Extremely Long Piano Compositions - What's Their Point?

[DavidW]

I didn't dislike it (at no time did I feel the need to turn it off) but I doubt I'll listen to it again any time soon. Even for an independent waltz, there's still too many notes (pace Joseph II) and it's still too long. I mean, come on, it's almost as long as a Haydn symphony yet not even half as interesting...

For those that didn't get the reference... Amadeus

[Florestan]

Same as above: I didn't dislike it (at no time did I feel the need to turn it off) but I doubt I'll listen to it again any time soon. Liszt's and Chabrier's takes are much more interestingly Spanish, and also shorter.

Sorry, guys, I can't help being honest.

[Florestan]

Sorabji may have been disgusted by whatever, or in an abnormal state of mind, as has been mentioned.

The guy was an eccentric, to say the least. 

[Luke]

Same as above: I didn't dislike it (at no time did I feel the need to turn it off) but I doubt I'll listen to it again any time soon. Liszt's and Chabrier's takes are much more interestingly Spanish, and also shorter.

Sorry, guys, I can't help being honest.

This and Karl's example were not posted to try to convince you that Sorabji is the equal of [insert composer here] but as a counter to your assertion that he was

The typical ivory tower artist, then. They write music because they can and they must, not because they have something to say about human life and experience that they want to share with their audience

However accomplished a composition Sorabji's Fantasie Espagnole is or otherwise, one can't deny that it communicates to others. 

[Florestan]

This and Karl's example were not posted to try to convince you that Sorabji is the equal of [insert composer here] but as a counter to your assertion that he was

However accomplished a composition Sorabji's Fantasie Espagnole is or otherwise, one can't deny that it communicates to others. 

Well, yes, I hereby publicly disown the second half of my assertion and do acknowledge that he did have something to communicate. But that he lived in an ivory tower, I cannot retract: at least from 1950 onward, it was almost literally true.

[Florestan]

Btw, guys, here's a gift for you all:

https://roberge.mus.ulaval.ca/srs/07-prese.htm

[Florestan]

I'm not sure that the "future generations" tack really obtains in Sorabji's case, as he was a pianist himself. I think of him as a kind of exaggerated Liszt.

I think of him rather as a kind of exaggerated Alkan, seclusion and all. Liszt relished being a socialite and a public persona throughout all his life --- the exact opposite of Sorabji.

[Karl Henning]

I think of him rather as a kind of exaggerated Alkan, seclusion and all. Liszt relished being a socialite and a public persona throughout all his life --- the exact opposite of Sorabji.

Better analogy still.

[Cato]

Btw, guys, here's a gift for you all:

https://roberge.mus.ulaval.ca/srs/07-prese.htm

Ah!  Many thanks! 

Another search for Barth's Piano Concerto was fruitless: but listen to what I found!

[Florestan]

Better analogy still.

And still further difference: Liszt constantly tweaked his piano works and Lieder in order to make them more accessible to performers and public alike. Can you imagine Sorabji doing anything even remotely close to that?

[Florestan]

Ah!  Many thanks! 

Another search for Barth's Piano Concerto was fruitless: but listen to what I found!

Will listen tomorrow and report back. For the time being, I'll just say that, although rather long, it's feasible in a public concert.

[Spotted Horses]

That's exactly my point: music needs to be listened to by the public. A composer who voluntarily isolates oneself  and one's works* from the public acts against one's own interest and cannot blame the public at large for ignoring him, or considering him an eccentric. "Who cares if you listen?" can easily, logically and rather fairly be answered with "Who cares if you compose?".

Which can, in turn, be answered with, "Who cares if you care?"

Are we still talking about Sorabji?

I can think of two well known composers, Shostakovich and Ligeti, who composed "for the drawer" because their works did not fit with the oppressive political climate they lived in. They felt a need to create something beautiful, to express their talent and ideas, even if it was impossible to put the music before the public. I assume they hoped for a time when it would be possible for the music to be heard. The fact that Sorabji composed music which had no practical outlet is no reason to subject him to derision, describe his works as monstrosities, claim he had nothing to say about human life and experience, claim it is not genuine art, dismiss it as gimmickry, etc. In his early career he published his music and organized concerts. He tried to organize a public performance of his notorious 8.5 hour long work. When these efforts were failures or came to nothing he became disillusioned and withdrew the works. He continued to compose, presumably because he felt a need to create, and because he hoped at some point circumstances would allow them to be performed. I see nothing to ridicule in this. And clearly his wish came to fruition at some level because there are recordings and performances of his work which attract audiences, including here.

