Angst in Music

[greg]

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Tristan und Isolde is also notable for its use of harmonic suspension -- a device used by a composer to create musical tension by exposing the listener to a series of prolonged unfinished cadences, thereby inspiring a desire and expectation on the part of the listener for musical resolution.[12] While suspension is a common compositional device (in use since before the Renaissance), Wagner was one of the first composers to employ harmonic suspension over the course of an entire work. The cadences first introduced in the Prelude are not resolved until the finale of Act 3, and, on a number of occasions throughout the opera, Wagner primes the audience for a musical climax with a series of chords building in tension -- only to deliberately defer the anticipated resolution. One particular example of this technique occurs at the end of the love duet in Act 2 ("Wie sie fassen, wie sie lassen...") where Tristan and Isolde gradually build up to a musical (perhaps sexual) climax, only to have the expected resolution destroyed by the dissonant interruption of Kurwenal ("Rette Dich, Tristan!"). The long-awaited completion of this cadence series arrives only in the final Liebestod, during which the musical resolution (at "In des Welt-Atems wehendem All") coincides with the moment of Isolde's death.[13]

[Guido]

Oh yes, if you haven't heard Wagner, that's where to go!

[Guido]

Largely on the same page, Guido.  I've lately come to like the Mahler Ninth Symphony a good deal, but that's still exceptional for me among the symphonies.

Yes, this one has struck me the most too, especially the first movement (as Luke said it would!). I've been trying my best with the rest, but it's not sticking... I'll keep trying though - next on the listening pile is Das Lied Von Der Erde. There must be a reason that there's 20 people on this forum with Mahler in their screen name!

[marvinbrown]

Oh yes, if you haven't heard Wagner, that's where to go!

  Absolutely! Tristan und Isolde is remarkable in that regard.  The torment that Tristan goes through at the opening of the 3rd Act as he is waiting for Isolde's ship to arrive is utterly unbearable.  The music echoes this,  it is dark and profound,  I find myself transfixed, drawn into Tristan's emotional pain which never seems to end.  This goes on for quite some time, there is no salvation,  if that is not angst I do not know what is!

  The whole opera is built of the idea of forbidden love and passion, two forbidden lovers whose sexual attraction for each other are so strong that it can only be consummated in death- what a terrifyingly exhausting concept!  Tantric sex anyone??

  marvin

[greg]

Oh yes, if you haven't heard Wagner, that's where to go!

I've heard a few other of his operas, only once each, so I'm just not familiar enough with his music- but yeah, saying I don't know any of his music is pretty much the truth. 

Yes, this one has struck me the most too, especially the first movement (as Luke said it would!). I've been trying my best with the rest, but it's not sticking... I'll keep trying though - next on the listening pile is Das Lied Von Der Erde. There must be a reason that there's 20 people on this forum with Mahler in their screen name!

Das Lied is hard for me- despite it being known as one of his heaviest and angstful works! 
The last movement I've forced myself to listen to several times about a month ago, and it did grow on me. The hard part is listening to the squeaky oboe and the offbeat, jerky rhythms.... The other movements I haven't grown to like because I just haven't listened to much.....

As for the 9th, I don't know what to say. Maybe keep in mind that the Adagio is divided up into two seperate parts which alternate, and have their own motives? And..... don't let the repetition of the motives get to you, and also, remember, the ending is supposed to be LONG..... it's like death, or fading into the afterlife or whatever. I'm sure you already know all that, but keeping tall that in mind helped very much during my first week of listening to it (i listened about 5 days straight while spending hours trying to do something in the same forest are in Final Fantasy 7). Good memories...... 

  Absolutely! Tristan und Isolde is remarkable in that regard.  The torment that Tristan goes through at the opening of the 3rd Act as he is waiting for Isolde's ship to arrive is utterly unbearable.  The music echoes this,  it is dark and profound,  I find myself transfixed, drawn into Tristan's emotional pain which never seems to end.  This goes on for quite some time, there is no salvation,  if that is not angst I do not know what is!

  The whole opera is built of the idea of forbidden love and passion, two forbidden lovers whose sexual attraction for each other are so strong that it can only be consummated in death- what a terrifyingly exhausting concept!  Tantric sex anyone??

  marvin

Marvin, or anyone else,

Wagner was one of the first composers to employ harmonic suspension over the course of an entire work

Obviously, after wondering where the heck Mahler got his harmonic ideas from, this is definitely the place.  I'm just wondering, where did he get the idea to keep on using those harmonic suspensions so much? Is it really true that there's no work before this one where they're used nearly as much?
I mean, that B maj with the added C#, which goes back to B is one of the main ideas that Mahler takes up, except compared to the very limited amount of Wagner I've heard, he uses more distant modulations- very frequently mixing major and minor, etc. which is almost as magical as the harmonic suspension.

