Let's Discuss Practicing - OK
Burch Seymour
As a struggling student of the organ, I find that I must attempt to
make the best use of my practice time, but I'm not sure exactly
how to do that. I'd be interested in hearing from other musicians
as to what they feel is the best way to utilize practice time.
How do *you* approach a new work and learn it. What exercises
really help, and which are a waste. Why is it that some things
that seem hard are really pretty easy to learn to play, and other
things which seem like they should be trivial, frustrate you
no end?
Any takers? What's your view on this?
Thanks.
-Burch Seymour- Encore Computer - Ft Lauderdale, Fla
...uunet!gould!bseymour
====================================================================
Keith A. McNabb
>
>As a struggling student of the organ, I find that I must attempt to
>make the best use of my practice time, but I'm not sure exactly
>how to do that. I'd be interested in hearing from other musicians
>as to what they feel is the best way to utilize practice time.
>How do *you* approach a new work and learn it. What exercises
>really help, and which are a waste. Why is it that some things
>that seem hard are really pretty easy to learn to play, and other
>things which seem like they should be trivial, frustrate you
>no end?
>
I tried to mail this to you, but it bounced. So, here it is for
the world:
Having received a doctorate in organ performance from the Eastman School,
I can assure you that your question about practicing is well worth asking -
for all of us. Really effective practicing does not come naturally to
most of us, and there are a lot of established professionals who could
stand to upgrade their own practice methods and habits.
To my mind, the most important considerations are:
1. Setting achievable goals for each session and working toward them.
2. Keeping the artistic, musical end result in mind at all times, rather
than mechanistic objectives such as "getting all the notes right".
3. Keeping your mind and your artistic senses in the process at all
times, so that the experience doesn't degenerate into mindless
physical exercise.
Keeping these things in mind, there are definitely some tried-and-true
tricks that music majors use, such as:
1. Practicing parts alone and in combination: each hand's part
separately, hands alone, pedal alone, one hand and pedal, etc.
2. Practicing at 1/4 and 1/2 of the ultimate tempo, but keeping some
feeling for the music. In other words, avoiding dull,
monotonous slow practice.
3. Identifying difficult passages and focusing practice on them.
This often includes the practice of exercises not found in the
piece itself which can help build the skill needed for the
troublesome parts. Trills and other ornaments, for example,
can be greatly improved through some of the Brahms piano
exercises.
4. Practicing passages which will eventually be very rapid in
various rhythmic patterns, such as dotted eighth - sixteenth.
5. Occasionally practicing difficult spots about 10% above final
tempo, but only when those spots are very solid and almost
mastered. Frantic attempts at fast playing do more harm than
good.
6. Pausing and relaxing between each repetition of a difficult spot,
rather than hacking it into the ground.
7. Mouthing syllables such as "tah" or "tah-kah-tah" to solidify
rhythm. Being your own flexible metronome can be more effective
in keeping a feel for the music than use of a machine. However,
an actual metronome can be valuable at time for isolated passage
work.
8. Making sure your fingers and wrists are relaxed and your technique
is correct. In organ, as in piano, weight should transfer easily
from the arm - you shouldn't feel as though you are poking at the
keys. (If the manual suddenly vaporized, your arm ought to flop
to your lap.) Your teacher or an accomplished player should
check your technique often, just as a coach scrutinizes an
athlete.
9. Pacing your practice sessions in intervals, taking enough relaxing
breaks to avoid mind meltdown.
As for practice materials, I'm high on piano practice for all organists,
even those who are quite advanced. The Brahms and Hanon exercises are
excellent, and there is no substitute for scales, arpeggios, and five-finger
pattern exercises.
On the organ, I really like the Harold Gleason Organ Method book. However,
I also think that exercising for its own sake should be only a part of
any session. Your mind will go to oatmeal if you don't have some real
piece of music before you that keeps you musically interested.
The Pachelbel and Buxtehude chorale preludes are good learning pieces,
even though they are quite good music as well. The Bach Orgelbuchlein
("Liturgical Year") preludes are an excellent next plateau, possibly
after a year or so of study.
Well, tell me how all of this compares with other suggestions you receive.
If you can be successful at planning and monitoring the way you practice,
you're already way ahead of a lot of folks.
-------------
Keith McNabb (DMA '82)
k...@iti.org
John Nelson
>
>make the best use of my practice time, but I'm not sure exactly
>how to do that. I'd be interested in hearing from other musicians
>as to what they feel is the best way to utilize practice time.
>How do *you* approach a new work and learn it.
I was just discussing this with my organ teacher last night. First,
don't get frustrated. Patience. It *does* take time. Yes, even *I*
have to struggle with a lot of the organ literature. ;-)
> What exercises really help, and which are a waste.
Well I like Hanon and Czerny for raw scales and technique. My method
books (Gleason's Method for organ playing and Davis' The Organists
Manual) have excersises in the back that are useful for both fingering
and pedals. These two books are actually very similar. Davis
provides somewhat more guidance to playing than does Gleason.
Simple baroque stuff is good practice foder. Simple Bach (if you can
find it) is quite good. Mozart and Handel have some good stuff worth
practicing.
According to my teacher it doesn't really matter what you play, as
long as you think about what you're playing. Sight reading is very
important. I asked him... "how do *you* sight read... do you read
ahead a measure at a time? do you scan the entire line or page? do
you see individual notes or do you see entire chords or do you see
harmonies or structures?
The answer is "yes." To all of the above. After a while certain
musical structures reappear again and again. Motifs become familiar
and the placement of each beat in the measure will become obvious
because you've seen and heard how the notes are used in the past.
He also stressed that one faculty that I need to learn and which I
have not yet acquired (because I started playing the organ at age 30)
is what he calld "immediacy" or in other words the ability to finger a
specific note immediately after seeing it on the page. You should not
have to think about where your fingers are going. Thinking is reserved
more for rhythem and the strategic approach to playing.
I know this sounds a little vague but its hard to verbalize a lot of
what he conveyed.
> Why is it that some things that seem hard are really pretty easy to
> learn to play, and other things which seem like they should be
> trivial, frustrate you no end?
Perhaps you're playing the easy stuff too often. My teacher says you
should play often but don't overdo single practice sessions. Three 2
hour sessions are preferable to a single 6 hour session. There *are*
plataeaus to be overcome as well. Many students reach a level where
they don't seem to be able to progress any further. It just takes
time.
Also, try to make your practice varied. Play different things. It
isn't a good idea to get your fingers too used to playing one thing.
If you do then you end up memorizing the notes and not thinking about
what it is you're doing. Thus you aren't really learning anything new
abou sight reading but rather spitting out a memorized sequence of
finger moves. On the other hand repetition helps to train the fingers
to respond when they see particular patterns... but you have to
"think" about what you're doing.
I always play new peices with a metranome. If you learn the wrong
rythem with a new peice you're screwing yourself big time. Play
slowly. Think globably. Don't repeat what you've learned.
Hope this helps somewhat. It may be elemental to many of you, but
that's how I see things right now.
--
John T. Nelson UUCP: sun!sundc!potomac!jtn
Advanced Decision Systems Internet: j...@potomac.ads.com
1500 Wilson Blvd #512; Arlington, VA 22209-2401 (703) 243-1611
Mark Alexander
I sympathize with you: I'm a struggling student of the piano.
I'm not convinced that exercises (scales, etc.) are really that useful.
The piano teacher I had as a kid would have apoplexy if he heard that.
Nowadays I follow John Holt's advice: let the music the be the exercise.
My current piano teacher follows this philosophy. It's certainly
a LOT more fun this way, even if I'm not a virtuoso in the Hanon mode.
On getting the best use of practicing time: Before I sit down to play,
I think about what I want to accomplish. Sometimes this means working
out some fingerings in a new piece, or trying to bring out the melody
in another part, whatever. But I try to have a goal or plan in mine.
This keeps me from wandering aimlessly (although that can be fun, too,
if I have the time).
On learning a new piece: It takes some discipline, but try to play it
slowly enough that you can play it without mistakes. If this means
1/10th speed, that's fine. It's worse to practice with mistakes,
because mistakes tend to be remembered, too. Build up speed gradually.
Also, if you don't get through a piece in one practice session, resume
it where you left off the next time you play. This way you're learning
the whole piece, not just the beginning. (I sometimes like to work
from both ends of a piece, and meet in the middle.)
I don't use a metronome. I think it helps my sense of timing and
rhythm if I try to do the counting in my head. Also, metronomes can
really get in the way if you're playing stuff that has very flexible
tempo (e.g. Debussy).
Hope this helps.
--
Mark Alexander (amdahl!drivax!alexande)
GLO...@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu
> 4. Practicing passages which will eventually be very rapid in
> various rhythmic patterns, such as dotted eighth - sixteenth.
His rationale applies to shifting (moving the left hand) on the violin.
If you practice this way, then you will be reinforcing sudden, jerking
shifts rather than smooth, even shifts. Hence, this idea is counter-
productive. (I believe that the analogue for pianists/organists would
be that this would reinforce jerking crossovers with the thumb). It also
encourages some unnecessary tension.
Instead, he encourages slow practicing with *all motions* slowed and
exagerated. This is not the same as just playing the passage slowly;
this is more like playing the fast passages in slow motion in order to
learn the muscular movements.
As he said, "practicing in rhythms is a nice idea, but it was invented
by teachers who don't really do much playing..."
But isn't Mr. Friedman just another teacher? Yes, but also remember that
he was the only student of Heifitz that ever performed alongside
Heifitz...
===============================================================================
Gregory D. Glockner
Bitnet: GLOGRED@YALEVM
"I played it better at home!"
Werner Icking
>In article <42...@itivax.iti.org>, k...@itivax.iti.org (Keith A. McNabb) writes:
>
>> 4. Practicing passages which will eventually be very rapid in
>> various rhythmic patterns, such as dotted eighth - sixteenth.
>
>According to my violin teacher, Erick Friedman, this is a *bad* idea.
According to my violin teacher ... it's a *good* idea - but you have
to exercise the passages with the original tempo. This gives some fingers
the chance to have more time for what they have to do while other have
to do it quicker.
Therefor you have to use *various* rhythmic patterns e.g. instead of four
eighth use dotted eighth - sixteenth twice
or sixteenth - dotted eighth twice
or dotted eighth - sixteenth - two eighth
or quarter - eighth triplet
or eighth triplet - quarter
and exercise this very very *precisely*.
>
>His rationale applies to shifting (moving the left hand) on the violin.
>If you practice this way, then you will be reinforcing sudden, jerking
...<some lines deleted>...
>
>But isn't Mr. Friedman just another teacher? Yes, but also remember that
>he was the only student of Heifitz that ever performed alongside
>Heifitz...
My teacher was *not* a student of Heifetz at all. But?
Werner Icking
Tom Knotts
>How do *you* approach a new work and learn it. What exercises
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>really help, and which are a waste. Why is it that some things
^^^^^^^^^^^
I have gained leaps and bounds by practising Hanon parts 1&2 on my
harpsichord. In just two years I have progressed more than I thought
was ever possible for me. I highly recommend them along with scales, of course.
If you are lucky and playing on a tracker, the modest mass of the keys will
quickly build good strength.
I want to begin organ playing in about another 3 years. If
I can afford it, I will have pedals built to fit my 2-keyboard harpsichord.
Then I can learn the pieces at home before going to the church. This should
work well, because a tracker-action organ has a similar touch to the
harpsichord. This is a convenient solution to the problem. I am sure our
predecessors in the 16th and 17th centuries also practised this way. Afterall,
they had to have the instruments pumped when they practised, so going to the
church to practise was more than just an inconvenience.
tom
___________
"[Bach's] feet flew over the pedals as if they had wings, and powerful sounds
thundered through the church".
L. Talstra
>In article <44...@augusta.UUCP> b...@augusta.UUCP (Burch Seymour) writes:
>>
>
>I tried to mail this to you, but it bounced. ...........
>
I also tried to send mail to mr. Seymour several times during the
past weeks, apparently without success.
Mr. S. could you please give an e-mail address that makes it possible
to reach you (even from outside the USA) ?
BTW, being just an amateur, I fully agree with the first 3 points
of Keith McNabb.
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Louw F Talstra DC&N/B Philips TDS Apeldoorn, The Netherlands +31 55 433146 #
# internet: tal...@idca.tds.philips.nl uucp: ...!mcvax!philapd!talstra #
Gavin Steyn
>
>I sympathize with you: I'm a struggling student of the piano.
>
>I'm not convinced that exercises (scales, etc.) are really that useful.
>The piano teacher I had as a kid would have apoplexy if he heard that.
>Nowadays I follow John Holt's advice: let the music the be the exercise.
>My current piano teacher follows this philosophy.
Well, I'm no pianist, but I strongly disagree. I play classical guitar, and
my first teacher also believed that the music was a good exercise. This
works to a degree, but as I've been finding out, it's incredibly inefficient.
If you can whip off sclaes, arpeggios, etc. right off the bat, you don't have
to relearn them every time they show up in a piece. Also, most pieces are not
a good way to practice specific techniques that need work (other than etudes,
of course), so you need to do a lot more of them to work out an error.
Second, a metronome is sometimes a good idea. It's important to have an
internal clock, but with very strange rhythms a metronome can correct you
before you get way off the track.
Gavin Steyn
st...@eniac.seas.upenn.edu
Eric G. Stern
> In article <42...@itivax.iti.org>, k...@itivax.iti.org (Keith A. McNabb) writes:
>
> > 4. Practicing passages which will eventually be very rapid in
> > various rhythmic patterns, such as dotted eighth - sixteenth.
>
> According to my violin teacher, Erick Friedman, this is a *bad* idea.
> Gregory D. Glockner
>
The point to practicing in rhythms is to isolate the connections between
different groups of notes. In a passage of 16th notes for instance, stressing
the third note of a group of four gives different connection patterns
than stressing the second. The shifts can be practiced separately if
necessary. On wind instruments, the notes can be slurred. The
passage would be played at half tempo so that only the fast notes of the
pattern would be at full tempo.
