Rejected, then Embraced! And Vice-Versa!

[Steve]

Many thanks for the fascinating replies!

Steve wrote:

It has the "melodiousness" (again and again and again) peple seek, yet it is the repetitious simplicity which for many people causes incomprehension!

Looking at some of its roots, in meditative chant for exampe, this becomes easier to understand, but acceptance depends on how the composer manipulates the method.  John Adams provided me with an "Okay" (if not quite an "Aha!") moment with Harmonielehre, although I always had to admit the perfection of Koyanisqaatsi by Glass for the movie it is meant to accompany.


Perhaps, I simply have not come across the appropriate piece. That, of course, is not something to be ruled out. As to you assertion that 'minimalism' can be melodious, when I use the term 'melody' I am referring to a recurring structure
occuring within a composition, not simply a repetative series of notes. Melody, here being a structure, which provides a sense of lyricism to a instrumental work. I simply haven't found 'melody' in minimalism. That's not to say that I haven't found repitative elements.


That's not to say that I can't appreicate anything without tonal melody- but I generally like some complex muscical form to hatch on to.

[Maciek]

(My emphasis above)

Does that come from a certain saturation in the traditional works, or a maturation in yourself?

Or are both involved?  I would think the latter, but it probably depends on the person, their age, etc.

I don't really think it has anything to do with maturation, unfortunately. It's more like taking the "excitement and elation of discovery" part too far. You know, you say to yourself: hey, this is great! why didn't I like it before? And that's where it should end. But you go one step further: well, I was stupid not to appreciate it until now. But, boy, am I glad I do because now I know that modern music that doesn't sound "modern" obviously sucks... There's nothing mature about that - it's quite childish, I'd say. But it does pass, eventually - that's the good (and probably more mature) part.

But maybe it was different with Edward. I don't know, we'll have to wait for his thoughts...

[not edward]

I think a lot of it is to do with the "shock of the new". To me, here was a music that sounded quite unlike the classical music I'd grown up with, and it was great. I wanted to hear a lot more like it, and tended to dismiss a lot of the more "radically conservative" new music as it wasn't fitting in with what I was looking for at the time.

Once I'd discovered more of the really modern repertoire, I was more sated and able to look at other areas (early music, in particular, but also some of the new music I'd previously rejected).

I also credit the music of Morton Feldman with teaching me to love the late Schubert sonatas. There's a slightly odd one for you.

[71 dB]

Composers I was less enthusiastic in the beginning but have warmed up later:

Mozart
For some time I considered his music "artsy-craftsy". Listening to his concertos opened my eyes.

Schubert
I don't even know why I rejected him. I still haven't heard much of his music but he was clearly a remarkable composer.

Prokofiev
I didn't care about him first, I just ignored him. lately I have become much more interested of his music.



Composers I was enthusiastic in the beginning but do not care much anymore:

Sibelius
I really enjoyed his symphonies before I started exploring classical music seriously. I just found composers so much better...

Chopin
I found his piano concertos mindblowing before exploring classical music seriously. Last time I listened them I was shocked how mediocre they sound.

Tchaikovsky
I call him the door into classical music. His music is easy and seductive but has little to offer for advanced listeners. I got bored of his music fast.

[Steve]

Composers I was less enthusiastic in the beginning but have warmed up later:

Mozart
For some time I considered his music "artsy-craftsy". Listening to his concertos opened my eyes.

Schubert
I don't even know why I rejected him. I still haven't heard much of his music but he was clearly a remarkable composer.

Prokofiev
I didn't care about him first, I just ignored him. lately I have become much more interested of his music.



Composers I was enthusiastic in the beginning but do not care much anymore:

Sibelius
I really enjoyed his symphonies before I started exploring classical music seriously. I just found composers so much better...

Chopin
I found his piano concertos mindblowing before exploring classical music seriously. Last time I listened them I was shocked how mediocre they sound.

Tchaikovsky
I call him the door into classical music. His music is easy and seductive but has little to offer for advanced listeners. I got bored of his music fast.

Chopin, really? What besides the concerti are you familiar with? His solo piano demands repeated listening. I own his entire oeuvre almost twice over...

Oh for one more Polonaise!

[71 dB]

Chopin, really? What besides the concerti are you familiar with?

Scherzi/Impromptus/Allegro de concert - Idil Biret
Trio, Op. 8/Polonaise brillante, Op. 3/Sonata for Cello & Piano, Op. 65 - Emanual Ax, Pamela Frank & Yo-Yo Ma

I still like Chopin's music but not as much as I used to. It's not that versatile.

[Steve]

Scherzi/Impromptus/Allegro de concert - Idil Biret
Trio, Op. 8/Polonaise brillante, Op. 3/Sonata for Cello & Piano, Op. 65 - Emanual Ax, Pamela Frank & Yo-Yo Ma

I still like Chopin's music but not as much as I used to. It's not that versatile.

My is that all.?

versatile: able to adapt to various functions.

Sorry, for the semantics, but how could that apply to an inanimate composition? 

[Harry]

My is that all.?

versatile: able to adapt to various functions.

Sorry, for the semantics, but how could that apply to an inanimate composition? 

Our friend 71 Db, has strong opinions! He is a freethinker, and therefore he allows himself this privilege.

