Non-repertory music to recommend a long-time long-suffering listener

[North Star]

Velimir, it took 50 000 years to develop fossil fuels and the industrial revolution. That doesn't make them just culturally situated- they are really, actually, objectively useful things.

And those both are very far from being the point at which progress is useless.

[Cato]

but what's happening is the rational left is being subsumed by the intuitive right...

No.  Free yourself of this right/left brain bias.  The mind in the brain is not so easily compartmentalized:

e.g. 

The musical four year olds have been found to have compared to one greater left hemisphere intrahemispheric coherence.[51] Musicians have been found to have more developed anterior portions of the corpus callosum in a study by Cowell et al. in 1992. This was confirmed by a study by Schlaug et al. in 1995 who found that classical musicians between the ages of 21 and 36 have significantly greater anterior corpora callosa than the non-musical control. Schlaug also found that there was a strong correlation of musical exposure before the age of seven, and a great increase in the size of the corpus callosum.[51] These fibers join together the left and right hemispheres and indicate an increased relaying between both sides of the brain. This suggests the merging between the spatial- emotiono-tonal processing of the right brains and the linguistical processing of the left brain. This large relaying across many different areas of the brain might contribute to music's ability to aid in memory function.

My emphasis.

See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_neuroscience_of_music

[some guy]

As an aesthetically capable individual, I call bull shit.

It's the same old same old: "My individual experience/opinion is objective fact and true for everyone."

When I turns into we and me turns into us, there's bound to be trouble.

[Karl Henning]

But, but . . . he's got to be right! He agrees with Scruton!

[Sean]

some guy, I'm well aware of that objection but I have reserves of personal conceit more than enough to cover for it.

Cato, sure thing, all very interesting. The thing about aesthetic experience though is that it is indeed intuitive and immediate, and not calculated out, so that part of the brain must be dominating, no matter how much cerebration went into the artwork.

Karl, I cite Scruton with much trepidation- he's a conservative thinker in ways I'm certainly not. Credit where it's due though.

[Sean]

James, I take your point and I do try to be open to anything new, even if I feel we're in end-times.

No worries about the SVS, I'm familiar with all the major works include almost all Webern, who I go back to the CBS LP set days with. I had my phase with them in my late teens and my present opinions were formed then- you can hear music disintegrating when all notes are equally meaningful and hence equally meaningless.

But the SVS of course are drenched in late romanticism and expressionism and were basically great artists. The rot really sets in with Boulez and his entourage and though straight serialism is rare today, despite some major music institutions still flogging it like maniacs, we're rummaging through the ruins of second-order tonality and half-baked shifting key centres, mush, pink sugar and fluff, plus plenty of totally senseless dissonance, all the Schoenbergian legacy.

The scariest thing is that minimalism and its riches has run its course.

I suspect there are deep connections between bankruptcy of our greatest artistic tradition and the state of our societies.

[vandermolen]

I am currently greatly enjoying the Sonata for Violin and Piano, Op.3 by Klaus Egge - a searching and eloquent work, which you might like.

[North Star]

Hey Sean .. of your exploring & sifting through all of that music; are there any specific
compositions of the last 50-60 years that you "hold in high regard"? Just curious.

In addition to Nixon in China, of course.

[DaveF]

no conscious entity can understand non-tonality because music is a relationship with discords and concords in physics not a manufactured intellectual construction, which is what modality by necessity is.

Sean, you haven't explained this fully (not fully enough for me, anyway), but are you in danger of putting the cart before the horse here?  Are you thinking that "modality" (all that business about Dorian, Myxolydian, Phrygian etc.) was dreamed up as a purely theoretical system by Glareanus and his ilk, after which composers tried to compose according to the rules of this system - much like 20th-century composers composed according to Schoenberg's and Boulez's rules of serialism?  If so, that's completely the wrong way round; the medieval and Renaissance theorists were trying to describe what the composers of their time were actually doing, not prescribe rules telling them what to do.

