Composers you don't get

[mc ukrneal]

If you want Schubert at his best, try some of his lieder. They are genius. But if you want piano, try the impromptus. They are tuneful and rich and as good as anything he ever wrote.

Satie is the start of a clear shift away from romantacism, and he is often connected with the surrealists and minimalists. He is also credited for influencing the neoclassicists. The idea was to strip the music to its core, getting rid of all the romantic encumbrances. His music is quite interesting and he wrote numerous notes for his music, some of which are quite hilarious.

[EigenUser]

Interesting discussion.

One of my favorite threads here!

I still struggle with Haydn if truth be told [...]

I've been working slowly and steadily through his symphonies So far, I see him as a master craftsman in good spirits and with a good sense of humor. To me, some of his music brings to mind slapstick comedy in a very proper setting (maybe like the three stooges at Esterhazy's palace? ). Okay, that's a bit extreme, but you get the idea.

Final question: why is Erik Satie so highly lauded? Is it that he was just a bit of an oddball and so gets a cult following, or am I missing something in his music?

I like Satie. I'm not familiar with his very small orchestral output, but I know some of his piano works. Like mc ukrneal said, he was a precursor to a lot of stuff in the 20th century (including Les Six, who looked up to him rather than to Debussy and Ravel).

He was certainly an oddball. He didn't let anyone into his apartment for years. When he died and his friends went up to clear it out, they found some of the strangest things. Not bad, just strange. Like two pianos -- one stacked on top of the other, both unplayable. And a collection of exactly 100 umbrellas. And 7 identical velvet suits.

Somehow I feel kind of bad for him, too. He had a rough start to life and lived in near-poverty for most of it. His Pieces Froids ("Cold Pieces") was composed during the winter in a tiny unheated apartment. In the end, though, it (relatively) worked out and he has a secure place in music history for sure.

Now I want to listen to some Satie piano music later today!

[...] ploughing through string quartets, badly, at school [...]

Do you mean listening or playing? If playing, what instrument(s) do you play?

[Karl Henning]

Final question: why is Erik Satie so highly lauded? Is it that he was just a bit of an oddball and so gets a cult following, or am I missing something in his music?

In general, I think his music light and inconsequential — by design.  He is, therefore, something of a peripheral figure.

That said, Socrate is a magnificent piece, do you know it?

[asin]B000FZEQJG[/asin]

P.S./ The mélodies on that recording are more like "salon music" than like heaven-storming Lieder, but of course there's a place for both, and Satie's are charming.

[Mandryka]

I know a few people who find Schubert's  long form music challenging.  He seems to have a style based more on repetition than variation, so there's this frequent feeling of of déjà vu. It's as if in his long form music we're often  running into doppelgangers. I think he's saying something about memory, identity, nostalgia. Basically some people are only comfortable with music based on variation - you see that in discussions of the Missa Solemnis, I've heard people say it's not good because there's so little variation.

Schubert's short form music is another kettle of fish.

Haydn suffers through poor performance IMO. Also some of his music is quite complex, where he's exploring new ideas, op 33 is like that I think. People don't expect that sort of complexity so they're put off.

[Madiel]

I was quite disturbed when I realised a few years ago I actually owned more Schubert than I did of a number of other composers I would say I liked a great deal more.

The thing about Schubert for me, though (and this is agreeing with a previous poster) is that the chronology is critical. For me there is almost a direct relationship between the year in which the piece was composed and my degree of enjoyment. I have the box of Schubert piano sonatas by Andras Schiff. The first few are frankly tedious. The ones around the 500s in the D. catalogue begin to get interesting. The later ones are better. The best Schubert has a meditative quality that can be quite appealing.

I'd actually say a similar thing about Dvorak, although the tipping point is a bit different. The first few string quartets are long-winded and boring. I quite like the works I know around the B.50 mark in the Burghauser catalogue - string quartet no.7 and the first piano trio - and from there things tend to get better and better, although I can't fathom the popularity of the 'American' string quartet. Give a work a name and a gimmick and it takes off, leaving other far better works behind. But overall, I've concluded that I like Dvorak from about 1874/5 onwards far more than I like anything before that period.

Satie, I confess to having little interest in.

[The new erato]

The ones around the 500s in the D. catalogue begin to get interesting.

When the effects of syphilis set in?

[Madiel]

When the effects of syphilis set in?

I always just put it down to increasing maturity and skill as a composer, but if that theory works for you, go with it.

[The new erato]

Well, as noted Schubert's music changed quite drastically, and his syphilis is more or less a historical fact. So I guess it's quite possible, though not in any way imortant regarding the value of his late works.

[Jo498]

There are some very good Schubert Lieder quite early on (e.g. Gretchen am Spinnrade D 118 from 1814) and many people like his early symphonies (which I find charming, but comparably overrated), apparently also conductors as there are quite a few recordings around. The early string quartets are interesting, but more for aficionados; most of them were written when he was still a teenager.

