I'm asking. :)
Op 132.
Next thread please!
Quote from: spaghetti on March 31, 2008, 09:57:15 AM
Op 132.
Next thread please!
That was easy.
Perhaps too easy?
Quote from: MN Dave on March 31, 2008, 10:00:12 AM
That was easy.
Perhaps too easy?
Perhaps.
Maybe someone will disagree? ???
"October"? nah......
Bolero! ;D
[runs away]
Quote from: Que on March 31, 2008, 10:18:12 AM
The Matthäeus-Passion
Q
Thanks, Q.
Do you believe I don't have a copy of that? :'(
4'33". And I'm only being partly frivolous. ;)
Quote from: edward on March 31, 2008, 10:37:37 AM
4'33". And I'm only being partly frivolous. ;)
As I'm sure Cage was.
Quote from: edward on March 31, 2008, 10:37:37 AM
4'33". And I'm only being partly frivolous. ;)
No. Rod Corkin's SQ #1, op. 1, (http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,6881.0.html) is more profound ........
Ligeti: Atmosphères
--Bruce
Yes, it's the instrumental one. Lux Aeterna (another worthy candidate, IMHO) is the choral one.
--Bruce
Mahler 3.
Quote from: bhodges on March 31, 2008, 10:52:31 AM
Yes, it's the instrumental one. Lux Aeterna (another worthy candidate, IMHO) is the choral one.
--Bruce
What's a good recording of these?
Quote from: James on March 31, 2008, 10:55:39 AM
Indeed, simply Earth-shattering & remarkable depth. 8)
You can do better than that.
Quote from: MN Dave on March 31, 2008, 10:54:18 AM
What's a good recording of these?
For
Atmosphères, the recent Jonathan Nott/Berlin (part of the big Ligeti Project series) is excellent, and I like the live Abbado/Vienna version a lot. I haven't heard this Bernstein/NYPO CD. You might want to examine the couplings to see which you might prefer.
For
Lux Aeterna, again the Ligeti Project CD is excellent, or one with the Hamburg Radio Choir, although the latter may be hard to find at a decent price.
--Bruce
Quote from: bhodges on March 31, 2008, 11:07:04 AM
For Atmosphères, the recent Jonathan Nott/Berlin (part of the big Ligeti Project series) is excellent, and I like the live Abbado/Vienna version a lot. I haven't heard this Bernstein/NYPO CD. You might want to examine the couplings to see which you might prefer.
For Lux Aeterna, again the Ligeti Project CD is excellent, or one with the Hamburg Radio Choir, although the latter may be hard to find at a decent price.
--Bruce
Thanks for the recs. I know these pieces from the movie, but don't have a decent recording.
A pleasure! And...although I haven't heard the Bernstein, the other two are in really superb sound, which is almost essential in making the otherworldly instrumental effects "work" properly. (Plus, much of Atmosphères is very quiet.)
--Bruce
Quote from: MN Dave on March 31, 2008, 11:08:46 AM
Thanks for the recs. I know these pieces from the movie, but don't have a decent recording.
FYI, I can personally vouch for the first of those two CDs,
Dave-- its an excellent disc (the Ligeti Project)! --I seem to recall is was
Bruce who pointed me in the right direction several weeks ago... :)
Quote from: sarabande on March 31, 2008, 11:12:28 AM
FYI, I can personally vouch for the first of those two CDs, Dave-- its an excellent disc (the Ligeti Project)! --I seem to recall is was Bruce who pointed me in the right direction several weeks ago... :)
Good deal. Thanks for the affirmation.
Quote from: sarabande on March 31, 2008, 10:17:55 AMBolero! ;D
BTW, I listened to it last month for the first and last time. The most boring piece of music I know.
***shakes fist ****
Come on... one can listen to it as some kind of "small Concerto for orchestra" - the orchestration is really remarkable ( combination of flute, cello and celesta, the sax and trombone soli! the fantastic end ( bass drum, cymbals,tamtam). Sure, it has been played to death and associated with all the wrong stuff.