However what he says about those three composers is his personal opinion, motivated by reasons for us unfathomable.
I take strong issue first with his opinion about Tchaikovsky, which is absolute nonsense, and that's me Freethinking also!
If he gets bored, well oke, but to say that T music has little to offer for advanced listeners is balderdash. And boring.
Chopin had scored his pianoconcertos badly yes, all true, but he has written history by the rest of his oeuvre.
The piano part however is as excellent as the rest, just the Orchestral part sucks a bit.
About Sibelius well as a Freethinker he is entitled to his opinion, but for me Sibelius belongs to the best what music has to offer.
No offense meant 71Db.

[Harry]

Scherzi/Impromptus/Allegro de concert - Idil Biret
Trio, Op. 8/Polonaise brillante, Op. 3/Sonata for Cello & Piano, Op. 65 - Emanual Ax, Pamela Frank & Yo-Yo Ma

I still like Chopin's music but not as much as I used to. It's not that versatile.

Common my friend, it is not so versatile for you, for you think that Chopin's music is easy to understand.
It takes time and effort to hear, that Chopin's music is really a mirror of the human soul, in all its perfection and inperfections.

[Harry]

Chopin, really? What besides the concerti are you familiar with? His solo piano demands repeated listening. I own his entire oeuvre almost twice over...

And which cycles may that be Steve?

[val]

Sometimes an initial bad impression can be modified by further auditions or by different interpretations.

I heard Berg's Violin Concerto for the first time in a concert, and I didn't like it. Later I heard the version of Perlman and Ozawa and I still didn't like. I couldn't see its form, it seemed to me a long and amorphous deploration.
Until I heard Suk and Ancerl, and suddenly I understood the structure of the work and, from then, I could enjoy its beauty.
It is very difficult to me to enjoy an work when I cannot understand how it is made, how to follow the connection of the different moments. This applies in special to long works.
That is, perhaps, the reason because, until today, I couldn't enjoy Schönberg's Pélleas et Melisande.

[karlhenning]

I also credit the music of Morton Feldman with teaching me to love the late Schubert sonatas. There's a slightly odd one for you.

Fascinating, Edward!

[karlhenning]

Tchaikovsky
I call him the door into classical music. His music is easy and seductive but has little to offer for advanced listeners. I got bored of his music fast.

Oh, even allowing for us just speaking raw opinion, I won't that one slide.

Most would account me an "advanced listener" rather than otherwise, and I find that Tchaikovsky has a great deal to offer.

I may even go so far as to say, I consider that Tchaikovsky has at least as much to offer me as, oh, Elgar 

[karlhenning]

Our friend 71 Db, has strong opinions! He is a freethinker, and therefore he allows himself this privilege.

Oh, he certainly has strong opinions, Harry.

But the mere fact that he repeatedly calls himself a freethinker, does not make it so.

[greg]

Prokofiev
I didn't care about him first, I just ignored him. lately I have become much more interested of his music.

oh yeah! 
what have you been getting into lately?

[Harry]

Oh, he certainly has strong opinions, Harry.

But the mere fact that he repeatedly calls himself a freethinker, does not make it so.

Indeed my friend, that is true.
For me the definition of a freethinker is something else too, but I was referring to what 71 Db tells us, and not what I think.
Slight difference here I think.

[karlhenning]

Most aptly observed, Harry.

[karlhenning]

From the vice-versa folder . . . I was ga-ga over John Adams's  The Wound-Dresser when first I heard it;  but it did not wear well with me over time.

Even more than ga-ga, I was bowled over by Steve Reich's The Desert Music at first (it is probably significant in this post's regard, that I am a great fan of both Whitman and Carlos Williams).  Maybe about three years after my initial infatuation with the piece, I lost sonic patience with it.  Then, sometime around the past year, I revisited the piece;  I find that, overall, I like it again, but with nothing like that initial ardor, long ago . . . .

[not edward]

From the vice-versa folder . . . I was ga-ga over John Adams's  The Wound-Dresser when first I heard it;  but it did not wear well with me over time.

Even more than ga-ga, I was bowled over by Steve Reich's The Desert Music at first (it is probably significant in this post's regard, that I am a great fan of both Whitman and Carlos Williams).  Maybe about three years after my initial infatuation with the piece, I lost sonic patience with it.  Then, sometime around the past year, I revisited the piece;  I find that, overall, I like it again, but with nothing like that initial ardor, long ago . . . .

I had very much the same initial reaction to The Wound-Dresser, but it hasn't worn well for me either.

A work I had a very poor initial reaction to was Carter's Piano Concerto: it just seemed so unremittingly dense that I could get nothing from it. Then I revisited it in the midst of the post-9/11 constant media babble and the whole work made total sense--the soloist a single voice trying to hold herself together in the midst of chaos and brutality. It remains my single favourite Carter work today.

[71 dB]

I am sorry about my remarks about Sibelius, Tchaikovsky and Chopin. I can't help it their music does not mean to me what it used to. I don't have problems with Tchaikovsky and Chopin. I have problems with Sibelius, I dislike his use of orchestra and the national romantism.

oh yeah! 
what have you been getting into lately?

Piano Concertos 1, 3 & 4