Chopin's Small Miracles
online.wsj.com
online.wsj.com
Excellent article, but this little bit is inaccurate. The article gets the above almost exactly backwards, because one could make a case that it is the fugue that needs the prelude - but I say "almost" because both are self-contained pieces and neither needs the other. Rather, the prelude exists as an aid to audiences with untrained ears. That is, it is not the fugue that needs the prelude, but the audience who "needs" it, for it was intended to help them make better sense out of a fugue, which were considered to be sufficiently complex to warrant a little extra context prior to listening.
The prelude helped them by being a less complex piece but in the same key as the fugue it precedes. Listening to the prelude prior to hearing the fugue helped to "establish the key". By the time the prelude was finished, it would have taken the listener's ear on a brief journey around the notes of the piece's scale, resolving to (and thereby drawing the listener's attention to) the note that serves as the key's tonic, and also to whether the 3rd was a major 3rd or a minor 3rd. Once the ear was calibrated in this manner, it was thought that the interweaving lines of the fugue would be easier to follow.
Of all the recordings I've found, the recent recording of Rafal Blechacz is by far my favorite. [1]
Blechacz took first prize in the International Chopin Competition in 2005. Entertainingly, he was considered so much better than his competition that no second place prize was awarded. Contrast: in 1990 and 1995, the field was considered sub-par; no first place prizes were awarded! [2]
To follow Blechacz's performance with the actual score [3] is a special treat, and was the start of my interest in these great works.
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[1] http://www.amazon.com/Chopin-Préludes/dp/B0017QJO44/
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Frédéric_Chopin_P...
[3] http://imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/8/83/IMSLP00485-Chopin...
The preludes seem to me to prefigure jazz in some passages.
I suppose it's because I've never found myself have an aesthetic chill to this type of music...but put on a decent record of Bach's Brandenburg 3 - allegro...and I feel instantly like the world and humanity was advanced forward two full steps by this one piece of music. Likewise with numerous pieces. But when analyzing the music, the clockwork precision of Bach's music "feels" cold and emotionless, sterile compared to Chopin, yet it's Bach's music that makes me feel an emotional connection and not Chopin.
But I know plenty of people who are the opposite. Who fall into ecstatic bliss the moment some Liszt or Chopin plays.
I've always wondered what this meant.
(that being said....Beethoven's 7th 2nd movement almost always leaves me breathless and in tears).
Op. 17 No.4 (performed by Horowitz) - pretty, no "connection". I'd probably play it in the background during a nice dinner party.
Op. 33 No.2 (Horowitz as well) - entertaining but not beauteous to me, sounds like background music for old movies before "talkies". No "connection".
Op.24, No.1 (Zimerman) - pretty, I could see this being the music for a pre-talkie film of a world's fair. It's a bit downbeat for a dinner party. No connection.
Op. 63, No.3 (Zimerman) - pretty, I'd probably enjoy playing this one for some reason. I like the ornamentation this the best so far. No connection. I'd play it at a dinner party.
Op. 68, No.2. (Rachmaninoff) - pretty, I feel like this captures the Polish folk origin of the form the best. I listened to a few different performances of this one actually since I like old folk music and I like Rachmaninoff's interpretation the best. No particular connection. I'd probably play this in the background while doing something else.
Overall, I can appreciate the music mentally. But it just doesn't push any particular emotional buttons. I suspect that for a couple of them, 63.3 and 68.2 if somebody would just play them straight out like a proper Mazurka and stick to a hard meter it might come close.
Again, nothing wrong with these. I'm not placing any value judgement on Chopin. I'm just not "tuned" to him I guess. I enjoy Bach quite a bit more. But even plenty of "newer" things like some of the Paganini piano variations, or some very modern Copland (Hoedown does it almost everytime), and especially Holst (Jupiter has long been a huge favorite in this way).
A fascinating visualization of it (maybe less so for those who can read music scores?) If you haven't heard this piece yet, don't let the link below be your first exposure to it. It's Youtube audio and I'd like it a bit slower. But once you've heard it properly, seeing this fullscreen is fascinating.
