Classical Music Torture?

[(poco) Sforzando]

O Fortuna, from Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana"

it's not even close.

Not even the whole 45-minutes piece?

[Sergeant Rock]

A few hours ago I heard Reich's Music for 18 Musicians for the first time...at least the first 16 minutes. I couldn't take any more. I had to check my pulse after the first few minutes to make sure I wasn't already in hell.

Sarge

[aligreto]

A few hours ago I heard Reich's Music for 18 Musicians for the first time...at least the first 16 minutes. I couldn't take any more. I had to check my pulse after the first few minutes to make sure I wasn't already in hell.

Sarge

+1 on that one Sarge.

[some guy]

When I see this question, I do not think about music but about the kinds of things that are said about music on internet classical forums.

The two posts preceding mine are good examples of torture. A perfectly nice piece, with a lot of cool stuff going on, traduced for no good reason.

Not that that's all Rock and aligreto's fault, faulty as they certainly are, because after all that's what the OP sets up as valid and respectable.

Hell. Yeah. It's right here on the internets.

[Full disclosure: I concur with Brian's choice, but his mentioning it is no less hellish than the posts of Sargeant Rock and aligreto. You would never hae known that I too hate that piece had I not needed it right now to make this point.]

[Rinaldo]

Yeah, that would be my choice. In fact, if not for watching the Bejart/Sylvie Guillem dances I probably wouldn't have heard it for years.
And for the hell of it: the nightmare scenario is being stuck in a mirrored room with an endless loop of Bolero and discovering I have hair like Simon Rattle.

While I can't relate to the first part of your post – I love every second of Boléro – I certainly feel ya when it comes to Rattle's.. can you even call it 'hair'?!

A few hours ago I heard Reich's Music for 18 Musicians for the first time...at least the first 16 minutes. I couldn't take any more. I had to check my pulse after the first few minutes to make sure I wasn't already in hell.

That's the piece I frequently play to soothe myself. Taste works in mysterious ways!

(also, anyone dissing Ixion is going straight to hell exactly for that )

As for my own personal hell, I don't really know. Probably some 19th century Italian opera.

[(poco) Sforzando]

When I see this question, I do not think about music but about the kinds of things that are said about music on internet classical forums.

The two posts preceding mine are good examples of torture. A perfectly nice piece, with a lot of cool stuff going on, traduced for no good reason.

Not that that's all Rock and aligreto's fault, faulty as they certainly are, because after all that's what the OP sets up as valid and respectable.

Hell. Yeah. It's right here on the internets.

[Full disclosure: I concur with Brian's choice, but his mentioning it is no less hellish than the posts of Sargeant Rock and aligreto. You would never hae known that I too hate that piece had I not needed it right now to make this point.]

So in other words, it's fine for you to say CB is torture for you, but not fine for others to say the Reich is torture for them - because you like the Reich. And "traduced" yet!

[Klaze]

(also, anyone dissing Ixion is going straight to hell exactly for that )

I certainly wasn't, just noting that it was appropriate w.r.t. the thread given the name and sound of the piece.

[Ken B]

A few hours ago I heard Reich's Music for 18 Musicians for the first time...at least the first 16 minutes. I couldn't take any more. I had to check my pulse after the first few minutes to make sure I wasn't already in hell.

Sarge

This is a terrible affliction. I know, I too suffered from it: "Initial Minimalism Adversion". You feel like your head will explode, and you long for it to do so. But it can be cured. The cure is repeated listens.

[(poco) Sforzando]

This is a terrible affliction. I know, I too suffered from it: "Initial Minimalism Adversion". You feel like your head will explode, and you long for it to do so. But it can be cured. The cure is repeated listens.

Same applies to Stockhausen, Boulez, et al.

[Sergeant Rock]

This is a terrible affliction. I know, I too suffered from it: "Initial Minimalism Adversion". You feel like your head will explode, and you long for it to do so. But it can be cured. The cure is repeated listens.

But I've already heard it repeatedly...just this afternoon: several hundred times in just the first few minutes 

Sarge

[Monsieur Croche]

This is a terrible affliction. I know, I too suffered from it: "Initial Minimalism Aversion". You feel like your head will explode, and you long for it to do so. But it can be cured. The cure is repeated listens.

Too, I find it a titch ironic that supposedly very "manly men" have such a reaction to Music for Eighteen Musicians and that makes me think of the comment Charles Ives gave to a neighboring audience member who was heckling the music during a performance of Ives' Violin Sonata (one of those more than perfect situations where the heckler had no idea he was seated right next to the composer, ha!) "Stop being such a musical sissy.' 

I'm in full agreement as to your recommended 'cure':
Anything unfamiliar, new or downright alien to your realm of understanding and experiences, becomes far better understood upon repeat exposures.