Take Pierre Monteux' ca 1963 performance with the LSO : simple yet noble, full of tension and, indeed, grand. No cheap tricks - just music.
Peter
I'm a huge fan of Boléro, too, and I could also see it being someone's choice for "most profound," believe it or not. It must be one of the first Western examples of minimalism (aside from say, Bruckner), and I agree with you, Peter, the orchestration is magnificent. An interesting idea, viewing it as a "small Concerto for orchestra"--I like that.
--Bruce
There are plenty of works that comes to mind, so naming only one is really a pain in the ass.
Mozart's Requiem, but only under Celibidache.
Hypothetically, Scriabin's Mysterium. I don't think anything could be more profound than Scriabin's description "There will not be a single spectator. All will be participants. The work requires special people, special artists and a completely new culture. The cast of performers includes an orchestra, a large mixed choir, an instrument with visual effects, dancers, a procession, incense, and rhythmic textural articulation. The cathedral in which it will take place will not be of one single type of stone but will continually change with the atmosphere and motion of the Mysterium. This will be done with the aid of mists and lights, which will modify the architectural contours." Later he added that after the grand performance the world would come to an end with the human race replaced by "nobler beings."
Theoretically, Mahler's 9 Symphonies listened to back-to-back. I'm not sure if this is actually humanly possible though and would likely have extremely dangerous consequences for the health of any individual trying it.
Practically though, there are many pieces depending on the type of profundity desired. Here are a few that are equally profound in different ways:
Bach - The Art of Fugue
Beethoven - Symphony No. 9
Brahms - Symphony No. 4
Sibelius - Symphony No. 7
Messiaen - Quartet for the End of Time
Penderecki - Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima
Pärt - Fratres
Górecki - Symphony No. 3
Nørgård - Symphony No. 3
The immediate answer that comes to mind, as a "personal answer", is Mahler's 9th Symphony (of course).
But if Bruckner had finished his own 9th, even I dare admit it might have the edge. And of course, my listening experience with Bach is as minuscule as to prevent me from having proper reference material for even such an ad hoc comparison of "profundity". :)
Quote from: spaghetti on March 31, 2008, 09:57:15 AM
Next thread please!
Very nice answers, though I am sorry about Varg's ass. :-*
Ferde Grofé's Grand Canyon Suite. I mean, the Grand Canyon is pretty deep.
Lily Boulanger's "Du fond de l'abime" might even be deeper....Out of the depths have I cried .... :P
4' 33"
Quote from: pjme on April 02, 2008, 12:11:00 AM
Lily Boulanger's "Du fond de l'abime" might even be deeper....Out of the depths have I cried .... :P
:D Or any setting of the "De Profundis" lament.
By definition profundity is extremely subjective, it would be wrong headed to speculate that there would be anything remotely close to a universely profound. That's even obvious on our forum where personal taste varies dramatically from poster to poster.
Quote from: DavidW on April 02, 2008, 05:14:19 AM
By definition profundity is extremely subjective, it would be wrong headed to speculate that there would be anything remotely close to a universely profound. That's even obvious on our forum where personal taste varies dramatically from poster to poster.
The subjectivity is implied by the very nature of message boards. Man, did you get up on the wrong side of the bed today? ;D
Quote from: fl.traverso on April 02, 2008, 01:05:46 AM
4' 33"
All the people who mention Cage's 4'33'' ( for whatever reason) will, from this very moment on, suffer under a terrible voodoo spell. You're warned!
(http://www.voodoospells.com/skull.jpg)
>:D
Quote from: MN Dave on April 02, 2008, 05:15:49 AMThe subjectivity is implied by the very nature of message boards. Man, did you get up on the wrong side of the bed today? ;D
Well, doesn't that depend entirely on what you mean by 'wrong'? ;D
With all due respect to that last post, btw, I think Bruce's first answer is as close as can be to a non-subjective answer, in that 4'33" is the only piece who's degree of profundity is not on a slidable scale. It either
is the most profound piece, or it is the least profound one. So, as with Bruce, it gets something like a vote from me.