The problem that practicing in rhythms is attempting to address is
getting the correct movements "into the fingers." I don't think
practising slowly does this. If I have enough time to think about
every note, than I don't really learn the finger movements. What I
need is something that makes me learn the finger movements at
something approximating the correct tempo, but that limits the about
of stuff I have to concentrate on at one time. Playing a few fast
notes with slow notes in between to recover is just the right
approach.
Eric Stern
Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
University of Pittsburgh
st...@unix.cis.pitt.edu
Pieter Hazewindus
If the following has been said before, I apologize]
In article <25449F...@drivax.UUCP> alex...@drivax.UUCP (Mark Alexander) writes:
>
>On learning a new piece: It takes some discipline, but try to play it
>slowly enough that you can play it without mistakes. If this means
>1/10th speed, that's fine. It's worse to practice with mistakes,
>because mistakes tend to be remembered, too. Build up speed gradually.
One of my friends is a professional pianist, and he practices everything
a tempo. He says that what defines a piece and makes it whole is the tempo.
It's hard to master the technical difficulties by starting in a slower tempo
and then going faster. Eventually you always slow down at the hard parts.
When you play a tempo from the start, this won't happen. You start out by
playing just a few notes per bar, maybe only one (he call this ``outlining'').
As soon as you feel comfortable with that you add more notes. Eventually you
will play at the right speed automatically.
I thought that this was a strange approach when I first heard it, but it works
for him (you can actually learn a lot about a piece by just playing the first
note of every bar. Try it). Now I have never had the patience to stay with this
method to the end, so I don't do it, but he plays much better than I do,
and with a great sense of understanding.
[Again, we don't get this newsgroup, so if you want to reply, you also have
to mail to me]
>Mark Alexander (amdahl!drivax!alexande)
Pieter Hazewindus pie...@vlsi.caltech.edu
Im Sommer ist gut lustig sein!
Robert W. Holzel
>In article <25449F...@drivax.UUCP> alex...@drivax.UUCP (Mark Alexander) writes:
>>
>>I'm not convinced that exercises (scales, etc.) are really that useful.
>>The piano teacher I had as a kid would have apoplexy if he heard that.
>>Nowadays I follow John Holt's advice: let the music the be the exercise.
>>My current piano teacher follows this philosophy.
>
>my first teacher also believed that the music was a good exercise. This
>works to a degree, but as I've been finding out, it's incredibly inefficient.
>If you can whip off sclaes, arpeggios, etc. right off the bat, you don't have
>to relearn them every time they show up in a piece.
The problem with the Hanon exercises, or the Czerny or whatever,
is that in imprinting them onto your technique the exercise becomes
mechanical. It is important to intellectually recognize the patterns
in music -- so many seemingly difficult runs in Chopin or Liszt, for
instance, are patterns that repeat going up or down. Get a handle on
the gestalt of these patterns and they start to make sense and then
eventually start to "play themselves."
In this regard my experience is more similar to Mark's. I don't have a lot
of free time to pursue my piano studies, so I prefer to use whatever time
I can get to work on specific pieces rather than exercises. If I had
a couple of hours or more a day, however, I'd probably do a few exercises
as well.
Letting the music be the exercise, as it were, has so far allowed me to
whip off arpeggios and scales pretty well. Responding to the demands of
unfamiliar music is also a matter of sight-reading skill and familiarity
with the composer's style. I can sight-read Beethoven, Chopin, and Liszt
far better than Prokofiev or Scriabin, for example.
In any event, a skill at playing music is in many ways similar to learning
to write well -- the more you do, the more readily can you produce
quality results. A pianist who grinds away at a variety of pieces will
be a far-better musician than one who spends too much time doing his
Hanon or Czerny, just as a writer would do better to actually write
than to do spelling and vocabulary drills. The spelling and vocabulary
will emerge over time, as he seeks new ways of expressing himself.
For those of us with limited time, this philosophy bears us along
quite nicely.
Robert Colwell
>>I'm not convinced that exercises (scales, etc.) are really that useful.
>>The piano teacher I had as a kid would have apoplexy if he heard that.
>>Nowadays I follow John Holt's advice: let the music the be the exercise.
>>My current piano teacher follows this philosophy.
>
>my first teacher also believed that the music was a good exercise. This
>works to a degree, but as I've been finding out, it's incredibly inefficient.
>If you can whip off sclaes, arpeggios, etc. right off the bat, you don't have
>to relearn them every time they show up in a piece. Also, most pieces are not
>a good way to practice specific techniques that need work (other than etudes,
>of course), so you need to do a lot more of them to work out an error.
I think you're both right. A classical guitar teacher I had many years ago
made me study Segovia's scales and arpeggios, and suggested that I always
warm up with them. He also proposed something that has come in very
handy since then. Every new piece you try, if it's challenging enough to
be interesting, will have certain sequences that are especially hard. My
ex-teacher's method was to isolate those sequences and make an exercise
out of them. The easiest way is to shift the left hand sequence all the
way down to the 1st position and play it there, then to the second position,
and all the way up as high as you can reach. Several repetitions at each
position (or as many as it takes until you can get the sequence to sound
clean and clear). Go as slowly as you need to; speed should follow clarity.
After all that, play the sequence at some position, then switch to another
that isn't adjacent, and repeat. After all of that, if you still can't
get the sequence, go grab a beer and read usenet for a while. (If my ex-
teacher reads usenet I'm gonna be in trouble for that last idea.)
Bob Colwell ..!uunet!mfci!colwell
Multiflow Computer or col...@multiflow.com
31 Business Park Dr.
Branford, CT 06405 203-488-6090
GLO...@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu
>According to my violin teacher ... it's a *good* idea - but you have
>to exercise the passages with the original tempo. This gives some fingers
>the chance to have more time for what they have to do while other have
>to do it quicker.
should be of even length. You are practicing what you *shouldn't* be
playing: uneven notes. Your goal as a violinist should be to play
all notes evenly during the run.
If it works for you, that's fine, but personally, I believe that there
is NO substitute for slow, careful practicing. Later, you can speed
it up.
Werner Icking
>As for practicing in rhythms, Werner Icking replies to me:
>
>>According to my violin teacher ... it's a *good* idea - but you have
>>to exercise the passages with the original tempo. This gives some fingers
>>the chance to have more time for what they have to do while other have
>>to do it quicker.
>
>But truthfully, when you play a run "a tempo", hopefully all your notes
>should be of even length. You are practicing what you *shouldn't* be
>playing: uneven notes. Your goal as a violinist should be to play
>all notes evenly during the run.
That's the reason that I recommended to use a metronome. But I forgot
to mention, that you have to use a good one like the DB66 (Dr. Beat 66?)
from BOSS. This does not only ticks for the quarters but for the eighth
and sixteenth and triplets too - with different sound, different volume, ...
And if you are able to play the difficult parts precisely with a lot of
rhythmic patterns return to the required pattern - and I do not see any reason
that you should'nt be able to play just this pattern precisely. And that's
another pro for this technique, because it does not only help in training
even notes, but "uneven" notes, too.
From this I have a question: has anyone written a "metronome" program?
Does anyone know the DB66 *AND* is willing and able to write a metronome
program, which behaves like the DB66 adding some features like 'preprogramming'
a complete piece, ...? (and I know a metronome does not solve any problem, so
please no flames.)
>If it works for you, that's fine, but personally, I believe that there
>is NO substitute for slow, careful practicing. Later, you can speed
>it up.
>
>===============================================================================
>Gregory D. Glockner
>Bitnet: GLOGRED@YALEVM
>
>"I played it better at home!"
"me too" Werner Icking
non-standard, but *true* disclaimer: I'm neither trained in vi nor in using
your language.
Norm Strong
About 25 years ago, I got it in my head that I wanted to learn to play
Chopin's Etude, Op.10/1. Since I didn't (and don't) play the piano, this
presented quite a problem. I soon found that I simply hadn't developed
the necessary muscles to play this piece at tempo. I went to see a piano
teacher, and she gave me some exercises to strengthen my hands. After a
couple of months of this, I actually was able to do a creditable job on
the etude. But I wouldn't do it if I had it to do all over again!
The point is that sometimes you have to depart from practicing the piece
and concentrate on exercises, or you'll never learn to play the piece.
--
Norm (str...@tc.fluke.com)
Dave Singer
Alexander) writes:
> rhythm if I try to do the counting in my head. Also, metronomes can
> really get in the way if you're playing stuff that has very flexible
> tempo (e.g. Debussy).
That's interesting; I've always found a metronome useful, especially for
pieces with rubato. My realization was that *adding* rubato to a piece
learnt in correct rhythm gave me a much better understanding of what I
wanted; rubato developed without ever experiencing the piece without it I
found was uneven, unsatisfying, and partially concealed technical problems.
Others have been discussing alternating rhythm practice for even runs
(long-short-long-short; short-long-short-long; move a 'stress' along the
figure; change into triplets (all three positions), play it staccato
evenly); these I have found the only way to get runs liquid and even.
Then there are those passages which can be sight-read but you cannot play
a few weeks later. My worst of these was the sixteenth figure at the
beginning of the Beethoven E Major piano sonata (there's probably more
than one Ema, but I don't have the opus handy). What is it that goes on
in the brain to cause this?
* * * * *
To be loyal to rags, to shout for rags, to worship rags, to die for rags
-- that is a loyalty of unreason, it is pure animal (Mark Twain).
Jack Campin
arguments to back them up; but the one thing that nobody's provided is any
sort of scientific evaluation. It can't be that difficult to construct
experiments that compare these methods, and similar work has been done for
routine motor tasks like typing by human-computer-interface researchers.
So surely someone must have *done* the experiments?
I'm not saying we could answer questions like "what practice schedule should
I try if I want to be another Heinz Holliger", but simply comparing methods
for how long it takes to get a tricky passage somewhere near right should be
doable by anyone with a moderate knowledge of statistics and a MIDI keyboard.
--
Jack Campin * Computing Science Department, Glasgow University, 17 Lilybank
Gardens, Glasgow G12 8QQ, SCOTLAND. 041 339 8855 x6045 wk 041 556 1878 ho
INTERNET: jack%cs.glasg...@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk USENET: ja...@glasgow.uucp
JANET: ja...@uk.ac.glasgow.cs PLINGnet: ...mcvax!ukc!cs.glasgow.ac.uk!jack
green, d, david
>..one thing that nobody's provided is any
>sort of scientific evaluation. It can't be that difficult to construct
>experiments that compare these methods, and similar work has been done for
>routine motor tasks like typing by human-computer-interface researchers.
>doable by anyone with a moderate knowledge of statistics and a MIDI keyboard.
The assumption is that 'piano playing' is a pure routine motor task. If this
is the case, why would anyone *want* to practice? Just take a statistically
significant population of "expert" piano players, record them, digitize the
results, and have a standard reference library that anyone can access of
any work. No more need for musicians! (-: (-:
David S. Green att!mhgch!dsg
Gadfly
> > 4. Practicing passages which will eventually be very rapid in
> > various rhythmic patterns, such as dotted eighth - sixteenth.
>
> According to my violin teacher, Erick Friedman, this is a *bad* idea.
>
> His rationale applies to shifting (moving the left hand) on the violin.
> If you practice this way, then you will be reinforcing sudden, jerking
According to my gamba teacher, Mary Sprinfels, this is a *good* idea--
when you've got the piece down at a slower tempo and are having
trouble getting it up to speed. Anyway, I was having that problem with
one of the Simpson divisions, and she noticed that I was--I'm not sure
how to state this comprehensibly--leading with the bow instead of the
left hand. She said that that's pretty normal for right-handed string
players, and what she does is turn a problem piece into an exercise:
slurring 2, 4, 8 to a bow, and varying the rhythms of those groupings.
This forces you to get the fingering smooth and fast. Then your bow
can keep up with the rest of you.
> Instead, he encourages slow practicing with *all motions* slowed and
> exagerated. This is not the same as just playing the passage slowly;
> this is more like playing the fast passages in slow motion in order to
> learn the muscular movements.
That obviously works too.
> As he said, "practicing in rhythms is a nice idea, but it was invented
> by teachers who don't really do much playing..."
Well, not in this case. Mary's is primarily a performer. (I wish
she'd do less--I'd get more lessons.)
> But isn't Mr. Friedman just another teacher? Yes, but also remember that
> he was the only student of Heifitz that ever performed alongside
> Heifitz...
Got me there--I think a lot of Wieland Kuijken's students have
performed with him. It's not quite the same with the Baroque gamba
repertoire, though.
> "I played it better at home!"
Yeah, me too--why is that?
*** ***
Ken Perlow ***** *****
30 Oct 89 ****** ****** 9 Brumaire An CXCVIII
***** ***** gad...@ihlpa.ATT.COM
** ** ** **
...L'AUDACE! *** *** TOUJOURS DE L'AUDACE! ENCORE DE L'AUDACE!
Tom Knotts
>From this I have a question: has anyone written a "metronome" program?
>Does anyone know the DB66 *AND* is willing and able to write a metronome
>program, which behaves like the DB66 adding some features like 'preprogramming'
>a complete piece, ...? (and I know a metronome does not solve any problem, so
>please no flames.)
Sorry, but here comes a flame.
Boy am I steamed. Stop approaching music like an engineer! As someone
once said, "the black is the notes, the white is the music". The strong
beats and sometimes the weak beats should be on the beat. The rest is
anything goes (within reason). Whatever _feels_ right. Borrow a little
here, take a little there, whatever is required to make the piece
_musical_. The last thing you want to do is to train your fingers and
mind to play each and every note exactly as it is written. Otherwise, we
might as well scan the notes and let a computer crank them out. Anyone
who has heard the various programs floating around which can "play" a
piece on a workstation knows how unpleasant the experience is. Each note is
exactly on the beat, and for exactly the notes' written value. Boring,
boring, boring.
