I wasn't particularly thinking of folksong, but rather art music, composed and notated; if I think about a simple melody like "she moves thro' the fair" - yes, clearly it is very beautiful, but Constant Lambert's words do rather haunt my mind - if it is transplanted into a new (artificial) setting...

Plainchant - if I'm being scrupulously honest with myself it is the associations (ritual, purity etc - all a construct in my own mind) rather than the music itself that appeals, however satisfying some shapes are. And what possibilities they open up when combined with other notes.

The point about those other pieces - particularly the Holst and Stravinsky - is context: I love the openings of both works for their elegance, rhythmic flexibility etc but even more for the promise of what comes next. (And the opening words of Savitri are gripping too, of course).  I could add the Ravel Violin Sonata or Chansons madecasses to that list too.

But I suppose I was primarily thinking of a MacCartney type melody - or Rachmaninov (as mentioned by Alistair) - or Tchaikovsky or Schubert, to take two other examples of composers who are often described as melodists but whose melodies depend on their harmonisation for their effect - and by harmonisation I'm not just referring to the chords themselves but the timing of the juxtapositions - something which presumably PM (and or JL) felt intuitively but which he seems to find impossible to recreate on a bigger or more "elevated" scale (I'm guessing that that is how he views his "classical" output - correct me if I'm wrong). In other words, what was natural to him on a small scale as a songwriter seems inhibited on a larger canvas.

With something like Beethoven 7, 2nd mvt., it's true. Strip away the harmonies and what you have left is very dry bones. But Beethoven is very much the exception rather than the norm.


IMO, even if you strip away all the associations of plainchant, but listen to it in an appropriate resonant acoustic the true beauty of the music shines through. It's also one of the reasons why I persisted in studying the recorder rather than simply muddling along; given a good acoustic, the sound is heartbreakingly beautiful. The same thing applies to plainchant, it seems to be something to do with the physics of various harmonics interacting, I'm sure somebody will provide a real explanation.

Good heavens, do you get a PhD for writing about Paul McCartney these days? Yes, I expect you can....
Now I'm being deliberately provocative, but not really, because I'm far too peaceable a person.

You'll have to get some real composers to answer your questions - I'm not one, and I probably did make too great a generalisation. I'm not sure who "star composers " are, either, but I'm sure most of them know what instruments sound like and how to write things down.

McCartney has something of a reputation as having been the most 'adventurous' of the Beatles.  In practice, though, this amounted to little more than turning up at a few Berio concerts (probably in the manner ofa lower middle-class arriviste attempting to acquire sophistication), having a Modigliani sculpture on display in his St. John's Wood bachelor pad (no doubt to impress visitors that a pop star from Liverpool knew about such things, la) and going to a couple of modish 'underground' events. 

The fact is, though, that McCartney is no kind of musician at all.  I despise his facile 'gift' for melody, his lazily-constructed 'songs' with their petit-bourgeois lyrics.  Just because he's popular doesn't mean he's ever been any good.  I never want to hear dirges like 'EleaMnor Rigy' again as a long as I live.

The risibly-titled 'Working Classical' gives the game away, with over-baked string arrangements of his fey compositions.  And the 'Liverpool Oratorio' is painful to listen to....though I can confirm the stories about McCartney's working relationship with Davis.  ('Ah-'ey, Carl, thass exactly what I was thinkin' of!' is a frequent exclamation during their creative confabs, I believe).

I hope that the output of McCartney and his Beatle colleagues get the posterity it deserves - ie, forgotten by all, except as an example of 1960s 'popular' music.

I'm inclined to agree with Swan Knight.  IMO the Beatles were a social rather than a musical phenomenon (Discuss?).

Why ?

That sounds like me.

I don't have a Modigliani sculpture at home though. Too posh.

It also applies to most classical musicians who achieve renown (not least to Wagner!).

No, the music and all the other things are tied together - you couldn't just substitute another type of music for rap without changing the whole balance very significantly. But again, all the other extra factors are much more important in classical music than often so perceived. Isn't the social ritual of a chamber concert, with all the expectations in terms of dress, behaviour, decorum, concert format, the figures that the chamber players are supposed to represent, also part of the same thing?