"War Symphonies"

[Monsieur Croche]

Again, not abiding by the OP's guidelines. Kyle wants symphonies. Nothing else, James.

There is not a font in my computer small enough to comment upon this comment.

[some guy]

Interesting this desire to turn musical sounds and patterns into words and sentences.

I would almost call it a mania.

And the related, um, desire to treat subjective responses to a piece of music as descriptions of the music itself. (Which means, inevitably, that some "descriptions" will be privileged over others. Odd, because every single response that is treated as a description is not a description--not of the music, anyway.)

Well, it will never end, will it?

And now you'll excuse me. I have urine-soaked pantaloons to launder. (I blame the wind.)

[Monsieur Croche]

Interesting this desire to turn musical sounds and patterns into words and sentences.

I would almost call it a mania.

The closest I have come to thinking I perhaps understand this was a gestalt moment while listening to an interview with the widow of author Evelyn Waugh.  I don't know what remark or turn of conversation brought it up, but she said that Waugh "Couldn't stand music of any Kind. It irritated him no end."

It occurred to me that it just might be possible when a man so utterly preoccupied with written language conveying a specific meaning hears music, he perceives an order, a 'syntax' (and all those other analogous terms about language so often applied to music) and that would lead him to expect / conclude that music 'ought' to make the same specific kind of sense that verbal languages do.

Ergo, when Waugh heard music, this must have been for him like being in a country where everyone is speaking a language he did not know, i.e. assuming what he heard must have meaning as specific as language, and then being highly frustrated and irritated there is no text or phrase-book on earth that will allow you to learn to "translate" it.

Well, it will never end, will it?

Nope ;-)

[Maestro267]

So music means nothing then. The varied dynamics, the dissonances and consonances, the differences in tempi, are not supposed to conjure mental images in our head. It's all just dots on paper then, a futile science...




Nah, give me programmes any day over that academic, no-imagination rubbish!

[some guy]

So music means nothing then. The varied dynamics, the dissonances and consonances, the differences in tempi, are not supposed to conjure mental images in our head. It's all just dots on paper then, a futile science...




Nah, give me programmes any day over that academic, no-imagination rubbish!

No one has said that music means nothing. And I'm going to guess that you know that perfectly well, know perfectly well that you have created a nice little straw man to destroy with all of your might. And where did "academic, no-imagination" come from? (I know where "rubbish" comes from; it's a natural by-product of making things up so that you can pretend to have destroyed a position which your straw man resembles in no wise.)

Come on, Maestro, conjuring images is what music is? Pigments and pixels are much better at that, you know, and words aren't half bad. But seriously, the absence of conjuring images is futility? You're having us on, right?

There are more realities than visual ones. There are more realities than linguistic ones. Why, there's music!! Yeah, music, that non-verbal, non-pictorial collection of dynamics, dissonances, consonances, tempi--and maybe even a few pitches, a bit of rhythm, and some nice timbre, too, why not?--there's your whole world of non-verbal, non-visual meaning right there. It was right there all along, vibrating the air and your ears and your heart and your mind.

It's imaginative. It's magical. And you completely missed it.

[Monsieur Croche]

So music means nothing then. The varied dynamics, the dissonances and consonances, the differences in tempi, are not supposed to conjure mental images in our head. It's all just dots on paper then, a futile science...




Nah, give me programmes any day over that academic, no-imagination rubbish!

Give us a break and give it a rest... because disingenuity doesn't look good on anyone.

[BasilValentine]

The closest I have come to thinking I perhaps understand this was a gestalt moment while listening to an interview with the widow of author Evelyn Waugh.  I don't know what remark or turn of conversation brought it up, but she said that Waugh "Couldn't stand music of any Kind. It irritated him no end."

It occurred to me that it just might be possible when a man so utterly preoccupied with written language conveying a specific meaning hears music, he perceives an order, a 'syntax' (and all those other analogous terms about language so often applied to music) and that would lead him to expect / conclude that music 'ought' to make the same specific kind of sense that verbal languages do.