But so do a number of other pieces, Janacek's 2nd Quartet among them, not only because it is one of my favourite pieces, but for more specific reasons.
Ok- one more time ( Luke, I know you know...)
"Although often described as a silent piece, 4'33" isn't silent at all. While the performer makes as little sound as possible, Cage breaks traditional boundaries by shifting attention from the stage to the audience and even beyond the concert hall. You soon become aware of a huge amount of sound, ranging from the mundane to the profound, from the expected to the surprising, from the intimate to the cosmic –shifting in seats, riffling programs to see what in the world is going on, breathing, the air conditioning, a creaking door, passing traffic, an airplane, ringing in your ears, a recaptured memory. This is a deeply personal music, which each witness creates to his/her own reactions to life. Concerts and records standardize our responses, but no two people will ever hear 4'33" the same way. It's the ultimate sing-along: the audience (and the world) becomes the performer."
From :http://www.classicalnotes.net/columns/silence.html
Peter
Oh, my god! The spell is w..or...k..ing all re ady....ahhhhh :'( :'( :'(
Quote from: pjme on April 02, 2008, 06:37:51 AM
Ok- one more time ( Luke, I know you know...)
"Although often described as a silent piece, 4'33" isn't silent at all. While the performer makes as little sound as possible, Cage breaks traditional boundaries by shifting attention from the stage to the audience and even beyond the concert hall. You soon become aware of a huge amount of sound, ranging from the mundane to the profound, from the expected to the surprising, from the intimate to the cosmic –shifting in seats, riffling programs to see what in the world is going on, breathing, the air conditioning, a creaking door, passing traffic, an airplane, ringing in your ears, a recaptured memory. This is a deeply personal music, which each witness creates to his/her own reactions to life. Concerts and records standardize our responses, but no two people will ever hear 4'33" the same way. It's the ultimate sing-along: the audience (and the world) becomes the performer."
From :http://www.classicalnotes.net/columns/silence.html
Peter
I think we all know that. It's sort of a zen thing.
4'33" was written in the summer of 1952 just after Cage returned to New York City from Black Mountain College, where he had been invited to participate as a teacher and composer in this rural, private-school environment, and worked with other important figures in the art world. It was here that Rauschenberg did his White Paintings (1951) and Cage first saw them, provoking 4'33". It was here that the first multimedia "happening" occurred, Cage's Theater Piece No. 1, in which many of the faculty participated. It was also here that Cage planned work on Williams Mix and first used the time bracket notation that became so prevalent in his later music.
Beethoven - Piano Sonata No. 29 in B flat major, Op. 106 Hammerklavier
Quote from: ChamberNut on April 02, 2008, 07:04:08 AM
Beethoven - Piano Sonata No. 29 in B flat major, Op. 106 Hammerklavier
Ahhh what a great one. Hell why not say all the LvB piano sonatas.
I yield to no one in my love for op 2 no 3 (perversely, one of my favourite LvB sonatas) but profound? I tend to think not... ;D
Quote from: Corey on April 02, 2008, 04:23:22 AM
...Or any setting of the "De Profundis" lament.
Or any piece for
basso profundo...
The Chaconne from Bach's Partita No.2 in D Minor for Solo Violin BWV 1004.
I'd usually say opus 132. But that's at least partly because it's my favorite piece. But after listening thoroughly, continuingly, and in an ongoing, "seem-to-gain-something-new-from-it-each-time-I-listen" fashion to both the Ring Des Nibelungen and Parsifal, I think we have a tie here folks.
Quote from: Wurstwasser on March 31, 2008, 12:13:48 PM
BTW, I listened to it last month for the first and last time. The most boring piece of music I know.
because you don't care about orchestration. I dislike judgement at first hearing.
Quote from: bhodges on March 31, 2008, 01:11:28 PM
I'm a huge fan of Boléro, too, and I could also see it being someone's choice for "most profound," believe it or not. It must be one of the first Western examples of minimalism .
Except that the themes are not really "minimal" and that there's no variations.