I also produce trivial pieces of "art" and craft because I feel a need to create something. It satisfies a need and I don't consider myself contemptible because I create them without any expectation that anyone will care to experience them.

[Luke]

Can I only like that post once? It deserves many more.

[DavidW]

"Who cares if you compose?".

Well obviously you do! You seem to be all for gatekeeping here.  If I don't like it, I don't listen to it.  That is it.  Those composers don't owe me anything.  We live in a world where daring to be a classical composer has a good chance that your music will go unappreciated, not performed, not listened to.  You don't need to add to that by questioning whether they even have the right to compose or if they deserve to have an audience.

THEY DESERVE AN AUDIENCE.  THEY ALL DO.  And the fact that many of them don't is just part of the bitter reality that we live in.

[Luke]

Just wanted highlight Young. His piece are long and extraordinary. His The Well-Tuned Piano (over 5 hours) is a delight for the ears, and you will hear things you have never heard before, never imagined - such beautiful dissonances, which sounds contradictory until you recognize that Young isn't beholden to the occident.

And the full Vexations (over 11 hours) will convince you that you are hearing things that aren't being played - a wild experience.

Both these pieces move from the mind to the body - it is very cool.

A favourite of mine is Terry Riley's haunting The Harp of New Albion, which is dedicated to Young and which, like Young's piano music, is a loosely notated set of ideas to be treated freely on an intriguingly retuned piano whose resonances conjure up wonderful clouds of interacting overtones. It tends to be a lengthy piece, though not as long as Young's (the CD recording is around 2 hours) and it is multi-movement so perhaps it doesn't belong here. But it's sonically gorgeous, highly evocative, mind expanding stuff - one of my desert island pieces.

[San Antone]

No doubt. Question is, for whom? For them, certainly. What I doubt is the worth for anybody else.

Take that Cage ASLAP thing. Do you really believe that it has any artistic value whatsoever, or indeed any value at all?

IMO Cage would not applaud a performance that will last over 400 years.  His attitude was that his music should be performed within the confines of what a musician could perform and a listener could absorb in a natural period of time. 

But artists are free to interpret Cage's stipulation "as slow as possible" in as literal sense as they think is worthwhile. I kind of think of the Halberstadt ORGAN2/ASLSP (As Slow as Possible) as the opposite end of the spectrum from 4'33".

And since much of Cage's artistic gestalt was imagining and creating conceptional works, the Halberstadt  project fits within Cage's aesthetic.

[AnotherSpin]

Just wanted highlight Young. His piece are long and extraordinary. His The Well-Tuned Piano (over 5 hours) is a delight for the ears, and you will hear things you have never heard before, never imagined - such beautiful dissonances, which sounds contradictory until you recognize that Young isn't beholden to the occident.

And the full Vexations (over 11 hours) will convince you that you are hearing things that aren't being played - a wild experience.

Both these pieces move from the mind to the body - it is very cool.

I've listened to Well-Tuned Piano, more than once, as well as all the other available recordings of La Monte Young's works. I guess one could say I'm a fanboy. A very strong impression was a visit to La Monte Young' Dream House in Tribeca, New York. La Monte Young ultimately came to searching the perfect sound. The room sound equipment generates a combination of frequencies. Combined with the perfect light, which hue is magenta always. Unforgettable. I note that brevity or duration is no longer relevant here, the sound beyond constriction of time is continuous, without beginning or end.

[atardecer]

THEY DESERVE AN AUDIENCE.  THEY ALL DO.  And the fact that many of them don't is just part of the bitter reality that we live in.

Every composer deserves an audience? This seems to me going a little far. It seems to perhaps devalue the music of those composers whose music has resonated with so many through time, because of it's merits, not because they were a human being composing therefore deserve an audience.

It brings to mind this quote by Aristotle - "A friend to all is a friend to none."

[AnotherSpin]

Absolutely. It does become a problem when a message implies that certain music has no value--not for that one individual, not that it has no value for "me", but it has no value in absolute term.

Why should this be a problem? We are all subjective in our perception and evaluation. If one person rejects some piece of music and even claims his rejection has an absolute quality it still stays subjective and particular. It cannot and should not prevent another one from enjoying it. One is free to enjoy what he wants, the other has an inalienable right to have an opinion and express it openly.

[AnotherSpin]

The performers are simultaneously listeners!

[..]

Not the same thing. Performers don't have to like what they perform, when a listeners are unlikely to listen to something they don't like through sheer force, or merely neccesity. Some of the composers don't like what they compose either. How can one love the shapeless and unharmonious?