Best regards.

[Monsieur Croche]

A few hours ago I heard Reich's Music for 18 Musicians for the first time...at least the first 16 minutes. I couldn't take any more. I had to check my pulse after the first few minutes to make sure I wasn't already in hell.

Sarge

Tough Guy Crushed by Piece of Tonal Music ~ Film At Eleven. lol.

This piece shares some similar traits while using a very different approach, and the tempo and feel are rather different, too. I'm wondering if this is for you also at least in the elevator on the way down to the main entrance of Hell? (i.e. it is waaay way down, that ride lasting over an hour.)

https://www.youtube.com/v/UyJZKW1oNPo


Best regards.

[Scion7]

But I've already heard it repeatedly...just this afternoon: several hundred times in just the first few minutes 

Sarge

Yeah. That stuff is pretty 'orrible.

[Monsieur Croche]

...Not that that's all Rock and aligreto's fault....

Since my good pal Some Guy knows just how flighty I can be, I am assured of his forgiveness as to this little tangent, but synapse no. x,xxx,xxx,xxx.xx fired, and I envisioned one movement of a piece having the tempo marking:

Rock 'n' Allegretto

[Monsieur Croche]

A few hours ago I heard Reich's Music for 18 Musicians for the first time...at least the first 16 minutes. I couldn't take any more. I had to check my pulse after the first few minutes to make sure I wasn't already in hell.

Sarge

Of course, if you checked out after the first 16 minutes you have not really heard it ;-)

[Monsieur Croche]

Yeah. That stuff is pretty 'orrible.

How much 'orrible -- I mean, is it as grievously 'orrible as are the symphonies of Bax, Rubbra, or Vagn Holmboe? -- i.e. just 'ow 'orrible is it?

[Monsieur Croche]

CB is torture for you....

O.K. I'll bite... who the hey is 'CB'

Question: (we can leave it hypothetical) You suffer an arthritic condition which makes it a labor to type out a full name?

[(poco) Sforzando]

O.K. I'll bite... who the hey is 'CB'

Question: (we can leave it hypothetical) You suffer an arthritic condition which makes it a labor to type out a full name?

Yeah, that must be it. If you had actually read the thread through . . . .

[aligreto]

When I see this question, I do not think about music but about the kinds of things that are said about music on internet classical forums.

The two posts preceding mine are good examples of torture. A perfectly nice piece, with a lot of cool stuff going on, traduced for no good reason.

Not that that's all Rock and aligreto's fault, faulty as they certainly are, because after all that's what the OP sets up as valid and respectable.

Hell. Yeah. It's right here on the internets.

[Full disclosure: I concur with Brian's choice, but his mentioning it is no less hellish than the posts of Sargeant Rock and aligreto. You would never hae known that I too hate that piece had I not needed it right now to make this point.]

You know, call me a contrarian but it is a funny thing that I have never needed the internet to tell me what music I like or do not like. Those opinions are based on the two ears on each side of my head. Just because one disagrees with someone else's likes does not implicitly imply that one is deliberately traducing; that is just juvenile. Should one apologise for disliking something what someone else holds sacred? I don't think so. That might actually imply that one was either not entitled to one's own opinion or that one's own opinion was not valid. There are as many lemmings and sheep on the internet as there are smug, self righteous moralists but I would not count myself among either pack. Happy listening to whatever you choose to listen to 

[SeptimalTritone]

Feldman is wonderful. In addition to Monsieur's example, I highly recommend Feldman's For John Cage, a haunting dialogue between violin and piano. It doesn't quite contain the beautiful towering cathedrals of Piano and String Quartet, and is an a sense an opposite work.

Nevertheless, the witty dialogue of a few notes here and there in the violin and piano exchanging roles, the slow explorations of tight and limited pitch class space and the subtle changing of octave register within said limited pitch class space, the irregular number of repetitions of cells, the contrast between the qualities of the violin and piano (i.e the piano plays chords, but the violin is lyrical, and later on has plucking, glissando, and double stops), the irregular time delays between violin and piano even in repeating cell segments, the gradually changing density of rhythmic activity in the piece on a glacial scale, all contribute to such a delicate and charged atmosphere.

In the depths of this piece, the hightened rhythmic activity of the instruments starts to sound like a toy clock, a flurry that almost sounds like it's from a different piece yet still feels just right. It has a childlike unearthliness to it. The contrasts between octaves, major 7ths/minor 9ths, and minor 7ths/major 9ths give almost a feeling of mental wavering. And indeed, wide and slow vibrato in the high violin directly becomes this wavering!

I highly, highly recommend this, and would encourage everyone to look at both Feldman's For John Cage, as well as the aforementioned Piano and String Quartet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oer0Me_nhDM