However, Bach is fun to play, whereas Chopin is too hard...
If anybody is interested, I've found this to be a very pleasurable way to listen to music http://www.youtube.com/user/smalin
Here's some Chopin http://www.youtube.com/user/smalin#p/u/7/Tj1hDqf8Pm0
And also here's a paper on Aesthetic Chills if anybody is wondering... http://www.springerlink.com/content/w50652r575n16342/
More than any other composer (at least for piano), Chopin seems most gifted in his ability to write music that, for all intents and purposes, is singing with the piano.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1147880
He is clearly a favorite among HNers.
I've started collecting recordings of different performances of some of my favorites. It's interesting to listen back to back and try to pick out the nuances of how different performers interpret the same score.
Music is usually considered to be an intellectual endeavor like art and science. But there is a crucial difference for music. Science and art (at least the best of it) give us new insights to the world we live in: ideally we understand things and people more as a result.
But the ultimate purpose of music is a physiological/emotional response, something utterly subjective and that does not enrich our objective understanding of the world. In this sense, music should be considered to be an indulgence like drugs, sex or delicatessen food, in all but the delivering mechanism. Not that there is something wrong with them, but these are pleasures, not a meaningful activity.
Thus the whole notion of the special kind of music that bears higher value is of no more sense to me than, say, meth of higher culture.
Life is too short for it. For me if you can avoid listening to something, do it.
Stravinsky, who's "Poetics of Music"[1] is one of the more brilliant treatises on the importance of "high" music, once famously stated the "music doesn't have the power to express anything at all"-- his entire belief is that music is a reflection of the people and societies in which it develops. He above all placed music in a higher realm because of what it uniquely taught about people
The belief that there is an objectivity to judging music isn't a popular one, but it is one that I believe to be rather self-evident. Certainly the depth of emotional response to the opening of Beethoven's 9th Symphony[2] should be dramatically different from the response to the latest Britney Spears single. Certainly Bob Dylan's music teaches us something far more complex and valuable about the culture in which it arose than does a jingle from a car commercial.
Indeed, looking through the major musical time periods, it is clear that the representative "geniuses" of each are are elevated as such precisely because their music teaches us something about that time period. Bach's music is unerringly rational, but always highly ornamented. His greatest works are often religious, and reflect the emerging force of Protestantism. Mozart's contrast greatly, with emphasis on balance and elegance, and are often more "absolute" (and thus "secular", although this distinction is somewhat artificial). Etc. Etc.
Simply contrast two symphonies: Beethoven 3[3] with Copland 3[4]. I think you'd be hard-pressed to make the argument that the boisterous triumphalism of the former doesn't crystalize the specific emotions, cultural trends, and overall ideas of the Napoleonic era, or that the latter could have emerged from any culture other than that of individualist America.
And this is just scratching the surface. I haven't even mentioned the dedecophonic serialism of Schoenberg and its clear roots in the modernist era, and I skipped completely the Romantic era from which Chopin, the original topic of discussion, sprung.
All of which to say, is: I think you are short-changing one of the single most powerful elements of human culture, and in doing so, genuinely short-changing yourself out of both greater pleasure and understanding.
[1]: http://www.amazon.com/Poetics-Music-Lessons-Harvard-paperbac... [2]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hg5vABFHgpU [3]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XL2ha18i5w [4]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGVvsh8BKO8 (Not the best performance, but largely competent)
I still wonder if you could elaborate a little bit more. It seems to me that we speak about different things.
I am glad you brought up the Bob Dylan's music as an example. I agree that for him the music was an effective tool to pass his emotions and experiences to a listener. However his main tool is his lyrics and we cannot separate it from his music.
A good argument for that is that Bob Dylan isn't popular or well-known in the non-english speaking countries. I would say it is because his music isn't expressive without the lyrics. He wasn't a musician in the sense Beethoven was, he was rather a modernized poet.
