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The Classical Music Thread: Scriabin Edition
Elendil
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
In this thread, we discuss old music and not old music that is still classical. Of this music, the most important was obviously that of Alexander Scriabin, but other, less major, composers include Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Richard Wagner, Claude Debussy, Igor Stravinsky, Dmitri Shostakovich, György Ligeti, and countless others.
Alexander Scriabin
Primarily a piano composer, he wrote ten sonatas, a concerto, a number of preludes and etudes and various other small pieces for it. He also wrote five symphonies. His early work is fairly typically--though competently--Romantic, but the last half of his works veer increasingly toward a unique style of highly chromatic harmony and mystic notions.
Op. 8 No. 12 Etude
Vers La Flamme
Op. 74 No. 2 Prelude
So, D&D: any other great classical music loves? I seem to have a particular affinity for the early moderns, roughly between 1890-1940. Debussy, Mahler, Berg, Stravinsky, and others (in addition to Scriabin) tend to be my favorites.
And for something more recent, I've been thinking of picking up more by Per Nørgård whose Terrains Vagues I really enjoyed. I've been trying to branch out into more contemporary music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17mG4lsxPLg
Alexander Scriabin
Primarily a piano composer, he wrote ten sonatas, a concerto, a number of preludes and etudes and various other small pieces for it. He also wrote five symphonies. His early work is fairly typically--though competently--Romantic, but the last half of his works veer increasingly toward a unique style of highly chromatic harmony and mystic notions.
Op. 8 No. 12 Etude
Vers La Flamme
Op. 74 No. 2 Prelude
So, D&D: any other great classical music loves? I seem to have a particular affinity for the early moderns, roughly between 1890-1940. Debussy, Mahler, Berg, Stravinsky, and others (in addition to Scriabin) tend to be my favorites.
And for something more recent, I've been thinking of picking up more by Per Nørgård whose Terrains Vagues I really enjoyed. I've been trying to branch out into more contemporary music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17mG4lsxPLg
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQTLFmHNoUw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKgBdrsqvjs
I really enjoyed the Lord of the Rings music composed by a Dutch composer whose name escapes me at the moment (not the music for the movies, this was done a LONG time before then). It was short, only about 5 movements total. I'll have to dig through my music when I get home. It's been a while since I've listened to my classical stuff.
Edit: Ah! It was the Lord of the Rings by Johann de Meij.
Oh god, nooooooo.....
Exception: Bernard Herrmann because I want to make sweet, sweet love to the Vertigo soundtrack.
Before I begin, Jacqueline du Pre is the greatest cellist of all time (possibly greatest musician of all time).
This is arguably her finest interpretation of any of the many cello concertos she recorded and played over her short lived career. At the least it is her most famous.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5C99JyP2ns
Rostropovich ain't a bad player though. Greatest cello concerto ever from a pure composition standpoint right here, bitches:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxYbF-Yzdf0&feature=PlayList&p=D8E7AAADC0E5D7CF&index=26
More Rostropovich interpreting Schumann's Cello Concerto in A minor, a fucking phenomenal piece of music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwOisqjXUEo
OH WHAT THE HELL. MORE ROSTROPOVICH BECAUSE HE'S EASIER TO FIND ON YOUTUBE.
I think one of the most intriguing bits about the Brahms Cello Sonata in E Minor (especially movement 1) is how it utilizes the lower register of the instrument for the main theme, as opposed to the majority of other cello concertos/sonatas which seem to focus way more on the higher tuned two of the four strings on the instrument.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BM-6B8_Jj-o
These are good starters, more to come.
Righty-o. Just wanted to make sure I stick with the thread and not derail it.
I fucking love the Ligeti one because it hardly even sounds like a cello work.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrUYDwmp0-s
Yes, classically trained for 12 years.
I've been eyeing the so-called "Mysterium" completion for a while, but I've heard such mixed reviews. Still, I'm intrigued by, if nothing else, the orchestrations of some of the late piano music. I have an irrational love of orchestrations and transcriptions.
I saw a concert once that ended with a version of the Saint-Saens cello concerto for tuba and piano.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6dedmDR8q0
You go right to hell for this piece.
My favourites of music I've played myself:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNDCsmasTgg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_WVtv_5A-ic
And something just for fun:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6hQnBc5sQU
Let me bring in da new school shit brothers.