Ergo, when Waugh heard music, this must have been for him like being in a country where everyone is speaking a language he did not know, i.e. assuming what he heard must have meaning as specific as language, and then being highly frustrated and irritated there is no text or phrase-book on earth that will allow you to learn to "translate" it.


Nope ;-)

That hostile reaction to music is likely associated with amusia (see the case studies section of the article), a mental defect affecting 4% of our species. For many amusiacs, music sounds like incoherent noise:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusia

[André]

I think my wife is amusiac

[Mahlerian]

I think my wife is amusiac

I had a roommate in college who was amusiac; he told me he didn't understand what people meant by notes being "high" or "low."

[Monsieur Croche]

I had a roommate in college who was amusiac; he told me he didn't understand what people meant by notes being "high" or "low."

That is a true symptom of Amusia, aka tone-deaf, or the colloquial 'tin ear.'  If the either phrase is used, it is most often used improperly, people meaning more 'I can't really sing,' or 'I can't really sing well in tune.'

Tone deaf is not only being unable to distinguish one pitch from another, high or low.  People who are tone deaf also can not distinguish between the same pitch as played by one instrument to another -- timbre is also indistinguishable.  A=440 on a violin, piano, xylophone, cello, oboe, trumpet all sound quite the same to the truly tone-deaf.

[kyjo]

Back on topic! Schulhoff's Symphony no. 5, written right before the outbreak of WWII in 1938-39, is one of my greatest discoveries of the past few years. It's an angry, defiant work which shows the influence of Shostakovich, especially in its episodes of snare drum-driven hysteria.

[asin]B001UUNBDW[/asin]

[André]

Good idea: I'll listen to it tonight. I had not thought of it as war related.

[kyjo]

I had not thought of it as war related.

Perhaps Schulhoff didn't mean for it to explicitly reflect the tensions in Europe at the time, but I certainly feel it in the music.

[SymphonicAddict]

Back on topic! Schulhoff's Symphony no. 5, written right before the outbreak of WWII in 1938-39, is one of my greatest discoveries of the past few years. It's an angry, defiant work which shows the influence of Shostakovich, especially in its episodes of snare drum-driven hysteria.

[asin]B001UUNBDW[/asin]

Good idea: I'll listen to it tonight. I had not thought of it as war related.

I'm tempted to give them a listen. BTW, are there recordings of the 4th and 6th symphony? At least I don't have any of them. Do you know something about them?

[Monsieur Croche]

Perhaps Schulhoff didn't mean for it to explicitly reflect the tensions in Europe at the time, but I certainly feel it in the music.

Unless a composer is living in an envelope of oblivion, I'm pretty sure something of the ethos of their time comes through in much of what they produce.

Bohuslav Martinů's Double Concerto for Two String Orchestras, Piano, and Timpani (an amazingly fine and strong piece, imo) was written in 1938 as a commission from Paul Sacher for the Basel Chamber Orchestra
"during deteriorating diplomatic relationships throughout Europe. it reflects intense impressions, from both the composer's personal life and the political events of the time." ~ Wikipedia  (The bold font is mine.)

It certainly has an ominous, anxious and urgent quality.

[kyjo]

I'm tempted to give them a listen. BTW, are there recordings of the 4th and 6th symphony? At least I don't have any of them. Do you know something about them?

No, I don't believe they've been recorded, unfortunately. Hopefully that will change soon!

[SymphonicAddict]

No, I don't believe they've been recorded, unfortunately. Hopefully that will change soon!

I see, well, I hope the same. Thanks for your response!

[André]

Perhaps Schulhoff didn't mean for it to explicitly reflect the tensions in Europe at the time, but I certainly feel it in the music.

Re: symphony no 5: comment in the WAYLT thread.

[André]

I'm tempted to give them a listen. BTW, are there recordings of the 4th and 6th symphony? At least I don't have any of them. Do you know something about them?

I've never seen that disc available, but it does exist.

[kyjo]

I've never seen that disc available, but it does exist.

It's completely unavailable on Amazon, YouTube, and Spotify. What a shame!