RE: (western) classical music discussion
March 23, 2016 at 12:27 pm
(This post was last modified: March 23, 2016 at 12:47 pm by I_am_not_mafia.)
(March 23, 2016 at 11:49 am)bennyboy Wrote:(March 22, 2016 at 9:59 am)Mathilda Wrote: Not sure what the best way to describe tonal complexity."harmonic density"
Quote: I meant in the way that a modern composer will create whole new sounds using a wider variety of instruments in different ways."timbre" or "orchestration"
All adequate words. Thanks.
(March 23, 2016 at 11:49 am)bennyboy Wrote:(March 22, 2016 at 9:59 am)Mathilda Wrote: Sorry but yes I do personally find most of Mozart's and Bach's output to be too simplistic for my taste.That means you do not understand it, espcially in Bach's case. You should develop your ear for themes and the ways in which they are treated by Bach, and you will find enough complexity to make your head spin.
Possibly. Or it could also be that the techniques that they developed have been mined by so many composers since to the point whereby they are no longer novel or interesting. You see the same thing happen with books, plays and films for example and so it's quite possible that it's difficult for me to appreciate how it must have sounded to an audience at the time.
The thing is that 'themes', it's a very literal mindset. Again this could be what I was describing about how different brains work differently and respond to music in different ways. For example Berg's violin concerto does nothing for me. I think I bought a copy before Alex K posted it but it was just discordant noise to me. Yet Prokofiev's violin concertos speak to me on a fundamental level in a way that no music ever has. Prokofiev himself can be quite atonal and discordant at times. Even Prokofiev's second symphony makes sense to me even though it is difficult to listen to, and the composer himself ended up wondering whether he had made a mistake when it first aired. Or maybe I'm just not ready for Berg?
I've listened to a lot of Shostakovitch for example, and he has his own theme based on his initials and yes I do spot it. I spot the themes in cinematic music easily enough, so I don't think it's simple enough to say that I don't understand it. But for me it's stylistic. It's like comparing prose to poetry. The former is an act of communication, the latter is an evocation of emotion even though it can be meaningless.
