Our server costs ~$56 per month to run. Please consider donating or becoming a Patron to help keep the site running. Help us gain new members by following us on Twitter and liking our page on Facebook!
Current time: December 11, 2024, 9:29 am

Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
(western) classical music discussion
RE: (western) classical music discussion
Given the thread a rest until I get back home again, it's too much of a distraction.

Always worth watching this again Smile



Reply
RE: (western) classical music discussion
Baha, love Spinal Tap

Gotta go, too, first pick up the kid and then do some editing!
The fool hath said in his heart, There is a God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
Psalm 14, KJV revised edition

Reply
RE: (western) classical music discussion
Quote:You're missing out Min. There are many masters and master works in the 20th century.

Just gotta stretch those ears!

Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Bartok, Copland, Scriabin for starters.



I've never heard anything by Rachmaninoff that tempted me to listen to it again.  Prokofiev wrote some decent stuff.  Stravinsky, Bartok, Copland, Scriabin, no.  I'd rather have my nuts crushed in a car door.  There's a Russian by the name of Glazunov who was not too bad and Schostakovitch's Leningrad Symphony is fairly powerful.
Reply
RE: (western) classical music discussion
(March 22, 2016 at 9:17 am)Mathilda Wrote: Just checked out Scriabin and Copland on youtube, they do nothing for me but Bartok looks interesting. He's a name that has popped up before because of his string quartets.

I wasn't familiar with Scriabin until the Berliner Phil recently selected their new boss, Petrenko, and one of his performances with them, a Scriabin piece, to me sounded pretty impressive under his command.

https://youtu.be/DqVz7Y2k4YU
The fool hath said in his heart, There is a God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
Psalm 14, KJV revised edition

Reply
RE: (western) classical music discussion
(March 22, 2016 at 9:10 am)Mathilda Wrote:


What makes the piece from the BSG soundtrack additionally interesting to our ears is that it takes some inspiration from western classical music in the overall structure, but makes heavy use of north african and middle eastern elements, not only in the choice of instruments and rhythms, but also scales. The rhythm of the middle section seems to be a dance, towards the end, it's reminiscent of something african. If you strip away the use of exotic style elements, the work is, in my opinion, relatively simple.

Another striking, if quite disturbing, use of arabic/north african elements in a soundtrack which really affected me was this one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAxXoHWT...D9CE1D0461

Btw., how do you like this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l055c5lJMt4
The fool hath said in his heart, There is a God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
Psalm 14, KJV revised edition

Reply
RE: (western) classical music discussion
(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"

Quote: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.
Reply
RE: (western) classical music discussion
(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.
Reply
RE: (western) classical music discussion
Ever since I ve begun to more closely study and play Bach (still at a very basic level), other things I before thought were interesting now seem just bland and simplistic. Things by Bach I before thought were unremarkable open up in unexpected ways, like flavours in a wine or herb that you never noticed were there.
The fool hath said in his heart, There is a God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
Psalm 14, KJV revised edition

Reply
RE: (western) classical music discussion
Yeah I'll be the first to admit that I'm not in any way knowledgeable about music theory. It's something that I would love to learn given the time, which I don't have. I'd need another lifetime.

I do think though that music communicates at a more fundamental level and my theory about is that it relates to firing rates of neurons in the brain. It's like learning about linguistics or literary techniques not being the same as being able to write powerful fiction. Obviously you need the full tool set at your disposal in order to fully express yourself.
Reply
RE: (western) classical music discussion
I love these youtube videos with animated graphic scores of Bach's fugues. I find it's a very powerful illustration of how such apparent complexity was created from such simple elements*, and what skill must have been necessary to achieve that effect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOWi8tOf...tion_78634

*Worth noting for the creationists amongst us too. Not that they will note it.
I must not be nasty. I must not be nasty. I must not be nasty. I must not be nasty. I must not be nasty. I must not be nasty. I must not be nasty. I must not be nasty.
Reply



Possibly Related Threads...
Thread Author Replies Views Last Post
  Looking for country music singers similar to Alan Jackson rado84 5 966 July 31, 2023 at 10:27 am
Last Post: rado84
  Christian music you actually like? JairCrawford 31 3968 June 17, 2022 at 10:58 pm
Last Post: Thumpalumpacus
  New Ahem Music Istvan 1 516 March 20, 2022 at 3:39 am
Last Post: BrianSoddingBoru4
  New music, Old music Ahriman 79 9532 November 5, 2021 at 5:12 pm
Last Post: Oldandeasilyconfused
  Listening to music popeyespappy 35 4793 September 27, 2021 at 10:20 pm
Last Post: popeyespappy
  Music Composition FlatAssembler 1 348 May 22, 2020 at 3:08 pm
Last Post: BrianSoddingBoru4
  Carrie fans and country music. Brian37 13 1725 May 16, 2020 at 8:54 pm
Last Post: BrianSoddingBoru4
  My new favorite song of all time excluding classical music Alex K 1 682 January 26, 2020 at 10:09 pm
Last Post: Rev. Rye
  Never a flash in the pan. MUSIC. Brian37 19 2221 December 7, 2019 at 3:58 pm
Last Post: no one
  Music videos that rep the POTUS'S idiocy. Brian37 9 2041 October 22, 2019 at 11:58 am
Last Post: Fake Messiah



Users browsing this thread: 3 Guest(s)