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calimac*radio click on*
"... César Franck, and we've just heard his Third Symphony."
!!?!
"Ah, I mean the third movement of his Symphony in D Minor."
Oh well, one can dream.
This is the station that plays individual movements from longer works, probably because 12 minutes or so is as long as the announcers can bear to shut up.
For more elevated talk about music, I recommend an excellent article from a couple weeks ago by the NY Times' Anthony Tommasini. He brings up aspects of classical music that are central to my enjoyment of it but are rarely discussed as sources of aesthetic pleasure: its structure and its scale. I also like his attitude towards classical's relation to other music: it's not necessarily better, but it is different, and needs to be judged by different criteria. "Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony is no more profound than Eleanor Rigby," he says. "But it’s a whole lot longer."
I like that. And not just because Eleanor Rigby is one of my favorite Beatles songs while I can, frankly, live without Mahler's Resurrection Symphony. Part of what drew me to classical initially was the scale. Pop songs could be nice, but they just weren't big enough to be satisfying, even cumulatively. A symphony could be. And structure is what keeps me listening. Tommasini says listeners may not always grasp the structure in a large piece but they can perceive that it's there. This is exactly right.
Tommasini mentions Lawrence Kramer's book Why Classical Music Still Matters (University of California Press, 2007), which is on my reading list, but he's more incisive than Kramer. Kramer writes under the burden that, when you phrase your title that way, the answer to the question you're begging is almost certainly "no". Still, he tries to explain what hits him when he's listening to, say, Brahms, even if he can't explain it very well.
Also on the reading list, Spaces Speak, Are You Listening? by Barry Blesser and Linda-Ruth Salter (MIT Press, 2007), a book whose title scans perfectly to the opening phrase of "Winter Wonderland" and which discusses what the authors call "aural architecture" by which they mean "acoustic engineering". Highly verbose, but interesting on the aesthetic evolution of concert halls and its effect on performance styles and even composing. But when they write that musicians responded to the drier-sounding performance spaces of the early 20th century by increasing portamento (p. 111), I don't think that's what they mean. I think they mean vibrato.
Totally unrelated reading, old and probably impossible to find, but I'll mention it anyway: A History of the Kingdom of Denmark by Palle Lauring, translated by David Hohnen (Høst & Søn, 1960). The most thoroughly entertaining country history I have ever read. The Battle of the Ditmarshes in 1500 - I'd never heard of this, had you? - is, in this account, the most hilarious military debacle of all time. Here's one bit: "The Ditmarshers had prepared themselves for battle. In fact, in accordance with ancient custom, they had 'consecrated a maiden to God.' This did not actually involve a human sacrifice except to the extent that the girl was obliged to lead a pure and unmarried life for the rest of her days." The "except to the extent" is what makes the quote.
"... César Franck, and we've just heard his Third Symphony."
!!?!
"Ah, I mean the third movement of his Symphony in D Minor."
Oh well, one can dream.
This is the station that plays individual movements from longer works, probably because 12 minutes or so is as long as the announcers can bear to shut up.
For more elevated talk about music, I recommend an excellent article from a couple weeks ago by the NY Times' Anthony Tommasini. He brings up aspects of classical music that are central to my enjoyment of it but are rarely discussed as sources of aesthetic pleasure: its structure and its scale. I also like his attitude towards classical's relation to other music: it's not necessarily better, but it is different, and needs to be judged by different criteria. "Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony is no more profound than Eleanor Rigby," he says. "But it’s a whole lot longer."
I like that. And not just because Eleanor Rigby is one of my favorite Beatles songs while I can, frankly, live without Mahler's Resurrection Symphony. Part of what drew me to classical initially was the scale. Pop songs could be nice, but they just weren't big enough to be satisfying, even cumulatively. A symphony could be. And structure is what keeps me listening. Tommasini says listeners may not always grasp the structure in a large piece but they can perceive that it's there. This is exactly right.
Tommasini mentions Lawrence Kramer's book Why Classical Music Still Matters (University of California Press, 2007), which is on my reading list, but he's more incisive than Kramer. Kramer writes under the burden that, when you phrase your title that way, the answer to the question you're begging is almost certainly "no". Still, he tries to explain what hits him when he's listening to, say, Brahms, even if he can't explain it very well.
Also on the reading list, Spaces Speak, Are You Listening? by Barry Blesser and Linda-Ruth Salter (MIT Press, 2007), a book whose title scans perfectly to the opening phrase of "Winter Wonderland" and which discusses what the authors call "aural architecture" by which they mean "acoustic engineering". Highly verbose, but interesting on the aesthetic evolution of concert halls and its effect on performance styles and even composing. But when they write that musicians responded to the drier-sounding performance spaces of the early 20th century by increasing portamento (p. 111), I don't think that's what they mean. I think they mean vibrato.
Totally unrelated reading, old and probably impossible to find, but I'll mention it anyway: A History of the Kingdom of Denmark by Palle Lauring, translated by David Hohnen (Høst & Søn, 1960). The most thoroughly entertaining country history I have ever read. The Battle of the Ditmarshes in 1500 - I'd never heard of this, had you? - is, in this account, the most hilarious military debacle of all time. Here's one bit: "The Ditmarshers had prepared themselves for battle. In fact, in accordance with ancient custom, they had 'consecrated a maiden to God.' This did not actually involve a human sacrifice except to the extent that the girl was obliged to lead a pure and unmarried life for the rest of her days." The "except to the extent" is what makes the quote.
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no subject
Date: 2008-01-12 06:35 pm (UTC)While I admire Mahler and don't mind listening to certain pieces, I couldn't take a steady diet of it. As my Mom always says, regarding Mahler, "Just when you think it's going to end, he goes around again!"
no subject
Date: 2008-01-12 09:20 pm (UTC)What your Mom says about Mahler translates as large-scale structural problems. His music has no coherence; his supporters even define this bug as a feature.