This is the difference between Bob Dylan and "classical music" we discuss in this thread. My point is about where we need to place Beethoven music as an intellectual activity. I say it is different from written art, science or discussion. These are methods for creative people to transfer their experience and understanding to other people.
Music (pure music) doesn't involve it literary, only indirectly. It involves finding sound patterns that are known to bring pleasure to a listener. Nobel but different.
There is no question that music brings pleasure to people's and specifically yours and mine life and it is an important part of the culture and I am certainly not arguing that people should stop listening to music.
Music definitely tells us a lot about the cultural evolution with time just as you argue. But cuisine and drugs consumption habits of the epoch (alcohol, cigarrette, opium) tells us a lot too.
I say classical music has more to do with wines culture than with, say, literature. It's chemistry in one case and the humans sharing ideas in the other.
Wines are fine but I think conscious decision to spend time to learn the good wines and then spend time indulging elaborately fine tastes is a little bit twisted one. Maybe just a personal attitude.
Feynman might illustrate my point more succintly: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKTSaezB4p8&feature=playe...
Affecting mechanism for music is different. In this case, composer is like a cook: she prepares the music by the emperically established rules (certain frequency fractions, tempo to match the heart pace for a specific mood).
"But the ultimate purpose of music is a physiological/emotional response, something utterly subjective and that does not enrich our objective understanding of the world."
You can read about our planet, and see pictures of it, and everyone can agree on the objective understanding of it (even a computer can "understand" it objectively).
But what really enriches our (personal !) understanding of the world is not the objective understanding, but our subjective understanding, and music can enrich this understanding ...
The sun will rise again tomorrow, and it will be a new day, and we all know it....but listen to 'morning mood' in this video, look at the pictures, think, feel, and tell me that this doesn't make you appreciate the wonderful world we live in even more...
Morning mood, by Edvard Grieg:
That's not to mention the fact that music ostensibly IS intertwined with our language and culture, so it would be almost impossible to relate to other people (or understand them, communicate with them, as is the project of numerous scientific fields) if we didn't share their practices. You'd be left in a very strange position of describing an "objective" reality devoid of the emotions that make humanness--and by extension, the world--what it is.
I recommend you engage in a deeper reading of science and objectivity, because nary will you find a thinker or scientist whose findings, motivations, or thought processes are completely uniformed by a particular set of aesthetic considerations. Theories are beautiful. Designs speak to us. Mathematical formulations must be true. These convictions are developed from the same stuff as that of our musical convictions. They are one and the same.
I must say your argument resembles arguments in favor of the divine design. Specifically, I mean appealing to outstanding people as an argument. It is safe to state that effectively every outstanding creator before ~1870 had a deep faith in God and of course it affected her personality deeply. However I don't expect you to decide for yourself if God exists relying on this impressive statistics.
As for the link with mathematics, it is relevant to our discussion to mention here that I work in mathematical physics. To put it shortly, my work experience is that music has no special role in the research and definitely not in the understanding of it on the contrary to what you say. I can elaborate more if there were readers.
Let me repeat myself, I don't deny that music improves the quality of our life and can serve as an inspiration and improve the productivity as I experience it every day just like most of us. My point is different.
Hope to hear your feedback.
I believe you made two strong claims in your original post, the first being that music's "purpose" is to illicit some kind of psychological effect, perhaps in the fashion of a neurostimulant, and the second was that consuming music is not a "meaningful" activity. Your conclusion is that you find it a "waste of time" to "put conscious efforts to listen to more classical music and to educate themselves about it."
Would you mind elucidating a few things for me? What is your conception of purpose? Do you mean utility, use? Like a hammer or mathematical model? If so is not deriving relaxing states from music a use or utility? Does your conception of purpose carry ethical baggage? Does that explain why you chose the contentious extremes of drugs and sex to equate with music? If so, on what grounds should others adopt your conception of purpose and meaningfulness? Are those grounds objective?
Yes, mine are empirical, and to an extent subjective. What of it?