Yo GRANDFATHER didn't listen to this hell naw.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHntTsE-5wQ
Awww jeaaaah Ferneyhough in the HIZ-OUSE
Oh I'm bustin' out of my shell mothufuckers,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmO6bY56YlY
BAM Take some Xenacis ALL UP INS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6nrJ3ByzzE
JOHN ADAMS FROM NOWHERE WHAT WHAT
OH WHAT, Shit too REAL for you? Shit too NEW SCHOOL for you? Well then let's KICK IT OLD SCHOOL MOTHERFUCKERS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGWai0SEpUQ
OLLLLLLD OLD SCHOOL, WE TALKIN' BOUT MODERNIZM ALL UP IN YO'S FACE
WHAT'S THAT YOU WANT SOME MORE?!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Z1N9BLS0B4
AWWWW DAAAAAMMMMMMNNNNNNNNNNNNNN
Ah yes. I remember playing Gandalf in high school. This really brings me back.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IorOng9qUOo
what was that grandpa?
Luciano Berio's Sinfonia is the best thing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJsSt2jcKNM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7zi8XsN8sA
Death, death to you and your ilk.
Man what if someone came up with music like, emulating that? Wouldn't that be crazy?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EU85bUyDPWs
Charles Ives is awesome.
I could type out a long and thought out response essentially on why contemporary music is absolutely incredible music and why most people can't listen to it here, which really started in the late-1700s/early-1800s with the advent of deliberately composed music, as opposed to the earlier formulaic or transcribed improvisational music, and explain why both status and contract music, as well as the gray areas in between have a place in musical society...
But really YOU OLD GET WITH THE TIMES
I get it. It's an intellectual exercise.
That doesn't mean it sounds good.
are we talking about 12 tone?
because I'm pretty sure the only time I can appreciate 12 tone is when I'm stoned.
I can appreciate modern music for what it is and what it does and what it means, but it's still fucking terrible to listen to.
Back on the Xenakis thing, I've always liked Jonchaies:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfLayRi_hEQ
Modernism isn't going for any "FUCK YOU" That's postmodernism. Well sort of. That was Dada, which was the father art of postmodernism.
Modernism also isn't purely an intellectual exercise, it was created because Schoenberg felt that the tonal constructs were pretty much played out, and even though the later romanticists began expanding the tonal library and structure, Schoenberg basically took that idea and ran with it, completely destroying the tonal construct in favor of one he created, one that hoped to put each note on equal footing as opposed to the hierarchical way tonality treats notes. Now, in my opinion the problem was that he enacted such a weird and strict system to replace tonality, but the idea was still a pretty cool one, and when understood actually provides much more flexibility than structural tonality does.
Also, it sounds just fine assuming one of two things: You learn to listen to it, or (theoretically) you never learned the tonal system first. After all, while the 12-tone and various other modernist systems are artificially created, so was tonality, just much more gradually(Actually, there's a really interesting thing to look at with tonality and the harmonic series, but it doesn't invalidate this point), and people are more used to it. The only reason tonality "sounds good" to you is because you've been trained through your entire life to listen to tonality.
so no. I don't think you "get" modern music at all, it what I'm trying to say here.
EDIT: Wow that last part came out super-douchey. Of course, I'm a pretentious snob so
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nz0b4STz1lo&feature=related
You're wrong about both tonality and my understanding of it. I don't really have time to get into the neurological details, but the idea of various intervals being considered consonant and others dissonant, and our associating them as pleasing sounds or not is much more hardwired than you are giving people credit for. Infants (3-month-olds) can hear the difference and are better able to encode "traditionally" consonant intervals (perfect 5ths and octaves) while having difficulty with tritones and minor 9ths. (Look up studies by Laurel Trainor for more information).
The idea of scales (and by scales I'm referring to the old mode system) is not the only way to organize sound or create harmony. And maybe if we live in a society dominated by a twelve-tone method of composition everything would be different, but as it is key structure and implied harmony is ingrained in children as young as 4-years-old. To say that someone who doesn't find this kind of music pleasing is just "not getting it" it absolutely underestimating the capabilities of our minds in childhood, and how quickly they pick up and code patterns.
I understand what Schoenberg was trying to do (although personally I wasn't speaking only about him in my original post). However, throwing out the system that dominates and any all melody in western culture is not the way to make music that people enjoy.
Which is why I characterize it as an intellectual exercise.
With all that said, I'm going to bed.
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
Some of it's hardwired, but a lot of it is also learned.
And, even without mentioning Schoenberg... he's pretty much the founder of modernistic music. Any discussion about the "point" of modernistic music is of course going to mention Schoenberg.