As far as I'm aware, there are only two works which conform perfectly to the rules governing modality laid down in by the early theorists, and they were written not in some savage pre-tonal era when we were all still painting ourselves with woad, but in the 19th century - the two works being Beethoven's Heiliger Dankgesang and Bruckner's Os justi.  Both of which, incidentally, are in the "Lydian" mode, a mode no medieval or Renaissance composer ever touched because of the Diabolus in musica above the tonic.  Surely you don't mean to imply that either of those pieces is impossible to understand?

Turning back to actual medieval and Renaissance practice, the "major" and "minor" modes (convenient terms I've just coined to describe scales with a major and minor third respectively above the tonic) show very early signs of turning into the major and minor scales we all know and love - by sharpening leading-notes, flattening 6ths etc.  So almost from the beginning of polyphonic music, modern harmony was beginning to develop - which, given that harmony was always based on the principles of acoustics derived from the proportionate lengths of different vibrating strings, it's hard to see how it could not.  Your posts give the impression, rightly or wrongly, that early music was based on some random intellectual system that might have been drawn up by deaf people for all its relevance to actual sound, rather than on what sounded good to composers of the time - which, unsurprisingly, was the resolution of dissonance into consonance.

I'm going to have to drag in the one piece from my collection that I would save if all the rest were to be washed away (rather as in the long-running British radio programme Desert Island Discs - have we ever played that on this forum?), which is John Browne's Stabat mater - written probably in the 1490s so which, on a strict reading of your posts, I ought not to be able to understand - but which is, one-flat key-signature notwithstanding, more or less in G minor (yes, with lots of lovely "Dorian" E naturals, but with just as many conventional G-minorish E flats).  Did you really mean to say that it was impossible (for me or anyone) to understand this piece?  Why then do I want to take it to a desert island?  (BTW, I haven't just listened to it, I've performed it several times and prepared a performing edition of it - facts which may or may not be relevant.)  Whereas on the same reading of your posts I ought to have no difficulty in understanding some tonal piece which leaves me utterly baffled, such as Liszt's B minor sonata.

Whatever you think, I'm looking forward to your reply.

DF

[Sean]

Hi guys, sure thing, I'll get back to you with some thoughts a little later- the outside world beckons.

[Karl Henning]

I don't know which is more to be pitied: the pointless banality of a "definition" on the order of music is a relationship with discords and concords in physics (as though this communicates anything of even the least importance); or that we have a self-appointed intellectual using this, the musicological equivalent of the day's horoscope, as the driver for no conscious entity can understand non-tonality.

[The new erato]

I am currently greatly enjoying the Sonata for Violin and Piano, Op.3 by Klaus Egge - a searching and eloquent work, which you might like.

Now you made me buy it.....even if I'm not Sean.

[Sean]

James

...are there any specific compositions of the last 50-60 years that you "hold in high regard"? Just curious.

Yes sure there are many, although it depends how high you set the bar, and there are many unique voices or areas of expression that composers have also found, even if they haven't quite provided a work within them to hold in high regard, as you say.

There are listeners who feel that Wozzeck was the last masterpiece and I almost agree, but it's not quite the case. Messiaen and Shostakovich are the greatest 20th century composers, along with Stravinsky but all of these of course have uneven outputs.

One of Messiaen's greatest works is the cantata La Transfiguration from the late 60s, insist on the Dorati recording though, and even more so Vingt regards from 1945, if that counts for you. Actually I'm struggling to give top tier answers but there are dozens of second tier ones... The greatest composers are Wagner, Bach, Beethoven and Mozart and there aren't going to be any more.

The minimalism or post-minimalism contribution stands out in the period in question with Nixon in China a completely extraordinary opera- get the Edo De Waart CDs but then see the original Houston performance on Youtube under Demain, an even finer and more incisive interpretation. Then see it again and again. Especially the ballet, based on a Chinese ballet. At any cost avoid the Alsop CDs and the Adams Met video.

Other minimalism works making a great impression are Nyman's short opera The Hat, Reich's Six pianos and Glass's Satyagraha and Dance No.1, the work I've listened to more than any other. All these likewise need a good performance and for the Dance the right acoustic too.

That's if for now...

[Sean]

Karl, there's more to horoscopes than you might think...



