Classical Convert

Velvety Blue

Oh dearie old me, real life is getting way more than a tad too intrusive at the moment. We’ve had a whole inundation, a cavalcade, an avalanche of friends coming to visit; my supervisor is demanding results in a thinly veiled fashion; I have to understand a journal article that makes little-to-no sense before tomorrow morning, and learn all of the fundamental amino acids by tomorrow evening. Where’s all the time gone for writing up here?

Well, there was a bit of respite last nite (no, I can’t resist the double t-e thing) when my girlfriend performed a wonderful act of dinner, and then subversively persuaded me to watch Blue Velvet, instead of studying molecular biology. I love Blue Velvet. I love pretty much all of David Lynch’s stuff. What I had not realized on previous viewings - because they were more distant than quite recently - was that the Angelo Badalamenti soundtrack to B/V was Shostakovich inspired.

I noticed it first, when, while ignoring the biochemistry textbook in my lap something remarkably like the invasion theme in the 15th symphony (the doppelganger of the invasion theme in the 7th) crept out from the television. It’s right at the beginning of the film, when Jeffrey is going for a walk at night and his mother and aunt tell him not to go down by Lincoln street. I think it’s number 2 on the soundtrack, which is winging it’s way over to me right now as we speak, or I type, or you read. The sample on Amazon isn’t long enough to really hear it (though, it has the start of the tattoo on the timpani), but you cool kids with iTunes might be able to give it a play.

According to the wikipedia entry, Lynch had indeed been listening to Shostakovich 15 at the time, and asked for the soundtrack to be:

“like Shostakovich, be very Russian, but make it the most beautiful thing but make it dark and a little bit scary.”

Hmm. The bit about 15 is unsourced, unfortunately.

Another Upcoming Classical Music Movie

Patricia at oboeinsight brought my attention to an upcoming movie centered around a romance between Igor Stravinsky and Coco Chanel. It’s based on this book (reasonably positive review here), and will be directed by William Friedkin of The Exorcist and The French Connection fame. Sounds promising, maybe this one will actually be worth seeing… is that too much to hope for?

What I’ve Been Listening To Lately: Nielsen

A couple of weeks ago this CD came flitting it’s way through my mailbox. Actually it got plonked down outside on our not-very-charming porch, for the birds to stare at - but it sounds way more romantic the other way. Well, regardless of it’s pre-listening sitting position it’s a rather splendid little package. It’s also the first Nielsen that I’ve had the pleasure to really properly sift through my ears.

Nielsen was active from the tail end of the romantic period right through into that awkward beginning of twentieth century stage. He died in 1931. His music (well, judging on the slightly limited repertoire that I’ve currently heard) definitely has a romantic sort of lushness to it, but it’s tempered with a bit of a brutal modern (and bleakly Scandinavian) edge. In places the orchestration reminds me of the more romanticy but dangerous bits of Prokofiev, and some of the harmonies reminds me of Bartok and Martinu. There are also several of what I think of as “American” sounding melodies. If I only had a decent (or, basically any) grasp of musical theory I might be able to more accurately convey what I mean. How sad.

The first CD is the one getting most of the airtime. It’s got his 4th (the “Inextinguishable”) and 5th symphonies. He’s got a thing for percussion, which I find instantly appealing: the 4th has a kind of timpani duel in the last movement, and in the 5th there is a wonderfully menacing, improvisational section for the snare drum (”as if at all costs to stop the progress of the orchestra”), playing at a different tempo from everybody else. That’s actually my favorite bit so far on this CD, the first movement of the 5th. It’s a great build-up, struggle and release. It reminds me a bit of the huge climax in the 2nd movement of Shosty’s symphony No. 11. Aggressive percussion and tortured strings, with the winds shrieking over the top.

Unfortunately I can’t find a recording of the 5th online, but there is a Youtube performance of the 4th symphony, 4th movement, with the timpani duel. It’s Osmo Vanska and the BBC symphony orchestra:

So anyway, in conclusion, Nielsen kicks arse.

More Pros and Cons of Recordings

There were some excellent comments on my last post about one of the benefits of recordings, as compared to live music - namely that you can listen to recordings over and over again.

While I find CD’s extremely valuable for “learning” a piece before hearing an actual performance, JF now finds it better the other way around:

I *want* to hear a piece for the first time in live performance, to make whatever impression on me that it may. Then I decide whether I want to hear the music again and again, and if so buy a record. If indeed it’s been recorded; often enough it hasn’t.

First impressions matter, and I’ve found that music makes a stronger first impression on me if I’ve invested the time and trouble to go out and hear it. There are no interruptions, unless someone’s cell phone goes off; my attention is more focused; I get the full dynamic range of the music, including huge climaxes that recordings can’t deal with.