Also, making music that people enjoy is an absolutely retarded goalpost. Which people? I enjoy a lot of modern music and postmodern music, because I've been trained to listen to and exposed to enough of it that I can digest it correctly. Even then, there are some pieces I enjoy and some I don't. And even then part of it can depend on the specific knowledge I have of the piece.
The problem isn't that it's an intellectual exercise, which apparently you have your own definition of, or that some arbitrarily defined set of people that you chose don't like it, but that it is beyond what a person without advanced training and exposure to music is ready to listen to. And even then, that person without advanced training is getting a more sophisticated ear all the time... People no longer riot when Stravinsky is played for instance, a lot of people can listen to and enjoy some Ligeti and Carter pieces... it's only the really crazy stuff that gets them.
And that is a huge majority of the population, that won't get it, because it's absolutely fucking retarded to study this shit. So retarded. Anyone who does is dooming themselves to a singular life, so they'd better be the specific kind of fucked up that is ok with doing that shit.
So yes, to you it might not sound good. And to a large portion of the population it might not sound good. But to say that people don't like it, and that it doesn't sound good period is the dumbest shit. "I don't like it"? fine. "It sounds bad. People don't like it"? Get out. Contemporary music is more sophisticated, more advanced, more expressive, pretty much all around better by any measure other than "People like it", because it's about being really fucking good, not getting the biggest number of fans. And it's very enjoyable when you learn to listen to it. It takes some work still to listen to it, but it's definitely enjoyable.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CwICXwLBmo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvHokjQ6enI&feature=PlayList&p=CE480D16F5DC6DD1&index=4
is furrn classical music allowed?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5w7ToxsrUw
Concerto Grosso 1
There used to be a really good live version of it but it got taken down for some reason. It's not an intellectual exercise, and only some of it is a fuck you, it's expressing emotion in a manner you don't understand. I am deeply moved by that Schnittke piece, and it's not unpleasant for me at all. Why? I don't know! But I don't want this debate to ruin this awesome thread.
That kind of music just doesn't sound appealing to me, and makes absolutely no sense. To me, it was a 2-3 minute long piece of noise.
Edit: I'm also trying vainly to remember the other piece I really enjoyed. The tune of the first movement still gets stuck in my head occasionally.
Check that, Lincolnshire Posy!
Symphonie Fantastique Mvt. 5
EDIT: Forgot, he did the druged out sword conducting on the Grande Symphonie, not the Fantastique.
~ Buckaroo Banzai
This isn't my favorite arrangement, but Beethoven's 9th/Ode to Joy is just badass and a half:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsFvnL7e1cE
I'm also a Rossini fan and feel that one of the great tragedies of the 20th centuries is the kitschification of The William Tell Overture by the Lone Ranger.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkymTHSbWe0
And Holst...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsU8ZXUYZt0
Funny, since with "typical" classical music you generally have to learn how to like in the first place. You cannot just pick up classical music or go to a concert and immediately feel content with what you've listened to. Most of the time it requires having studied music or time and effort listening and learning to really enjoy it.
Plus there is already a large portion of the population that doesn't like the "normal" classical musical. And now you're taking it a step further and requiring another level of "sophistication?" What pretentious tripe. I can understand your reasoning, but it's completely asinine and ruins my ideal of what music should be, aesthetically pleasing. Now we can get into a circular, pointless discussion on how something is aesthetically pleasant, but it's not going to change my mind that most of the stuff you've posted is nothing more than intellectual exercises. I listen to the music because it sounds good, and a lot of classical music sounds even better when you have a least a basic understanding of what's happening musically. But when you listen to something that doesn't/i] sound good but you can say "a-ha, that sure was clever what he did there," I don't find that at all appealing.
So tl;dr: this is probably another case of "let's agree to disagree," since no one is probably going to change their opinion on this.
Wait no, there's another thing I don't understand about your point: Why some time, effort, and training to listen to music is ok, but any more than what you have put in it pretentious tripe.
Did you read my post at all? The concept of something being aesthetically pleasing is not arbitrary. There are basic rules about some intervals being more pleasing than others. It exists, there's science! Whether a note "belongs" in a key is more arbitrary. And if parallel fifths make you scream then that's even more arbitrary (and requires a tonne of training to even know about).
None of this is the point though. The point is that claiming that someone not liking something (not finding it aesthetically pleasing) just doesn't get it is ridiculous, pretentious bullshit.
If you want to train yourself to think tritones are the bees-knees then go for it, but saying that someone who says it sounds terrible just doesn't get it is pretty insulting and shows you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how music is encoded in our brains. Which is why I list dissonant pieces in the "intellectual exercise" column rather than "aesthetically pleasing music".