A metronome is a good tool, and I am all for it. But come on, enough is enough!
tom
_________
"The music of Bach is like a perfectly conceived geometric figure, within
which each line maintains its proper place, not a single line superfluous".
-F. Chopin
Romain Kang
teaching others, since talent can be so idiosyncratic. Does a
performer with a special mastery of his own technique and innate
ability necessarily have the ability to project it in a comprehensible
manner to student, so that the student can apply this direction to
his own playing? (Apologies for noninclusive language...)
Looking at it another way: How many world-class violinists are there
performing today who were taught by Heifetz? And how many were
taught by Galamian? (This is obviously a loaded comparison, since
Galamian spent a much larger portion of his life devoted to teaching,
and as far as I know, never concertized.)
ned
>
> >From this I have a question: has anyone written a "metronome" program?
> >Does anyone know the DB66 *AND* is willing and able to write a metronome
> >program, which behaves like the DB66 adding some features like 'preprogramming'
> >a complete piece, ...? (and I know a metronome does not solve any problem, so
> >please no flames.)
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
> Sorry, but here comes a flame.
>
> Boy am I steamed. Stop approaching music like an engineer! As someone
> A metronome is a good tool, and I am all for it. But come on, enough is enough
I too think the tool can be a lot better!
My son, John, practices scales for at least an hour a day and he spends
more time than he'd like messing with the metronome. He also depends on me
to play scales on our portable electronic keyboard with him so he can check
his intonation. (John plays violin.) A programmable metronome with note
generation would be great for him. We haven't found one but this is what
we'd like it to have...
- Preprogrammed scales
- Preprogrammed arpeggios
- Programmable scale and arpeggio patterns
- A variety of click sounds that can programmed anywhere.
- A "play scale" mode where the machine actually plays the program
so that intonation can be checked.
- Programmable scale acceleration with separate parameters for tempo and note
value changes.
- Ability to chain programs, with an option to switch from one program to
the next when a foot switch is pressed.
- Ability to copy and edit programs.
- Ability to save programs between uses.
- A FAST "visual" click (not the slow LEDs that are on many metronomes
these days).
- A volume controlled audio with a LOUD high setting.
- Earphone/headphone jack
- Quartz crystal controlled
- Battery or AC power operation
- Heavy duty construction
Anyone have any other requirements or ideas?
-- Ned Robie uunet!h-three!ned
Kwei-Cee Chu
>How do *you* approach a new work and learn it. What exercises
>really help, and which are a waste. Why is it that some things
>that seem hard are really pretty easy to learn to play, and other
>things which seem like they should be trivial, frustrate you
>no end?
>Any takers? What's your view on this?
[Climbing into an asbestos suit]
Whenever I start on a new piece, I usually listen to as many inter-
pretations as I can get my hands on, even before I look at the music
itself. I generally instinctively know what kind of sound I'm after
then, and then I walk through the interpretations I agree with the
most with the music in hand, usually jotting notes in it with my
trusty pencil (this being the legacy of nine years of Suzuki Violin).
One thing I take care to do is to break the piece down into small
pieces (sticking "flags" at the begginings of each section), with the
express purpose of mastering each separately (the divide and conquer
method) and compiling them into a uniform piece at the end.
It is only after that that I will set hand to my instrument. First,
I do scales and arppegios (sp?) in the key(s) of the piece, then my
generic warmup, the 24th Caprice (damn those tenths! I still have to
go half speed on them! After TWO YEARS! (my fingers don't have quite
the reach)). Then I get to the piece proper. I work on only one
section until I have mastered it to my satisfaction, then move on to
the next section.
If I have trouble, I usually pick an etude reasonably similar to the
problem section and play it in the sections's key. Alternately, I do
the section in another key, just to shake the mental cobwebs.
Perhaps the most important thing is the unification of all the sections
into one coherent piece. By now, the entire piece is piece-wise mem-
orized. I always keep away from the sheet music at this stage, and
go back to the recordings. I somtimes play with the recordings, but
more often than not I don't. If the piece is enormous, I unify it in
bigger and bigger chunks, otherwise I play it in it's entirety to the
wall, my roommates, or even my reflection, until I feel that I have
mastered it.
As for why things are hard or easy, I cannot say.
>Thanks.
You're welcome.
>-Burch Seymour- Encore Computer - Ft Lauderdale, Fla
>...uunet!gould!bseymour
>====================================================================
Kwei-Cee Chu
____________________________________________________________________
|Kwei-Cee Chu : Veni, vidi, volo in domun redire.|
|laba...@web.berkeley.edu : I came, I saw, I want to go home.|
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Tom Knotts
>>really help, and which are a waste. Why is it that some things
>>that seem hard are really pretty easy to learn to play, and other
>>things which seem like they should be trivial, frustrate you
>>no end?
>>Any takers? What's your view on this?
>[Climbing into an asbestos suit]
>Whenever I start on a new piece, I usually listen to as many inter-
>pretations as I can get my hands on, even before I look at the music
>itself. I generally instinctively know what kind of sound I'm after
>then, and then I walk through the interpretations I agree with the
>most with the music in hand, usually jotting notes in it with my
>trusty pencil (this being the legacy of nine years of Suzuki Violin).
>
I take the opposite approach. The less I know about how someone else interprets
a piece, the more easily I can find my own personal way of playing it. If I
know a piece from a recording, I will stop listening to the recording the
minute I decide to study it. You would be suprised at how much of your own
musicianship comes forward as you learn a new previously-unheard piece.
Playing with a particular recording in mind lends one to parrot playing, as
Ralph Kirchpatrick calls it.
Tom
________
"The music of Bach becomes more profound each time it is heard"
-Robert Schumann
Michael Chmilar
>A programmable metronome with note generation would be great for him [Violin
>player]. We haven't found one but this is what we'd like it to have...
I have a Yamaha RX-7 drum machine which I use when I'm practicing my guitar.
It has some voices for bass and synthesizer which can be set up to play notes,
as well as realistic drum sounds. I find this machine to be very versatile as
a practice aid: I can use it as a metronome, program accompaniments into it,
and program in what I am learning to play so I can get the timing and stuff
correct.
However, there are some drawbacks. Each voice only has one sample, and pitch
changes are done by speeding up and slowing down the sample; the result is less
than realistic, and would not be good if you are looking for exact intonation.
You could get around this by connecting the drum machine with a MIDI compatible
synthesizer which will generate the notes; better yet, just look for a programmable
synth that has some good rhythm sounds.
The other drawback is expense: my drum machine cost as much as my guitar. In the
end, though, I feel it was worthwhile, as I tend to practice longer and with more
frequently because it is more enjoyable to play with accompaniment (and one that
doesn't complain when I play something over and over and over and over and ...).
My playing improved a lot faster once I started using the drum machine.
To address some of Ned's particular desires:
>- Preprogrammed scales
Well, you have to program them in once.
>- Preprogrammed arpeggios
Ditto.
>- Programmable scale and arpeggio patterns
Yes.
>- A variety of click sounds that can programmed anywhere.
All of the various drum sounds - many snares, toms, kicks, two rimshots, hi-hat,
cymbals, and others.
>- Ability to chain programs, with an option to switch from one program to
> the next when a foot switch is pressed.
Yes.
>- Ability to copy and edit programs.
Yes.
>- Ability to save programs between uses.
Can save to cassette tape (cords included), or MIDI dump if you have a MIDI
interface to some other storage medium.
>- A volume controlled audio with a LOUD high setting.
I hook it up to my stereo. It has no built in speaker. Volume can be controlled
from the drum machine.
>- Earphone/headphone jack
Yes. This goes fairly loud.
Some of the other things, like battery operation, are not available, but you could look
at some other units.
Now I think it would be nice to get some other MIDI gear for even richer accompaniment.
(Chords on the drum machine do not sound very good.)
Michael Chmilar, University of Calgary,
..{ubc-cs,utai,alberta}!calgary!chmilar
"What's your sign?" "It depends on my angle!"
Mark Alexander
>The less I know about how someone else interprets
>a piece, the more easily I can find my own personal way of playing it.
Does this mean I shouldn't listen to the way my teacher plays, or
never go to recitals? I'm sure you didn't mean that, but where do you
draw the line?
I'd like to think it's possible to hear many different interpretations
and still be original. I get good ideas from recordings, but I also
reject other ideas if they don't feel right.
--
Mark Alexander (amdahl!drivax!alexande)
Chuck Smythe
>The less I know about how someone else interprets
>a piece, the more easily I can find my own personal way of playing it.
I had an odd experience in that line recently. I had spent months working
on the Mozart Adagio, K. 540, having never hear the piece performed. Recently
I bought a CD of Mozart sonatas (by a Japanese woman, forget her name) and
discovered that the piece was on it. She played it about a third slower
than I did, and with a lot more rubato. It became an entirely different
piece of music, with a different meaning. Having played with them for a
while, I think both versions are valid. Wonder what Wolfie would have thought?
Chuck Smythe
Tom Knotts
>>a piece, the more easily I can find my own personal way of playing it.
>
>Does this mean I shouldn't listen to the way my teacher plays, or
>never go to recitals? I'm sure you didn't mean that, but where do you
>draw the line?
As I think more about this, it does seem to be a fine line. I also listen
carefully to my teacher - I still don't know how she makes the harpsichord
sound so beautiful. I guess there is something to be learned from a
seasoned player. I suppose that the mistake would be to try to imitate a
performance without paying attention to what feels right for you. We all have
our own unique personalities, and this should be reflected in our playing.
It seems that you agree with this, based on what you have said.
Tom
_______
"There is a vast difference between what is merely pleasing to the ear, and
what is great in art".
JS Bach
Robert Coren
>>>The less I know about how someone else interprets
>>>a piece, the more easily I can find my own personal way of playing it.
>>
>>Does this mean I shouldn't listen to the way my teacher plays, or
>>never go to recitals? I'm sure you didn't mean that, but where do you
>>draw the line?
I agree that there is a fine line here. If you've never heard a piece,
you might well come up with an entirely new conception of it, but
there's no harm in benefitting from the collective experience of
decades (or centuries) of other musicians. Sometimes hearing another's
performance of a piece I've learned without having heard (or at least
not recently) is a revelation, or at least gives me new ideas about
tempo or expressive gesture.
What I think should be avoided is over-familiarizing oneself with a
particular recording. You end up believing (at least subliminally)
that "this is how the piece goes", and it can be very hard to break
out of. I try not to listen to recordings of anything I'm currently
working on, more especially if I only own one performance.
On the other hand, there are some pieces that I've been playing for so
long that I can hardly stand to listen to anyone else play them. I've
worked on the Brahms Op. 118 pieces on and off for over 25 years; of
course, my interpretation has not remained constant over that time,
but I feel somehow that they are "mine". I've heard Ivan Moravec play
the A major (no. 2) a couple of times in the past few years, and it
infuriates me. He probably plays it beautifully, but I "know" that
that's not how it goes. :-)
Robert
Susan Harwood
The question of "lifting" someone else's interpretation, either on purpose
or not, is an interesting one, as well as getting so accustomed to one
interpretation that another one seems "wrong."
As far as the first issue goes, I've listened to recordings of pieces
I'm preparing to get a sort of feel for them, but I rarely draw
largely upon the other artist's interpretation (unless it's something
really spiffy *and* something conceivably characteristic of my own
playing style). I played a very early baroque bassoon sonata for my
senior recital last February, and drew heavily upon a recording of my
teacher playing it in one of her recitals. After all, the place I
first heard it was in a lesson when she read through it for me.
However, I found that, as I grew more familiar with the piece and it
became "mine," so to speak, there were subtle differences between our
interpretations that can actually be heard in the recordings. So, I
would say that your own trademark creeps in the more time you spend on
a piece.
As for something being "wrong," I admit I've gone so far as to get
used to the way one artist does something (say, a role in an opera),
hear them do it differently, and say to myself, "No!" However, I
am trying to rid myself of this habit. I fell in love with Frederica
von Stade's Cherubino on the 1984 London recording, and for a while
*that* was Cherubino to me. Period. But since then I've found other
interpretations of the role to be enjoyable-- including von Stade's
1986 Met interpretation! Wow!
Any road, examples from the place of real life...
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ =========================================== ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Susan L. Cecelia Harwood *<:-) ama...@walt.cc.utexas.edu
The University of Texas @Austin "...suspended in gaffa..." --Kate Bush
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ =========================================== ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Jeff Winslow
>In article <6494...@hpl-opus.HP.COM> kno...@hpl-opus.HP.COM (Tom Knotts) writes:
>>The less I know about how someone else interprets
>>a piece, the more easily I can find my own personal way of playing it.
>I had an odd experience in that line recently. I had spent months working
>on the Mozart Adagio, K. 540, having never hear the piece performed...
I've found that two things happen when I do this. I'm always dissatisfied
with other people's interpretations, and always dissatisfied with my own
lack of technique.
Probably a very common experience.
Jeff Winslow
What`s in a name?
Brahm's German Requiem!!!! It is so gorgeous, it raises hairs on the back
of my spine -- ALL of them!
--m
P.S. Please excuse this interruption... My chorus has just started
learning the Brahm's requiem (Yippee!!!). So naturally, I am a little
excited.:-)
--
Mic3hael Sullivan, Society for the Incurably Pompous
-*-*-*-*-
English -- learn it -- use it -- it's YOUR language.
John Bodnar
>Yes! I've decided. The most incredible piece of music ever written is
>Brahm's German Requiem!!!! It is so gorgeous, it raises hairs on the back
>of my spine -- ALL of them!
>
Well, that's questionable. The most incredible piece of music ever
written is Beethoven's _Missa_Solemnis_. It's heaven storming and
hell raising all at once. This piece is what keeps my faith at times.
I say this with all unabashed pomposity.
John Bodnar (moz...@walt.cc.utexas.edu)
University of Texas at Austin
Tim Kohl
Why not add Felix M's Lobegesang to the list. Nun danket all Gott
seems appropriate for this season of the year.
J. Herrenkohl
_________________________________________________________________
"Wir sind die Leute" Leipzig 1989
_________________________________________________________________
leland.f.derbenwick
> In article <41...@ur-cc.UUCP> misu...@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (What`s in a name?) writes:
> >Yes! I've decided. The most incredible piece of music ever written is
> Well, that's questionable. The most incredible piece of music ever
Singers! ;-{
Assuming there were a "most incredible piece of music ever written",
it would obviously be an instrumental work, probably featuring the
violin. (Probably as played by David Oistrakh, but that's a
separate issue...)
-- Speaking for myself (and wearing borrowed space-shuttle tiles),
-- Lee Derbenwick, AT&T Bell Laboratories, Warren, NJ
-- l...@cbnewsm.ATT.COM or <wherever>!att!cbnewsm!lfd
What`s in a name?
>Assuming there were a "most incredible piece of music ever written",
>it would obviously be an instrumental work, probably featuring the
>violin. (Probably as played by David Oistrakh, but that's a
>separate issue...)
>
This guy David Oistrakh wouldn't have done a recording of the Sibelius
Violin Concerto would he? He sounds awfully familiar and may be the
violinist that absolutely floored me the first time I heard that piece.
If this is the case, I may be ready to conceed your point. (though that
will surely change the instant I go back to rehearsing the Brahms requiem:-)
Remember, to a true musician, the best and only piece of music ever written
is the one that s/he is playing/singing (singers are musicians too... At
least the ones who can sight-read:-)) at the moment.
--m
goo...@s.cs.uiuc.edu
>>> [Brahms' German Requiem as the greatest or most wonderful choral piece.]
>> [Beethoven's Missa Solemnis]
>Why not add Felix M's Lobegesang to the list. Nun danket all Gott
>seems appropriate for this season of the year.
>
>J. Herrenkohl
My, how opinions differ. I can't hear the _Lobgesang_ without bursting into
laughter (the _Nun danket_ chorus is okay, but the harmony was better in
the original version of the hymn, and J. S. Bach also did a good 4-part
for Cantata 79 [_Gott, der Herr, ist Sonn' und Schild_]. Every last bloody
hymnal I've seen uses the Mendelssohn harmony, though). The "Hueter, ist
die Nacht bald hin?" bit always has me rolling on the floor, in particular.
It's bathetic, melodramatic...
But we're eternally in Mendelssohn's debt, because he rediscoverd Bach.
And when _Lobgesang_ was first presented, it was a huge success, and a lot
of people still love it, and who am I to poke fun at them? I admit to a
weakness for "Heilig ist Gott der Herr" from _Elijah_.
Anyway, for me it's the _Sanctus_ from Bach's Mass in b minor. A few
moments in the cantatas come close, such as when the chorus joins the
bass arioso on "Heute wirst du mit mir in Paradies sein" in BWV 106.
There must be countless opinions on this subject...no offense meant with
any of the above.
Mark.
goo...@s.cs.uiuc.edu
Jeff Winslow
Don't be silly. The most incredible piece ever written hasn't been written yet.
And I wouldn't believe it if it had.
Julian Vrieslander
>Violin Concerto would he? He sounds awfully familiar and may be the
>violinist that absolutely floored me the first time I heard that piece.
Yes, Oistrakh did record the Sibelius violin concerto, and it is an
outstanding performance. I first heard it in the late 60's, when I was
in high school, on a record that I checked out from the public library.
That recording single-handedly convinced me to get interested in classical
music. I bought my own copy, and my record collection was off to the races.
I still have that LP, and it still gives me goosebumps when I listen to it.
Since I am not at home now, I can't look up the catalog number, but I
believe it is a Columbia release, with Ormandy and the Philadelphia.
Columbia also released a two-LP set of Oistrakh performances shortly after
he died. The guy was a fabulous violinist, but on this side of the Atlantic
he never achieved the popularity of contemporaries like Stern and Menuhin,
perhaps because of the cold war (Oistrakh was a Russian).
--
Julian Vrieslander
Neurobiology & Behavior, W250 Mudd Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca NY 14853
UUCP: {cmcl2,decvax,rochester,uw-beaver}!cornell!batcomputer!eacj
INTERNET: ea...@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu BITNET: eacj@CRNLTHRY
Tim Kohl
>
>>>> [Brahms' German Requiem as the greatest or most wonderful choral piece.]
>>> [Beethoven's Missa Solemnis]
>>Why not add Felix M's Lobegesang to the list. Nun danket all Gott
>>seems appropriate for this season of the year.
>>
>>J. Herrenkohl
>
>My, how opinions differ. I can't hear the _Lobgesang_ without bursting into
>laughter (the _Nun danket_ chorus is okay, but the harmony was better in
>the original version of the hymn, and J. S. Bach also did a good 4-part
>for Cantata 79 [_Gott, der Herr, ist Sonn' und Schild_]. Every last bloody
>hymnal I've seen uses the Mendelssohn harmony, though). The "Hueter, ist
>die Nacht bald hin?" bit always has me rolling on the floor, in particular.
>It's bathetic, melodramatic...
The stream of messages focussed on 19th century chorale works; hence
the selection. I did not intend that this choice be the "best of" -
as I stated "add...to the list". I think designating any music as
BEST is nonproductive - we each respond in our own ways. "..bathetic,
melodramatic" (?) .. consider the time in which he composed it.
>But we're eternally in Mendelssohn's debt, because he rediscoverd Bach.
Precisely, that was one of my reasons for suggesting the Lobegesang!
>And when _Lobgesang_ was first presented, it was a huge success, and a lot
>of people still love it, and who am I to poke fun at them? I admit to a
>weakness for "Heilig ist Gott der Herr" from _Elijah_.
>
>Anyway, for me it's the _Sanctus_ from Bach's Mass in b minor. A few
>moments in the cantatas come close, such as when the chorus joins the
>bass arioso on "Heute wirst du mit mir in Paradies sein" in BWV 106.
Personally, Bach is my favorite composer of all time - his music
provides me with spiritual and emotional sustenance. To me the
St. Matthew's Passion is the most moving and significant piece
of music ever written. But then as you point out: "My how
opinions differ."
>There must be countless opinions on this subject...no offense meant with
>any of the above.
>
No offense taken.
>Mark.
>goo...@s.cs.uiuc.edu
J. Herrenkohl
_____________________________________________________________________
Wir sind das Volk! Leipzig 1989
____________________________________________________________________
Chuck Smythe
>
>Anyway, for me it's the _Sanctus_ from Bach's Mass in b minor. A few
A reasonable choice - the first time we rehearsed it, my hair stood on end.
But (to the vanishing extent that "the greatest piece of music" is a reasonable
question) I'll go with the original poster's Brahms. In thirty years I've
never tired of it.
Chuck Smythe
Dorothy Heydt
>Why not add Felix M's Lobegesang to the list. Nun danket all Gott
>seems appropriate for this season of the year.
>
the cantata "Gott der Herr ist Sonn' und Schild" (sorry, I don't keep numbers
in my head).
Tom Knotts
>This guy David Oistrakh wouldn't have done a recording of the Sibelius
>Violin Concerto would he? He sounds awfully familiar and may be the
>violinist that absolutely floored me the first time I heard that piece.
I heard a recording of the Bach Violin Sonata #4 in E minor performed by
David Oistrakh. The recording- like the work- was unbelievable.
The recording is no longer available, and I check quite
frequently for a CD rerelease. It is frustrating not to be able to get it.
I even know the record label and number, but still can't get it. If anyone
happens to know anything about this recording, or better yet has a copy and
could make a tape of it for me, I would be very grateful.
Tom
S. Mujica
on 20 Nov 89 20:40:57 GMT,
kno...@hpl-opus.HP.COM (Tom Knotts) said:
> Path: ucla-cs!uci-ics!orion.oac.uci.edu!ucsd!ucbvax!hplabs!hpl-opus!knotts
> References: <41...@ur-cc.UUCP>
> Lines: 14
>>This guy David Oistrakh wouldn't have done a recording of the Sibelius
>>Violin Concerto would he? He sounds awfully familiar and may be the
>>violinist that absolutely floored me the first time I heard that piece.
> I heard a recording of the Bach Violin Sonata #4 in E minor performed by
> David Oistrakh. The recording- like the work- was unbelievable.
> The recording is no longer available, and I check quite
Just to make a link to the recent discussion on Stradivari violins:
Oistrakh used to play the "Fontana" a 1703 Stradivari. You can hear
it in most of his recordings.
Does anybody know the whereabouts of this violin?
Sergio Mujica muj...@cs.ucla.edu
Computer Science Department, UCLA
Stephen Smoliar
>>> [Beethoven's Missa Solemnis]
>>Why not add Felix M's Lobegesang to the list. Nun danket all Gott
>>seems appropriate for this season of the year.
>>
>>J. Herrenkohl
>
>My, how opinions differ. I can't hear the _Lobgesang_ without bursting into
>laughter (the _Nun danket_ chorus is okay, but the harmony was better in
>the original version of the hymn, and J. S. Bach also did a good 4-part
>for Cantata 79 [_Gott, der Herr, ist Sonn' und Schild_]. Every last bloody
>hymnal I've seen uses the Mendelssohn harmony, though). The "Hueter, ist
>die Nacht bald hin?" bit always has me rolling on the floor, in particular.
>It's bathetic, melodramatic...
>
with this assessment. Then I shall quickly don my flame suit before
proclaiming that I would probably say the same about the MISSA SOLEMNIS.
All that sound and fury signifying nothing . . . every time I listen to
it I find it hard to believe that it is the work of the man who wrote such
extraordinary string quartets! (Then I listen to the Finale of FIDELIO and
think, "Yes, that was Beethoven, all right!") There are some wonderful
examples of wit in several compositions preceding the Heiligenstadt Testament.
After that, it seemed as if he wanted to take on God and never smile again.
However, the MISSA SOLEMNIS echoes with sardonic laughter which proclaims,
"I'm deaf. I don't HAVE to listen to this; but YOU DO!" Count me among
the GERMAN REQUIEM lovers who realize that a choir of voices sounds best
when the heavens are not yelling.
=========================================================================
USPS: Stephen Smoliar
USC Information Sciences Institute
4676 Admiralty Way Suite 1001
Marina del Rey, California 90292-6695
Internet: smo...@vaxa.isi.edu
"For every human problem, there is a neat, plain solution--and it is always
wrong."--H. L. Mencken
Piccadilly Line Exile
>Violin Concerto would he? He sounds awfully familiar and may be the
>violinist that absolutely floored me the first time I heard that piece.
Absolutely! Oistrakh (or Oistrach) recorded the Sibelius VC for
Melodiya in the mid-late 60's (there's no date on my copy), released in
Europe on Eurodisk 74111MK. It's by far the best performance of this
piece I've heard (and I have a few...); I'd *kill* to get this on CD
(my vinyl copy is nearly dead).
Hamish
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hamish Reid UniSoft Corp, 6121 Hollis St, Emeryville CA 94608 USA
+1-415-420-6400 ham...@unisoft.com, ...!uunet!unisoft!hamish
David Farmer
In article <> misu...@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (What`s in a name?) writes:
**Yes! I've decided. The most incredible piece of music ever written
**is Brahm's German Requiem!!!! It is so gorgeous, it raises hairs on
**the back of my spine -- ALL of them!
OKAY! I've often played this (Chicago/Levine/Battle/Haken H.) for
friends along with the comment, "I think this may be the best piece
of music ever written by anyone. (pause)" Naturally, your wording
caught my attention.
If anyone wants to try this, the best time to make the remark is just
after the piece finishes :-).
(Absolutely literal? Come on! But... this IS the only piece of music
I've ever said this about. So if I had to pick just one, I already
did. Or rather, it picked me; I didn't do anything but listen. :-) )
- david dav...@sco.COM or uunet!sco!davidf
--
"Thank God we're normal."
(Laurence Olivier as) - Archie Rice, "The Entertainer"
John Bodnar
smo...@vaxa.isi.edu.UUCP (Stephen Smoliar) writes:
> <incessant drivel about Mendelssohn's _Lobgesang_ and Bach's....>
>I'm going to risk reviving the wrath of Roger Lustig by agreeing entirely
>with this assessment. Then I shall quickly don my flame suit before
>proclaiming that I would probably say the same about the MISSA SOLEMNIS.
>All that sound and fury signifying nothing . . . every time I listen to
>it I find it hard to believe that it is the work of the man who wrote such
>extraordinary string quartets! (Then I listen to the Finale of FIDELIO and
>think, "Yes, that was Beethoven, all right!") There are some wonderful
>examples of wit in several compositions preceding the Heiligenstadt Testament.
>After that, it seemed as if he wanted to take on God and never smile again.
>However, the MISSA SOLEMNIS echoes with sardonic laughter which proclaims,
>"I'm deaf. I don't HAVE to listen to this; but YOU DO!" Count me among
>the GERMAN REQUIEM lovers who realize that a choir of voices sounds best
>when the heavens are not yelling.
>
No, I'm not going to flame anyone, but rather explain my views on the
_Missa_Solemnis_ as I did to several curious people. Many thought,
"Why do you like something so bombastic, etc....." I wrote this for
one person, and it's pretty general, so I thought I'd let anyone who
might wonder "Why should I give a hoot about the _Missa_Solemnis_?"
take a gander at it. Apologies to Stephen Smoliar beforehand, since
he's been mailed this same expose (SS - Hit kill now if you don't want
a rehash). Also, my apologies to anyone who received this before I
posted it here. The copy you got was riddled with grammatical errors.
Yes I know, any sort of subjective paper should be written in 3rd
person, but this was addressed to someone.......
....Who says EnGuhNeerZ can't do writn' anywayz 8-)
* * * * * * *
Well, I'm not a singer, but I do understand the vocal demands (if that's a
friendly enough word) of Beethoven's later music. Actually, I'm a trombonist
who hasn't picked up his horn in two years. The _Missa_ isn't much of a
trombone piece (though the Credo has some interesting writing in the double
fugue), so it seems odd that I might fall for this.
I'm a relatively mellow Catholic. Sermons don't rouse my faith all that much,
but inspired music does, and the _Missa_ does more than anything else.
Regular old church hymns don't really count here. I'm talking works,
usually of massive proportions, that may or may not necessarily be
ecclesiastic in nature. The Beethoven 9th has the same sort of effect
on me that the _Missa_ does. The _Missa_ is Beethoven's monument to God, in a
way. It is his affirmation of faith after a life filled with despair and
tremendous struggles. The piece is Beethoven saying "Yes. I still believe."
People have tried to read a lot into the _Missa_, but if you look at
it as Beethoven did, the _Missa_ is church music in the grand old fashion
of Bach, Palestrina, etc. If you see the _Missa_ as a celebration of
the mass, you're off to a good start in understanding it.
I've been a Beethoven nut since the 9th grade (I'm 19 now) when I decided he
was the greatest composer to ever have lived. I also decided I would try to
obtain every piece of music Beethoven ever composed (either the recording or
the score) as a sort of life long hobby. I'm still at it, and probably about
more than 25% of the way there. So, part of my fascination with the
_Missa_ is due to my fascination with Beethoven. I don't think this
is a requirement for enjoying the work, but it sure helps.
My first exposure to the _Missa_ was the epic example of architectural
conducting of choral music. I referring to none other than Otto Klemperer's
account of Angel/EMI which is now on CD. This all happened in the
eighth grade. I didn't own any method for reproducing sound, I just
borrowed from my younger brother (who was fascinated with Michael
Jackson at the time), and my parents. I had decided that I liked
classical music better than rock because it didn't give me headaches.
I had gotten the _Nutcracker_ for Christmas that year, and had
since bought several of those "3 for $10" sort of tapes (usually
London "Treasury" and CBS "Great Performances" and RCA "Victrola"). I
had a few works by Beethoven that I really liked, but I didn't have
much understanding of them. I.E. I used to picture an English clipper
being tossed on the waves when I heard the _Egmont_ Overture.
Anyways, I had to do a report on someone for a class at school, and I
chose Beethoven. I also needed to have some sort of art to represent
him by. It needed to be relatively short, and nothing I had was, so I
bought a sort of "Beethoven's Greatest Hits" tape for $3. It was an
old Vox/Turnabout cassette with various works, most of which were
unfamiliar to me, and not part of the standard "Greatest Hits" sort of
collection. It had things like: 3rd Symphony, 1st movement;
_Archduke_ Trio, 1st movement; _Choral_ Fantasy, finale; _Razumovksy_
Quartet #3, 4th movement; _Missa_Solemnis_, "Quoniam..," finale of the
Gloria movement; _Waldstein_ Sonata, 1st movement;
_Creatures_of_Prometheus_, finale. I used the _Razumovksy_ movement
for school, but the portion of the _Missa_ was really neat (this is an
8th grader thinking here). I used to listen to it a lot, but
eventually moved on to other things. I don't have that recording
any more, nor do I have the CD, but it is definitely a classic account.
I'll give my recommendations for the best recordings at the end.
The next time the _Missa_ came to me was probably the summer between
my 9th & 10th grade years or my 10th & 11th grade years. I had some
pocket cash, and we were at a mall in Lewisville, Texas which had the
Solti 2 cassette recording (Decca/London Jubilee). I remembered
liking the _Missa_, and I was just beginning the "obtain everything
Beethoven ever wrote scheme," so I bought it. I brought it home and
listened to it. I was struck by how LONG it was. I would fall asleep
trying to listen to it. If I managed to remain awake through the
Kyrie and get to the Gloria, I was rewarded with a pretty good
performance. By this time, I had my first Walkman, and was beginning
to build a large tape collection. That recording wore out its welcome
rather quickly, simply because I didn't yet have the listening stamina
for such a large work.
The next time the _Missa_ began to become interesting was as a senior
in high school. By this time, I had Leonard Bernstein's Beethoven 9th
(CBS) on CD, and could listen to the whole work in one sitting. At
the time, I was also reading a biography of Beethoven which mentioned
something about trumpets and drums in the Agnus Dei of the _Missa_. I
thought that the martial characteristics of Beethoven's music were
really fun, so I dug out the Solti _Missa_ and played the Agnus Dei.
Talk about revelatory. Solti's performance wasn't all that
spectacular, but hearing the massive outbursts of trumpets and timpani
and the pleas of the soprano afterward had quite an effect on me. I
would listen to the whole work occasionally thereafter, and began to
understand bits and pieces of it.
That same year, sometime in the spring, I bought a CD of the _Missa_
performed by the Hanover Band. It was an original instruments
performance, and I was fascinated by the new, interesting sonorities.
Another good thing about this recording was that it was on 1 CD. I
really couldn't afford 2 CD sets at the time, so this was a blessing.
(As you know, original instrument performances tend to be a tinge bit
faster than those on modern instruments). Besides the new sounds, I
began to enjoy the great double fugues which close the Gloria and
Credo. I especially got a kick out of the fugue at the end of the
Credo; the trombones on the Hanover Band recording make a quite point
of bringing out the leaps in the trombone part which are also echoed
by the basses and celli. I used to drive my girlfriend insane by
playing this over and over again. My thoughts on the work were still
developing and would continue to do so until that summer.
The fateful day in the summer of 1988 completed my understanding of
the _Missa_. Half-Price Books and Records, a dealer of used books,
records, etc., in my area was having a special "Half of Half Off" sale
over the Fourth of July weekend. I went and bought a lot of records.
One was the _Missa_ that Eugene Ormandy recorded in 1970 for the
Beethoven Bicentennial. To put things simply, Ormandy's reading is as
close as you can come to being in heaven. Every aspect of the
performance that I could ever hope for was there. And the fugue at
the end of the Credo was otherworldly - trombone leaps and all. The
bursts of percussion and trumpets in the Agnus Dei were hair-raising.
In essence, this performance was what God had intended to be heard
(IMHO, of course). The image of the _Missa_ had solidified in my mind
at this time, and it was with the Ormandy recording that I decided it
was the greatest piece of music every written.
Now, I went after the _Missa_ with a vengeance. I bought every
recording I could get my hands on. The Ormandy surpassed them all,
but a lot of intersting interpretive insights came with the other
recordings. I did the same thing this summer when I had a good job
and could afford two CD sets. I now own the following recordings of
the _Missa_: Ormandy/Philadelphia (LP); Karajan/Berlin - 1961 (CD &
LP); Bernstein/NY (LP); Bernstein/Concertgebouw (CD); Bohm/Vienna -
c.1970 (LP); Bohm/Berlin - c.World War 2 (LP); Masur/Gewandhaus (LP);
Wand/Gurzenich (LP); Toscanini/NBC (CD); Kvam/Hanover Band (CD);
Solti/Chicago (tape).
Now you're going to want to know what is good.
Ormandy/Philadelphia - the cream of the crop. Unsurpassed. Also, out
of print. You'll have to look for this at used record shops. (CBS)
Karajan/Berlin (1961) - Interesting, but not the recording for the
neophyte. (DG)
Bernstein/NY - This is a strong rival to the Ormandy recording. Some
of the singing is sloppy IMHO, but it's an exciting performance. (CBS)
Bernstein/Concertgebouw - Another strong contender. A very spiritual
performance with a great deal of finesse. Very refined. (DG)
Bohm/Vienna - Sort of a last will and testament for old Karl, but
there is a great deal of fire for an 80 year old man in this
recording. The big timpani/trumpet outburst in the Agnus Dei is
particularly fierce. (DG)
Bohm/Berlin - This is a very young Bohm, and a firebrand at that. A
charged live performance with tempos very much in line with Ormandy's.
You probably won't be able to find this one because it's on a private
label that an old man here in Austin seems to have bought the
remaining stock of. (Disco-Corp)
Masur/Gewandhaus - This is a curiosity, even for the _Missa_ nut.
Some interesting interpretive ideas. (Eurodisc)
Wand/Gurzenich - This is on an old Nonesuch LP. The sound is lacking
which makes this hard to enjoy. I'm still not real familiar with it.
I've only listened to it occasionally.
Toscanini/NBC - This is quite a killer performance (even with the
trombone coming in too early and very audibly at the beginning of the
Credo). It's a live broadcast air check available on Music & Arts.
The sound is not up to today's standards (1940), but it's passable.
Toscanini takes the fugue at the end of the Credo at break neck speed.
If you like Toscanini this is great. (I like Arturo, but Ormandy is
better).
Kvam/Hanover Band - I like this one. Kvam's tempos are very much in
line with my ideas. It unfortunately has Nimbus' overly reverberant sound,
and if you're not used to original instruments, it takes some getting
listening to.
Solti/Chicago - This one strikes me as lacking intensity in some
sections. Although I prefer performances of the _Missa_ with quickish
tempos, there are some broad, relaxed performances that I find quite
rewarding (e.g. Bohm 1970). This one, however, is too slow. (London)
Other performances that I know about:
Shaw/Atlanta - I've heard mixed things about this, most of them good.
I guess I trust Shaw enough to turn in a good performance. (Telarc)
Karajan/Berlin (1980 something) - Most critics cite this as Karajan's finest
performance, saying he's finally come to terms with the work. (DG)
Karajan/Philharmonia (1st stereo version; there is also an early mono
before this one) - People say that for raw intensity, this rivals the
Bernstein readings. Don't know much else. (Angel)
Klemperer/Philharmonia - Again, the quintessential example of architectural
conducting. It is a powerful account. (Angel)
Giulini/(can't remember) - People like Giulini's Mozart _Requiem_. I
suspect his _Missa_ may have similar qualities. (Melodram)
Dorati/Maryland U. - Dorati's last recording. He had strong
convictions, but the orchestra just doesn't follow. This
recording has rehearsal excerpts with Dorati speaking to the ensemble,
but they don't follow. Not really recommendable. (Bis)
Well, that's all of them. The recording to get is Ormandy on CBS if
you can find it. If you want a CD version, try Bernstein or Kvam. As
you can see, understanding the _Missa_ is a genesis of ideas. Unless
you have the uncanny ability to understand difficult music on the
first hearing, it may take a while for the _Missa_ to make sense. It
took me nearly 5 years to do so. Scary thought about how long it
might take for me to make sense of Schoenberg. I couldn't help but laugh about
you saying the _Missa_ being endless bombast. It made me think of an
appropriate personification for the _Missa_: the _Missa_ is
ecclesiastical music's Southern Baptist televangelist. I hope you find
this as funny as I do.
Another key to the _Missa_ is the text. If you can understand what
Beethoven is trying to have the music communicate, you're in good
shape. To illustrate this, listen to the "Et incarnatus" of the Credo
in the Ormandy or Bernstein accounts, and the spirituality of what
Beethoven does will strike you. Also, listen to the Sanctus with the
angelic violin solo. The Sanctus occurs at that point in the Mass
Ordinary where consubstantiation (bread and wine becoming Christ's body
and blood) occurs. It has been written that Beethoven attempts to
compose the central mystery of the Catholic faith here. IMHO, he
accomplishes it.
I can't think of much else to say about this. As you can see, it's
possible for the _Missa_ to become quite addictive. Sorry about the
length of this, but I couldn't really say something like "You should
worship the _Missa_ because Beethoven wrote it and he's God," and
expect you to gain any sort of appreciation for the work.
* * * * * * *
Well, I think I've said my peace. For those of you who have stuck
this one out, thanks for reading. Whether or not you may think now
otherwise is besides the point. You had the courtesy to pay attention.
Prof. Tom Ralston
don't have the number handy, but it is on the Melodiya label. (Maybe
Mobile Fidelity has a hand in it too.) I bought a copy of it
recently from Record Hunter in New York for $13.98 (5th Avenue
at 42nd Street. They have an incredible sale every three weeks or so.)
At any rate it's a terrific disk and I feel like a cat with two
tails for having got it so cheap.
Stephen Smoliar
>
>I've been a Beethoven nut since the 9th grade (I'm 19 now) when I decided he
>was the greatest composer to ever have lived.
John, I do not mean this to sound condescending; but I suspect you may
discover that you have a different attitude when you are 29 (and yet another
when you are 39). (I won't go farther, because I am not yet 49!) One of my
strongest theoretical convictions is that the way we listen to music is
influenced by the memories we have (of both music and non-music experiences).
Things change over the years. I think I was past 40 before I started REALLY
enjoying Brahms, and before I was 30 I was silly enough to think that Schubert
was only a poor imitation of Beethoven. Enjoy your Beethoven, but don't be
surprised if he is not forever.
Tim Kohl
>In article <21...@ut-emx.UUCP> moz...@walt.cc.utexas.edu (John Bodnar) writes:
>>
>>I've been a Beethoven nut since the 9th grade (I'm 19 now) when I decided he
>>was the greatest composer to ever have lived.
>
>John, I do not mean this to sound condescending; but I suspect you may
>discover that you have a different attitude when you are 29 (and yet another
>when you are 39). (I won't go farther, because I am not yet 49!) One of my
>strongest theoretical convictions is that the way we listen to music is
>influenced by the memories we have (of both music and non-music experiences).
>Things change over the years. I think I was past 40 before I started REALLY
>enjoying Brahms, and before I was 30 I was silly enough to think that Schubert
>was only a poor imitation of Beethoven. Enjoy your Beethoven, but don't be
>surprised if he is not forever.
