Anyone interested in Chamber Music?
Tue, Aug 30 2011, 4:26PM
#2
RE: Anyone interested in Chamber Music?
I never anticipated that a topic like this one could ignite such hostility and entertain such animosity. (Interesting!)
It's pity to destroy (with words) what we love, admire and appreciate most in music, just to defend irrelevant issues (who is more "intelligent" (or whimp), or about "excuses" in triple time, or even about "back pedalling").
Fortunately, great music defies the words.
Parla
Tue, Aug 30 2011, 5:30PM
#3
RE: Anyone interested in Chamber Music?
Um - back pedalling? I seem to recall my original point was that some music is more intelligent than other music, and that intelligence is more often found in chamber music than elsewhere. Also that composers who write good chamber music also tend to write better music in other forms. Which I continue to maintain. My further point was that there's nothing wrong with liking less intelligent music, but you ought to recognize that it is less intelligent, though it may have other qualities like nostalgia or simply a good tune. Oh yes, and Puccini is slush (is there a symbol for sticking your tongue out?)
You're right, Parla - this really has stirred up venom. Does loving music make us better human beings? Beginning to look like it doesn't.
Wed, Aug 31 2011, 12:04AM
#4
RE: Anyone interested in Chamber Music?
Um - back pedalling? I seem to recall my original point was that some music is more intelligent than other music, and that intelligence is more often found in chamber music than elsewhere. Also that composers who write good chamber music also tend to write better music in other forms. Which I continue to maintain. My further point was that there's nothing wrong with liking less intelligent music, but you ought to recognize that it is less intelligent, though it may have other qualities like nostalgia or simply a good tune. Oh yes, and Puccini is slush (is there a symbol for sticking your tongue out?)
You're right, Parla - this really has stirred up venom. Does loving music make us better human beings? Beginning to look like it doesn't.
Puccini is slush but you like the Monkees.
Each to his own slush is it?
Personally, I have no axe to grind for Puccini as I prefer Verdi and all his works.
Where would you place him on the slushometer?
PS: He wrote a string quartet the dirty little secret chamber music composer.
Wed, Aug 31 2011, 6:31AM
#5
RE: Anyone interested in Chamber Music?
I think this "slushomania" leads only to the degradation of any kind of debate to a very personal and definitely indifferent value judgements.
If you really have and listen to the two full cycles of the String Quartets of Beethoven, dear Troyen, you will never embark on such kind of empty and unending exchanges that, in no way, can honour anyone who claims he appreciates classical music. The same, to some extent, applies to you Carl, since you initiated this "slush" thing.
In any case, Puccini is a great composer of Opera, like quite a few others, who never envisaged themselves to be in the pantheon of the "Great Composers" of classical music, in the broadest terms. The interesting thing, Carl, is that singers (and not only of the opera) adore Puccini for what he composed for the voice. His work, though uneven, when it "works", it really flies over.
However, Carl is quite relevant, when he said that, when we listen to chamber music, we don't become better (which is not the point here), but, we have to be able to regognise that this music is greater than other, so that we may have a progress in our listening experience, a wider knowledge and a deeper appreciation of classical music. If the classical music was a matter of personal taste, perception, ability to comprehend, etc., then, the composers didn't have to strive for anything "great"; they have simply to fool us, by giving us what suits us (this is ecxactly what's happening in pop art; even worse, quite often the producers/composers, etc. even "prepare" us for what is suitable and likeble to us, but we didn't know it!). Fortunately, History showed us that great music is the one which followed the rules, laws, canons, etc that define this art, excelling in every possible field. So, in any classical form of Art, the question is not whether it suits us, but rather whether we may fit in this form of Art. Of course, we are always the living subjects. If we don't fit in, this Art goes to...museum, or even worse to the oblivion. However, nothing and none can diminish, degrade or trivialise the importance and significance of it in the development of our civilisation.
So, good luck, folks!
Parla
Wed, Aug 31 2011, 8:49AM
#6
RE: Anyone interested in Chamber Music?
My dear troyen1, the Monkees aren't slush, they're RUBBISH! My point, which I'm obviously not making clearly, it that "good" and "I like this" are not synonymous. I have a friend who adores Puccini, and why not, but he'd be the first to say that what he gets from it is a purely emotional high which has nothing to do with how well the music is written in terms of harmony, complexity, etc. For that he goes to Bach.
Agreed, Parla, I should avoid the little malicious digs I'd use among friends in an open forum. Slush is emotive shorthand for relying on pure melody and seeking a purely emotional response, which is what Puccini unashamedly did; it's a method which will win you a large audience share but which I consider inferior to music which engages the intellect as well as the emotions. Still, perhaps we need Puccini to protect classical music; I know people who run from Bach as from a cholera outbreak, but who sit with tears streaming down their faces through Nessun Dorma. As do I, but for a different reason.
Perhaps two other composers summed it up:
Shostakovich: Tell me, Ben, what do you think of Puccini?
Britten: Oh, I think his operas are dreadful.
Shostakovich: No, no, Ben, you're completely wrong. His operas are wonderful. It's his music that's dreadful.
Wed, Aug 31 2011, 10:20AM
#7
RE: Anyone interested in Chamber Music?
It's always prudent to go back to the "source" to find the...awful truth.
Good point, Carl.
Parla
Wed, Aug 31 2011, 2:21PM
#8
RE: Anyone interested in Chamber Music?
It's a long time since I last listened to The Monkees.
I recall lively popular appeal. There is nothing wrong with this in my view. However, devotees of the pop music of my youth don't seem to go back to them in the same way they do for other groups.
Some private views are best kept to themselves.
It takes skill to write good music, whether ephemeral or intended for posterity. Good orchestral writing requires discipline. So does good operatic writing - plenty of unplayed operas out there. Chamber music also required discipline and I consider it interesting that the greatest CM is usually for smaller rather than larger ensembles - if we fought bitterly over a list of 25 greatest pieces of CM, I suspect 2-5 instruments would be there more than larger ensembles - although composers received more commissions for domestic CM than big ensemble.
CM because of its more limited resources requires more concentration in composing, playing and listening. A string quartet has a more limited range of expression than a Puccinian orchestra supporting powerful singers. Some of us like that when we're in the right mood.
Mozart's Serenade for 12 wind instruments & double bass is still wondrous though, even if he did have the chance to spread himself.
P
Thu, Sep 1 2011, 12:35AM
#9
RE: Anyone interested in Chamber Music?
There you go again, Carl, back pedalling like mad in explanation of, what is it now you are calling it...taste?
You did not answer my question, probably because you have not heard enough to know whether it is to your taste or not.
I do not listen to both sets of the Beethoven quartets in one session. Some would, I do not. Some of the quartets I do not like, anyway, never have and, as likely, never will. Perhaps it's this "thing" I have about chamber music and the ridiculous snobs who believe it is the highest form of art music (I dread to think what their tastes in literature are...haikus?).
Carl and Parla, you make a perfect pair of bookends.
Thu, Sep 1 2011, 5:24AM
#10
RE: Anyone interested in Chamber Music?
"Ridiculous snobs", Troyen1? This time you surpassed any advanced word levels. In any case, I leave it to you to judge your "literature skills" to defend your positions.
Then, again "them" ("the perfect pair...") and "us" (who you really are?). And, then, again the "taste" factor as the ultimate judge of what is great in music, in Art and...Probably, not in Science : there are rules we cannot bypass. The law of gravity is the Law. But, how far is Art from Science? the law of tonality is the law, the law of sonata form is the law, the law of harmony is the law, etc.
I think, Troyen1, you gave me ssufficient answers to certain basic questions. The situation is really dreadful not for us, but for the music we are supposed to love. I'm sure you are happy with your views, your life and hopefully, everything is and will be O.K., regardless of Chamber music sensitivities or any other... questions.
So, good luck!
Parla
Fri, Sep 2 2011, 12:21AM
#11
RE: Anyone interested in Chamber Music?
"Ridiculous snobs", Troyen1? This time you surpassed any advanced word levels. In any case, I leave it to you to judge your "literature skills" to defend your positions.
Then, again "them" ("the perfect pair...") and "us" (who you really are?). And, then, again the "taste" factor as the ultimate judge of what is great in music, in Art and...Probably, not in Science : there are rules we cannot bypass. The law of gravity is the Law. But, how far is Art from Science? the law of tonality is the law, the law of sonata form is the law, the law of harmony is the law, etc.
I think, Troyen1, you gave me ssufficient answers to certain basic questions. The situation is really dreadful not for us, but for the music we are supposed to love. I'm sure you are happy with your views, your life and hopefully, everything is and will be O.K., regardless of Chamber music sensitivities or any other... questions.
So, good luck!
Parla
OK, I give up, having read this post of yours a number of times, what are you on about?
I thought a number of composers had bypassed the "law of tonality", to use your words.
Where does that put them: outside the law?
Should they be brought to justice?
PS: Some of them expressed their lawlessness through chamber music (sssh, don't shout it from the rooftops or you-know-who will hear!)
Fri, Sep 2 2011, 8:07AM
#12
RE: Anyone interested in Chamber Music?
...And all these "composers" of all kind of (other than classical) forms of music, who use extensively and exclusively the law of tonality (in its most basic forms and types),...are they going to be considered as proper insiders to the "classical franchise", because they simply use it. Excuses, excuses...
As for the composers you refer to, they "bypass", they didn't reject, abolish or destroy the law of tonality on their way to develop further music. To reach the so called "bypassing", previous composers in their own quest had tried the cromaticism, atonal, serial etc. methods, all in a legitimate effort to further the research in music. That's why they are properly appreciated. Adorno has claimed that with Webern, music has "finished". Maybe, he was right, because what followed was a return to the old laws, in one or the other way (almost all the works of Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Britten, Vaughan Williams, etc. are tonal, quite often in a concealed way).
