Vaughan Williams's Veranda

[scarpia]

Besides, the wind machine is probably the only instrument you would be able to play, so don't look down on it!

Wrong again, M.F., try again.   

[lukeottevanger]

What, you mean you couldn't play it? 

[lukeottevanger]

Cheap but irresistible shot - sorry! 

[karlhenning]

Cheap but irresistible shot - sorry! 

And don't apologize.  Every time I try to talk to someone it's 'sorry this' and 'forgive me that' and 'I'm not worthy'.

[greg]

And don't apologize.  Every time I try to talk to someone it's 'sorry this' and 'forgive me that' and 'I'm not worthy'.

I'll apologize for Luke apologizing.

[greg]

Both.

So you really are the voice for all humanity...... i knew it all along. 

[greg]

Greg, if you're listening to Previn, you'll hear it prominently for the first time in the first movement at 4:45.

Sarge

Ok, i'll remember next time! 

[karlhenning]

I'll apologize for Luke apologizing.

Mousebender  (shoots him) What a senseless waste of human life.

[greg]

not sure i understand that quote, but.........

[karlhenning]

I should never offer you actual violence;  but I was shooting you for apologizing, after a clear command not to apologize.

[karlhenning]

To coin a phrase: Now you'll be sorry.

[lukeottevanger]

He clearly deserved everything he got. 

[karlhenning]

Listening to the Ninth. I've always loved this one!  Never had any problem with it.

So, okay, what's wrong with me? 

[Christo]

Regardless, I just think it sounds stupid.

Again! Ample proof that you and M Forever are really one and the same person. 

[drogulus]

     Incidentally, the film Scott of the Antarctic is well worth watching.

     M, this booklet from the CD of the Chandos Film Music of Ralph Vaughan Williams might interest you.

     

[lukeottevanger]

Yes, that is interesting, in the context of the above discussion - it points out that the wind sounds in the film were not part of the soundtrack but were added by the studio. The wind machine only appears in the Symphony. All of which further helps to dispel any implication that VW simply lifted the wind machine wholesale from the film score without consideration.

[scarpia]

Yes, that is interesting, in the context of the above discussion - it points out that the wind sounds in the film were not part of the soundtrack but were added by the studio. The wind machine only appears in the Symphony. All of which further helps to dispel any implication that VW simply lifted the wind machine wholesale from the film score without consideration.

Of course the sound effects in the film were added by the sound department with their own wind machine and whatnot.  This is exactly what I was assuming.  V-W wrote the music properly, without sound effects, then he saw the film and thought, "I've got to put one of those wind thingamajigs in there, sounds really cool and I couldn't figure out how to end the damn thing anyway." This scenario at least has some precedent (Turandot and the gongs).

[M forever]

Again! Ample proof that you and M Forever are really one and the same person. 

Yes. Because scarpia says it sounds stupid and M says it's a great effect, and it makes musical sense. So M and scarpia must be the same person.

**offensive remark removed**

This can also support the notion that he wrote the music, then he saw the film and thought, "I've got to put one of those wind thingamajigs in there, sounds really cool and I couldn't figure out how to end the damn thing anyway."

You are right, that is definitely a possibility. However, given that the use of it makes musical sense, too, there is no reason to assume that. Apparently, the explanations I and some others gave are both beyond your intellectual grasp and your powers of musical perception.

Remember, we only hear in music what resonates in us. If you aren't able to see, or rather, hear, the musical implications beyond a sound effect, then there is no way to explain that to you. As we have seen.

That is actually what I like about this use of the wind machine here so much, that it is both a sound effect and a transcendant musical element. Well, it can be, for people who can hear such stuff. For the others, it is only a sound effect.

[eyeresist]

I'm not discussing that, because in the end our individual reactions to the music aren't particularly important

Hmmm, maybe that's the crux of our disagreement.

I've enjoyed the discussion. (Just wanted to say.)

I'm glad. I just had the feeling this was an issue generally regarded as resolved, but I hadn't seen any debate on the topic.

V-W wrote the music properly, without sound effects, then he saw the film and thought, "I've got to put one of those wind thingamajigs in there, sounds really cool and I couldn't figure out how to end the damn thing anyway." This scenario at least has some precedent (Turandot and the gongs).

The precedent can't come after the thing it precedes. 

[drogulus]

     You can be sensitive to elements in music that others can't hear, and the problem is that they may not be there, even though many people agree that they are. So, in a way they are there, because the composer may have succeeded in convincing listeners that his music evokes an icy inhuman world. The audience may be willing and even eager to see a moral meaning in certain features, and act as collaborator with the composer in this. After all, the history of music and the meanings that have been attached to what's gone before are the common heritage of the composer and the audience alike.

     I think this happens all the time, and part of the confusion that occurs in discussions like this is over what's actually in the music and what arrives by a more circuitous route, such as titles, concert notes, articles and books, and in other ways. My usual way of dealing with this is if I think for some reason a composer has intended a certain musical episode to mean something specific I will try and hear it that way. Mostly I think that music doesn't suggest specifics of events, but general emotions that can be applied to what you know the music is about, if you know. Like a lot of other things, a little bit of faith is required to bring this whole effect into existence, because, objectively, it's a trick. _0:)

     What complicates the picture somewhat is that tritones, for example, are supposedly always sinister, which would suggest that some objective features can't be made to mean just anything, that there are deep underlying connections between certain sounds and what the sound evokes at the emotional level. That's probably true, but only in a general way. Such emotional evocations are a long way from moral meanings, I think. For that you need the kind of collaboration I mentioned earlier.

    So the argument about what means what is naturally a confused one, where people who believe many different things about the capabilities of music to convey meanings are trying to resolve a specific case without any agreement about whether, or how, such meanings are actually brought about.