Tone poems
Phil R. Karn
by the ability of music to evoke vivid images without words, and would like
to see what people consider as the best examples. I'm not referring to
images based on prior association; I suspect that not many people thought of
shuttles and space stations in earth orbit upon hearing An Der Shoen Blauen
Danau until after the movie 2001. On the other hand, it is hard to mistake
the opening of Also Sprach Zarathustra as anything other than a sunrise, or
the Allegro of Beethoven's Pastorale Symphony as anything other than a
summer thunderstorm. (The fact that these were the composers' deliberate
intentions didn't hurt.)
Other examples include The Planets, although the names Holst gave to each
movement give it away. Ideally, the kind of music I'm talking about would
evoke the same images in almost anyone hearing it for the first time,
without being told the name of the piece or the composer's intentions.
I'm not sure if Shostakovitch would qualify; in my mind his middle
symphonies conjure up vividly effective images of the horrors of a nuclear
war, but knowing ahead of time that he wrote them during The Great Patriotic
War tends to color my interpretation.
Anybody have any personal favorites?
Phil
bellcore!karn
R.GRANTGES
hmmm. I find Holst's Planets pretty impenitrable. image-wise.
But there is mmm, Glazounov (?) "Sergeant Preston of the Yukon
music which could only be lightly wooded northern land with many
swiftly running streams in springtime.
Von Suppe's light cavalry overture, which could only be a battle with
cavalry charge, followed by picking up the dead from the field and a
final charge.
Tschaikovsky's "Passing Parade" music (you have to be over ...45? to
know that one.
Liszt' Les Prelude could only be about fate and the ineffibleness of
it all.
"Over the Waves" could only be a skaters' waltz unless you grew up
in Minneapolis long ago and know it means "Buy Northland Ice Cream,
It's a Taste Treat Right Out of a Dream..."
All of The Seasons by Vivaldi...
There are hundreds of examples which not everyone will agree with and
many will flame as irrelevant to music.
--
"It's the thought, if any, that counts!" Dick Grantges hound!rfg
John G Dobnick
Tone poems, huh? Music evoking "images".
Smetana: The Vltava (also known as The Moldau). Definitely a bubbling brook.
Wagner: (Wow! *LOTS* of stuff here! Mostly "fragments" from his operas.)
I will mention only a few *obvious* items, leaving the rest as an
exercise for the net.)
Prelude to Act III of Die Walkuere (the famous "Ride"). This may be
colored by previous knowledge of the opera.
Prelude to Das Rheingold. Primordial nothingness forming into water.
Transition music, scene II to scene III, Rheingold; the Descent to
Niebelheim, complete with the sound of anvils.
Siegfried: Forest Murmurs.
Lots of places in the Ring: Magic Fire music. It "sounds" like fire.
[Well, these items create images for *me*!]
Let's see some more items.
--
--
John G Dobnick
Computing Services Division @ University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee
(...ihnp4!uwmcsd1!jgd)
Mitchell Marks
Another passage that I always think of as a sunrise is the last section
of the Firebird.
Surely everyone hears a clear sexual metaphor in the Liebestod. I think
it's the best and clearest of these, and he does it all with harmonic tension
and resolution -- I'm always surprised at people who are readier to hear
sex in passages of galloping acceleration.
--
-- Mitch Marks @ UChicago
...ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!mmar
Dennis Doubleday
>I'm not sure if Shostakovitch would qualify; in my mind his middle
>symphonies conjure up vividly effective images of the horrors of a nuclear
>war, but knowing ahead of time that he wrote them during The Great Patriotic
>War tends to color my interpretation.
differing associations in the minds of listeners. It doesn't seem too
likely, though, that Shostakovitch, writing during WWII, intended to
evoke images of nuclear war!
Greg Paley
> by the ability of music to evoke vivid images without words, and would like
> to see what people consider as the best examples. I'm not referring to
> images based on prior association; I suspect that not many people thought of
> shuttles and space stations in earth orbit upon hearing An Der Shoen Blauen
> Danau until after the movie 2001. On the other hand, it is hard to mistake
> the opening of Also Sprach Zarathustra as anything other than a sunrise, or
> the Allegro of Beethoven's Pastorale Symphony as anything other than a
> summer thunderstorm. (The fact that these were the composers' deliberate
> intentions didn't hurt.)
>
> Other examples include The Planets, although the names Holst gave to each
> movement give it away. Ideally, the kind of music I'm talking about would
> evoke the same images in almost anyone hearing it for the first time,
> without being told the name of the piece or the composer's intentions.
>
I doubt that there is any music which would evoke the same images in
almost anyone hearing it for the first time. You're dealing here with
a process I've heard referred to as "synesthesia" (I'm not at all sure
that's spelled right) which is, in artistic contexts, stimuli directed
at one sense which evoke a reaction in another. In this case, it's
sound evoking "visual" images. This happens all the time in literature,
where the printed or spoken word evokes both visual and auditory images.
I would say that there is a fairly large body of music which evokes
very distinct visual images to a large number of listeners, but that the
actual content of those images would vary widely from one to another.
