Communication: a vital essence of music

[jochanaan]

Cato, your analogy breaks down for me in this, that the language of music is one with which I am so familiar, even in strange permutations like those of Varèse or Carter, that it usually doesn't take me long to understand the language being used.  I suspect other performers and composers have similar experiences, especially ones such as our Karl who write such permutations.

There are a few composers who, though superficially I understood them almost at once, took a while really to grow on me.  Haydn is one--Franz Josef Haydn, that is.  At first I accepted the traditional "wisdom" that his music was less "heartfelt" than Mozart's and maybe less masterful, but over time I have come to appreciate his great originality (he once said something like, "Being isolated from everyone, I had to become original"), his joyousness, and his perfect mastery.  He, after all, pretty much invented sonata-allegro form and the string quartet.

On the other hand, there would be no perceptible vacancy in my musical heart if I never heard anything by Rossini, Donizetti, or Johann Strauss (Jr. or Sr.) again. But that's just me.

Generally, the more challenging a piece of music is for performer and listener, the more likely I am to get obsessed with it and grow to love it.

[Cato]

Generally, the more challenging a piece of music is for performer and listener, the more likely I am to get obsessed with it and grow to love it.

You are a composer's dream listener!  Excellent open-minded attitude!

[petrarch]

I read a quote from John Cage last night that I realized I agree with completely: "I could not accept the academic idea that the purpose of music was communication."

To be fair, he was talking about the tower of babel effect he experienced in music, that is, the ideas, emotions and states of mind he wished to communicate were not the ones listeners were perceiving. He came to this realization in the late 1940s (IIRC), at a time of considerable turmoil in his personal life and before he fully adopted zen and buddhist ideals (non-intention, disinterestedness, etc) in his works. That realization led to the shedding of what remained of the conception of what music is and should be that Schoenberg taught and imprinted in him.

[petrarch]

Quiet the mind?

Man. Clearly I'm listening to it all wrong. It sets my mind on fire. Who knew that the finale of a Beethoven symphony was supposed to quiet my mind?

"The purpose of music is to sober and quiet the mind, and thus make it more susceptible to divine influences" (to paraphrase). It's "quiet the mind" as in make it much more focused and free from the noise of your worries, judgments, tastes, and so on.

[jochanaan]

You are a composer's dream listener!  Excellent open-minded attitude!

And I'd listen a lot more, if I weren't so busy with "life."