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General Asylum General audio topics that don't fit into specific categories. |
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General Asylum General audio topics that don't fit into specific categories. |
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In Reply to: RE: You never understood classical music posted by Teresa on July 3, 2012 at 18:15:55:
What an interesting term "absolute music" is. I've always thought of non-program music as, well, just music. But it seems a useful term.
In any case, for me, the divide isn't along the lines of program vs. non-program music, since I like both, e.g., you mentioned the Four Seasons, Beethoven's Sixth, and I'd add to the list of my program music likes the works of Schumann.
It seems to me that the difference between these works and the works of someone like Mahler is that they're intellectually rigorous. Mahler is too simple for me, too lacking in mathematical wit, and so I find his work boring.
The kind of understanding to which I referred by the way isn't book learning. It's intuitive right hemisphere understanding, as opposed to the analytical left hemisphere understanding upon which a musician relies (in a famous study, it was found that musicians rely on their left hemisphere when listening to music, while non-musicians rely on their right). So it isn't something that develops as a result of training. Rather, it seems to develop as a consequence of listening in childhood. I think it's rather like our natural understanding of language, as opposed to the intellectual understanding that is conferred by a study of grammar, rhetoric, and formal writing skills. And I have the sense that, as with language, it is best developed through listening in early childhood. A child has to learn a language before the age of 10 to speak it without an accent. A child has to be exposed to the note values before the age of five to develop perfect pitch. So I think that children have to be exposed to great music to develop the greatest possible mastery. Even a great genius like Tchaikovsky can have holes in his musical understanding if he isn't exposed to a form in childhood. Tchaikovsky never understood Bach or Brahms, and was never able to effectively use structure in his music, because, I suspect, he wasn't exposed to the great German masters until he was too old.
But in one sense I'm not sure I agree with your assessment of program vs. "absolute" music. It seems to me that absolute music takes me on as much of an emotional journey as program music does. The nature of that journey seems to have evolved over time, from the almost timeless quality of medieval chant to the peripatetic motion of the late romantic works. I think my favorite works sit at the nexus of form and romantic storytelling -- mostly from the late baroque to the early romantic periods, though there were composers who led or lagged, e.g., Monteverdi and Brahms.
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Follow Ups
- RE: You never understood classical music - josh358 06:07:55 07/04/12 (7)
- You bring up interesting--even important--concepts, yet your understanding is incomplete, therefore misleading - willkayakforfood 10:11:18 07/04/12 (6)
- RE: You bring up interesting--even important--concepts, yet your understanding is incomplete, therefore misleading - josh358 12:18:27 07/04/12 (5)
- Perfect pitch is a nonsense in the context of equalised temperament - Timbo in Oz 16:12:23 07/05/12 (1)
- RE: Perfect pitch is a nonsense in the context of equalised temperament - josh358 17:02:14 07/05/12 (0)
- RE: You bring up interesting--even important--concepts, yet your understanding is incomplete, therefore misleading - Raymond Leggs 15:55:04 07/04/12 (2)
- Graet work happens in all genres, but the =se are almost universally multimple close mono-miked recordings - Timbo in Oz 16:40:08 07/04/12 (0)
- RE: You bring up interesting--even important--concepts, yet your understanding is incomplete, therefore misleading - josh358 16:27:11 07/04/12 (0)
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