I assumed that making something of value for other people is what makes life meaningful. Making and shipping a product, supporting a family, writing poetry and producing music, doing research and participating in constructive discussions is meaningful for me. I assumed that some readers here share these values to some extent.
I didn't tell people what to do. I shared my view and am genuinely interested in your view on the subject. I tend to think that is why we are all here.
The way I see it is that we appreciate order, structure, logic, symmetry, yes? This is true for painting, drama, computing, nearly all art. I don't see why you make an exception for music. Maybe it's because it doesn't contain spoken language, or because it is abstract. I submit that any beauty you can derive from architecture, sculpture or industrial design, you can derive from music as well, for all of the reasons relating to the qualities I've outlined. The only difference, as you aptly put in your comparison to drugs and sex, is the "delivery mechanism" of the artistic content. Thus, I cannot see a reason to discriminate and single out listening to music as a waste of time.
I think that if more people appreciated the complexity and richness of classical music, chances are they would forgo other what I call cheap products in our world: bubblegum pop music, underdeveloped political arguments, and terribly unusable technology. Good music is on your side of intellectual achievement. Listening to and understanding good music is the mark of high artistic and intellectual standards, a good, positive willingness to explore and expand one's aesthetic horizons. I think the PRODUCT of this attitude, is far from, as you say, some kind of negative counterproductiveness, where time spent listening to music is time not spent doing science. The product of this kind of attitude is a high standard of achievement that is completely compatible with doing great science with passion and dedication. At least that's my view.
I listen to music a lot. I might even be described as an audiophile. But I recognize music for what it is: a source of pleasure, relaxation and comfort, and a social glue. I don't feel the need to make pretentious claims -- that by listening to music, I'm learning about the history of humanity, human nature, mathematics, etc. Someone on a carousel might as well claim to be studying physics.
I would never in a million years claim that music is as valuable as philosophy or science. Music simply conveys no truths, except the most trivial truths: about itself, the composer, or (in a limited way) the times he lived in. Whatever Einstein might have said, Mozart is not his equal.
It's all good and well if you use music as a tool for achieving certain beneficial mental states, akin to wine or physical exercise. But spending a large chunk of your time studying classical works, composers, etc. is a horrendous waste of time, unless you are a composer yourself. It's like studying 17-century Russian iconography or the cuisine of medieval France. Pure intellectual masturbation. There are so many unsolved problems in this world that spending your mental energy on things with no practical significance is a criminal waste of intellectual resources.
We aren't machines.
Sounds like Star Wars :)
Could you please refer me to the origin of this citation? Google gave no immediate results. I am asking not for the sake of the argument, I am genuinely interested.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/31/science/31essa.html
More can be found in the Issacson biography of Einstein, which I don't presently have on hand. Mozart's music seems to have convinced Einstein that whatever theory ultimately successfully described the cosmos would have to have a grace, succinctness, and beauty that corresponded to the grace, succinctness, and beauty of Mozart. In the case of Einstein, as I am sure you are aware, this worked to his advantage and against it; for it when he discarded superfluous ad hoc physical constructions such as the luminiferous ether in favor of c's constancy, and of course against it when he constructed the cosmological constant to satisfy his intuition that the universe was eternally static. You can say that his interpretation of Mozart's music as perfect, succinct, and eternal could have simply been a matter of his subjective feelings on the matter, and of course I would agree with you. However, I'm not sure that music's subjective nature necessarily negates its usefulness as a model for mathematical aesthetics. If Beethoven pleases me, I'll look for solutions that satisfy me in a similar fashion. If those solutions work, they work, and nobody has grounds to gainsay my assertion that musical aesthetics informed my judgment.
* By "the arts", I mean to include: acting/drama, poetry, music, visual arts, literary arts, dance, and so on.
If you get the chance to hear him before he retires (he's 68 and still going strong!), I would strongly recommend it.
He's probably the best Chopin player alive today (not that he's limited to that, but I'm not aware of anybody playing Chopin as beautiful as he does) To hear him perform live must be amazing.
Chopin's preludes are just staggeringly beautiful.