Mozart's String Quintets
Mon, Feb 27 2012, 5:16PM
#2
RE: Mozart's String Quintets
........they require your brain (your utmost attention) as well (with all due respect to the late Great Tenor).
Parla
Parla, can you explain the reference to the late Great Tenor (?) in relation to Mozart's string quintets?
Mon, Feb 27 2012, 8:39PM
#3
RE: Mozart's String Quintets
Just read the quote of Kev's post and, hopefully, you'll get it.
Parla
Mon, Feb 27 2012, 8:51PM
#4
RE:
Just read the quote of Kev's post and, hopefully, you'll get it.
It's a pity that being patronising isn't an Olympic event - Parla would be a dead cert for a gold medal.
Mon, Feb 27 2012, 10:06PM
#5
RE:
Just read the quote of Kev's post and, hopefully, you'll get it.
It's a pity that being patronising isn't an Olympic event - Parla would be a dead cert for a gold medal.
I see what he means - my apologies, I'm afraid I never bother reading the 'signature quotes' (there must be a name for these?)at the bottom of posts and hence I missed it. Nothing personal, though, Kev, I assure you.
Craig, my dear late mam once told me that it was impossible to be patronised by someone one doesn't respect.
Tue, Feb 28 2012, 12:34PM
#6
RE: RE:
Nothing personal, though, Kev, I assure you.
No problem.
The quote was apt for me at the time because I think it's possible that brains are required, to fully appreciate complex music. For example, I've seen Beethoven's later string quartets described as 'abstruse'. I've tried them and don't like them. Or is it that I'm not brainy enough to understand them? Anyway, I'm concentrating on something I like for now i.e. the Mozarts.
Tue, Feb 28 2012, 3:10PM
#7
RE: Mozart's String Quintets
Thanks a lot, Kev.
I don't believe there is any patronising intent to advise a newcomer in the field for some more attention about some "complex" music, which can become absolutely rewarding, if you attach the appropriate diligence and dedication to the details, in listening to it.
Parla
Wed, Feb 29 2012, 3:47PM
#8
RE: Mozart's String Quintets
...if you attach the appropriate diligence and dedication to the details, in listening to it.
Rest assured - I'm working flat out on developing my listening skills and any tips are welcome. My CDs have arrived and my amps are warming up now as I type. I'm going to switch off my mobile and computer and stay sober and drug free of course - (music being the only drug I need...most of the time).
Wed, Feb 29 2012, 4:01PM
#9
RE: Mozart's String Quintets
I'm working flat out on developing my listening skills and any tips are welcome.
Wed, Feb 29 2012, 5:02PM
#10
RE: Mozart's String Quintets
Wow, there's a bucket-load of controversy in that little clickety package!
I'll stay out of it and see how it develops for a while, but boy does it open up a can of worms. Meat and drink to us, of course. Stay tuned!
(And I read Kev's piece as irony, surely?)
Vic.
Thu, Mar 1 2012, 7:02PM
#11
RE: Mozart's String Quintets
...(And I read Kev's piece as irony, surely?)
May I ask what kind of irony you had in mind Vic?
Thu, Mar 1 2012, 7:10PM
#12
RE: RE:
...I'm afraid I never bother reading the 'signature quotes' (there must be a name for these?)...
How about 'quignatures'. Another candidate for my favourite online dictionary maybe.
Thu, Mar 1 2012, 11:16PM
#13
RE: Mozart's String Quintets
I hope, Kev, you will inform us about your first impressions on the String Quintets, you just obtained, so that we may come back to our thread's subject.
I would be interested to have your views even on any individual String Quintet, even separately.
Parla
Fri, Mar 2 2012, 6:16AM
#14
RE: Mozart's String Quintets
...(And I read Kev's piece as irony, surely?)
May I ask what kind of irony you had in mind Vic?
I thought at the time, Socratic, but if intended as literal, apologies Kev..
Here's my thinking. I'm wholly with the Pavarroti quote perspective, believing this academic/objective way of approaching the enjoyment of music smacks of snobbish pretension when taken to the extremes we have seen on here recently.
Being a student and teacher of literature, of course I believe that study and analysis enhances perception and understanding, and thus, ultimately, enjoyment. But it can take over from the function of the art in question. If you are reading a Shakespearean sonnet and seeing the structure over the feeling, you are missing the wood for the trees. And so with music, I believe.
What shook me reading Andrew's link about how to listen was being reminded of hi-fi mags of old. The advice is great for assessing what audio equipment can deliver. It tells you nothing whatsoever of what Beethoven or Mozart intended to convey. Having been a serious audiophile for as long as I can remember, I have been familiar with the charge that we are listening to our systems not the music - and I have lots of friends and acquaintances for whom this is undeniably true. And there are times when I do it now. Your comment about the placement of instruments in the Mozart quintets had me seeking reassurance that I could clearly locate each one - but that's hi-fi not music.
I trust you are enjoying the quintets - I love them.
On the Beethoven, I guess you would get a different answer from Parla (and I can't contradict him because I don't have his musical literacy) but I would just listen to good interpretations of those late quartets with a view to finding such profound, even extremes of emotional expression that so many have spoken of. This is why I invested a lot in them and now think them the pinnacle of musical achievement - and I don't know a semi-quaver from an gnat's crotchet.
More food for controversy here no doubt, but that's how I tend to think about the subject for what it's worth.
Vic.
Fri, Mar 2 2012, 11:21PM
#15
RE: Mozart's String Quintets
I hope we don't (re)open another saga of exchanges on how to listen to Classical Music.
I'm not preaching about an "academic/objective way of approaching the enjoyment of music", but the necessity of being attentive, alert and insightful in listening some of the most complex but, at he same time, most rewarding works of this genre. It's not about "structure over the feeling" but rather structure to enhance the feeling. You don't miss the wood for the trees. You just appreciate the "wood" because you can identify the variety, the richness, the quality of the "trees", so that you may have a better perception of the "wood" itself (to use your example).
I have a high-end equipment, but I can listen to the music itself through my system and not for my system. (Don't use all these old cliches).
To "locate clearly" the five instruments of the Quintet is the actual listening procedure in order to follow what's going on in the development of each movement and the evolution of the whole work. It's hi-fi for the benefit of music. So, Kev go ahead with the identification of the five voices to have a better understanding of these complex but miraculous works of exquisite music.
Concerning the Late String Quartets by Beethoven, perhaps, Kev, you have to revisit them, after repeated listening of Mozart's String Quintets. The "Late Quartets" are the pinnacle of musical achievement (as Vic underlined) in a different way vis a vis the Mozart's String Quintets (which are another pinnacle of a similar achievement). You may try to start listening to the slow movement of the op. 132, which is the most sublime piece of music the great Ludwig has ever composed.
Awaiting for your first impressions on the diferent Quintets.
Parla
Done. I decided to buy the 3 CD set played by the Grumiaux Trio/Arpad Gerecz/Max Lesueur which includes all 6 and was BBC's Building a Library choice in 2005. For critical listening, I like to sit exactly opposite and in the middle of my 2 speakers in order to place each instrument on the sound stage. Even then, deciphering what each of the 5 players are doing is a difficult job for me as I'm not a musician. Anyway, I'll try.
'After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music'.
Aldous Huxley brainyquote.com