>
>=========================================================================
>
>USPS: Stephen Smoliar
I think Stephen has introduced an important point in this discussion -
experience colours the process of perception. Not only age, but cultural
background and exposure alters the viewpoint. How many of you are willing
to admit honestly that you "loved" (!) disco once upon a time? If one
accepts the postulate that we are a product of our experience and environment,
then as that experience accretes in time, artistic perceptions must
change as well.
I write this while listening to Missa Solemnis - lightning and fire -
but like Stephen I am not yet 49 - the retrospection of the B minor
Mass of Bach is more appropriate to my experience. As Stephen states,
Enjoy your [insert your choice], but do not expect that preference to
endure.
J. Herrenkohl
Jeff Winslow
>much understanding of them. I.E. I used to picture an English clipper
>being tossed on the waves when I heard the _Egmont_ Overture.
That's OK - the 5th always made me think of Robin Hood. Especially the
last movement. These are probably the first tentative steps of creative
association that make the music we love so rich for us.
At least, I hope so. :-)
>The fateful day in the summer of 1988 completed my understanding of
>the _Missa_.
Oh, come now. *Completed*? Don't you think you're ever going to learn
anything more about such a large work? By Beethoven, no less?
>Unless you have the uncanny ability to understand difficult music on the
>first hearing, it may take a while for the _Missa_ to make sense. It
>took me nearly 5 years to do so. Scary thought about how long it
>might take for me to make sense of Schoenberg.
The older you get, the more you learn, the easier and quicker it gets.
Sometimes too damn quick. Seems like some things you have to get to know
when you're slow, otherwise you never get a chance to enjoy them.
Jeff Winslow
Julian Vrieslander
the Sibelius violin concerto. Since I am home now, I can provide the info
on the other performance with Ormandy and the Philadelphia. It is
Columbia MS6157 (stereo)/ ML5497 (mono), and also includes the Swan of Tuonela,
from the Lemminkainen Suite. This is an LP, at least 20 years old, and I
have no inkling as to whether Columbia still has it in their catalog in any
format.
David H. Marwick
I confess that I was probably a Beethoven fanatic at that age, but it is so
long ago, I can't be sure (sob, sob). However, I was NOT a choral buff
then, and somehow the Missa Solemnis has passed me by over the years.
Recently, I have returned to Beethoven (particularly the late works) & so it
is fairly high on my infinite list of pieces I really must listen to.
However,
>The fateful day in the summer of 1988 completed my understanding of
>the _Missa_.
I sincerely hope, for your sake, that your understanding is not complete,
because I am sorry to say that I don't believe you! I have known many
pieces for many years & I sometimes feel I know them LESS completely now
than ever. I trust that my understanding will never be complete because
then I will have stopped learning and I will be effectively dead.
I don't believe a work of art can ever be fully "understood" even by its
creator - even Beethoven. I seem to remember this discussion being touched on
recently in this group. Please keep your mind wide open. [Sorry for the sermon]
--
David H. Marwick JANET : d...@uk.ac.hw.cs
Department of Computer Science ARPA : d...@cs.hw.ac.uk
Heriot-Watt University, EDINBURGH UUCP : ...!ukc!cs.hw.ac.uk!dhm
Bill_P...@cup.portal.com
with the age of the listener is well taken. I am, in fact, 49 (and feeling
old now because everyone else here seems to be mentioning that he/she is
not yet 49). I got "hooked" on music at age 13, with Tchaikovsky's 4th,
5th and 6th Symphonies. At that time I wasn't much interested in Mozart
or Haydn (which I thought sounded all the same! -- what a change a decade
or so in age makes in your conceptions!). Now, if I had to go off to the
proverbial desert island with some records I certainly would not take the
Tchaikovsky symphonies but I probably would take "Don Giovanni". (Tchaikovsky
lovers, please don't get me wrong; I enjoy Tchaikovsky but it is not as
wonderful for me as it was when I was 15 or so. I might even take some
excerpts from "Swan Lake" to my desert island, though.)
Bill Pearce
mcdo...@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu
Stephen Smoliar quotes John Bodner as saying:
>
>I've been a Beethoven nut since the 9th grade (I'm 19 now) when I decided he
>was the greatest composer to ever have lived.
and then writes:
>John, I do not mean this to sound condescending; but I suspect you may
>discover that you have a different attitude when you are 29 (and yet another
>when you are 39). (I won't go farther, because I am not yet 49!) One of my
>strongest theoretical convictions is that the way we listen to music is
>influenced by the memories we have (of both music and non-music experiences).
>Things change over the years. I think I was past 40 before I started REALLY
>enjoying Brahms, and before I was 30 I was silly enough to think that Schubert
>was only a poor imitation of Beethoven. Enjoy your Beethoven, but don't be
>surprised if he is not forever.
I think it IS condescending. By the time I was 19 I had concluded
that Beethoven was not only the greatest composer but also the
greatest "creative artist", a term which includes composers, writes,
and visual artists. His music spoke to me with the greatest strength
and structural integrity.
It still does, and am over 40. My opinions of composers has changed little
over the years - only the status of various Russians has varied at all.
Tchaikovsky up, down, up, ad nauseum. Shostakovitch down, very down.
Rachmaninoff has actually gone way up.
The only opinion I hold that might start a big flamefest is that
of Mozart. I hold that while he wrote reams of wonderful music,
he wrote little really **great** music, and that was done at the very
end of his life. Had he lived longer, of course, that surely
would have changed.
Doug McDonald
Bill_P...@cup.portal.com
flame war with his assessment of Mozart. I don't agree with him,
but that is not of any particular significance. Much more interesting
is Beethoven's own assessment: "Whom do you regard as the greatest
composer that ever lived?" "Handel," was his immediate reply, "before
him I go on my knees-- and he touched the floor with one of them.
"Mozart?" I now wrote. "Mozart," he continued, "is good and excellent."
"Yes," I wrote, "and could even improve on Handel by composing a new
accompaniment to the 'Messiah'." "Handel would have survived without it,"
was his reply.
This is from an account by Johann Andreas Stumpff of a conversation with
Beethoven, appearing in "Beethoven, Letters, Journals and Conversations"
(edited by Michael Hamburger, 1960)
Bill Pearce
Roger Knopf 5502
Goodness knows I like the Brahms Requiem very much, and always listen to
Bach's choral works with much pleasure. Without diminishing those and
other great works, it is my humble opinion that Beethoven's 9th symphony
is the pinnacle of musical composition. Unfortunately I have not yet
found a recording of it that lives up to my expectations (I suspect
that, from a recording engineer's point of view, the 4th movement is
the very devil hisself).
Yesterday our local radio station (KBOQ) finished its countdown of
listener's votes for the top 92 music selections. Here are the top
selections:
1. Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons"
2. Beethoven's Symph. 9 (was #1 last year)
3. " " 5
4. Pachelbel's Canon (yech, spit, ptouiii!)
I don't remember the order of the rest of the top 10 but Bach's
Brandenburg Concerti, Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto #2 and Beethoven's
Symphony #6 made it in. They are printing a list, I can get it right
later.
Roger Knopf
Doug McDonald
>
>Unfortunately I have not yet
>found a recording of it that lives up to my expectations (I suspect
>that, from a recording engineer's point of view, the 4th movement is
>the very devil hisself).
>
May I suggest the Toscanini? The sound is not bad. The performance ....
words fail ....
No, the devil concocted another symphony for the recording engineer:
the Mahler Eighth.
Doug McDonald
John Bodnar
>
>However,
>
>>The fateful day in the summer of 1988 completed my understanding of
>>the _Missa_.
>
>I sincerely hope, for your sake, that your understanding is not complete,
>because I am sorry to say that I don't believe you! I have known many
>pieces for many years & I sometimes feel I know them LESS completely now
>than ever. I trust that my understanding will never be complete because
>then I will have stopped learning and I will be effectively dead.
>
A lot of people seem to be bringing this point up. I think what I
meant to say was something to the effect of "For the time being...."
My thoughts on the _Missa_ are still relatively the same (as far as I
can tell; I've noticed that absentmindedness begins to set in your
freshman year in college). I suppose if I should ever be of a certain
emotional persuassion that my thoughts will change. As for now I'm
pretty much the same person (emotionally, to a large extent) that I was when I
left high school, so I don't think my ideas will change any time soon.
But, I agree -- they will -- and in due time.
By the way. The Fall/Winter Haverstick & Ballyk catalog lists a new
recording of the _Missa_ on AS Disc. The performance is by Walter,
which is a new one to my knowledge. AS Disc has also released the
1940 Toscanini on a single disc. I intend to get the Walter (it's a
single disc), and if the sound is good, I may get the Toscanini
(again) in hopes of better sound. It appears from ads in magazines
lately that RCA is going to get the Toscanini reissues back on line,
so I hope they re-release his 1953 recording of the _Missa_.
Marc San Soucie
> Stephen Smoliar writes:
> > John Bodnar writes:
> > > I've been a Beethoven nut since the 9th grade (I'm 19 now) when I decided
> > > he was the greatest composer to ever have lived.
> > Things change over the years. I think I was past 40 before I started REALLY
> > enjoying Brahms, and before I was 30 I was silly enough to think that
> > Schubert was only a poor imitation of Beethoven. Enjoy your Beethoven,
> > but don't be surprised if he is not forever.
> Enjoy your [insert your choice], but do not expect that preference to
> endure.
After all, eventually everyone must in due time come to realize that the
greatest composer ever to have lived was and still is Brian Eno. But it takes
a lot of miles and a lot of airports to know it for the truth that it is.
Marc San Soucie
Massachusetts
m...@wang.wang.com
David Osborne
>strongest theoretical convictions is that the way we listen to music is
>influenced by the memories we have (of both music and non-music experiences).
>Things change over the years.
this is an interesting thesis. i think i'd add my view that early
musical experiences can be influential ones. but how do memories
affect one's current musical tastes (or prejudices)? by remembering
that "i liked Tchaikovsky's 1812 when i was a child", or "i hated
Ravel's Bolero" ? or more generally, "i liked piano music" ?
i remember i was introduced to music by my mother playing me LPs of
Tchaikovsky's 1812, Beethoven 5, 6 & 8, and so on. i liked the 1812
then but loathe it now... i still listen to the Beethovens and even
now get something of that early excitement from listening to them.
>I think I was past 40 before I started REALLY
>enjoying Brahms, and before I was 30 I was silly enough to think that Schubert
>was only a poor imitation of Beethoven. Enjoy your Beethoven, but don't be
>surprised if he is not forever.
yes, it's strange how one's tastes change. i'm only just coming back
to appreciating Brahms (not quite as "mature" as you, Stephen, being
in my early-mid 30's :-) and i've even started enjoying Tchaikovsky again.
but i'm still immature and silly enough not to get much out of Schubert
(well, maybe the Adagio from the String Quintet is "ok"... :-)
my time will come, i guess.
dave
--
David Osborne | JANET: d.os...@uk.ac.nott.clan
Cripps Computing Centre | BITNET: d.osborne%uk.ac.n...@ukacrl.bitnet
University of Nottingham |Internet: d.osborne%uk.ac.n...@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk
Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK | (Phone: +44 602 484848 x2064)
--
David Osborne
Stephen Smoliar
writes:
>In article <21...@ut-emx.UUCP> moz...@walt.cc.utexas.edu (John Bodnar) writes:
>>I had a few works by Beethoven that I really liked, but I didn't have
>>much understanding of them. I.E. I used to picture an English clipper
>>being tossed on the waves when I heard the _Egmont_ Overture.
>
>That's OK - the 5th always made me think of Robin Hood. Especially the
>last movement. These are probably the first tentative steps of creative
>association that make the music we love so rich for us.
>
>At least, I hope so. :-)
>
a French short called OVERTURE OU COMME ON COMMENCE? It used the EGMONT
overture as background for a display of photographs and films of embryonic
development. For example, the "knocking" motif was used against shots of
the heart beginning to beat, while the first allegro subject traced the
flowing of the blood. The finale involved a chick breaking out of its
egg. Since the film was French, I suspect no pun was intended (not that
English-speaking viewers could avoid it).
music
>
> Don't be silly. The most incredible piece ever written hasn't been written yet.
>
>
> And I wouldn't believe it if it had.
.......but I'm working on it.......!!!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Stephen J. Heller | Moravian College, Music Dept., Bethlehem PA 18018 |
| Department of Music | CSNET -> mu...@batman.moravian.edu |
| Music Technician | UUCP -> ...!rutgers!liberty!batman!music |
| Phone - 215/861-1664 | INET -> music%batman.mo...@relay.cs.net |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
sh...@vax5.cit.cornell.edu
Oh, please.... Brian Eno (?!). You must be stoned.
Stephen Smoliar
writes:
>In article <10...@venera.isi.edu> smo...@vaxa.isi.edu.UUCP (Stephen
>Smoliar) writes
>>One of my
>>strongest theoretical convictions is that the way we listen to music is
>>influenced by the memories we have (of both music and non-music experiences).
>>Things change over the years.
>
>this is an interesting thesis. i think i'd add my view that early
>musical experiences can be influential ones. but how do memories
>affect one's current musical tastes (or prejudices)? by remembering
>that "i liked Tchaikovsky's 1812 when i was a child", or "i hated
>Ravel's Bolero" ? or more generally, "i liked piano music" ?
>
to a listening situation definitely have an effect on HOW we listen. (Such
attitudes may be overridden, of course. Brahms thought he was going to sleep
through Mahler's performance of DON GIOVANNI, but Mahler still managed to get
his attention.)
However, they way in which memories shape attitudes is not the whole story.
There is also the question of what goes on when we are consciously disposed
to pay attention to a performance. In this case, my conjecture is that what
goes on in our heads is an attempt to reconcile the expected with the
unexpected. Memories entail expectations, and those expectations guide
the ways in which we listen to new performances. However, if all our
expectations were satisfied, there would be nothing about the performance
to hold our attention. Its "information content" (in the technical sense
of the phase) would be zero. Thus, unless some of those expectations are
frustrated, there is no need to pay attention. On the other hand, if ALL
expectations are frustrated, the mind is totally at sea. It does not know
HOW to listen to the performance and will treat it as the information theoretic
equivalent of noise. Roger Schank has made very similar observations about how
we interpret text in his book, DYNAMIC MEMORY.