What I meant above and what I find somewhat puzzling is that even undoubtedly mature und great pieces like the a minor quartet, the late piano sonatas or the trios often have these leisurely final rondos, are comparably repetitive and sometimes seem to lack a little concentration or direction. To me it seems that Schubert still felt not certain enough about himself so he stuck to forms he knew he could handle well, but combined with his broad, mostly lyrical style they became very expansive and slightly repetitive. There is nothing wrong with that an many people love it. He does some amazing things, but the framework does not seem ideal and sometimes even a little formalist (There are some recapitulation sections where the earlier material is repeated far more literal than one would ever find in Haydn or Beethoven.)
Had he lived only a little longer, I expect that he would have experimented more, maybe along the freer forms of some late Beethoven pieces.

[Brian]

I have the somewhat provocative idea that Schubert (who died a few months before turning 32) had only "found his style" in a few pieces and even the mature ones, great as they are in many respects, still show what could be conceived of as "weaknesses". A case in point are the last two piano sonatas D 959 and 960, revered pieces that many listeners count among the greatest music. Although others (or even the same ones) are puzzled how he can follow extraordinary "deep" and emotionally challenging slow movements with a somewhat run of the mill scherzo and finale, teeming with good-natured Viennese Laendler etc. Even the finale of what may be his greatest instrumental work, the string quintet, has a section I secretly dub "the Kaffeehausmusik".

FYI, I agree with you. As much as I love Schubert, and as deeply as I love most of his final pieces, the finales were the one thing that he had not successfully figured out. It is strange that the quintet ends on a faux-Hungarian dance after the devastating power of the first three movements - although he saves the finale with that incredible coda, ambiguous and slightly menacing. It is strange that the sonata D960 ends with another rather fragmented finale. If he had solved the finale problem (and the quintet and symphony show he was close), Schubert's maturity would have been...well, I guess too great for us mortals to know.

By the way, in terms of terse, unconventional works, you left off the two final fantasies for piano four-hands.

his early symphonies (which I find charming, but comparably overrated)

I don't think the early symphonies are "overrated"; I think everyone agrees that they are merely charming, "nice," and diverting. But gosh, are they lovely. I'm very fond of Nos. 2, 3, and 6.

[Karl Henning]

[...]
Had he lived only a little longer, I expect that he would have experimented more, maybe along the freer forms of some late Beethoven pieces.

Maybe, or maybe not.  It is not uncommon, when we think of the composers who died terribly early, to project future careers of unceasing experiment and progress.  It is an attractive arc of speculation!  But (just for argument) it is possible, too, that they would reach a point beyond which they do not feel motivated to press with further experimentation.

And in that line of speculation, there are at least two possibilities, too:

1.  At that point, the composer "realizes his gains," expanding his artistry laterally rather than vertically (not that it does either composer full justice, but think Bach and Brahms)

2.  At that point, the composer feels no further motivation to create (think Rossini and Sibelius)

We just do not know.

Personally, I do not feel these pangs of "oh, the music which we might have had from Mozart and Schubert!"  There is a wealth of great music to listen to, without the need to bemoan the imaginary masterpieces which might have been.

[Madiel]

Maybe Schubert just wasn't that interested in creating 'direction'.  This picks up on what I've just said in another thread: to say that Schubert wasn't very good at putting direction, or momentum, in his music makes the assumption that he would have done it if he could, or that it's a necessary part of music being good.

I like a bit of forward movement in my music as much as anybody, but frankly if that's what I'm in the mood for I'm likely to bypass Schubert. I know, on the other hand, that if I'm in the mood for something that has a meditative static quality, there's hardly anything in my CD collection that matches the first movement of Schubert's last string quartet.

[Karl Henning]

Maybe Schubert just wasn't that interested in creating 'direction'.  This picks up on what I've just said in another thread: to say that Schubert wasn't very good at putting direction, or momentum, in his music makes the assumption that he would have done it if he could, or that it's a necessary part of music being good.

Word.

[Ken B]

Satie re-introduced a new attitude, a cooler more detached response to the ungodly post-Wagnerian bloat of stuff like Gurrelieder. There are more values in music than surging emotion or gushing longing. Satie managed to find an original way to emphasize them. This accounts for his influence. He had the failings of his virtues I think, and was often too detached. He was surpassed by many of his followers -- Poulenc, Roussel -- but he wrote much fine music, together with the not so fine. But a man who can stand in the flow of Wagner-Schoenberg-Skriabin grandiosity and snicker deserves to be remembered fondly.

[Mandryka]

I was quite disturbed when I realised a few years ago I actually owned more Schubert than I did of a number of other composers I would say I liked a great deal more.