However, even something as specific a verbal description as "a cool,
ocean breeze wafting across a deserted beach" is going to create widely
diverse images in the minds of two people reading it. Just how cool? What
color is the water, grey or blue? What kind of trees (if any) surround
the beach?
A number of friends with whom I've discussed this sort of thing point to
the "impressionists" as being sources of music that is particularly
evocative of visual imagery, although the actual point of impressionism
is not to depict an object itself, but to convey those feelings which
the object evoked in the artist. Debussy is the most obvious example,
although it was either Aaron Copland or Virgil Thomson who referred
to Sibelius as the "impressionist of the North Country" and I find
much of his music extremely evocative in this way.
I feel that ultimately music makes its own expression which is
independent of either verbal or visual means of communication. It
"says something" that cannot be said by any other means, although
a visual object or a literary work can provide the initial stimulus
to a composer.
- Greg Paley
Phil R. Karn
> differing associations in the minds of listeners. It doesn't seem too
> likely, though, that Shostakovitch, writing during WWII, intended to
> evoke images of nuclear war!
You're right. I'm fast coming to the conclusion that TRULY "descriptive"
music is actually quite rare. Virtually all of the visual images that come
to mind when I hear a piece are the result of past associations, some quite
conscious (e.g., from the title, or from having been used in a memorable
movie) while other associations were probably formed in events I've long
forgotten. The best example of "descriptive music" I could think of, the
storm in Beethoven's Pastorale Symphony, is effective mostly because it
imitates a natural sound (a thunderstorm) with an artificial one (tympani).
Conjuring up a purely visual image with sound alone is probably much more
difficult.
I'm reminded of the Bloom Country strip a couple of years ago. Opus the
Penguin is talking with Portnoy the Groundhog about his favorite song, the
Beatles' "Yesterday". He says that this song has always been very
sentimental to him, in that it evoked images of his youth with porpoises
frolicking under antarctic rainbows. That was, until he saw the MTV version,
complete with half-naked women and explosions; afterwards all he could think
of were half-naked, exploding porpoises!
Phil
G A Moffett
war (surprise!), but in particular, the final "blast" being that of
a nuclear bomb. I also associate some of the discordant tones with
drawings by Goya of mutilated victims of war. And there is of course
the mindless marching of soldiers on both sides committing these
attrocities.
Because of these associations, this music has always been at once
a thrilling and terrifying experience. After it all, there is the
refreshing reassurance of "Venus" -- I haven't decided if this is a
pastoral view of an earlier time, or the regrowth of the (now human-less)
world after the holocaust.
--
Gordon A. Moffett ...!{ihnp4,cbosgd,hplabs}!amdahl!gam
rchrd = Richard Friedman
> Holst's "Mars" (from "The Planets") has brought to my mind visions of
> war (surprise!), but in particular, the final "blast" being that of
> a nuclear bomb.
By the way, has anyone heard the original 2 piano version of
the suite. There is a recording... I heard it on the radio once.
Absolutely fascinating.
--
[rchrd] = Richard Friedman
Pacific-Sierra Research, 2855 Telegraph #415
Berkeley, CA 94705 (415) 540 5216
UUCP: {dual,hplabs,ptsfa,apple}!well!rchrd
ase...@cascade.arpa
>Holst's "Mars" (from "The Planets") has brought to my mind visions of
>war (surprise!), but in particular, the final "blast" being that of
>a nuclear bomb. I also associate some of the discordant tones with
>drawings by Goya of mutilated victims of war. And there is of course
>the mindless marching of soldiers on both sides committing these
>attrocities.
In addition to the marching soldiers, I always get images of tanks
rolling forward and relentlessly crushing everything and everyone in
their paths. I think it's interesting that virtually everyone
"sees" marching in that piece, especially since it's written in 5/4!
I find Wagner's "Venusberg" music from "Tannheuser" (I think that's spelled
wrong but every spelling I tried looked equally bad) almost pornographic
in its depiction of sexual activity. And "Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk" by
Shostakovich has the most descriptive orchestral passage I've ever heard:
immediately after the seduction scene, there's a series of irregularly
spaced downward trombone slides.
-paul asente
ase...@Cascade.ARPA decwrl!Glacier!Cascade!asente
Fred Williams
>
>Let's see some more items.
Flight of the Bumblebee
- couldn't be anything else!
Cheers, Fred Williams
Don Barry
So much music conjures images in my mind (even the non-programmatic
and "pure" music) that it is difficult to select the most evocative
examples.. Surely anyone who has ever heard the Sibelius 4th (what
I call the "Antarctic" symphony) sees desolate drifts, empty swirls
with an absence of humanity and lifelessness. And of lifelessness
a more vacuous, primordial aspect is present in "Neptune" from the
Planets by Holst.
The famous sunrise in Also Sprach Zarathustra is interpretable in
more ways than the literal. The fabled Zarathustra, having
spent years in isolation and contemplation, has arisen to bring
his learning into the world. The awakening is spiritual, physical,
and a metaphoral life turning point. The sequence is of such
import that Strauss can only vaguely quote it in the body of the
work, lest he suggest a similar step of evolution has occurred.
