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Chafing Dish
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« Reply #60 on: 02:28:04, 28-06-2007 » |
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To the list of not-so-nice fugues I would certainly add the a minor fugue from book I, where the ambition to combine stretto with stretto of the inversion leads to some of the most hair raising clashes in Bach's output -- all for the sake of contrapuntal bravado. And yet it's a great piece. m.24, beat 4: on the beat the chord is (reading from bottom to top) C-B-D-A, followed by D-A-C-B The voices are stumbling all over one another! One needs a broader definition of beauty than "loved and appreciated by many" to incorporate this fugue into S-S's pantheon. The b-minor fugue from the second book is also anything but gentle. Surely Mozart wouldn't have written such a thing. Here again the contrapuntal possibilities are so rich, that presenting them all at once (as Bach invariably must do in order to display true skill, according to his own standards) is a delightful barrage of clashes. Even the theme is 'clumsy' by any one sided standard of hummability BA BA ba- bup-bup-BA to-dee-do-deedle dee-do-deedle dee-do-deedle deedle-dum bup-BA-da-di DA I wouldn't have let it into the house, until I heard what he did with it. It's a display of genius rather than one of beauty in Simon's sense. For me, beauty is when someone successfully makes the case that something is beautiful when that claim of beauty is actually questionable. That's why I don't sit at the piano and play half-diminished seventh chords all day. Well, okay, sometimes I do, but I don't gain any sense of beauty from doing so. (I imagine Sydney Grew doing so, and swooning http://r3ok.myforum365.com/index.php?topic=1252.msg35650#msg35650) |
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« Last Edit: 02:31:12, 28-06-2007 by Chafing Dish »
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« Reply #61 on: 02:36:37, 28-06-2007 » |
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SS, I don't see what's so bad about having a piece of music that takes a while to grow on you? Almost all extended works are like this for me; and certainly many fugues! For instance, it took me many many repeated listenings to really, really feel like I was on intimate terms with certain of the Shostakovich preludes and fugues; though not intentionally. Ditto for Busoni's F.C.; maybe even moreso.
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #62 on: 02:37:14, 28-06-2007 » |
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For me, beauty is when someone successfully makes the case that something is beautiful when that claim of beauty is actually questionable. That's good (and a definition that I reckon Lachenmann might have some sympathy with). Can there not be a case for a music which does not attempt to be beautiful at all, though? Or the converse of what you say, taking something for which the claim of beauty seems reasonably self-evident, and then working against that (both Clementi and Sciarrino do that, I'd say)? That's why I don't sit at the piano and play half-diminished seventh chords all day. Well, okay, sometimes I do, but I don't gain any sense of beauty from doing so. Ever tried practising this, then?   (must win a record for number of diminished sevenths per page) |
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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Chafing Dish
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« Reply #63 on: 02:40:52, 28-06-2007 » |
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yes no i said half-diminished, i'm a bit of an underachiever
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« Reply #64 on: 02:42:39, 28-06-2007 » |
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For me, beauty is when someone successfully makes the case that something is beautiful when that claim of beauty is actually questionable. That's good (and a definition that I reckon Lachenmann might have some sympathy with). Can there not be a case for a music which does not attempt to be beautiful at all, though? Or the converse of what you say, taking something for which the claim of beauty seems reasonably self-evident, and then working against that (both Clementi and Sciarrino do that, I'd say)? Just because the composer does not intend them to make certain claims, that does not stop listeners from drawing their own conclusions, of course : ) Personally, it's not so much about beauty but whether I feel, after listening to a piece of music, that it was worthwhile listening to, where "worthwhile" is some term that I'm have a lot of difficulty to pin down. Maybe take something slightly more general than CD; a piece of music satisfies some minimal criterion of worthiness if it seems to make a case for something, if it does something or says something...oh look now I'm just raking water; should go back to my work then get some sleep. |
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« Last Edit: 02:44:55, 28-06-2007 by increpatio »
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #65 on: 02:44:33, 28-06-2007 » |
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Personally, it's not so much about beauty but whether I feel, after listening to a piece of music, that it was worthwhile listening to, where "worthwhile" is some term that I'm have a lot of difficulty to pin down.
I'd go even further and say there are pieces I definitely do not enjoy while listening to, but am glad to have heard afterwards (and thinking positively of) - there are of course unenjoyable pieces that produce no such effect, also (and pieces which are moderately enjoyable at the time, but leave little lasting impact).... There is not one fugue of Bach that I would regret hearing, though (nor just about any work of Bach at all - that said, after a period of listening to 3 cantatas a day last year, after a while I was on the verge of nailing 95 theses to a door, and had to stop for a bit). |
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« Last Edit: 02:47:38, 28-06-2007 by Ian Pace »
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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Chafing Dish
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« Reply #66 on: 02:45:04, 28-06-2007 » |
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Just because the composer does not intend them to make certain claims, that does not stop listeners from drawing their own conclusions, of course : )
Personally, it's not so much about beauty but whether I feel, after listening to a piece of music, that it was worthwhile listening to, where "worthwhile" is some term that I'm have a lot of difficulty to pin down. Hence I started with "For me..." |
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« Reply #67 on: 02:49:26, 28-06-2007 » |
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Hence I started with "For me..."
Acknowledged...but, to clarify: How do you deal with Ian's mentioning of actively provocative works then? Does the denoting of something as art automatically include a claim to beauty for you? |
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« Last Edit: 02:51:13, 28-06-2007 by increpatio »
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Chafing Dish
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« Reply #68 on: 02:57:07, 28-06-2007 » |
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Hence I started with "For me..."