Whereas Andy argues for recordings, and giving several practical reasons:

1. Cost - the cheapest tickets are usually $20-25. If I take my wife, it costs $40-50, plus another $25 or so for a baby sitter. For that cost, I can buy 5 CDs which I can listen to repeatedly at my leisure.

2. Time - It’s a 30 min. drive each way from my house to the concert hall. Plus, you need to make sure you are early so you can get to your seat on time, and there will be an intermission. Probably 3 hrs for an hour and a half of music.

3. My wife - she doesn’t like symphony concerts. She’ll go to an opera because it has the added visual drama. But we have small children and since we rarely have a chance to get away, a concert is low on the list of things to do together.

JonJ brought up something that I have often wondered about:

I think the interesting thing is that, before recordings, people couldn’t bone up like this before hearing a complicated piece. They had to get it the first time, and in many cases it would be the only time they heard it in their lives, so in a sense we are probably much lazier today in our listening habits. Of course, they had their aids to comprehension too: there were piano reductions of orchestral works that could be played at home (a lot more people could play piano in the old days than now, of course), and they could study printed scores (ditto for the number of people who could read scores in the old days compared to now).

Perhaps that’s one of the reasons that classical concerts aren’t as popular in the current age as they once were. We are sort of spoiled for sound now. A century ago the only way to experience a really massive, powerful auditory experience would be in the concert hall. Now people can amaze themselves (or not, since fantastic sound has become so completely mundane) in their living room by popping in a CD. I think I’ll write more on this in a bit.

Lastly, James Cook provided a great quote:

“I can’t believe that people really prefer to go to the concert hall under intellectually trying, socially trying, physically trying conditions, unable to repeat something they have missed, when they can sit at home under the most comfortable and stimulating circumstances and hear it as they want to hear it. I can’t imagine what would happen to literature today if one were obliged to congregate in an unpleasant hall and read novels projected on a screen.” - Milton Babbitt

And commented that:

Why should music be a “one-shot-deal” any more than any other form of art? Indeed, this attitude may have a lot to do with the “difficulties” of twentieth-century music. People have this idea that if they don’t “get” a piece of music the first time they hear it, then it must not be good music. But that’s just silly.

I definitely feel that is the case with classical, as opposed to most other genres. It’s much harder to get after a single listen, and it seems that most non-classical listeners aren’t used to this, and will give up far too early because they don’t immediately get it.

Incidentally, yesterday was the 25th anniversary of the CD.

Repeatability: the biggest benefit of a recording

There’s been a recent furore regarding whether MP3 based music competes with actually sitting in the concert hall. Over at Sounds and Fury, A. C. Douglas is quite insistent on the superiority of the real thing. A recent follow-up to his original article has someone pointing out that with all the sweet-wrapper crackling, coughing, snoring, muttering, etc. in the concert hall, one might well get a more enjoyable and immediate acoustic experience sitting in front of the stereo. The chairs are comfier at home, too. And you can have a nice cup of tea while listening. Try doing that in Carnegie Hall.

However, I think the biggest advantage of recorded music is one of it’s most obvious and intrinsic characteristics: you can play it many, many times. This is massively important with classical, since it takes so long to get the hang of a piece. If I had had to understand Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 2 (for example) by relying purely on orchestral performances… well it’s never played so I wouldn’t have heard it… but if it were, I would have had to see it about fifty times before it made any kind of sense. That’s a lot of concert.

Generally it seems hugely preferable for me not to hear a real live piece until I’ve listened to it a bunch of times in the comfort of my apartment. I want to understand the piece first, instead of trying to piece together the themes in the concert hall. I want to be able to twine along the melodies while the orchestra is playing, to make newer and deeper bridges and uncoverings and connections. Things spring out and bite you when the music is on the stage, instead of stuck in the stereo - but it’s so much more potent when the latter has already built a bed from which the former can ascend.

My MP3 player is a perfect foundation builder. It knows it isn’t the real thing, that it’s an imitation - but it’s an imitation which lets me isolate myself from the outside and dive and delve into a greater and greater understanding of whatever it’s currently holding onto. It’s portability is perfect for letting one slip off into a bit of a listening session whenever someones opus number something starts slithering around your head.

The more I listen to a piece and understand the ins and outs and backs and twists and fronts, the more I want to hear a real, true, orchestra playing it. No matter how much I’ll fall in love with a particular recording, the ultimate goal is always to hear a great, real-life performance.

But without that build-up, without all of those not-quite-real versions of a piece, for me the reality isn’t nearly as rewarding.