I don't regard Bruckner as a proto-minimalist either, as he's a motivic developer, in a pure austrian tradition.
Quote from: quintett op.57 on April 02, 2008, 02:26:14 PM
because you don't care about orchestration. I dislike judgement at first hearing.
I agree. How someone can make a difinitive judgement based on one hearing astounds me, particularly when I think about all the works and performances I didn't like on first hearing that I eventually came to love.
Quote from: pjme on April 02, 2008, 06:37:51 AM
Ok- one more time ( Luke, I know you know...)
"Although often described as a silent piece, 4'33" isn't silent at all. While the performer makes as little sound as possible, Cage breaks traditional boundaries by shifting attention from the stage to the audience and even beyond the concert hall. You soon become aware of a huge amount of sound, ranging from the mundane to the profound, from the expected to the surprising, from the intimate to the cosmic –shifting in seats, riffling programs to see what in the world is going on, breathing, the air conditioning, a creaking door, passing traffic, an airplane, ringing in your ears, a recaptured memory. This is a deeply personal music, which each witness creates to his/her own reactions to life. Concerts and records standardize our responses, but no two people will ever hear 4'33" the same way. It's the ultimate sing-along: the audience (and the world) becomes the performer."
From :http://www.classicalnotes.net/columns/silence.html
Peter
Oh, my god! The spell is w..or...k..ing all re ady....ahhhhh :'( :'( :'(
Except that
4'33" calls into question a number of things, not least of which is authorship. While I understand that it depends on how you define music in the first place, I would humbly submit that if you are talking about a 'piece' of music as a discrete entity, then that piece must have been 'composed' by somebody ('somebody', in this context, meant in the loosest possible sense in order to include cultural aggregation of folk materials, etc).
Otherwise, what defines
4'33" from any given four minutes and thirty three seconds in the day? It's contextualisation within a concert situation? I'm not certain that declaring that something should take place within a concert is enough to make it music.
The contents of any given performance of
4'33" were not defined by Cage, nor were the parameters of what could be acceptable in any given performance. Arguably, the performer has much more influence on the aural result as a 'curator' than the composer did. On the other hand, had Cage specified that the piece consisted of 'actual' silence (rather than the sounds audible to the audience) then this would have actually a piece of music. The Ligeti
Bagatelles are, for this reason, legitimate as music (even they are a piss-take) in a way that Cage's work is not.
There is no question that Cage produced a work of art, but I don't think it can be deemed 'music'. Therefore, not the 'profoundest' piece of music.
High on the list for me would be the Scriabin late piano sonatas (nos 8–10), the last three Beethoven sonatas, Bach's Goldberg variations, Schubert's Winterreise, Schumann's Dichterliebe, Wagner's Parsifal, Stravinsky's Les Noces, Biber's Harmonia Artificiosa Ariosa, Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, Mahler's 7th Symphony, Machaut's Messe de Notre Dame, Alkan's minor key etudes, and a bunch of others that aren't slipping into mind right now.
Quote from: quintett op.57 on April 02, 2008, 02:31:20 PM
Except that the themes are not really "minimal" and that there's no variations.
I don't regard Bruckner as a proto-minimalist either, as he's a motivic developer, in a pure austrian tradition.
I recently discovered Bruckner. Like Mahler, he moved on from Wagner...but different from Mahler, in the extremely interesting way.
For me if there were such a thing as a cosmic background music it would be Bruckner's 8th and 9th symphony. These works - include the Te Deum! - are cosmic cathedrals in sound. The universe is more akin to music than to language or anything which language may express! Most would acknowledge this as an ancient idea both mystic and mythical! If, as Goethe said, architecture is frozen music then the cosmos would need to be it's final DYNAMIC expression. In Bruckner's late symphonies, God and Cosmos are inseparable whether he believed them to be or not.
Of course there are candidates of equal value! It all depends on how you synthesize or metabolize the so-called profound in music or in whichever art FEELS most like music.
Arvo Pärt, Kanon Pokajanen - comes to mind. I've been listening to the whole 90 minutes of it many times, last winter, and it's rather profound indeed. As music about repentence and resurrection should be.