The thing about Schubert for me, though (and this is agreeing with a previous poster) is that the chronology is critical. For me there is almost a direct relationship between the year in which the piece was composed and my degree of enjoyment. I have the box of Schubert piano sonatas by Andras Schiff. The first few are frankly tedious. The ones around the 500s in the D. catalogue begin to get interesting. The later ones are better. The best Schubert has a meditative quality that can be quite appealing.

I'd actually say a similar thing about Dvorak, although the tipping point is a bit different. The first few string quartets are long-winded and boring. I quite like the works I know around the B.50 mark in the Burghauser catalogue - string quartet no.7 and the first piano trio - and from there things tend to get better and better, although I can't fathom the popularity of the 'American' string quartet. Give a work a name and a gimmick and it takes off, leaving other far better works behind. But overall, I've concluded that I like Dvorak from about 1874/5 onwards far more than I like anything before that period.

Satie, I confess to having little interest in.

On the whole I agree with you about Schubert, but something happened to me a couple of years ago which makes me think the situation is more complex. It was a concert of early Schubert quartets by Cuarteto Casals - they played a fantastic C minor quartet with a double digit D number, and a super G major piece with D number less than 20! If you get a chance to hear their early Schubert I think you should - more urgently than to hear their late quartet recording in fact.

Another outstanding experience I've had with early Schubert was with Kagan and Leonskaja playing violin duos. And there are loads of songs - Erlkonig for example.

[Jo498]

Maybe I sounded more critical than I meant to. I fully agree that Schubert did some highly original and extraordinary things in his late instrumental works. I have no quibbles with the finales of the d minor, G major quartets, the quintet and the Great symphony. (The very fast "Totentanz"/Tarantella finales of the last quartets and the c minor sonata are maybe the most successful, also my fav is probably still the quintet) And the Trios which are a little more relaxed in mood altogether work well with their "Kaffeehaus"-finales. It's mainly some of the piano sonatas where I think that the finales feel more anticlimactic than I would like.
Admittedly I feel (or used to feel) the same with some Beethoven like the piano sonatas op. 90 (and even the Waldstein) or the quartet op.74.

[eoghan]

Tsk tsk.
Tsk tsk, reprise.

Isn't this a thread for making admissions you wouldn't necessarily make loudly elsewhere?

Thanks for all the thoughts on Schubert. I'd rather stick pins in my eyes than listen to lieder of any sort (that's just personal preference and is unlikely to change any time soon) but I'll certainly focus on some of the later works.

A few weeks ago I went to hear the OAE (My sense most people on this forum are in the US or elsewhere? In which case I mean the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment) play Beethoven 7 and Schubert 9. I think the programme would have sounded a million times better if they'd programmed the Schubert in the first half. As it was, hearing it after the Beethoven it just sounded flat.

Re CPE Bach, I think my problem had always been that I thought of him as being a Baroque composer, so found his style and harmony very sterile. Now if I think of him as a "competitor" to Mozart, Haydn and Boccherini he suddenly comes across much better in my ears.

To the question about playing at school, I think I may be falling into a cultural pit here - I used school in the UK sense of high school - I never went to music college/conservatoire. I play cello (badly) although recorder is my main instrument.

[Karl Henning]

Isn't this a thread for making admissions you wouldn't necessarily make loudly elsewhere?

Aye, we should keep this a "guilt-free" zone

[Ken B]

Aye, we should keep this a "guilt-free" zone

All right then, Schnittke. At best he seems like a lesser Shostakovich in a bad mood. I have the quintet, symphonies, a CG and VC.

[North Star]

But the one I just don't get is Schubert. Beethoven - yes. Mendelssohn - yes. Schumann - a cautious yes, although I don't know enough of his music and probably wouldn't go out of my way to hear it. But Schubert just strikes me as being less complex, less tuneful, less emotional and just less interesting than Beethoven or any other contemporaries. That's just the instrumental music (I don't "do" songs). The "HIP Romantic recordings" thread has inspired me, however, and I've recently bought the Immerseel/Beths/Bylsma CD of the Schubert trios which is getting a good few airings. Perhaps I'll be turned?

Less tuneful or emotional than LvB or any other contemporaries? Tuneful and emotional are the first things that come first to my mind when I think of Schubert, and vice versa too, actually - in addition to Tchaikovsky, perhaps.

Final question: why is Erik Satie so highly lauded? Is it that he was just a bit of an oddball and so gets a cult following, or am I missing something in his music?

The latter. Try Socrate, if you can withstand singing. Or John Cage's transcription for two pianos, if you can not . . .
https://www.youtube.com/v/hdjLCfo3Fjs https://www.youtube.com/v/b_Cny7aeFW4  https://www.youtube.com/v/sPQPzaVhowQ

2.  At that point, the composer feels no further motivation to create (think Rossini and Sibelius)

Sibelius was pretty much forced to quit treating his tremor with alcohol to keep his health, and thus he couldn't write scores anymore.