Classical Music Anyone? (1 Viewer)

[...] "4'33" [...] after watching it, it wears thin [...]

Haven't seen this particular version before, you link too. Will do in about 4 minutes and 33 seconds.

But I do know the piece and I Do Love the idea! Not for reasons of music, of course, but for it being a great and new idea and being an art-form. I've also listened to a part of his slowest composition, which is performed in Halberstadt, Germany at the moment. It was a very interesting experience. (Well, I was lucky to be there, when they played a tone that sounded harmonic. It sure can be annoying to arrive there, when a dis-harmonic sound or even a pause is played.)

It's the oppositeland version of Metal Machine Music!

in a way, yes! definitely!


nervas:
You sure remember the very beginning of Tchaikovsky's piano-concerto #1 (b-minor) Op23, which has been in at least a dozen movies (e.g. Harold & Maude).

Hiddn:
yeah, I like Sibelius too. It's like slowly wandering through an icy winter landscape.





For all fans of Bukowski who are interested in classical music because of him and don't know where to start:

I know myself, it's intriguing to try the pieces he himself mentioned. You start with these pieces with a different feeling and expectation than whith a 'random' or other piece. And in MANY cases this worked for me very well! But in Some, it just DIDN'T.

What I want to say is: if someone is new to classical music, recommendations by Bukowski can be difficult. (depends on your own favor/feeling of course.) In my case (e.g.): Shostakovich is 'all right' in my book, but he didn't get through to me. There are others praised by Buk, that I don't liked too much. Even with the allmighty Mahler I had a problem at my very first encounter! Now I love him. But wouldn't recommend for a starting.
Starting should be EASY. Always. Shostakovich or Mahler or Stockhausen or Cage aren't easy. Beethoven is (minus the late Violin-quartetts) and Mozart is and Schumann and Brahms and Rachmaninow and Tchaikowsky are - and NONE of them is 'simple' or meaningless! They are HIGH LEVEL composers! But they are far more accessible for a newbie than some others.
 
Re; 4`33. Maybe not so original. Did Cage come up with this before or after John Lennon's 1969 Two Minutes of Silence from Life With The Lions?

Smacks of gimmickry to me... not music in any sense of the word.
 
You know what's a gimmick?

A thousand or so people all sitting quietly, expected not to cough, sputter, fart or move while a suited-up orchestra trot out tired 'classics'. A ritual where one claps at the end of a piece but not in between movements. Where disapproval is no longer an option for the audience.

We accept (in popular music forms) just about any sound/noise/statement as part of a musical whole. But classical music is bound by strict and invisible measures to fulfil ones expectations; beautiful, calming music... serious music.

Who says?

By simply creating the possibility of a formal, strictly delineated four minutes and thirty three seconds where people are free to observe the ludicrous nature of concert practices or where one can really switch on the listening apparatus (it's never just the ears), Cage pointed at a very obvious and funny moon. But most people make the mistake of looking at his finger.
 
I guess I just can't get my eye to move from his finger then.

He may be making an artistic statement here, but it ain't music. Music, even when it lacks rhythm, melody or harmony (freeform jazz anyone?), still requires cadence. Silence has no cadence, just... silence.
 
Music, even when it lacks rhythm, melody or harmony (freeform jazz anyone?), still requires cadence. Silence has no cadence, just... silence.

1. There is no such thing as silence (that's partly the point)

2. No sounds occur without rhythm; any sound that follows another sound necessarily has a rhythmic/temporal relationship with the first... the third with the previous, etc.

3. Music requires cadence? I disagree. Cadences are nice though.

4. Some of my favourite music has no melody or harmony - what of percussion music?

5. Each to their own though, huh?
 
There is no such thing as silence...
Sure there is. An anechoic chamber. Very disconcerting place for humans.

4"²33" is definitely a gimmick, the same way a blank canvas on a gallery wall is a gimmick. Though I'm sure the orchestras who show up to "play" it enjoy being paid to sit there and do nothing, they would probably prefer to play some music. Of any kind. Lack of notation does not a composition make.

Conceptual art (like 4"²33") is bullshit. It only continues to exist because people have been suckered into thinking that artists know something they don't. That they are clued in to some secret knowledge that they as a mere mortal could never posses. But the real secret is, you are much smarter than most artists.
 
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it is a gimmick to me as well . I definitely do not need to sit in a concert room to experience this again and again. You get it once and that's it. You use it as a reminder when things get too weird, when you forget to hear, see or feel.
That's not music.
Then again you have these artists that decide to cash in on that, to distance themselves from their public and try to sell you an intention or a concept without putting in the work.
 