Incidentally, this issue of how to listen to music lies behind my occasional
outbursts in defense of John Cage. The greatest crime against musical humanity
is the assumption that the expectations one brings when listening to nineteenth
century music are applicable when listening to ALL music. One cannot dismiss
Cage as noise simply because he violates expectations based on exposure to
Schumann or Wagner. Part of the joy of listening, at least as I experience
it, involves the search for those memories which best help me to orient myself
during a performance.
Gene W. Smith
>In article <2441...@s.cs.uiuc.edu> goo...@s.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
>>My, how opinions differ. I can't hear the _Lobgesang_ without bursting into
>>laughter
>Well, I'm going to risk reviving the wrath of Roger Lustig by
>agreeing entirely with this assessment. Then I shall quickly don
>my flame suit before proclaiming that I would probably say the
>same about the MISSA SOLEMNIS.
Geez--a comparison between the Lobgesang and the Missa
Solemnis? This *is* getting silly!
>All that sound and fury signifying nothing . . . every time I
>listen to it I find it hard to believe that it is the work of the
>man who wrote such extraordinary string quartets!
Try listening a little better and you will find it is
definitely the same late-model Beethoven. Maybe you need a
different recording--this is a piece that some conductors
(e.g., Karajan) don't seem to understand either.
Maybe it would help if you tried the underrated C major mass
first. The German Requiem is a nice piece, but the C major mass
by Beethoven is up there with the Bach B minor.
--
ucbvax!garnet!gsmith Gene Ward Smith/Garnetgangster/Berkeley CA 94720
"What is algebra exactly? Is it those three-cornered things?" J.M. Barrie
Gene W. Smith
>Doug McDonald is certainly right in assuming that he will start a
>flame war with his assessment of Mozart. I don't agree with him,
>but that is not of any particular significance. Much more interesting
>is Beethoven's own assessment: "Whom do you regard as the greatest
>composer that ever lived?" "Handel," was his immediate reply, "before
>him I go on my knees-- and he touched the floor with one of them.
>"Mozart?" I now wrote. "Mozart," he continued, "is good and excellent."
I recall another Beethoven conversation, from before the
conversation-book period. While listening to a Mozart piano
concerto: "Surely Mozart is the master of us all in this art".
So far as all this goes, previously in this thread we had a
discussion of Brahms vs Beethoven. In this connection one might
recall Brahms' famous remark about a giant treading on one's
heels.
Great composers often respect and even revere the great
composers that preceeded them, which is fine by me, I guess.
--
ucbvax!garnet!gsmith Gene Ward Smith/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720
"To name the unnamable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments,
shape the world and stop it from going asleep". -- 'The Satanic Verses'
Dan Koren - Database Engineering
>Incidentally, this issue of how to listen to music lies behind my occasional
>outbursts in defense of John Cage. The greatest crime against musical humanity
>is the assumption that the expectations one brings when listening to nineteenth
>century music are applicable when listening to ALL music.
The greatest crime against musical humanity is Karajan conducting Mahler.
> One cannot dismiss
>Cage as noise simply because he violates expectations based on exposure to
>Schumann or Wagner.
No, but one can surely dismiss him just for making noise. :-)
dk
sh...@vax5.cit.cornell.edu
It's true that I don't come home from work every day and listen to
cage's music, but there is definitely a statement being made by his
compositions. They are more along the lines of social and political
commentary. In fact some of his compositions are actually meant to be funny!
Does no one believe in humor and sarcasm anymore? The best of these jokes was
the piece 4'33" where the pianist just sits in total silence for that
specified amount of time.
Dan Koren - Database Engineering
>
> It's true that I don't come home from work every day and listen to
> cage's music, but there is definitely a statement being made by his
> compositions. They are more along the lines of social and political
> commentary. In fact some of his compositions are actually meant to be funny!
> Does no one believe in humor and sarcasm anymore? The best of these jokes was
> the piece 4'33" where the pianist just sits in total silence for that
> specified amount of time.
As to the 4'3" piece for piano only live performances (sic) can be
appreciated - it seems to me the piece doesn't lend itself well to
being recorded...
dk
Leon Traister
>I do enjoy humor and sarcasm but I doubt Cage offers anything else.
>
Actually, some of his earlier pieces for "prepared piano" are
entertaining.
========================================================================
<Usual Disclaimer> "The best is the enemy of the good" - Voltaire
Leon Traister (lm...@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com)
c/o Amdahl Corporation (408)737-5449
1250 E. Arques Ave. M/S 341
P.O. Box 3470
Sunnyvale, CA 94088-3470
Stephen Smoliar
>cage's music, but there is definitely a statement being made by his
>compositions. They are more along the lines of social and political
>commentary. In fact some of his compositions are actually meant to be funny!
>Does no one believe in humor and sarcasm anymore? The best of these jokes was
>the piece 4'33" where the pianist just sits in total silence for that
>specified amount of time.
It is true that there are many moments of good humor in Cage. ("Credo in Us"
is a good case in point.) However, if you think 4'33" is a joke, you probably
haven't listened to it. :-) Remember, part of Cage's philosophy boils down to
the observation that music can be anything we choose to call music. You can
listen to the ambient sounds about you AS IF THEY WERE MUSIC. It won't be like
listening to Brahms' requiem, but the satisfaction you get out of it depends on
the attitude you put into it. (My wife has tried this experience with her
World Cultures class, and most of them see nothing wrong with calling those
four minutes and 33 seconds a musical experience.) As far as what I do at
the end of a hard day, I certainly wouldn't mind a classical music announcer
who occasionally had the courage to program one of the prepared piano pieces
or one of the percussion constructions.
Jeff Winslow
Dan Koren writes:
|I do enjoy humor and sarcasm but I doubt Cage offers anything else.
|
|being recorded...
Who needs a recording? This is the one piece that *everybody* can play
for themselves!
Jeff Winslow
john baez
Dan Koren writes:
>|I do enjoy humor and sarcasm but I doubt Cage offers anything else.
>|As to the 4'33" piece for piano only live performances (sic) can be
>|appreciated - it seems to me the piece doesn't lend itself well to
>|being recorded...
Forgive me if you already know this one: Stravinsky, on hearing
of Cage's 4'3", supposedly said that not only did he like it,
he hoped more young composers would write such pieces!
William Tsun-Yuk Hsu
Dan Koren writes:
>I do enjoy humor and sarcasm but I doubt Cage offers anything else.
Well I doubt that you know anything about Cage.
I guess one of the problems of writing music today is people will
dismiss your life's work on reputation alone, or on very limited
exposure to your music. You don't hear people saying "Gawd that
Brahms is such a klutz, just listen to the A flat waltz."
Bill
Marc San Soucie
> sh...@vax5.cit.cornell.edu writes:
Well, I suspect John Cage wouldn't be upset to find that people find his work
funny, but I will assure you that 4'33" was not intended as a joke, or as a
sarcastic commentary. If my understanding of Cage's writings and speakings on
the subject is accurate, he meant 4'33" as a purely musical piece, where the
definition of what constitutes the "music" is somewhat challenging.
Given Cage's long-term exploration of the notion of "chance" in music, it is
not at all unreasonable to imagine that the ambient sounds of the performing
space are intended to play a significant part in the "musical" experience of
this piece.
You can dislike the idea, and you can dislike the sounds. But you cannot
convince me that this is not a piece of music.
Dan Koren - Database Engineering
>
>Given Cage's long-term exploration of the notion of "chance" in music, it is
>not at all unreasonable to imagine that the ambient sounds of the performing
>space are intended to play a significant part in the "musical" experience of
>this piece.
>
>You can dislike the idea, and you can dislike the sounds. But you cannot
>convince me that this is not a piece of music.
>
.. nor can Cage convince me that it is music ..
dk
Victor Eijkhout
>> sh...@vax5.cit.cornell.edu writes:
>>> was the piece 4'33" where the pianist just sits in total silence for that
>>> specified amount of time.
Actually, 4'33'' can be played by any instrument. I attended (can't say
I heard :-) a performance a while ago by a percussion group with a
whole Cage program, and for 4'33" one player came up with to crash
cymbals, lifted them as if to bang away, and then stood there. After
the allotted time he tucked them under his arms and bowed.
Was it Cage himself who joked that 4'33" had three movements? To wit:
1/ dead silence 2/ shuffling of feet 3/ whispering and laughter.
Not so with this performance, actually it got quieter with time.
Victor.
What`s in a name?
>
>Actually, 4'33'' can be played by any instrument. I attended (can't say
I have heard a recording of this piece performed by a full orchestra...
>
>Was it Cage himself who joked that 4'33" had three movements? To wit:
>1/ dead silence 2/ shuffling of feet 3/ whispering and laughter.
>Not so with this performance, actually it got quieter with time.
And that's about what it was like.
--mike
--
Mic3hael Sullivan, Society for the Incurably Pompous
-*-*-*-*-
If a person can't communicate; the very LEAST s/he can do is to SHUT UP!
Cornicello
My question about "chance" music is this : how much can the composer
be credited for the piece? If the piece is a failure, can s/he blame
the performers? If it is a sucess, how can the composer take credit
for a work in which the performers do most of the composing? Where is
the responibilty?
I am speaking as a composer on this issue. If one of my pieces is
played and I realize that it is not that good, I'll take the blame. If
the performance is not good, not only will the audience know that (or
at least they should), but I will also be able to take that into
account when contemplating the work. And if the piece is well-recieved
and well performed, I'm there to take the credit.
Now I realize that most Cage-followers are into this "non-judgemental"
thing. I'm really wary of this position; there has to be a line where
we say that this is good, and that this composer simply does not know
his craft.
1343
>
>My question about "chance" music is this : how much can the composer
>Now I realize that most Cage-followers are into this "non-judgemental"
>thing. I'm really wary of this position; there has to be a line where
>we say that this is good, and that this composer simply does not know
>his craft.
when she noted that with many contemporary composers you're never sure whether
they're extremely profound or "just trying to get away with something".
Chuck Lavazzi
"Of all the noises, I find music the least disagreeable."
-- Samuel Johnson
tom charles braden
>
>be credited for the piece? If the piece is a failure, can s/he blame
>the performers? If it is a sucess, how can the composer take credit
>for a work in which the performers do most of the composing? Where is
>the responibilty?
>
decides in his pieces what parameters are to be determined by chance,
and *how*. And I think that at least as much as the statement makes
sense, the responsibility for the success of a Cage concert lies in
the same hands as at any other - with the composer, the performers,
and *the audience*.
>I am speaking as a composer on this issue. If one of my pieces is
>played and I realize that it is not that good, I'll take the blame. If
>the performance is not good, not only will the audience know that (or
>at least they should), but I will also be able to take that into
>account when contemplating the work. And if the piece is well-recieved
>and well performed, I'm there to take the credit.
>
>Now I realize that most Cage-followers are into this "non-judgemental"
>thing. I'm really wary of this position; there has to be a line where
>we say that this is good, and that this composer simply does not know
>his craft. ^^^^
If "this" refers to "this experience I am having now", then there
certainly is a line you can draw - but different people may draw
different lines.
Btw, Cage cartainly allows for good & bad (I might prefer effective
& ineffective as less loaded terms) performances of his pieces, although
exactly what that means differs (I think) between the pieces which are
completely determined by chance & noteted beforehand, and those which
allow the performer larger amounts of freedom. (I'm not finding the
words I want here; perhaps someone can help me out)
-- Tom Braden
tc...@tank.uchicago.edu
William Alves
>My question about "chance" music is this : how much can the composer
>be credited for the piece? If the piece is a failure, can s/he blame
>the performers? If it is a sucess, how can the composer take credit
>for a work in which the performers do most of the composing? Where is
>the responibilty?
Responsibility? It sounds like we're talking about product liability
here. ("Gee, that 4'33" really pisses me off, but whom can I sue? Cage?
The performer? Nah, better go after the Zen Church. They've got the
cash.":-) I'm personally no follower of Cage philosophically, but I think
this would be one of my very last concerns in evaluating an aesthetic.
I prefer to just decide if I enjoy the experience or not and let the
critics argue about how it fit normative expectations.
The value of Cage's music to me lies in the way he forces us to re-
examine such issues: Does a moving experience have to be predetermined?
Do our socio-cultural expectations get in the way of our aesthetic
perceptions?
What would you do when faced with some traditional African music, where
there is no composer, no difference between audience and performers, no
judgemental attitudes?
>
>Now I realize that most Cage-followers are into this "non-judgemental"
>thing. I'm really wary of this position; there has to be a line where
>we say that this is good, and that this composer simply does not know
>his craft.
^^^ (or her)
Why does there have to be such a line? Sorry, I just don't see that one.
At a talk of Cage's I attended he said something I have never seen in any
of his books, which I found very enlightening. He said that while he em-
braced Zen philosophically, he certainly is not a traditional Buddhist.
He doesn't write traditional Buddhist music; he admitted to being inex-
tricably tied to his American-Protestant background. Nevertheless, in the
same way that traditional Asian Buddhists seek the elimination of the
"self" through their various monastic religious practices, so he decided
that his "path" had to come through a denial of self in terms of composi-
tional determinism. Hence chance music. I'm sure that abdication of re-
sponsibility for the "correctness" of performance was not chief among his
reasons for adopting this stance.
Of course, he hasn't completely abandoned his composer role. His name
appears on scores and records; he writes scores and performance instruc-
tions, the same as composers have since the late Middle Ages. The dif-
ference is that, whereas composers in the past have sometimes left timbre,
dynamics, articulation, chord voicing, ornamentation and other aspects
of "performance practice" up to the performance, Cage also leaves rhythm
and pitch up to them, but within certain performance guidelines.
