012, 07:10:48 AM
I have that book on my shelves waiting for my concentration to be good enough to read it!

It reads more like a series of articles than a book.  Instead of gearing up for a big read you can treat each chapter like an article that you read every once and awhile when you have the hankering. :)

Opus106

#807
Quote from: North Star on January 31, 2012, 07:43:08 AM
The Bagatelle sans tonalité
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b29qCN3rFIE

Yep, that's the one.

QuoteI haven't been listening to more modernistic music too long either, but lately I've been listening to the Second Viennese school, and occasionally tipped my ears in Dutilleux, Ligeti, Penderecki, Xenakis.

I find the likes of Dutilleaux, what little I've heard of him anyway, much preferable to hard-core VS II. Of course, to me the Strauss-Mahler-influenced works of Webern and Berg are more engaging.
Regards,
Navneeth

Lethevich

An alternate route which worked for me is Mahler - Shostakovich - Schnittke. By the time you are able to tolerate the latter, you're ready for all kinds of weirdness.
Peanut butter, flour and sugar do not make cookies. They make FIRE.

North Star

Quote from: Lethevich on January 31, 2012, 08:50:45 AM
By the time you are able to tolerate the latter, you're ready for all kinds of weirdness.
;D
The cello sonata is nice.
"Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it." - Confucius

My photographs on Flickr

eyeresist

#810
In an effort of outreach toward my father, I copied some music to CD-R for him. Our tastes are very different - he only likes Nice vocal music. But I thought he'd like Mozart's Coronation Mass and Requiem. Giving him Mahler's 8th was a risk. I'm not sure if he was joking when he said "I tried and failed to feel some inspiration from Prokofiev's 'Hail to Stalin'."

He liked Allegri's Miserere. Apparently he really likes the sound of boy singers, news which fills me with horror. He recommended this to me:

[ASIN]B0035FZ66U[/ASIN]


Karl Henning

 Quote from: eyeresist on February 16, 2012, 09:44:13 PM
. . . Giving him Mahler's 8th was a risk.
 
Unless he likes things like the Harvard Fight Song arranged for 400 singers and massive orchestra ; )
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Karl Henning

 Quote from: eyeresist on February 16, 2012, 09:44:13 PM
He liked Allegri's Miserere. Apparently he really likes the sound of boy singers, news which fills me with horror.
 
Dude, there's nothing wrong with liking that sound.

You should try Jas O'Donnell's recording of Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms; there are boy trebles in the choir (which Stravinsky's score denotes as a preference).
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

nesf

A question, with a new piece of complicated music what are good ways to approach it? I'm starting on Beethoven's Late Quartets and finding them a bit overwhelming and I feel a bit out of my depth musically, should I perhaps try and break them down into movements and get to know each movement before trying to listen to them straight through at the start? Or is it just a case of listen until it starts making some sense to you?
My favourite words in classical: "Molto vivace"

Yes, I'm shallow.

DavidW

Quote from: nesf on February 18, 2012, 02:14:35 PM
Or is it just a case of listen until it starts making some sense to you?

That's the key with me, just repeat several times.

Lethevich

Quote from: DavidW on February 18, 2012, 02:16:56 PM
That's the key with me, just repeat several times.

I do that too, but if one mvmt then clicks for me, I either repeat it a bit, or I play the two movements around it to get a feel for the transition - to map it out.
Peanut butter, flour and sugar do not make cookies. They make FIRE.

Opus106

#816
Quote from: nesf on February 18, 2012, 02:14:35 PM
A question, with a new piece of complicated music what are good ways to approach it? I'm starting on Beethoven's Late Quartets and finding them a bit overwhelming and I feel a bit out of my depth musically, should I perhaps try and break them down into movements and get to know each movement before trying to listen to them straight through at the start? Or is it just a case of listen until it starts making some sense to you?

However one looks at it, for me it essentially boils down to liking parts and then figuring out the whole later (even in a simplistic way), for works which don't click immediately. There have been many times where I liked only one movement but not the others initially (the 3rd movement from Brahms' D minor cto., for example), but I would let the whole piece play while anticipating what I liked. That way, the chances of picking up something in the other movements increased and at the same time I didn't get an overdose of the last movement alone. Repeated listening to single movements may work in the case of Mahler or Bruckner, say, where some movements last as long, if not longer, than a late quartet by Beethoven. ;D

That said, I don't make a routine out of it. It's best when I'm in the mood to explore. YMMV, of course. :)
Regards,
Navneeth

nesf

Quote from: Opus106 on February 18, 2012, 10:08:46 PM
That said, I don't make a routine out of it. It's best when I'm in the mood to explore. YMMV, of course. :)

Yeah, that's my current approach to new music and it seems to work. :)


Thanks guys, it's interesting to hear opinions on this.
My favourite words in classical: "Molto vivace"

Yes, I'm shallow.

DavidW

I don't think that I've ever tried it by individual movements, I think I'll give that a shot myself. :)

Karl Henning

An organist buddy introduced me to this yesterday. Can you even believe it?

http://www.youtube.com/v/QApu6Xk5w28
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot