What Are You Listening To Now?

[atserriotserri]

Originally posted by Grillparzer:
Messr. Russo,
Ah, a composer! What a surprise. Then you must surely understand that the root of the issue is that modern composers do not seek to entertain. Music is a closed system, composer ---> performer/interpreter ---> listener. All three of these must be present if indeed the music is to be judged a success, no? So, if the composer has elected to dispense with the listener, has cavalierly chosen to simply say "alors, screw the listener!" then how can he complain of not having an audience for his work? ANd surely this has been done, does Glass or Carter or Reich or Schnittke make any attempt to entertain the listener? I think not. For me, I put the "pseudo-intellectual" label on the composer, not on those who reject him. Give me a sonata anyday!

I think that one of the main points of the discussion it the entertaining.
"Entertain", under my point of view, is an indetermined concept, depends on the listener, or even more, on the mood of the listener. Sometimes with a simple song you are entertained and sometimes you need more, music that moves you, that "fills" your senses, that evokes you images... Also, why not? you might feel curious and search for new musical lenguages AND find amusement in try to understand or to follow some... ehem... "strange" music. One may get tired or even sick of that music, but also may not.
Composers on the other hand, and I'm not a composer, I think they want to share his intellectual exercise of composing with the listeners. Does it this means entertain them? Yes, but not necessarily. One is not a composer because he/she is listened, one is a composer because he/she composes music, success, respect, ovation... of fail depends on how third parties evaluate one's music. I've got my preferences as we all do, and as a listener, depending on my mood, I'll rush to some pieces I have never listened from Beethoven because he's an unique composer and I expect both emotions and intrincacy, or assume some risk and look to another shelf, and eventually think "John Zorn is a composer of avant-garde jazz, traditional jewish music, soundtracks... how may sound a record in which he both plays an alto clarinet and hunting decoys and bird whistles, sometimes both at a time?" This is an extreme example, but, guess you know what I mean.

Interesting discussion, definitely.

[King Stephen]

Originally posted by Grillparzer:
Messr. Russo,
Ah, a composer! What a surprise. Then you must surely understand that the root of the issue is that modern composers do not seek to entertain. Music is a closed system, composer ---> performer/interpreter ---> listener. All three of these must be present if indeed the music is to be judged a success, no? So, if the composer has elected to dispense with the listener, has cavalierly chosen to simply say "alors, screw the listener!" then how can he complain of not having an audience for his work? ANd surely this has been done, does Glass or Carter or Reich or Schnittke make any attempt to entertain the listener? I think not. For me, I put the "pseudo-intellectual" label on the composer, not on those who reject him. Give me a sonata anyday!

Bravo, Herr Franz, well said and well appreciated.

[ruudp]

[quote]Originally posted by Haffner:
[b]

Originally posted by Grillparzer:
Messr. Ruud,
Why do you equate entertainment with shallowness? Is Mozart shallow? Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Haydn, Brahms??? I don't think so, and yet they all entertain. I think that this (and it is not only from you) idea that if something actually entertains people, then it cannot also make them think or enjoyment can only be the result of hard work is a harsh assessment of people in general. Harshness also comes from repellent discord and repetitive persussion, yet this only makes me think "let me out of here, please. Make it stop!".
ANd now I listen to Mozart, the Variations for Violin & Piano, K 360. And I shall also th9ink about them while I am being entertained.

To some, thought is entertainment. I believe that modern music seeks to entertain those who understand it and more importantly those who wish to understand it. Mozart, who you seem to value highly, as do I, once said : "Give me the best instrument in Europe, but listeners who understand nothing or do not wish to understand and do not feel with me in what I am playing, and all my pleasure is spoilt." He was a man who saw the importance of the evolution of music and without his influence, who knows what we would be hearing today. Music must change because realy, what is the point in writting today like Mozart and Beethoven did; it would simply be redundant.

However I do agree with you that music of today has become unbearably intellectual. It ceases to express human emotion since the only thing composers are concerned with is "Advancing the art". I see their point, because I firmly believe that all music which does not introduce something new should not be written. If one writes in the style of others, why write? To entertain? Why, when we could simply consult those who developed the style?

I think that Debussy and Bartok had the right idea at the dawn of the 20th century but then damm Schoenberg ruined everything. Someone once asked him if he was the one who "wrote that awful music" to which he replied "Someone had to be."

Why? Atonal music brings NO pleasure to those who are not highly educated in the art and it does astrange the listener. Mozart also said "Music should never be harsh; it should never cease to be music" and that is the problem; where does music go from here? How can it be entertaining, expressive and new? Is the greatest of all the arts dead forever?

Haffner,
I agree with you and herr grillparzer that music could/should have some entertaining level in it...but why discard every modernday-living composer..is john williams' music for films and queens music a-tonal?? I'd like you and mr grillparzer too go too www.hotmail.com and enter the adres kingsbarn2@hotmail.com....the password is the same as the password on this site too acces the mp3 files...this should not be difficult..I posted my most recent and only *as yet* completed work there and are curious wether this music is what you'd cal a-tonal or disgustingly modern...

Regards ruud..

as not too stray of this topic too far..it's been beethovens 9th and 7th today in a cleaning frenzy * I always clean my room with music on*...in about 5 minutes it'll be beethovens 3th pianoconcerto...

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Music is like Blood...vital too ones well-being

[spaceray]

Now playing on the radio...B's 5th PC.Lovely!

[atserriotserri]

Today is a nice quiet day for me, my hifi is already on fire!
I started with some Chopin waltzes and after that I decided to focus on string quartets. I've listened Beethoven string quartets op. 18 (1, 2 & 3), op. 132 & op. 135, then I couldn't resist to Paganini Concertos 1 & 2 and now Shostakovich string quartets 1 & 2. Three different styles, don't you think so?
I find shostakovich string quartet no. 2 very interesting, although quite "hard to chew".

[v russo]

Originally posted by spaceray:
I have just finished a book by Alfred Brendel who suggests to young pianists that they must lean new music and put it on their programmes.I think this must be true for any musician ,a steady diet of of only one (or two) composer's would bore me.I think musiclovers shouldn't just stop at Dvorak (or Beethoven)I am prepared to listen to anything at least once . The most recently written piece I have heard is from a new Canadian opera based on a great novel by Alistair McCloud titled "Islands" music by Christopher Donnison.So please don't despair
of all of us.

I'm listening now to a song cycle of Arthur
Honegger "Saluste du Bartas" written in 1943.

good man space!! alas, a breath of fresh air and sensible thinking.




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v russo

[v russo]

Originally posted by Grillparzer:
Messr. Russo,
Ah, a composer! What a surprise. Then you must surely understand that the root of the issue is that modern composers do not seek to entertain. Music is a closed system, composer ---> performer/interpreter ---> listener. All three of these must be present if indeed the music is to be judged a success, no? So, if the composer has elected to dispense with the listener, has cavalierly chosen to simply say "alors, screw the listener!" then how can he complain of not having an audience for his work? ANd surely this has been done, does Glass or Carter or Reich or Schnittke make any attempt to entertain the listener? I think not. For me, I put the "pseudo-intellectual" label on the composer, not on those who reject him. Give me a sonata anyday!

Grill,

You are generalizing I'm afriad. Not all modern music is serialist, atonal and cool and distant for a select few. There are many moderns who write in simplified neo- classic/ romantic and communicative ways.

You need to listen to more modern music and stop being so presumptious and snobbish in your thinking.

Also, this is not the 18th or 19th centuries. This is not even the 20th century any longer. Asthetically speaking, ...is this the age of 'communication' or 'information' and the technology used to disperse it all over the world??

...get back to me, I am not finished with you just yet.

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v russo

[This message has been edited by v russo (edited 09-11-2004).]

[This message has been edited by v russo (edited 09-11-2004).]

[v russo]

Originally posted by atserriotserri:
I think that one of the main points of the discussion it the entertaining.
"Entertain", under my point of view, is an indetermined concept, depends on the listener, or even more, on the mood of the listener. Sometimes with a simple song you are entertained and sometimes you need more, music that moves you, that "fills" your senses, that evokes you images... Also, why not? you might feel curious and search for new musical lenguages AND find amusement in try to understand or to follow some... ehem... "strange" music. One may get tired or even sick of that music, but also may not.
Composers on the other hand, and I'm not a composer, I think they want to share his intellectual exercise of composing with the listeners. Does it this means entertain them? Yes, but not necessarily. One is not a composer because he/she is listened, one is a composer because he/she composes music, success, respect, ovation... of fail depends on how third parties evaluate one's music. I've got my preferences as we all do, and as a listener, depending on my mood, I'll rush to some pieces I have never listened from Beethoven because he's an unique composer and I expect both emotions and intrincacy, or assume some risk and look to another shelf, and eventually think "John Zorn is a composer of avant-garde jazz, traditional jewish music, soundtracks... how may sound a record in which he both plays an alto clarinet and hunting decoys and bird whistles, sometimes both at a time?" This is an extreme example, but, guess you know what I mean.

Interesting discussion, definitely.

A composer composes for one reason and one reason only:

out of necessity.

*This holds for any true artist; the rest is out of ones hands.



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v russo

[Amalie]

Originally posted by v russo:
A composer composes for one reason and one reason only:

out of necessity.

*This holds for any true artist; the rest is out of ones hands.

I quite agree with you there Russo, a true artist composes out of compulsion, they have to compose or write such as Shakespeare, or paint such as Leonardo.
Of course also had to earn their bread but the compulsion goes deeper than that, they had to give a form and a shape to the inventions of their mind and spirit!
*
May I request that this somewhat interesting debate continue on a separate page as this is the 'What are you listening to thread'.




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~ Unsterbliche Geliebte ~

[This message has been edited by Amalie (edited 09-12-2004).]

[Tony John Hearne]

Out shopping today with my son in Horsham, West Sussex. He settled for £18 worth of Pokemon cards but,in return, graciously gave me some quiet time to scour the local CD shop, one result of which are the 5 Prokofieff Piano Concerti with Ashkenazy under Previn and the LSO. I have been looking for this for some time and it is truly not a disappointment. However Vladimir Ashkenazy paid tribute to the wonderful and much missed John Ogdon in their joint winning of the Tschaikovsky comeptiton in Moscow 1961 for his playing of one of these concerti ( sorry I do not recall which one) Does anyone know if the Ogdon renditions are still around? I have a jaw dropping snatch of this performance on video but that's all

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Love from London

[spaceray]

Originally posted by v russo:

good man space!! alas, a breath of fresh air and sensible thinking.

v,
not that it makes the slightest difference
but just so you know I am a "good woman"space.
Now listening to Musorgskys choral version
of St John's Night on the Bald Mountain.This afternoon I'm spending with Furtwangler's (and Mozart's) Don Giovanni on video ,it is raining cats and dogs.
spacerl

[King Stephen]

A great afternoon. The complete symphonies of Schuman along with his Konzertstuck for 4 horns and Orch. and the Overture and Scherzo & Finale. John Eliot Gardiner conducting the ORR. very nicely interpreted by Gardiner and his Orch. True to Schuman's orchestrations.
KS

[Grillparzer]

Originally posted by v russo:
Grill,

You are generalizing I'm afriad. Not all modern music is serialist, atonal and cool and distant for a select few. There are many moderns who write in simplified neo- classic/ romantic and communicative ways.

You need to listen to more modern music and stop being so presumptious and snobbish in your thinking.

Also, this is not the 18th or 19th centuries. This is not even the 20th century any longer. Asthetically speaking, ...is this the age of 'communication' or 'information' and the technology used to disperse it all over the world??

...get back to me, I am not finished with you just yet.

Messr. Russo,
But I do not generalize! I have not said all old music is good, neither have I said all new music is bad. I have listened to the symphonies of Simpson, as an example I think of who would fit into your category of modern composer of some entertainment value (of course, as has been pointed out, entertainment is of a different meaning for each one, for me, it nearly always involves feeling better after than before ) and found them to be rather good, not serialist, atonal nor those other disgusting things that you listed, and yet I see him as being vastly inferior to Mozart, or even his unheralded contemporaries Vanhal and Dittersdorf! As for the Finns, such as Rutavaara, they left me even colder than did Sibelius, who was pretty cool for me. So where is the delight I got from the Septet Op 20??
As for you being done with me, I nearly regret de-lurking now merely to be threatened by such as you. Since childhood, my dear mother taught me that it was very poor manners to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed person, so I think I shall go back into lurking yet again. However, I leave you with this, you do no service to your fellow posters on this board to suggest that they are morons because they don't appreciate the same things that you do. One of the basic elements of taste is that it is shared equally and is the result of a concensus of agreement. It seems the concensus is against you, my young friend.


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Adieu,
Franz

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[King Stephen]

Mr. Russo & Franz
My,My, The two schools of thought on music have reached fever pitch and all that's missing is the rock throwing. Gentlemen, please I can't stand the sight of blood. I do wish you would both kiss and make up.
KS

[Grillparzer]

Originally posted by King Stephen:
Mr. Russo & Franz
My,My, The two schools of thought on music have reached fever pitch and all that's missing is the rock throwing. Gentlemen, please I can't stand the sight of blood. I do wish you would both kiss and make up.
KS

Your Highness,
My deepest apologies for offending your sensibilities. I felt only that I was being mischaracterized and mocked, so lashed out in return. You are quite correct, sir, schools of thought. Excellent perspective!
And now, I listen to Mozart, his Sonata in F-dur for Piano et Violon - K 377 - Entertaining AND thought provoking!


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Adieu,
Franz

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~