In 1951, Cage visited the anechoic chamber at Harvard University. Cage entered the chamber expecting to hear silence, but he wrote later, "I heard two sounds, one high and one low. When I described them to the engineer in charge, he informed me that the high one was my nervous system in operation, the low one my blood in circulation."

mjp - you are quite wrong on this - wherever you are, there is sound. One never experiences real silence while alive.

And all art is conceptual on some level; it just depends where you set your tolerance levels.

Orchestras are not exactly lining up to play contemporary American music; most classical musicians hate anything written after world war one.
Anyway, any program containing 4'33" would have several other works on it too.

"...you are much smarter than most artists" - no doubt you are right there.

"I definitely do not need to sit in a concert room to experience this again and again. You get it once and that's it."

Sure. But who suggested you have to experience any work of art more than once?
 
:)

Let's say he was not a composer.

Let's say that 4'33" is not a composition... Not even music.

Let's say Cage was a clever, creative man who tried his best to create situations where people thought about the sounds that enter their heads, the nature of music and the nature of the creative endeavour.

If he never did anything else, he would be remembered for his Sonatas & Interludes. The guy created an American/Balinese tuned/untuned percussion ensemble playable by one pair of hands! The prepared piano.


I mean, what the hell is anyone really doing.
 
I look at things like Cage's 4'33 and Duchamp's R. Mutt Urinal to see if they work for me. if they do, great. if they don't, ah well.

it doesn't matter to me if they are trying to pull the wool over my eyes. what matters is what I get from it. if I think bullshit, then it's bullshit. and vice versa. and if they fool me, good for them. but history is smarter and has a longer memory than me and I'll leave it to time to sort out the frauds.

or something.
 
I admit conceptual art may be bullshit, but sometimes I find certain works to be useful bullshit. That is, like with the case of 4'33, I like being reminded to step out of the routine of listening and to examine the process of listening itself. And what I discover is Cage demonstrating how the audience "participates" in the performance of any and every piece of music. Sure its gimmickry, but there is a point to it.

In my opinion, what is really at work here, are basic questions like What is performance, What separates composer and composition and so forth. The first person who did this for me personally (and some of you are going to spit out your coffee laughing when I say this so prepare) was the comedian/performance artist Andy Kaufman. Most everything that man did was to explore the question of why we laugh and the nature of what we laugh at.

In short, if it makes you re-examine the process and leads you to an insight, then it's worthwhile, I think. On the other hand, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar and a crucifix in a jar of piss is just a crucifix in a jar of piss.
 
Let's say he was not a composer.
Okay, you're getting warm...

Let's say that 4'33" is not a composition... Not even music.
Which is a simple statement of fact - you are seeing the light!

The guy created an American/Balinese tuned/untuned percussion ensemble playable by one pair of hands! The prepared piano.
Ooh! What a shame. You were doing so well, then right back to gimmicks.

Well, there's always next time. Until then, remember kids; the emperor wears no clothes.

Thank you.



That concludes my modern dance performance for today. $75 dollars please.
 
........ The first person who did this for me personally (and some of you are going to spit out your coffee laughing when I say this so prepare) was the comedian/performance artist Andy Kaufman. Most everything that man did was to explore the question of why we laugh and the nature of what we laugh at.
......

Yes Andy Kaufman was great right up to and a little bit into his wrestling. But just like the crucifix joke, he got to be too offensive and lost audience. Without an audience why are there? I would do not want to pay $75.00 to watch some genius make a point unless I get a good laugh out of it.

Andy Kaufman was mostly great. Tony Clifton too.
 
Ooh! What a shame. You were doing so well, then right back to gimmicks.

Well, there's always next time. Until then, remember kids; the emperor wears no clothes.

Thank you.



That concludes my modern dance performance for today. $75 dollars please.

No $75 bucks (or soup) for you! Again... context.

Cage first prepared a piano when he was commissioned to write music for "Bacchanale", a dance by Syvilla Fort in 1938. For some time previously, Cage had been writing exclusively for a percussion ensemble, but the hall where Fort's dance was to be staged had no room for a percussion group. The only instrument available was a single grand piano.

After some consideration, Cage said that he realized it was possible "to place in the hands of a single pianist the equivalent of an entire percussion orchestra ... With just one musician, you can really do an unlimited number of things on the inside of the piano if you have at your disposal an exploded keyboard."