Finally, I never implied that Chamber music is a "higher" form at the detriment of others. I said that the purity of the lines, liberated by any colours of the orchestral sound (orchestration) or voices (choral), can better be what music is all about (and, in that respect it is great par excellence). In the orchestral or choral/vocal music, the composers can concentrate on the form, without having necessarily to resort to great melodies, incredible rhythms and lush orchestrations (see Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms, Bruckner and so on), while in Chamber, the composer has to deal, along with the (pure) form, also with at least a decent melody, a proper rhythm and a quite good balance of the instruments involved. (from a discussion with Leonard Bernstein in the late seventies).
All the best, Troyen,
Parla
Sat, Sep 3 2011, 12:30AM
#13
RE: Anyone interested in Chamber Music?
I think I understand you this time but I am sure, and I am not merely playing at semantics, that you mean "rules" rather than "laws."
Perhaps, I pulled my punches in stating that some composers bypassed tonality when, in actual fact, they rejected tonality outright and it wasn't just a question of "getting" there from tonality as they were never there in the first place.
From the advent of serialism, I would suggest as a generality, was when classical music began to seriously lose its audience for new music. Not something that was a problem in the previous century.
Having said that, a concert of orchestral music by the early serialists, Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, can fill the RAH, especially if it is performed by Rattle and the BPO who have a way with this music of not only retaining its freshness and sense of a revolution happening but are able to make it accessible. I speak from experience, here.
However, I still struggle with Lulu, the little minx, even though I have two recordings
Sat, Sep 3 2011, 7:46AM
#14
RE: Anyone interested in Chamber Music?
I'm extremely glad that either with "rules" or "laws" or "regulations" or even "benchmarks", we may start comprehending each other, because the important thing is that, eventually, an artform par excellence, as the classical music cannot be governed in abstracto by an undefined sense of "taste" or the usual trend of "as you like it".
I personally appreciate the second vienesse school (at least the three greats). Schoenberg wrote, at his early stages few works in pure tonal form. Then, he developed the "atonal" thing, which Berg and Webern sent it to the...end, as Adorno claimed. However, they never rejected the past as something wrong or useless. They wanted to create an original "language" and they did it. Schoenberg (and Berg to some extent) had great appreciation for the masters of the past or the contemporaries (e.g. Wagner, Mahler). That's why Schoenberg's first works sound leaning towards late romanticism (Pelleas, Variations, etc). In any case, (Classical) Music has made its full circle and these composers along with quite a few others, who tried quite sincerely and decently to contribute to the completion of this circle, have their positions in the History of this "franchise".
By the way, the chamber music output of the "great three" of the second vienesse school is of utmost interest, not maybe to the public (no wonder), but to the musiciens, who, as some admit, "they hate to love them, by playing their highly but not often understandably complex works".
Parla
Sat, Sep 3 2011, 2:34PM
#15
RE: Anyone interested in Chamber Music?
Schoenberg did not just lean towards late-Romanticism, he jumped in and had a good wallow.
I think if somebody mentions the efficacy of chamber music again (yawn, yawn) I'll have to reach for my gun, metaphorically speaking of course, but then again it is ostensibly a chamber music (yawn, yawn) thread.
So, perhaps I'll start an opera thread on the lines of: Opera as Slush-discuss.
Ah, well back to the Boulez.
Oh dear, we seem to be getting into the subjectivity v objectivity debate - I like /hate this therefore it's good/bad. It doesn't really work like that. I hate Szymanowski's music but I recognize him as a great composer - probably greater than most people allow - whereas I adore the music of Moscheles but I'm never going to pretend he's anything but a lightweight. I grew up in the Sixties and there's a section of my ipod containing the likes of the Beatles and, God help me, the Monkees - they're my childhood, I love them, but, come on, Bach they ain't.
Most people love a cross-section of the great, the good, the dodgy and the downright terrible - what's important is to be aware which is which. Unless, like Stephen Pinker, you simply regard music as ear candy, which I don't really think will do. And, Caballe, I do believe that it takes more intelligence to write some music than others - Op 133 takes more intelligence than Baa Baa Black Sheep. On the other hand, Sibelius 4 takes more intelligence than Donizetti's lovely little quartets; it doesn't always work one way. But it's a lot more difficult to hide in chamber music - no grand gestures or lush orchestration to hide a lack of inspiration - so composers have to work harder and as usually happens when you work harder the results are often better.
Incidentally liking late Beethoven quartets doesn't make me more intelligent than anyone else - but it has taught me things about life, the universe and everything I don't think I'd have learned from La Boheme.
Excuses, excuses, excuses.
Next you will be telling us you like what you know or have this sentimental attachment to the sixties that only the Monkees and the Beatles can evoke and not La Boheme as that did not form a part of you early life experiences.
Having said that, your back pedalling is to be admired.