"Nervous" Composers

Started by MN Dave, February 01, 2010, 06:27:24 AM

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MN Dave

I have read recently about Mahler and Shostakovich writing "nervous" music, and I can hear that it's true; these dudes had some issues. Is it part of their appeal?

Which other composers were a bundle of neuroses?

Franco

Quote from: Beethovenian on February 01, 2010, 06:27:24 AM
I have read recently about Mahler and Shostakovich writing "nervous" music, and I can hear that it's true; these dudes had some issues. Is it part of their appeal?

Which other composers were a bundle of neuroses?

Why do you want to know?

MN Dave

Quote from: Franco on February 01, 2010, 06:34:56 AM
Why do you want to know?

Why do you get out of bed in the morning?

springrite

Quote from: Beethovenian on February 01, 2010, 06:37:15 AM
Why do you get out of bed in the morning?

Because I get nervous in my dreams.
Do what I must do, and let what must happen happen.

Franco

Quote from: Beethovenian on February 01, 2010, 06:37:15 AM
Why do you get out of bed in the morning?

Why do you answer a question with a question?

MN Dave


karlhenning




Elgarian

Quote from: Franco on February 01, 2010, 06:47:53 AM
No, I didn't?

Is this a question merely because it ends with a question mark? Or is it a statement pretending to be a question? Or is it a question pretending to be a statement? And does the thrill of contemplating of such matters explain why I get out of bed in the morning? And if I were a composer, would I compose nervous music?

DavidW

Quote from: Beethovenian on February 01, 2010, 06:27:24 AM
I have read recently about Mahler and Shostakovich writing "nervous" music, and I can hear that it's true; these dudes had some issues. Is it part of their appeal?

Which other composers were a bundle of neuroses?

Smetana's String Quartet No. 2 is very nervous.  It switches between periods of agitation and joy like a bipolar episode.  I read that he was going deaf at the time, and it was his musical description of his state of mind.  I think that's true.

Scion7

You'd be nervous, too, once Stalin's regime had taken an "interest" in you.
When, a few months before his death, Rachmaninov lamented that he no longer had the "strength and fire" to compose, friends reminded him of the Symphonic Dances, so charged with fire and strength. "Yes," he admitted. "I don't know how that happened. That was probably my last flicker."

Dax

QuoteMilford had a sad life. Although being of a highly sensitive and nervous nature he volunteered for the army as soon as the Second World War broke out (unlike Britten, who cleared off to America) where he was bullied and suffered a nervous breakdown and had to be invalided out. Then, his only child Barnaby was killed in a road traffic accident in 1941. Finally, after the deaths of his friends, Finzi and Vaughan Williams he committed suicide in 1959

Thanks to Vandermolen on the Milford thread

Christo

What about Tchaikovsky? I love his music - but his biography, as I recall it, contains more stressed and nervous pages than any other composer's.
... music is not only an 'entertainment', nor a mere luxury, but a necessity of the spiritual if not of the physical life, an opening of those magic casements through which we can catch a glimpse of that country where ultimate reality will be found.    RVW, 1948

calyptorhynchus

I listened recently to the symphonies and string quartets of Alan Rawsthorne. Whilst not nervous, I found these pieces some of the angriest and most frustrated music I have ever heard. He had some issues...
'Many men are melancholy by hearing music, but it is a pleasing melancholy that it causeth.' Robert Burton

Mirror Image

I always get the a nervous feeling whenever I listen to Schoenberg, but not so much where I'm trembling, but the kind of unease his music creates. Now this man had some issues. I get a similar feeling from Webern, but in a completely different way. Almost as if you're going into an exotic jungle kind of feeling. Never knowing what to expect.

ZauberdrachenNr.7

Quote from: Franco on February 01, 2010, 06:47:53 AM
No, I didn't?

"No, i didn't" would be a great title. Sounds like Monk.

Mirror Image

Quote from: ZauberdrachenNr.7 on September 06, 2015, 05:36:57 PM
"No, i didn't" would be a great title. Sounds like Monk.

Yes, it should be played right after "Well You Needn't". ;)

springrite

Any of John's favourite composers are nervous composers because John may drop them at any moment without notice.
Do what I must do, and let what must happen happen.

Mirror Image

Quote from: springrite on September 06, 2015, 06:15:29 PM
Any of John's favourite composers are nervous composers because John may drop them at any moment without notice.

:P Oh, Paul! ;D