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Soundwave
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« on: 16:04:24, 08-02-2008 » |
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Ho! Remembering that Richard Strauss, in a letter to Hoffmannsthal, wrote "What I'd like best of all, time and time again, would be to set myself to music", raises the question "what type of music"? How would you set yourself - as a song, symphony, duet, folk dance, four minute silence? For myself I feel a Wagner Chorus or, perhaps, a Strauss Waltz. Ah, maybe even a Love Song. Take up the challenge, come on. Reveal what sort of music you are.
Cheers
S'wave.
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Ho! I may be old yet I am still lusty
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richard barrett
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« Reply #1 on: 16:31:07, 08-02-2008 » |
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"What I'd like best of all, time and time again, would be to set myself to music" Ho Soundwave. I think that attitude is what makes Strauss's music ultimately rather mediocre to my mind. (Much as I might enjoy it sometimes.) If I could "set myself to music" I think it would be somewhat more mediocre though, maybe the sound of someone with grubby mittens on practising the violin. |
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richard barrett
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« Reply #2 on: 16:45:47, 08-02-2008 » |
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That would be a cracked violin with no strings of course.
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ahinton
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« Reply #3 on: 16:51:13, 08-02-2008 » |
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"What I'd like best of all, time and time again, would be to set myself to music" Ho Soundwave. I think that attitude is what makes Strauss's music ultimately rather mediocre to my mind. (Much as I might enjoy it sometimes.) If I could "set myself to music" I think it would be somewhat more mediocre though, maybe the sound of someone with grubby mittens on practising the violin. Surely Strauss's music sounds as it does regardless of what we may think we know of "that attitude"? In any case, Strauss is, after all, credited with having said (assuming that nothing was lost in the translation) that this what he'd "like to do" rather than what he actually did. I suppose that one problem that some listeners have with Strauss is that autobiographical streak, especially when allied to a desire for literal representation, on the basis that Strauss must have been an insufferable egotist who used his technical brilliance as a composer simply to draw attention to himself and to "represent" a knife or fork in music; his occasional self-quotation may serve to exacerbate such a viewpoint. For me, there's far more to Strauss than this. I didn't know that you had grubby mittens or that you play the violin - but then you've not actually said that you do, in either case - only that this might be the case "if you could" set yourself to music! Seriously, though, don't most of us "set ourselves to music" in some sense whenever we write? |
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Stanley Stewart
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« Reply #4 on: 16:52:13, 08-02-2008 » |
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Hi, soundwave; probably a Wagnerian styled monologue, where I enter, move downstage, part my legs, - indicating a 15 minute narrative to follow; probably all a bit of a dirge but, indubitably, I'd 'corpse', in the middle, as I saw the funny side of it all. Carlotta's, 'I'm Still Here' in Sondheim's 'Follies' could probably be adapted to fit the bill!  |
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ahinton
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« Reply #5 on: 16:56:34, 08-02-2008 » |
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That would be a cracked violin with no strings of course.
How would you actually practise on one of those, mittens or no mittens? |
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time_is_now
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« Reply #6 on: 16:58:01, 08-02-2008 » |
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Seriously, though, don't most of us "set ourselves to music" in some sense whenever we write?
I think that attitude is what ... oh, never mind. |
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The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
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BobbyZ
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« Reply #7 on: 18:03:28, 08-02-2008 » |
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I think that I would probably be the blues. In all its' varying shades.
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Dreams, schemes and themes
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ahinton
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« Reply #8 on: 18:09:54, 08-02-2008 » |
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Seriously, though, don't most of us "set ourselves to music" in some sense whenever we write?
I think that attitude is what ... oh, never mind. Well, I do mind, really, at least to the extent that if it is indeed "most of us" and not just Richard Strauss, as I suggested, then many of us might risk being guilty of potential if not actual mediocrity. Well, maybe my suggestion was wrong after all... |
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time_is_now
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« Reply #9 on: 18:34:01, 08-02-2008 » |
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Well, I do mind, really, at least to the extent that if it is indeed "most of us" and not just Richard Strauss, as I suggested, then many of us might risk being guilty of potential if not actual mediocrity. Well, maybe my suggestion was wrong after all...
It was your assumption that 'we' were all composers that I found solipsistic to a degree bordering on the offensive. (And it's not the only time: Richard's already picked you up on this on the other board today, in the Alex Ross discussion.) |
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The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
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Antheil
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« Reply #10 on: 18:48:58, 08-02-2008 » |
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Well, I do mind, really, at least to the extent that if it is indeed "most of us" and not just Richard Strauss, as I suggested, then many of us might risk being guilty of potential if not actual mediocrity. Well, maybe my suggestion was wrong after all...
It was your assumption that 'we' were all composers that I found solipsistic to a degree bordering on the offensive. (And it's not the only time: Richard's already picked you up on this on the other board today, in the Alex Ross discussion.) But "we all set ourselves to music when we write" You see, I read that as "write" i.e. words (prose, poems, whatever, not just musical notations) and in that respect (if we write) we do set outselves to music, the cadences, the stanzas, don't we? The way words connect, the setting out on paper. Oh dear, I am being simplistic again. Well, I am definitely Beethoven's 3rd - Eroica. Loud, passionate, sometimes OTTP, but also tender, melancholic, yearning. I usually play the von Karajan but I have on the Roger Norrington at the mo. |
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Reality, sa molesworth 2, is so sordid it makes me shudder
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MT Wessel
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« Reply #11 on: 18:51:25, 08-02-2008 » |
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A simple, melancholic drone ....  |
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lignum crucis arbour scientiae
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ahinton
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« Reply #12 on: 18:53:16, 08-02-2008 » |
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Well, I do mind, really, at least to the extent that if it is indeed "most of us" and not just Richard Strauss, as I suggested, then many of us might risk being guilty of potential if not actual mediocrity. Well, maybe my suggestion was wrong after all...
It was your assumption that 'we' were all composers that I found solipsistic to a degree bordering on the offensive. Eh? I assumed nothing of the sort! By "we" I meant to refer to those of us who are composers, not to suggest that most of the forum members are composers! Sorry - I can see that I didn't make that as clear as I should have done; absolutely no offence was intended and I hope that none will now be taken. (And it's not the only time: Richard's already picked you up on this on the other board today, in the Alex Ross discussion.)
If you mean that he did so by writing "which doesn't necessarily involve being sufficiently inspired to devote one's life to composition, Alistair!", he appears not to have taken offence at anything I'd written but, just in case, I repeat that, by "we" and "most of us", I sought to refer only to those of us who actually are composers and not "most of us" here on this forum. I hope that's all sorted out now to everyone's satisfaction! |
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Antheil
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« Reply #13 on: 18:56:49, 08-02-2008 » |
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A simple, melancholic drone .... Is that you, me or Beethoven MT ?  |
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Reality, sa molesworth 2, is so sordid it makes me shudder
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A
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« Reply #14 on: 19:07:30, 08-02-2008 » |
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I am moody so possibly I am a mixture beteeen Delius (Brigg Fair) and R Strauss ( Don Juan ) A  |
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Well, there you are.
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