Naturally, this was perfect music for the allusory steps of genesis
of mankind in the movie 2001.
In the grand climax of the Adagio in Mahler's 10th symphony, I
see and *feel* a terrorized break with reality - a shocked
descent into tumult and death - a trial by fire with the outcome
entirely ambiguous. The few bars, all too short, form one of the
most moving phrases in Mahler's total oeuvre.
Beethoven's pastoral contains quite a realistic storm, but unlike
even more purely physical depictions that were to come later
(Eine Alpinsinfonie, Cloudburst(Grofe), etc) the storm's generic
destruction fits all universal calamities. Berlioz was terribly
impressed by this movement and claimed it as a personification of
Nature's destructive element. Far more than a game for Zeus (as
in Fantasia), there is a calamatous air to this movement and the
violins remind us of constant paralysis in the face of overwhelming
force.
I, too, love the opening of Das Rheingold by Wagner. I always
think of how much music had progressed since Haydn's perhaps
initial attempt to bring order out of Chaos in The Creation.
The cyclic, ever rising arpeggii out of a pedal tone form a
perfect description of fulminant, primordial power. This power,
too raw for human control, is encapsulated in the ring with its
creation, and never released in pure form until the final scene of
the tetralogy.
But somehow, I always find my strongest impressions, if not strongest
visions, in pure symphonic music. Especially in the music of
Bruckner and Mahler, I find palettes of emotion, that though
not forcing pictures upon me, admitting pictorial description.
The Bruckner 8th is most varied in this sense for me. The first
movement suggests to me a celestial rotisserie, with the listener
alternately faced with the searing heat and frigidity of naked
space. The second movement is often termed a dynamo, and perhaps that
image has been too firmly planted in my mind to admit an original one,
but it seems remarkably correct. The third movement, withdraws one
again into a human setting, but a profoundly introspective time
of contemplation punctuated by bursts of unrestrainable yearning
and unfulfilment. The final movement, the implacable march, leads one
to victory in the most forceful way. Especially the final 4 minutes, like
in all Bruckner symphonies, so impeccably cast. Robert Simpson termed
this coda as the smoky phrases in the strings incandesced by the sunny
brass that alights upon them, the ending in flame. I see a more tragic
element that lasts until the final tortured repeated phrase in the beginning
of the coda is resolved and the sun shines unimpeded.
I have never seen indifference in the Bruckner symphonies - Even in
the 9th, the evanescent trio of the scherzo with its descending
woodwind quotes, truncated by a note at the beginning on each repeat,
reminds me how lighthearted it is. The Scherzo aside from the trio is
very harsh, but always the flutes and cyclic accompaniment enter and
assuage it. How does this reflect on Bruckner? Although intensely
religious and gullible beyond belief in normal subjects, his music was
remarkably free from overt influence. He may have used Wagner tubas,
but contrary to Edward Hanslick, his embracing of Wagner's ideas
did not greatly exceed this. I see a celebration of life, both
physical and mystical, in his works. The Scherzo represents to me
the onset of fear in Bruckner's work, always hidden by supreme nobility
until now, but still a fear that however unshakeable, could be
lived with until the grand analysis of the adagio starts. How I
wish Bruckner had lived to finish the work. It would be wonderful
just to hear snippets of the (disjointed) sketches of the fourth
movement he completed.
I would be interested to hear more impressions of the images in
the Bruckner and Mahler symphonies. What about the Marche Funebre
of the Mahler 5th? The implacable horn solos in its Scherzo?
The giant fresco-like Bruckner 5th? The all-too-moving Mahler 9th?
Don Barry (Chemistry Dept)
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta Georgia, 30332
UUCP: ...!{akgua,allegra,amd,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo,ut-ngp}!gatech!gitpyr!cmpbsdb
rchrd = Richard Friedman
>
> I feel that ultimately music makes its own expression which is
> independent of either verbal or visual means of communication. It
> "says something" that cannot be said by any other means, although
> a visual object or a literary work can provide the initial stimulus
> to a composer.
>
True. But some composers do a very good job of mimicing nature,
or the human sounds around us.
Immediately comes to mind:
Lark Ascending, by R.Vaughan-WIlliams (which greatly impressed
an ornithologist friend of mine who studies bird songs)
Arcana, by Edgard Varese (urban sounds)
Linda Seltzer
for the p'ip'a and the ch'in. There are many fascinating portrayals
of running strams and brooks. What many of us call "extended
techniques" in string writing are ancient techniques in Chinese music,
and their integration into Chinese compositions is masterful.
Some examples of techniques: in the course of a section, the music
will move from metered to unmeterd and back; rubbing the strings
near the bridge is used as a soft marking of certain beats in
the measure while other notes played on these string instruments
have freer rhythm. There are many harmonics, vibrato notes, and portamento
notes, and the concept of Klangfarbenmelodie (melody of tone colors
a la Schoenberg) is an ancient practice in these tone poems.
Linda Seltzer