He simply created a solution to a musical/logistical problem. And a great solution at that.
 
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totally off topic

<off topic>
Well, deaf people might argue that [...]

That's an interesting question.
Of course, nerves don't transport the QUALITY of a sensation.
(Like: This is what you SEE, this is what you HEAR)
Once the signal has passed your senses there's no way to differ between the original sources (that's why induced signals could seem real, like in 'Matrix' or - more scientific - the 'Brain in the Vat'). It is only the AREA in ones brain, that tells him: this was seen, this was heared, that was smelled, etc.

So it should be possible to induce the illusion of 'sound' even in the brain of a deaf person, by stimulating the corresponding brain-area.

But then -
If one is BORN deaf, the surrounding areas would already have been taken over the 'un-used' parts of the brain, which would otherwise be there for proceeding information from 'hearing'. These areas don't just remain plain 'empty' or 'unused'. So it COULD be, that there is no way to stimulate the specific brain-area of a deaf-born person, simply because there is no such area.

As I said: Interesting question.
I don't own the solution. But maybe I'll look it up one day.

</off topic>
 
I'm willing to dismiss the charges of "gimmick", but all you get when attending a performance of that particular piece is the "silence" of an audience reacting (many nervously, as if they were actually supposed to do something) to 4'33" of "silence."

I've often enjoyed and listened to the "silence" in my life. I much prefer the 17'21" of 8/24/82 and the 2'54" of 1/16/03. Those were particularly smokin'.
 
recommendation...

Yesterday I listented to Brahms:

Quintet For clarinet, 2 violins, alto violin and cello in B, Op. 115
Karl Leister, clarinet / Amadeus Quartet


Violin concert in D, Op. 77
Henryk Szeryng, vilolin / conductor Bernard Heitink
 
No offense, I hope, but piano is such a horribly brittle instrument in classical music. It works perfectly in jazz, but damn do I just hate piano in classical music. I'm an idiot to those of you who might question my opinion.

I attend BSO performances as the mood sees fit; I'll stay at home and pick dog poop off the lawn when the soloist is a pianist.

Harpsichord is a completely different matter, but that ain't a pianna. It's even more brittle, but that's cool because it's honest with itself.
 
I guess it is simply a matter of taste.
I sometimes have a problem with the sound of certain guitars, classical guitars for example.
The documentary is worth watching. Gould was such a perfectionist. I love his performance as a solo pianist, and he hated playing for the public, they made him sick.
I also liked the fact that he left his estate to The Humane Society and the Salvation Army.
 
I have been a Glenn Gould fan since I was fifteen. I had played piano since age 8, but didn't achieve any great pleasure from it. Then my piano teacher gave me Bach's Two- and Three-Part Inventions to play and I got my first Glenn Gould LP. That was it! YOWIE! ZAP! OOH! The F-major Three-Part Invention sent me into orbit. Then I got all of his other Bach recordings. There was a good Gould documentary recently on PBS.

I think there is a Buk/Gould connection: both loved solitude, were geniuses, were "mad" and "eccentric," and also Buk didn't like live concerts, but preferred listening to his radio, just as Gould quit giving live concerts since he hated them so much to concentrate on making recordings in the studio. Buk often wrote about the snobby, pseudo-cultural atmosphere of concert halls. Just found a cool poem of his about this the other day--"rain", from Mockingbird, about a man who actually goes to the concert hall to listen to the music.
 
This morning I came to the conclusion that I wouldn't pay 60 bucks out of my own pocket to go to a concert hall. But I was a guest, and as a guest it was great! My brother is a member, he drove to the underground parking, I left my coat in the trunk and walked into the hall and he paid for the drinks.
All I had to do was to contain myself and behave.
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Although, after seeing the Gould documentary, I would feel more normal among that crowd, knowing that the pianist doesn't want to be there either.
 
I can't say I am an expert at classical music at all whatsoever, but I have listened to a lot of different composers and I know that I am really picky about what I'm listening to. Unfortunately, I'm not good with naming off the names of pieces, but I'm really good at identifying WHO it is I'm listening to.

I'm a big Mozart fan. Pretty much everything - even his operas are amazing, and I don't even care for opera.

For piano, Chopin is the master.

For small (string quartets): Beethoven, and only for that, otherwise I don't care for him.

I'm also a fan of Mendelssohn. I love more than half of everything I've heard. That's a lot for me. great piano parts!

I like Tchaikovsky too, but I guess by now you can tell I like that romantic shit.
 

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