Beethoven's piano Sonata opus 106 or the 15th String Quartet.
Haydn - The Seven Last Words of our Savior on the Cross, op. 51
Especially the 3rd mvt. Sonata II: Grave e Cantabile
There's another category of works that I just thought of, that would probably be quite "profound" when listened to in their entirety. Those long marathon pieces like:
Sorabji - Opus Clavicembalisticum (4 hours)
Finnissy - The History of Photography in Sound (5 hours)
Feldman - String Quartet No. 2 (6 hours)
Rzewski - The Road (10 hours)
Stockhausen - Licht (29 hours)
Cage - Organ²/ASLSP (639 years) [not that this one is actually possible to listen to in its entirety ;)]
Bruckner Symphony 9
Vaughan Williams Symphony 6 (Epilogue)
Sibelius Tapiola/Symphony 4
For now, I am going to say Rautavaara's 8th.
Quote from: vandermolen on April 04, 2008, 02:43:02 PM
Sibelius Tapiola/Symphony 4
Those are the pieces that first came to mind as personal choices. I would be hard-pressed to choose between them.
Quote from: Christo on April 02, 2008, 11:11:54 PM
Arvo Pärt, Kanon Pokajanen - comes to mind. I've been listening to the whole 90 minutes of it many times, last winter, and it's rather profound indeed. As music about repentence and resurrection should be.
And this post reminded me that it's been too long since hearing this candidate, but I was considering
Fratres as a strong contender.
Bach's
Goldberg Variations are deep enough to have proven unfathomable for me--likewise the suites for solo cello, the SMP, AoF, solo violin sonatas and partitas. Beethoven's
Hammerklavier, Mozart's 40th and his d minor piano concerto, Debussy's
Preludes, Mahler's
Song of the Earth...the list could go on and on--and that's what makes classical music such a treasure trove.
BTW, I'm not sure how to measure the depth of a musical piece objectively, but for me it means that I never seem to tire of it, that I can explore it again and again and always find something that moves me, that it's a piece I can get lost in--such that the gap between observed and observer disappears, that it holds up over years and years and still speaks to me no matter how familiar with it I become and no matter how much I've grown.
Quote from: btpaul674 on April 04, 2008, 08:35:58 PM
For now, I am going to say Rautavaara's 8th.
really? I'd say for a (just about) 21st century piece, definitetly!
Quote from: vandermolen on April 04, 2008, 02:43:02 PM
Sibelius Tapiola/Symphony 4
This would be my answer too.
Tapiola, yes. The 4th symphony I'm still working on.
Quote from: Symphonien on April 01, 2008, 05:58:56 PM
Hypothetically, Scriabin's Mysterium. I don't think anything could be more profound than Scriabin's description "There will not be a single spectator. All will be participants. The work requires special people, special artists and a completely new culture. The cast of performers includes an orchestra, a large mixed choir, an instrument with visual effects, dancers, a procession, incense, and rhythmic textural articulation. The cathedral in which it will take place will not be of one single type of stone but will continually change with the atmosphere and motion of the Mysterium. This will be done with the aid of mists and lights, which will modify the architectural contours." Later he added that after the grand performance the world would come to an end with the human race replaced by "nobler beings."
Theoretically, Mahler's 9 Symphonies listened to back-to-back. I'm not sure if this is actually humanly possible though and would likely have extremely dangerous consequences for the health of any individual trying it.
Practically though, there are many pieces depending on the type of profundity desired. Here are a few that are equally profound in different ways:
Bach - The Art of Fugue
Beethoven - Symphony No. 9
Brahms - Symphony No. 4
Sibelius - Symphony No. 7
Messiaen - Quartet for the End of Time
Penderecki - Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima
Pärt - Fratres
Górecki - Symphony No. 3
Nørgård - Symphony No. 3
I'd agree regarding the Scriabin. There are so many works that fall into this category. The "Gotterdamerung" is a good possibility.Then there's the Mahler 9th and Sibelius' "Tapiola." Carter's "Variations For Orchestra is another powerful work.