[lukeottevanger]

Das Lied is hard for me- despite it being known as one of his heaviest and angstful works! 
The last movement I've forced myself to listen to several times about a month ago, and it did grow on me. The hard part is listening to the squeaky oboe and the offbeat, jerky rhythms.... The other movements I haven't grown to like because I just haven't listened to much.....

I don't think angst is really the word for Das Lied, I must say..... whatever, I'm surprised you have difficulty with the 'squeaky oboe' here, though, given that you're such a Penderecki/Xenakis type of listener 

[Superhorn]

    Josquin,  why  are  you  so  hostile  to  "modernity"?   And  what "modern"  composers?   Schoenberg,  Berg,  Webern?  Stockhausen,  Carter,  Boulez? 
   Copland?  Do  you  really  think  that  only  the   music  of  past  centuries  is  any  good?  How  much  late  20th  or  early  21  century  music  have  you  heard?  How  about  Philip  Glass,  John  Adams,  John  Corigliano,  Thomas  Ades,  Kaaia  Saariaho  etc,  who  have  been  widely  performed  in  our  time   and  with  considerable  success?
   All  music  of  the  past  was  once  modern.  Beethoven  was  a  radical, Avant-Garde  composer  once.  Many  found  his  music  baffling.  And  Berlioz,  Wagner,  Bruckner, Mahler, Richard  Strauss,  Bruckner, Stravinsky, Debussy, Bartok, etc. 
   There  were  those  who  condemned  Monteverdi  for  his  innovations.
   I  don't  mind  angst  in  music  if  it's  done  well.  Mahler,  Schoenberg  etc  are  masters  of  it.  But  the  problem  with  Mahler  is  that  it's  so  easy  for  conductors  to  exaggerate  his  hyperemotionalism   and   turn  some  people  off  to  his  music.  If  they  show  a  little  restraint  and  also  empahsize   the  more  positive  elements  in  Mahler  it's  a  good  idea.

[MDL]

Which music has the most angst, and centers around it? What about music with:

lots of angst
contemplativeness
transcendence
world-weariness "Weltschmerz"
lack of refinement, self-control, completely indulgent
grandiose
makes you want to zone out and daydream
complexity
nostalgic longing?

I'm surprised that Mahler made such a late showing on this thread if we're searching out music with the above qualities.

[karlhenning]

I don't think angst is really the word for Das Lied, I must say

Nor me. I mean, nor I.

[ Well, both nor me and nor I, I suppose. ]

[greg]

    Josquin,  why  are  you  so  hostile  to  "modernity"?   And  what "modern"  composers?   Schoenberg,  Berg,  Webern?  Stockhausen,  Carter,  Boulez? 
   Copland?  Do  you  really  think  that  only  the   music  of  past  centuries  is  any  good?  How  much  late  20th  or  early  21  century  music  have  you  heard?  How  about  Philip  Glass,  John  Adams,  John  Corigliano,  Thomas  Ades,  Kaaia  Saariaho  etc,  who  have  been  widely  performed  in  our  time   and  with  considerable  success?
   All  music  of  the  past  was  once  modern.  Beethoven  was  a  radical, Avant-Garde  composer  once.  Many  found  his  music  baffling.  And  Berlioz,  Wagner,  Bruckner, Mahler, Richard  Strauss,  Bruckner, Stravinsky, Debussy, Bartok, etc. 
   There  were  those  who  condemned  Monteverdi  for  his  innovations.
   I  don't  mind  angst  in  music  if  it's  done  well.  Mahler,  Schoenberg  etc  are  masters  of  it.  But  the  problem  with  Mahler  is  that  it's  so  easy  for  conductors  to  exaggerate  his  hyperemotionalism   and   turn  some  people  off  to  his  music.  If  they  show  a  little  restraint  and  also  empahsize   the  more  positive  elements  in  Mahler  it's  a  good  idea.

He likes the 2nd Viennese, but that's about as far as he goes for some reason. Don't even talk with thim about minimalism. 