Acknowledged...but, to clarify: How do you deal with Ian's mentioning of actively provocative works then? Does the denoting of something as art automatically include a claim to beauty for you? I don't know what 'actively' provocative means, but I would say that if something does not provoke me, then it cannot be beautiful. Pretty, yes, but not beautiful. That sounds a little persnickety, but this is the way I've set up the terminology for myself, in order to make the word beautiful useful to me. Yes, this is derivative of Lachenmann's aesthetics, and no, provocation is a necessary but NOT a sufficient condition for beauty. |
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #69 on: 03:01:24, 28-06-2007 » |
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Don't know if anyone's seen the May issue of the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, but there's a whole series of articles on 'Schön und/oder wahr?' in there (including one by Schnebel).
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« Last Edit: 03:03:00, 28-06-2007 by Ian Pace »
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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Ian Pace
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« Reply #70 on: 03:09:49, 28-06-2007 » |
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Acknowledged...but, to clarify: How do you deal with Ian's mentioning of actively provocative works then? Being 'actively provocative' isn't quite the same as eschewing the notion of beauty. The problem with the latter concept is that it tends to be defined as an a priori category; living music frequently exceeds or forces one to rethink the categories that might be placed upon it before listening. |
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« Last Edit: 03:11:34, 28-06-2007 by Ian Pace »
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
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« Reply #71 on: 03:20:42, 28-06-2007 » |
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Hence I started with "For me..."
Acknowledged...but, to clarify: How do you deal with Ian's mentioning of actively provocative works then? Does the denoting of something as art automatically include a claim to beauty for you? I don't know what 'actively' provocative means, but I would say that if something does not provoke me, then it cannot be beautiful. Pretty, yes, but not beautiful. That sounds a little persnickety, but this is the way I've set up the terminology for myself, in order to make the word beautiful useful to me. Beauty has too many bad associations for me to be able to undergo such an enrichment I think. I must clarify one last thing, otherwise I stand to feel quite frustrated: it is correct that you do not assume beauty to be the overriding criterion for the value of a piece of music (not even necessarily as music)? Must read up on Lachenmann and, indeed, maybe even should listen to some of his music Don't know if anyone's seen the May issue of the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, but there's a whole series of articles on 'Schön und/oder wahr?' in there (including one by Schnebel).
I had not come across this, no; I will have go have a look... One Symphonist's counterpoint who I've yet to come to terms with is Robert Simpson's - I have not listened to enough of his works, but though they're all clearly written, no major smudging, I just seem to have difficulty liking the resulting sounds :/ |
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Chafing Dish
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« Reply #72 on: 03:30:06, 28-06-2007 » |
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I must clarify one last thing, otherwise I stand to feel quite frustrated: it is correct that you do not assume beauty to be the overriding criterion for the value of a piece of music (not even necessarily as music)?
Yes, it is the overriding criterion for value, but only according to my definition of beauty (really a meta-definition, as it doesn't really give guidelines for beauty). That's the only time in this decade I'll use the prefix meta- (except when talking about Strauss's string ensemble music, I guess) The way I've designed my definition of beauty, it can be adopted by anyone even if that person and I don't end up labelling any of the same things beautiful. It has to do with what one has experienced and what one assumes when being confronted with new things to be judged... ...beauty is when someone successfully makes the case that something is beautiful when that claim of beauty is actually questionable. So then I could be disagreeing about that success, as well as about the questionability, but this is still a definition. |
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« Reply #73 on: 03:40:59, 28-06-2007 » |
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The way I've designed my definition of beauty, it can be adopted by anyone even if that person and I don't end up labelling any of the same things beautiful. It has to do with what one has experienced and what one assumes when being confronted with new things to be judged... I very much appreciate that your pov is subjective, and that this is a very very handy thing for any artistic stance to take. Now, I was just going to say something like "what if I was to show you a piece of music that claimed to be nothing other than beautiful in entirely standard ways, and that you nonetheless thought to be beautiful". Of course, this too would be challenging your definition of beauty and so entirely valid. I would thus, on the account of the "niceness" of this meta-definition, be perfectly willing to entitle it to the descriptor of beauty. Or maybe this makes the definition, as a rigid definition rather than as a notion, rather degenerate? Something is entirely possible of being beautiful whether or not it claims to do anything new or not. Nothing a slight rewording couldn't fix. Also, given that we're on general counterpoint here, it's probably good to bring up Godowsky; it seems to me that he was a master of counterpoint, in a rather different way to the way I would see Albeniz or Chopin as being masterful, in that he paid a lot of intention to the intricate contrapuntal interrelations of subjects, rather than doing the whole free-counterpoint thing. Has this particular aspect of his pianistic style been developed upon by anyone else since, or influenced any people in particular? I've heard bits and bobs by Ronald Stevenson, who I assume is influenced heavily by Godowsky, but I find his stuff pretty hard going, haven't really gotten in to it yet. |
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« Last Edit: 04:03:35, 28-06-2007 by increpatio »
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ahinton
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« Reply #74 on: 05:52:40, 28-06-2007 » |
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Well, CD, my favourite 'atonal' fugue is the one that forms the opening movement of Bartok, Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste. Would you really call it 'atonal'? I most certainly wouldn't... Best, Alistair |
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