Rautavaara 5
Tha Tao of all things.
Well to be honest not 100 percent know the definition of profound but if i think i know what it means would choose
Bruckner 7th Symphony
Richard Strauss Metamorphosen
Sibelius 6th Symphony - first movement
will that do ::)
Tristan and Isolde
or
An Alpine Symphony
Ought to be a contrabassoon solo, I should think.
Well, if not Rautavaara 5, how about the finale to Beethovens 9th? Profoundly driven or what?
Debussy's The Sea, of course. It can reach 11.000 metres.
What's the quality of "Profound" in music anyways. Something which gives you an out of body experience, a contradiction in terms which you haven't yet come to terms with and consequently find fascinating and mystical?
...or is it something more dynamic like a mental journey toward Dante's Paradiso, a revelation whose chords are never resolved...which could also be a journey toward death. Mahler's 9th and Bruckners 8 & 9th remind me of that. Music more than words can lead one to that scenario.
I think it must be one of the most difficult things a composer can do to suggest somehow that music has depth in a way unspecifiable in purely technical terms. I've immersed myself in the music of Bax recently and it occurs to me that a great deal of craft goes in to suggesting mystery or the mystical. Does it have anything to do with a composers own beliefs in that direction? Not necessarily. It's probably a goal that can be achieved if it is chosen, regardless of the composers beliefs about what musical profundity actually communicates. There is a confusion between what is delivered and what is evoked. If you can evoke a feeling you can take responsibilty for any profundity associated with it without knowing anything more than the listener does about extramusical meaning. The content, if any, is supplied on the other end by the listener.
This works because composer and listeners share common feelings and a common tendency to attribute meaning to them, even when they can't actually say what that meaning is. Evocation is taken for communication of far more than music itself can provide. Composer and listener share something primarily by drawing on their own resources, which are sufficiently similar to make this work. It's a little like the mentalist who says a few vague things and you come to believe he knows everything about you. The power of suggestion should not be underestimated.
So, drogulus, to continue your thought a step, is "the most profound music" the music that evokes the most powerful responses in listeners? (That's not an argumentative question, because I tend to agree. :))
Doesn't it depend on whether we think there's anything for music to be profound about? The difficulty about assuming that there isn't is that it pulls the rug out from under the value we place on the experience. The profundity one experiences has to be believed to be a real insight, I think, if it's to continue to have value. Once one 'explains it away', and 'sees through it', the experience becomes of no more significance than eating a chocolate bar. As CS Lewis said somewhere: to see through everything is not to see at all.
Quote from: jochanaan on November 06, 2009, 08:49:31 AM
So, drogulus, to continue your thought a step, is "the most profound music" the music that evokes the most powerful responses in listeners? (That's not an argumentative question, because I tend to agree. :))
Certainly that, and perhaps more. We also have to think it's profound. That's a kind of strong effect, so the question ought to be how a profound effect differs from a merely strong one.
Quote from: Elgarian on November 06, 2009, 02:02:15 PM
Doesn't it depend on whether we think there's anything for music to be profound about? The difficulty about assuming that there isn't is that it pulls the rug out from under the value we place on the experience. The profundity one experiences has to be believed to be a real insight, I think, if it's to continue to have value. Once one 'explains it away', and 'sees through it', the experience becomes of no more significance than eating a chocolate bar. As CS Lewis said somewhere: to see through everything is not to see at all.
Yes, what we think about what we feel depends on what we think.
:) We just have a hard time inventing meanings for terms when we insist they refer to things, even though we don't really know what, or if, anything outside feelings is actually involved beyond a particular kind of response to a stimulus. We have to think some stimuli are profound, without having the ability to express what profundity is about, probably because of preconceptions that such unknowns are signs of specific entities. What's an unknown specific entity? It might be better to wipe the slate clean and ask what causes feelings of profundity. That would allow a real answer to emerge about why some music can evoke these feelings.