People approach the music of composers like Cage with sometimes ridiculous
suspicion. "Is the composer trying to get away with something? Can I laugh?
How do I know if it's "good"? Is this over my head, or so simple I'm being
made fun of? When do I applaud?"
What's left that keeps my interest is not, say, this sonority's place in
the harmonic scheme or what note of the row we're on, but the very ques-
tioning of my way of thinking. Like his music or not, Cage is an artistic
visionary.
Bill Alves
USC School of Music / Center for Scholarly Technology
Stephen Smoliar
said when he was ALIVE, look him up in Slonimsky's LEXICON OF MUSICAL
INVECTIVE. Appropriate to your above remark, here is the October 9,
1886 entry from Tchaikovsky's diary:
I played over the music of that scoundrel Brahms. What a
giftless bastard! It annoys me that this self-inflated
mediocrity is hailed as a genius. Why, in comparison with
him, Raff is a giant, not to speak of Rubinstein, who is
after all a live and important human being, while Brahms
is chaotic and absolutely empty dried-up stuff.
Dan Koren - Database Engineering
>(William Tsun-Yuk Hsu) writes:
>>
>> Dan Koren writes:
>>>I do enjoy humor and sarcasm but I doubt Cage offers anything else.
>>
>>Well I doubt that you know anything about Cage.
>>
>>I guess one of the problems of writing music today is people will
>>dismiss your life's work on reputation alone, or on very limited
>>exposure to your music. You don't hear people saying "Gawd that
>>Brahms is such a klutz, just listen to the A flat waltz."
>>
>That's only because Brahms is long dead and gone. If you want to see what they
>said when he was ALIVE, look him up in Slonimsky's LEXICON OF MUSICAL
>INVECTIVE. Appropriate to your above remark, here is the October 9,
>1886 entry from Tchaikovsky's diary:
>
> I played over the music of that scoundrel Brahms. What a
> giftless bastard! It annoys me that this self-inflated
> mediocrity is hailed as a genius. Why, in comparison with
> him, Raff is a giant, not to speak of Rubinstein, who is
> after all a live and important human being, while Brahms
> is chaotic and absolutely empty dried-up stuff.
>
I'm wondering what would Tchaikovsky have thought of Cage's 4'33"...
dk
David M Tate
>
>Btw, Cage cartainly allows for good & bad (I might prefer effective
>& ineffective as less loaded terms) performances of his pieces, although
>exactly what that means differs (I think) between the pieces which are
>completely determined by chance & noteted beforehand, and those which
>allow the performer larger amounts of freedom. (I'm not finding the
>words I want here; perhaps someone can help me out)
I hope that you aren't saying that "effective and ineffective" are 'unloaded'
words that *mean the same thing* as "good and bad". In fact, as far as I can
tell, the effectiveness of a performance and its quality could be totally
uncorrelated. I can certainly believe that Cage allows for effective and
ineffective performances of his works. Whether he allows for good and bad
performances, I have no idea, but that's certainly a separate question.
What's wrong with loaded words? I prefer them, myself, to empty words...
--
David M. Tate | DISCLAIMER:
dt...@unix.cis.pitt.edu | "Hey, that's *my* dis!"
_____________________________________________________________________________
Statistics is the science of inferring the obvious and the false.
Stephen Smoliar
>I heard :-) a performance a while ago by a percussion group with a
>whole Cage program, and for 4'33" one player came up with to crash
>cymbals, lifted them as if to bang away, and then stood there. After
>the allotted time he tucked them under his arms and bowed.
>
listening for sounds from the percussion group. :-)
Seriously, the basic objective of this work is to open the mind behind the
ears to perceive anything that happens over that particular span of time.
(This is, if you like, an implementation of Cage's observation that there
is no such thing as perfect silence.) Recently, John can conceived (this
word chosen so that Dan Koren will not jump up and down in livid rage over
the choice of the word "composed") a "REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM" of this principle,
called 0'00". What it amounts to is that any number of performers can do what
they want over any span of time. The only thing that matters is that they be
PERCEIVED as performers. (I saw a performance during the festivities for
Cage's 75th birthday in Los Angeles. It was a solo performance involving
making and eating a bowl of ramen with all relevant objects wired with contact
microphones.)
>Was it Cage himself who joked that 4'33" had three movements? To wit:
>1/ dead silence 2/ shuffling of feet 3/ whispering and laughter.
>Not so with this performance, actually it got quieter with time.
>
I'm not sure he ever made that joke. It is possible, since he is not loath to
see the humor in some of his performing situations. However, 4'33" IS in three
movements. Here is what Cage wrote about it:
The title of this work is the total length in minutes and
seconds of its performance. At Woodstock, N. Y., August
29, 1952, the title was 4'33", and the three parts were
33", 2'40", and 1'20". It was performed by David Tudor,
pianist, who indicated the beginnings of parts by closing,
the endings by opening, the keyboard lid. However, the work
may be performed by any instrumentalist or combination of
instrumentalists and last any length of time.
The published version of the score (Henmar) gives the movement lengths as 30",
2'23", and 1'40".
Stephen Smoliar
>corn...@elbereth.rutgers.edu (Cornicello) writes:
>>
>>My question about "chance" music is this : how much can the composer
>>be credited for the piece? If the piece is a failure, can s/he blame
>>the performers? If it is a sucess, how can the composer take credit
>>for a work in which the performers do most of the composing? Where is
>>the responibilty?
>>
have a couple of cents of my own to insert. It's early enough in the
morning over here that I feel like starting the day with a sweeping
generalization: THE TROUBLE WITH THE WORLD OF MUSIC TODAY IS THAT
THERE ARE TOO MANY ARTISTS AND NOT ENOUGH ARTISANS! There . . . now
that I have that off my chest, I feel better. :-)
Before Anthony gets out his flame-thrower, let me attempt a bit of calm
explanation. It strikes me that we are in this situation in which we have
an abundance of composers our there, each doing his (or her) utmost to stand
out above all the others. This is, of course, a necessary survival tactic.
There isn't enough pie to feed all the composers our educational system is
generating, and dividing the pie into equal shares would starve them all.
If any of these animals are to survive, some are going to have to be more
equal than others.
The result is not unlike the current state of scientific research. One must
adjust one's priorities so that serving the sources of funding is more
important than serving the Muses. This is nothing new (being about as
old as Western music, itself); it's just that democracy complicates the
situation by taking away the authoritarian force that says, "You're supposed
to be tilling my fields. Don't talk to me about making music!"
What music needs are more good artisans, practitioners of the trade who are
skilled enough to do a good job in a wide variety of circumstances. (BIRD
may have been a horrible movie, but think of Charlie Parker playing at a BAR
MITZVAH.) I tend to view the Kronos as following that artisan tradition,
using their various appeals to popular taste to provide them with the support
to PURSUE that tradition. Gerard Schwarz has always struck me as an artisan
of the best kind, working with many different kinds of material and always
giving it his best shot. Unfortunately, most of the rest of the world is
out there as if a panel of judges is standing by with cards numbered from
one to ten. They are so obsessed with the judges that they really don't
seem to be achieving very much.
>>
>>Now I realize that most Cage-followers are into this "non-judgemental"
>>thing. I'm really wary of this position; there has to be a line where
>>we say that this is good, and that this composer simply does not know
>>his craft. ^^^^
>If "this" refers to "this experience I am having now", then there
>certainly is a line you can draw - but different people may draw
>different lines.
>
>Btw, Cage cartainly allows for good & bad (I might prefer effective
>& ineffective as less loaded terms) performances of his pieces, although
>exactly what that means differs (I think) between the pieces which are
>completely determined by chance & noteted beforehand, and those which
>allow the performer larger amounts of freedom. (I'm not finding the
>words I want here; perhaps someone can help me out)
>
Some of those words might be in an article I cross-posted from alt.postmodern
last week in response to a remark by Duke Ellington: "You have to stop
listening in categories. The music is either good or it's bad." I pointed
out in my response that "good music" and "bad music" are categories, too, and
then went on to observe that categorization is something we do by virtue of
being intelligent agents. The mistake we tend to make is that the categories
we form are UNIVERSAL. They are nothing of the sort. There is no reason on
this earth why my "good music" category should coincide with yours, John
Cage's, Anthony Cornicello's, or (shudder!) Dan Koren's. My categories
are a vital ingredient in my sense of self, and I enjoy them for that.
This is not being "non-judgemental;" it's simply being sensible enough
to recognize that not all of the world out there is going to agree with
my judgments. Cage is one of the few composers who respects my personal
right to my own categories, and I have long been indebted to him for helping
me to discover this.
Jeff Winslow
>I'm wondering what would Tchaikovsky have thought of Cage's 4'33"...
That's not too hard to figure. Confusion and disbelief would be prominent,
I'd guess.
What's more interesting to me is why Tch. wrote the things he did about
Brahms. What could he have played through that aroused such a reaction?
(We know it wasn't the Clarinet Quintet, anyway.) With the knowledge of
so much music that has been written since, it's impossible for me to see
so much difference between the two composers that this kind of invective
could have been directed from one to the other. Is it really possible that
Tch's understanding of music could have been so different from Brahms's
that he not only didn't like it, but couldn't even appreciate its craft?
This has an implication for Anthony's statement about sensing whether a
composer knows his craft or not. Tchiakowsky may not have been a first-rate
composer, but he was no slouch*. If he couldn't see it, what can you expect
from the rest of us?
Jeff Winslow
* I was forcibly reminded of this recently on hearing an excellent performance
of the Bb piano concerto, which I had not heard for years (except for excerpts
on Monty Python :-)), so that I could almost imagine I was hearing it for
the first time, if such a thing is possible.
Dan Koren - Database Engineering
> Tchiakowsky may not have been a first-rate
> composer, but he was no slouch*. If he couldn't see it, what can you expect
> from the rest of us?
>
> Jeff Winslow
>
> * I was forcibly reminded of this recently on hearing an excellent performance
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> of the Bb piano concerto, which I had not heard for years (except for excerpts
> on Monty Python :-)), so that I could almost imagine I was hearing it for
> the first time, if such a thing is possible.
I'd be curious to know which...
Thanks.
dk
Mark Alexander
>(William Tsun-Yuk Hsu) writes:
>>You don't hear people saying "Gawd that
>>Brahms is such a klutz, just listen to the A flat waltz."
>
> [Tchaikovsky's expletives deleted.]
And Wagner dismissed Brahms as a "Jewish czardas player." Appropriate
comment from a pre-Nazi. I guess he didn't like the Hungarian Dances.
--
Mark Alexander (amdahl!drivax!alexande)
Stephen Smoliar
>
>Brahms. What could he have played through that aroused such a reaction?
>(We know it wasn't the Clarinet Quintet, anyway.) With the knowledge of
>so much music that has been written since, it's impossible for me to see
>so much difference between the two composers that this kind of invective
>could have been directed from one to the other. Is it really possible that
>Tch's understanding of music could have been so different from Brahms's
>that he not only didn't like it, but couldn't even appreciate its craft?
>
more than the late clarinet music. If we focus our attention on solo piano
music, we can eliminate everything from Opus 116 on. One possibility is that
he looked at those three early sonatas, none of which have had much of a crack
at immortality. (I've only heard the third played in recital.) They DO tend
to verge on the over-wrought for even some of the most devoted Brahms
followers. On the other hand, if Tchaikovsky was referring to the Handel
variations, then I would tend to feel he was grinding some axe rather than
listening to music.
Mac Horton
>2'23", and 1'40".
only now, upon learning that a published score exists, do I understand
that I have been in the presence of genius.
--
Mac Horton @ Intergraph | hor...@ingr.COM | ..uunet!ingr!horton
--
Where is that large automobile?
--Talking Heads
Marc San Soucie
> ... What it amounts to is that any number of performers can do what
> they want over any span of time. The only thing that matters is that they be
> PERCEIVED as performers. (I saw a performance during the festivities for
> Cage's 75th birthday in Los Angeles. It was a solo performance involving
> making and eating a bowl of ramen with all relevant objects wired with
> contact microphones.)
Is this really the case? I was under the perhaps mistaken impression (not
having seen a copy of the score in a while) that the "performers" are not
to intentionally make any sound of their own during the piece. Who gave this
performance?
Heck, it wouldn't surprise me if Cage himself did. He never was one for
following rules any too religiously.
Gene W. Smith
> I have long admired 4'33", and I listen to it constantly. But
>only now, upon learning that a published score exists, do I understand
>that I have been in the presence of genius.
When the historians of the future attempt to understand the XX
century, all they will need to do is read the score of 4'33".
Satori!
--
ucbvax!garnet!gsmith Gene Ward Smith/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720
Intolerance is a state of mind, rudeness is a way of life. -- C. Wingate
Mike McNelly
Mike McNelly
mike@hpfcla
btc2...@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu
Marc San Soucie writes:
>Stephen Smoliar writes:
>
>> ... What it amounts to is that any number of performers can do what
>> they want over any span of time. The only thing that matters is that they be
>> PERCEIVED as performers. (I saw a performance during the festivities for
>> Cage's 75th birthday in Los Angeles. It was a solo performance involving
>> making and eating a bowl of ramen with all relevant objects wired with
>> contact microphones.)
>
>Is this really the case? I was under the perhaps mistaken impression (not
>having seen a copy of the score in a while) that the "performers" are not
>to intentionally make any sound of their own during the piece. Who gave this
>performance?
I believe Stephen was talking about the 0'00" piece in this case, not 4'33".
> Marc San Soucie
> Massachusetts
> m...@wang.wang.com
Ben Cox
btc2...@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
<< Harold Land, with a wave of his hand, said goodbye to all that... >> -- Yes
Cornicello
This discussion is starting to remind me of a joke I heard. It came to
my attention that Phil Corner (our local Cage-follower) was "writing" a
piece to show the relationship between music and food. Someone wondered
if the piece was for four tomatoes and wall.......