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oliver sudden
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« Reply #15 on: 15:00:11, 12-11-2007 » |
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Belying this propaganda, though, is the complete chaos of the pre-battle, as each army resolutely holds its own tune, in its own key and metre, simultaneously with all the others. Indeed each mercenary brigade within the army, as I've heard it explained. But don't look too far into what the mercenary brigades got up to in the 30 years' war unless you want your stomach turned somewhat... |
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strinasacchi
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« Reply #16 on: 18:24:59, 12-11-2007 » |
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Army: shoot, cut, mash. Woe!
("your stomach somewhat" turned...)
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offbeat
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« Reply #17 on: 18:44:55, 12-11-2007 » |
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thanks for all yr replies - many of the pieces mentioned are unknown to me so will definetely investigate-
mention of RVW 3rd symphony ws interesting-never really connected it to war although its underlying mood is definely uneasy and a disturbing mystical feel - a kind of warning of things to come maybe,,,,,
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Ron Dough
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« Reply #18 on: 19:16:35, 12-11-2007 » |
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No, not a warning of things to come at all, rather a meditation on what had already been. After the end of WW1, in which he'd lost close friends and seen the terrors at first hand, it was some time before RVW felt able to start composing large-scale works again: the third symphony was one of the first, and didn't appear until 1922. The fields which inspired it were not the fields of Britain, but those laid waste by the conflict: mud-churned wastes over which nevertheless stunning sunsets could still appear: there are distinct and intentional echoes of bugle calls in the second movement, inspired apparently by a wrong note he heard once during the war.
How much of that aching sadness which pervades the work comes through depends on the performance: some recordings manage to slide through the whole work without touching the sides, but one in particular captures the aching beauty to the point where sometimes I find it almost too painful to bear: the LSO/Previn version, made (just like the recently mentioned Walton 1) at the Kingsway Hall for RCA by the finest Decca team of the day, and for my money in exactly the same way yet to be equalled, let alone surpassed.
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Peter Grimes
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« Reply #19 on: 14:26:08, 13-11-2007 » |
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Penderecki's Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima
Schnittke's Nagasaki
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"On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog."
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Bryn
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« Reply #20 on: 14:53:55, 13-11-2007 » |
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The Penderecki does not really qualify. The title was changed from 8'37" somewhat after the completion of the work, IIRC. Indeed, only after the composer had listened to it being performed, and reacting to its emotional impact.
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Ron Dough
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« Reply #21 on: 15:08:33, 13-11-2007 » |
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Is the fact that the work didn't originally have a title that important, Bryn? If it had the emotional reaction before it had a title, then it doesn't lessen the validity of the impact, surely? I don't think it was specified that the work had to be created with that exact intention.
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Bryn
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« Reply #22 on: 15:26:13, 13-11-2007 » |
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Hmm, the thing is, Ron, you know that desktop image of Stonehenge that was/is used by Windows XP? If you look at the third standing lith from the left, you may well see the visage of one Gustav Mahler weathered into it. Is that a "depiction"? Or, there are all those 'images' of JC or the Virgin Mary that people see in the tiles of fireplace surrounds, etc. Are they too "depictions"? I think not.  |
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richard barrett
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« Reply #23 on: 15:27:56, 13-11-2007 » |
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I'm with Ron there. I think it's quite possible for a composer not to know what a piece of music is "about" (ie. what part of his/her internal and/or external world it's responding to) until after it's finished. Choosing a title is part of the composition process and doesn't have to be the first part. Penderecki may have thought of the piece as something much more abstract-sounding until he heard it, but I think he must have known what kind of soundworld he was getting himself into, having borrowed quite some elements of it from from Xenakis (for example Metastaseis (1954), which could easily have been given the same title as Penderecki's work if Xenakis had been the kind of composer to go for emotional sensationalism in that way).
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Ron Dough
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« Reply #24 on: 15:46:23, 13-11-2007 » |
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Hmm, the thing is, Ron, you know that desktop image of Stonehenge that was/is used by Windows XP? Actually, Bryn, I don't.  I'm sure, though, that there are plenty of other pieces of music which are inextricably now linked with certain thoughts and images in the public's mind which hadn't occurred to the composer, but were so perfectly suited to a specific use in the media that that is de facto their main association now. |
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time_is_now
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« Reply #25 on: 16:14:59, 13-11-2007 » |
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I agree with the two R's about the way music takes on meaning, but I don't think Bryn was really disputing that, just taking the question that opened the thread literally. And as Richard had already said yesterday, 'depiction' could be taken to cover a fairly narrow spectrum of musical meaning(fulness).
Incidentally, I've always preferred to take the title of Penderecki piece as Threnody, with 'for the victims of Hiroshima' as a dedication, which makes it seem a bit less like 'emotional sensationalism'.
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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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richard barrett
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« Reply #26 on: 16:27:35, 13-11-2007 » |
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Threnody, with 'for the victims of Hiroshima' as a dedication Which I believe is as it is in the score, though I haven't looked at it for some considerable time. One of Stockhausen's worst moments is Invasion from Dienstag aus Licht, where two groups of instrumentalists have a "battle" on raised walkways placed across the auditorium. This was his response to the offer of a commissioned work for the bicentennial of the French Revolution, and was refused by the organisers, who presumably felt that a work of that title by a German composer was perhaps not an appropriate way to celebrate their nation's finest moment.  |
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Bryn
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« Reply #27 on: 16:38:06, 13-11-2007 » |
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Hmm, the thing is, Ron, you know that desktop image of Stonehenge that was/is used by Windows XP? Actually, Bryn, I don't. Try  then, Ron. |
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #28 on: 17:44:12, 13-11-2007 » |
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Thank you for the image, Bryn - I am instantly siezed with a desire to listen to Rutland Boughton's THE IMMORTAL HOUR in consequence |
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
- Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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Sydney Grew
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« Reply #29 on: 23:17:00, 14-11-2007 » |
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. . . I've always preferred to take the title of Penderecki piece as Threnody, with 'for the victims of Hiroshima' as a dedication, which makes it seem a bit less like 'emotional sensationalism'. Consider this illustration: and while noting its second colon (but not knowing whether or not it is original) permit us here to avail ourselves of the opportunity to present the second of an occasional series about " the preposterousnesses of modern composers." It is at once clear that what we see reproduced is not the score of a piece of music. It contains no notes! Look for example at the topmost violoncello line. It contains seven mysterious signs notelike but as we say not notes. They are explained as follows: 1) means " strike the upper sounding board." Well! What kind of foolery is that! The function of a violoncello is to produce musical tones. 2) means " play the highest note on the instrument pizzicato." Evidently the author lacks the confidence to specify which note. 3) means " play a fast tremolo between the bridge and the tail-piece." As in the first case, this is a perversion - a wilfully improper use - of the function for which the instrument was designed and constructed. 4) means " play an arpeggio on the four strings behind the bridge legno battuto." Here again it is clear that Mr. Penderecki (what is the Polish for "Mr."?) simply sets out to be as improper as possible. 5) means " strike the upper sounding board twice" - we have had that one! 6) means " play the highest note on the instrument arco and tremolo." See the second case. 7) again means " play between the bridge and the tail-piece." See the third case. Every one of these seven signs indicates some falsification corruption or misuse of the Art of Music and of its instruments. If in doubt about that let Members consider what Brahms would have thought. Here in contrast is the gentleman responsible for this really quite shoddy and uncultured travesty: |
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