I don't think any rug is pulled. The feelings are just as strong and maintain their value without the Platonism. You don't give up anything valuable, you just recalibrate causes and effects more efficiently and realistically. "Aboutness" is addressed directly, not just assumed. If I'm sad it may not have to do with a master Sadness entity or a realm of sadness or even particles of sadness in my soup.
C.S. Lewis must have been an engaging writer, but as a thinker he is positively blithering, an unreconstructed entity monger. There's not a feeling in the world he wouldn't be willing to imagine an entity for, and having imagined it, why, there it is! Escaping this silliness is the entry price for a serious discussion like this.
:P $:) 0:)
This is an oustanding performance of Beet 9, probably the best I've ever heard. Profound music indeed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpcUxwpOQ_A (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpcUxwpOQ_A)
Quote from: MN Dave on April 01, 2008, 06:37:37 PM
Very nice answers, though I am sorry about Varg's ass. :-*
;D ;D ;D
An ancient post, but good literature never dies.
Quote from: drogulus on November 06, 2009, 03:59:49 PM
...C.S. Lewis must have been an engaging writer, but as a thinker he is positively blithering, an unreconstructed entity monger. There's not a feeling in the world he wouldn't be willing to imagine an entity for, and having imagined it, why, there it is!...
Uh, lots of thinkers better than me or even you :) tend to disagree, and not all of them are Christians. The difference in Lewis is that, as far as feelings of profundity or what he called "numinous" feelings (which as far as I can tell means feeling one is in touch with heaven, or at least with heavenly beings), he tends to think and feel that "where there's smoke, there's fire."
Quote from: drogulus on November 06, 2009, 03:59:49 PM
What's an unknown specific entity? It might be better to wipe the slate clean and ask what causes feelings of profundity. That would allow a real answer to emerge about why some music can evoke these feelings.
This is an evasion of the issue I was addressing, but it's more or less what I'd expect you to say.
QuoteThe feelings are just as strong and maintain their value without the Platonism. You don't give up anything valuable
Well,
you don't give up anything valuable, because your world view excludes the value that others (perhaps like me) are perceiving. But some of us, if we accepted your view of things, would be giving up almost all of what we value. Predictably, to you this looks like nothing. But it's a matter of perception, so not much can be done to bridge the gap.
QuoteC.S. Lewis must have been an engaging writer, but as a thinker he is positively blithering, an unreconstructed entity monger. There's not a feeling in the world he wouldn't be willing to imagine an entity for, and having imagined it, why, there it is!
I quoted a sentence that seemed (and still seems) an apposite illustration of the problem. It happened to be Lewis who'd said it, but it might as well have been anyone. What your, or my, opinion might be of him 'as a thinker' in general doesn't seem relevant here.*
To get back to the topic: the question of what is the most profound music surely depends on what we perceive as 'profound', and where we think the source of the profundity lies - which is the point I was (perhaps not very clearly) trying to make. So, for instance, one of my contenders for the most profound piece of music would be Elgar's
The Spirit of England, because it illuminates, better than any other music I know, certain aspects of the human condition: the horror and anguish of loss and the need to express admiration and gratitude for sacrifice. But to someone else, perhaps directed by a love of 'absolute music' for instance, that choice would be almost incomprehensible, I think. Even ridiculous. For me, the most profound experiences seem usually to be directed to something
outside the music, but are transmitted
through it. I don't propose this as something to be universally advocated; it's just the way I find it.
*
There's not much that you and I agree about, Ernie, but maybe here we're closer than usual. I remember reading somewhere a perceptive critique of Lewis's apologetic writing that said something like: 'We may feel as if we're being presented with an argument, but actually we're being offered a vision'. I think that's pretty close.
Quote from: Carolus on November 04, 2009, 11:25:52 AM
Debussy's The Sea, of course. It can reach 11.000 metres.
He didn't write about those bits 8)
Quote from: Greg on March 31, 2008, 10:14:01 AM
"October"? nah......
Read this and was confused, but remembered this is Shosty's op.132...
I thought they had a vote in the UN not long ago and the 1812 overture beat everything mentioned in this thread in a landslide victory.