[Superhorn]

    An  opera   that is   chock  full  of  angst  and  sheer  terror  is   Prokofiev's  harrowing  "The  Fiery  Angel".  This  is  without  a  doubt  the  weirdest,  most  disturbing  opera  ever  written.  It's  like  a  horrible  nightmare  set  to  music.
   In  16th  century  Germany,  Renata  is  a  profoundly  disturbed  young  woman  and  a  religious  mystic  obsessed  with   her  chilhood   experiences  of  an  angel   of  fire  which  was  her  "imaginary"  companion.  She  is  determined  to  find  his  human  form  on  earth,  and  becomes  involved  with  sorcery  and  the  blackest  of  black  magic.
   She  is  tormented  by  demons,  which  may  be either  real  or  imagined.
  Her   panic  attacks  are  depicted  in   the  most  hair-raising  music  you  have  ever  heard. 
   Ruprecht,  a  wandering  knight  errant,  meets  her  and  falls  desperately  in  love  with  her,  and  also  gets  involved  with  black  magic  and  demonology.  He's  desperately  in  love  with  her,  but  she  tolerates  him  only  as  a  friend,  and  they  have  a  sick,  tormented  relationship.
   Eventually,  Renata  retires  to  a  convent,  but  the   nuns   are  being  disturbed  by  weird,  demonic  incidents.  An  inquisitor  is  brought  in  for  an  exorcism,  but  it  goes  horribly  out  of  control, and  the  nuns  become  demonized.  The  inquisitor  sentences  Renata  to  be  tortured  and  burnt  at  the  stake.
   The  Cds  with  Gergiev   and  Neeme  Jarvi  conducting  respectively  on  Phillips  and  DG  may  be  hard  to  find,  and  the  original  mono  recording  from  the  50s  sung  in  French  is  available  from  arkivmusic.com.  I'm  not  sure  about  the  DVD.   Try  it  if  you dare-   but  be  warned ;  this  may  actually  cause  nightmares !

[Bunny]

Angst in music?  For me Bartok's Piano Concerto 1 feels like the racing heartbeat of a full fledged panic attack!  Mahler's 6th also is filled with anxiety (I'm surprised no one has mentioned that one). 

When I was very young, Schumann's Knecht Rupert seemed like the most foreboding piece imaginable.  It was the background for my nightmares.

[greg]

    An  opera   that is   chock  full  of  angst  and  sheer  terror  is   Prokofiev's  harrowing  "The  Fiery  Angel".  This  is  without  a  doubt  the  weirdest,  most  disturbing  opera  ever  written.  It's  like  a  horrible  nightmare  set  to  music.
   In  16th  century  Germany,  Renata  is  a  profoundly  disturbed  young  woman  and  a  religious  mystic  obsessed  with   her  chilhood   experiences  of  an  angel   of  fire  which  was  her  "imaginary"  companion.  She  is  determined  to  find  his  human  form  on  earth,  and  becomes  involved  with  sorcery  and  the  blackest  of  black  magic.
   She  is  tormented  by  demons,  which  may  be either  real  or  imagined.
  Her   panic  attacks  are  depicted  in   the  most  hair-raising  music  you  have  ever  heard. 
   Ruprecht,  a  wandering  knight  errant,  meets  her  and  falls  desperately  in  love  with  her,  and  also  gets  involved  with  black  magic  and  demonology.  He's  desperately  in  love  with  her,  but  she  tolerates  him  only  as  a  friend,  and  they  have  a  sick,  tormented  relationship.
   Eventually,  Renata  retires  to  a  convent,  but  the   nuns   are  being  disturbed  by  weird,  demonic  incidents.  An  inquisitor  is  brought  in  for  an  exorcism,  but  it  goes  horribly  out  of  control, and  the  nuns  become  demonized.  The  inquisitor  sentences  Renata  to  be  tortured  and  burnt  at  the  stake.
   The  Cds  with  Gergiev   and  Neeme  Jarvi  conducting  respectively  on  Phillips  and  DG  may  be  hard  to  find,  and  the  original  mono  recording  from  the  50s  sung  in  French  is  available  from  arkivmusic.com.  I'm  not  sure  about  the  DVD.   Try  it  if  you dare-   but  be  warned ;  this  may  actually  cause  nightmares !

I've been watching this video a few times the last few days:
http://www.youtube.com/watch/v/MgDTLHnMKRM

It was weird to be able to follow it so closely, since I'm familiar with the 3rd Symphony. It's like, "I've never heard this before!" And then I hum along and anticipate what comes next, and there it is! 
But Prokofiev isn't a composer whose idiom is "angstful", I don't think. It sounds too confident, too mischievous.... he wasn't a guy who was always worried excessively, and bad stuff didn't bother him too much, and this is reflected in his music (heck, at the end of his life, he kept on writing operas he thought the government might like, but they didn't, so he just kept on writing anyways  ).
The closest things in his output I can think of that could be described as "angstful" would be the second theme of the first movement of the 7th sonata, and a few others, like maybe some of the sixth sonata or the second piano concerto.... but even then.......
I guess the word is abit vague, anyways.....