I was born in the year of the rooster for the Chinese system and the month of the bull for the Western...

I'm more interested in the Indian system called jyotish though...

[North Star]

The greatest composers are Wagner, Bach, Beethoven and Mozart and there aren't going to be any more.

Good, that's settled now.

[Sean]

Hi DaveF and thanks for those considered thoughts, although it's a subject I'm a bit jaded with I'm afraid. I studied music at university on two occasions and in small part because of that I have my dark thoughts on three essays if you sure you're interested enough.

Sean, you haven't explained this fully (not fully enough for me, anyway), but are you in danger of putting the cart before the horse here?  Are you thinking that "modality" (all that business about Dorian, Myxolydian, Phrygian etc.) was dreamed up as a purely theoretical system by Glareanus and his ilk, after which composers tried to compose according to the rules of this system - much like 20th-century composers composed according to Schoenberg's and Boulez's rules of serialism?  If so, that's completely the wrong way round; the medieval and Renaissance theorists were trying to describe what the composers of their time were actually doing, not prescribe rules telling them what to do.

Well Glarean's 1547 Dodecacordon was rather late in the day outlining the need for a full set of modes, but to that extent I guess he was prescribing rather than describing because it had a big impact. What seemed to have happened was that the four modes from D to G dominated music for a thousand years without people noticing that A and especially C, either side of the less suitable non-tetrachordal B, organize consonance and dissonance much, much better. Much much. Once the discovery was made within a few decades modality was all over.

As far as I'm aware, there are only two works which conform perfectly to the rules governing modality laid down in by the early theorists, and they were written not in some savage pre-tonal era when we were all still painting ourselves with woad, but in the 19th century - the two works being Beethoven's Heiliger Dankgesang and Bruckner's Os justi.  Both of which, incidentally, are in the "Lydian" mode, a mode no medieval or Renaissance composer ever touched because of the Diabolus in musica above the tonic.  Surely you don't mean to imply that either of those pieces is impossible to understand?

Lydian is on F. Are you sure about the tritone objection? Don't you mean locrian BDF as I just mentioned? I think I know the Bruckner, with a few of his other beautiful harmless motets.

But forget that. Look, modality just doesn't damn well work for goodness sake, theory can jump in the canal, there is no convergence of compositional technique and psychological experience because the ear, being an ear not a daft system on paper, hears consonance and dissonance as they are and music needs respecting this. Nobody noticed that music had enormous expressive potential beyond the constrictive harmony everyone was used to using.

Hang on, let me calm down and look at the rest...

[Karl Henning]

Good, that's settled now.

Man, just when I think that Sean has exhausted his potential for amusement . . . the fatuity just keeps coming!

[Sean]

DaveF

Your posts give the impression, rightly or wrongly, that early music was based on some random intellectual system that might have been drawn up by deaf people for all its relevance to actual sound, rather than on what sounded good to composers of the time - which, unsurprisingly, was the resolution of dissonance into consonance.

Indeed modality is half way to tonality, using the right intervallic 2212221 progression but just not beginning on the right 2.

Browne would be a new name for me but English composers of course held their own with any in the world in that period and in some ways harmonically very advanced- Fayrfax and to some extend Ludford are extraordinarily tonal, as Tallis then was.

I'm not saying modality and its related polyphonic homogeneity, contrasting with counterpoint with favoured lines to parallel the favoured scales, is entirely unintelligible, and indeed it's based on the tonal harmonic progression, just that it's seriously compromised and ultimately unsatisfactory and intermediate in nature before the emergence of properly organized triadic harmony.

[some guy]

Man, just when I think that Sean has exhausted his potential for amusement . . . the fatuity just keeps coming!

Yes, laughter. I was just getting the pointed stick out to poke in my eyes (in order to ease the pain, ya know), but laughter. Yes. Less damaging.

But the tears are so close....

[Brahmsian]

The greatest composers are Wagner, Bach, Beethoven and Mozart and there aren't going to be any more.

Then why in heavens would you even bother asking for non-repertory music recommendations (or even interested in such) if you believe this?

The rest, is noise.