Recordings That You Are Considering

[Florestan]

Oops. Forgot em. But there were astounding!

Not even Merriam-Webster's appeal to idiom could save this from being extremely illiterate and stupid. 

[Ken B]

Not even Merriam-Webster's appeal to idiom could save this from being extremely illiterate and stupid. 

When you're pudding, you're pudding.

[j winter]

That's obsolete. "Writing about music is like pudding" is the new new thing.

Hey, I get a piece of that!   


Of course pudding generally comes in scoops, but....

[Madiel]

And then there's this, "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture."

Right. Close the forum.

[Mandryka]

So here's the bit I love, where he's describing music with words

Tenderness it welled: slow, swelling, full it throbbed... Throb, a throb, a pulsing proud erect...
Bloom. Flood of warm jamjam lickitup
secretness flowed to flow in music out, in desire,
dark to lick flow invading. Tipping her tepping her
Tapping her topping her ... Tup. To pour o'er sluices
pouring gushes. Flood, gush, flow, joygush, tupthrob.
Now! Language of love.

The music in question is this


https://www.youtube.com/v/eSDuhWgNiYM

[Mandryka]

And here's another one, this time from Thomas Mann

For listen to the end, listen with me: one group of instruments after another retires, and what remains, as the work fades on the air, is the high G of a cello, the last word, the last fainting sound, slowly dying in a pianissimo-fermata. Then nothing more: silence, and night. But that tone which vibrates in the silence, which is no longer there, to which only the spirit harkens, and which was the voice of mourning, is so no more. It changes its meaning; it abides as a light in the night.

[Florestan]

So here's the bit I love, where he's describing music with words

The music in question is this


https://www.youtube.com/v/eSDuhWgNiYM

And here's another one, this time from Thomas Mann

Definitely, my friend, you're a romantic through and through, much as you wouldn't admit. Welcome to the club!

I'd like to point out, though, that the quotes you offered (and which are splendid) are literature, not philosophy. They cannot provide an answer to your questions, because they are related to the experience of listening to someone playing music, not to the experience of thinking about someone's playing music (Mann is explicit on this point, for he writes "listen with me", not "think with me"). What they describe is direct reactions to the music itself, not afterthoughts about the whys and the wherefores of the performance.

[Mandryka]

No, of course, they were examples of how writing about music is  possible, that quote about dancing about architecture is a load of glib rubbish, the music forum analogue of post-truth.

[Florestan]

that quote about dancing about architecture is a load of glib rubbish

Indeed one of the stupidest things ever uttered or written.

[San Antone]

No, of course, they were examples of how writing about music is  possible, that quote about dancing about architecture is a load of glib rubbish, the music forum analogue of post-truth.

Yes, the quote was a glib platitude.  There are obviously ways to write/talk about music, but personally, I prefer when the talk is based on objective information.

For example:

1. Analysis of the music in a formal sense, i.e. harmonic, formal, structural and thematic explanations
2. Historical and biographical of the composer, period and a specific work's origin
3. The particulars of a recording, i.e. performers, audio quality, program and other details, and optionally, a short, relevant, except from a review

These I find useful and often interesting and stimulating.

The kind I find tedious and useless are the kind you often post of vague, dreamy, metaphorical flights of the imagination as you try to capture your response to the music or wonder about the performer's motivation or thinking behind the performance.  Sorry if this is harsh.  And I won't respond to your posts of this kind in the future since at this point, I couldn't help but be rude.

OTOH, you also write very interesting posts, and I have learned about many early music recordings from you, so it is not all bad.  I hope you don't take too much offense, I just felt I needed to explain why I posted that glib quote.

[Florestan]

The kind I find tedious and useless are the kind you often post of vague, dreamy, metaphorical flights of the imagination as you try to capture your response to the music

You might as well level this criticism at Robert Schumann, whose articles in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung are chock-full of vague, dreamy, metaphorical flights of the imagination, starting with the very first one, "Hats off, gentlemen, a genius!" (Chopin himself, upon reading it, said something to the effect that "this German's wild flights of imagination had me dying of laughter", quoted from memory). Berlioz, too, often waxed poetically about music (read his description of Beethoven's symphonies: http://www.hberlioz.com/Predecessors/beethsym.htm)

So I beg to differ. I find nothing objectionable about wild flights of imagination inspired by music. I love them, actually: they are proof of a sensitive,  imaginative and cultivated mind.

Otoh, I agree that speculating about the whys and wherefores of a performance and making enjoyment of music dependent on them is indeed tedious and useless.

[San Antone]

You might as well level this criticism at Robert Schumann, whose articles in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung are chock-full of vague, dreamy, metaphorical flights of the imagination, starting with the very first one, "Hats off, gentlemen, a genius!" (Chopin himself, upon reading it, said something to the effect that "this German's wild flights of imagination had me dying of laughter", quoted from memory). Berlioz, too, often waxed poetically about music (read his description of Beethoven's symphonies: http://www.hberlioz.com/Predecessors/beethsym.htm)

So I beg to differ. I find nothing objectionable about wild flights of imagination inspired by music. I love them, actually: they are proof of a sensitive,  imaginative and cultivated mind.

Otoh, I agree that speculating about the whys and wherefores of a performance and making enjoyment of music dependent on them is indeed tedious and useless.

Yeah, well, that's why I don't Schumann's criticism, I listen to his music.  Which I love.   

[Florestan]

Yeah, well, that's why I don't Schumann's criticism, I listen to his music.  Which I love.   

Have you never had yourself vague, dreamy, wild flights of imagination when listening to music?   

[San Antone]

Have you never had yourself vague, dreamy, wild flights of imagination when listening to music?   

Not really.   

[Florestan]

Not really.

Dull fellow.   

[Mandryka]

That reminds me of something Bertrand Russell once said in an interview, don't forget he was the author of Principia Mathematica,  they were discussing visual imagination and he said he didn't have one,  that he was incapable of visualizing a blue triangle.

[Florestan]

That reminds me of something Bertrand Russell once said in an interview, don't forget he was the author of Principia Mathematica,  they were discussing visual imagination and he said he didn't have one,  that he was incapable of visualizing a blue triangle.

I find it hard to believe he was actually serious.

[Mandryka]

I find it hard to believe he was actually serious.

Yes a friend of mine said that but I'll tell you the truth, I don't have a great visual imagination. I can barely visualise a blue triangle.  I just don't think or feel in pictures.

[San Antone]

I can easily visualize a blue triangle, but not as a result of listening to music.   

[Ken B]

I can easily visualize a blue triangle, but not as a result of listening to music.   

Ah, but can you dance one?