Inside the World of Classical Music (eBook)

205 Illuminating Mini-Essays

Miles Hoffman (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2019 | 1. Auflage
200 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
978-1-5439-9777-4 (ISBN)

Infos

The mini-essays in this book are drawn from the South Carolina Public Radio program A Minute with Miles. Personal, down to earth, often funny, always fascinating-since 2011 the 'Minutes' have been brilliantly illuminating the world of classical music and taking us into that world. What do musicians think about while performing, and what are their nightmares? What is it about Bach's sacred music that speaks to people of different religions, or of no religion, and what does Mozart's character Don Giovanni teach us about truth in music? What should you say to a performer after a dreadful performance, when you have to say something? And what music would you definitely not want with you if you were stranded on a desert island? As you read the mini-essays you'll find the answers to these questions and many more, and your delightful musical journey will be filled with insights and discoveries.

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In 2011, I began writing and recording a series of public radio modules called "e;A Minute with Miles."e; The "e;Minutes"e; are produced by South Carolina Public Radio, and they've been broadcast in South Carolina, North Carolina, and a number of other states. This book consists of a selection of the "e;mini-essays"e; I've written for "e;A Minute with Miles."e; As I prepared the book I revised many of the essays and added new material. The mini-essays in Inside the World of Classical Music are divided into four broad sections:1. Classical Music2. Composers3. Performers and Performing4. InstrumentsWithin these sections, expect to find the unexpected -- a collection of insights, information, observations, and stories from the world of classical music that you won't find anywhere else.

Textauszug

I. CLASSICAL MUSIC

Classical Music

It remains a struggle to define the term “classical music.” Some people call it “concert music,” which seems a little too broad, or “art music,” a little too exclusive, or “serious music,” which is an insult to every other kind of music. It’s often easier to say what classical music is not: it’s not any one of the countless different styles of music that fall in the general category of “pop” music. Recently, though, I heard a definition that I like: “text-based music.” The presence of a composed musical text, and the required fidelity to the details of that text, are in fact the central features of classical music. And where a text exists, the music has no expiration date. Interpretations of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, for example, may change. But the text of the music, the notes themselves, will remain unchanged forever, which is why the music as Beethoven composed it can endure forever.

Music and Time

We know that music can give meaning to time: if all the interwoven elements in a piece of music mean something—if they remind, reflect, comfort, inspire, or excite—then by definition the time it takes for them to do all that will mean something, too. When I played in the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C., years ago, I used to have a little joke. Before we began a lengthy symphony, I’d turn to my colleague on stage and say, “See you in 45 minutes.” A piece of music must take a certain amount of time; there’s no way around it. But within that self-contained fragment of time, within that separate little world of music—if it’s good music—time can be spent, saved, arranged, and manipulated so that the passage of time makes sense, so that the time itself is meaningful.

Pieces, Not Parts

It’s hard to write a good piece of music, a piece whose elements fit together in ways that make sense, that keep our interest, and that leave us feeling that the time spent listening has been worthwhile. I once asked the composer Max Raimi what he thought of a certain other composer’s music. He replied that her music had interesting sounds, textures, and moments, but that it tended to lack three things that he considered very important: a beginning, a middle, and an end. The novelist Joseph Conrad once wrote that human beings have as great a need for narrative as for breath. But our need for narrative is not restricted to the realm of literature, and when we listen to a piece of music, the only reason we’re going to care in the least about where we are now, is if we have a sense that where we are now follows in some discernible way from where we’ve been, and if our interest is piqued as to where we may be going. I suppose you could make the case that life itself is nothing but a series of moments, some related, some not. But even if that rather limited description is true for life, it’s not a recipe for compelling music. And I don’t know about you, but when I read a review saying that a piece is constructed of ‘shimmering hazes of sound,’ or ‘a parade of fascinating effects,’ or ‘random rhythmic bursts and captivating colors,’ I’m usually pretty sure that it’s a piece I’m not terribly interested in hearing. All good pieces contain captivating sounds or colors of one kind or another. But “parts is parts,” to quote an old hamburger commercial, and good composers write coherent pieces, not collections of interesting materials. Many years ago I brought an ill-fitting suit home from college. My father took one look, chuckled, and said, “That’s a nice piece of material. It’s too bad somebody didn’t make a suit out of it.”

“Soothing” Music

When “classical” public radio stations surveyed their audiences some years back, the most common answer to the question, “Why do you listen to classical music?” was, “Because it’s soothing.” Now think of Beethoven for a moment, the man whose very name defines “classical music” for many people. He wrote music that sends the soul soaring, that plumbs the depths of human despair, that shatters silence with violent assaults. Beethoven’s Fifth, for example, is many things, but soothing? Well, “soothing” sometimes does just mean soothing—a few moments of Moonlight, perhaps, after a Twilight of the Gods kind of day. But my theory is that what people most often really mean by “soothing” is “reassuring.” Great classical music is reassuring in that listeners know that their musical expectations will be fulfilled; that there remains order, beauty, dependability, familiarity, and meaning in our disturbed and disturbing world.

Taste vs. Judgment, Good Pieces vs. Bad

We tend to be reluctant these days to say that one piece of music is better than another or that one composer is better than another. Often this reluctance is a good thing, especially if the ranking serves no useful purpose, and because “better” is sometimes hard to define. But sometimes the reluctance is a mistake, and it’s a mistake based on confusing taste with judgment. You’re certainly free, for example, to prefer the works of Antonio Salieri to those of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, if that’s your taste. But if you say that Salieri is a better composer than Mozart, you’re simply wrong. And you’re not wrong based on taste, you’re wrong based on the combined judgment of countless experts and countless audiences. Molière once said, “Anyone can be an honorable man, and yet write verse badly.” Well, no one would dispute that there are many honorable men and women who write music. But if there are such things as “good pieces” or “great pieces,” then there must also be such things as bad pieces. There must be pieces that don’t work very well or don’t work at all, pieces that don’t offer much even to the most open-minded and honorable of music lovers. The passage of time can certainly help give perspective. Do you agree with the judgment that the two greatest composers of the late Baroque period were Bach and Handel? Well, that means, unavoidably, that the rest of the late Baroque composers were less great. And some weren’t very good at all. But it’s worth remembering that we don’t have to apply our judgment only to composers who are dead.

Density of Brilliance

A scientist I know was talking about great works of literature, and she said that what characterized them was a “density of brilliance.” What a wonderful phrase. And how perfect, too, for great works of music. In any five minutes, or any two minutes, of a musical masterpiece we can find a veritable parade of brilliant ideas. What’s interesting is that the brilliant ideas don’t always sound brilliant. Sometimes they just sound right. Absolutely right. And even inevitable. But they weren’t inevitable. They were inventions, and they were choices, and in each and every case they started out as blank spaces on composition paper. We sometimes forget, I think, that at every single moment in the composition of a piece a composer has to choose what comes next from an infinite array of invented possibilities. The choices of great composers always seem to have been inevitable—and that’s what makes those composers great.

Listening to Classical Music

Different people listen to classical music in different ways and for different reasons. Some people have it on in their homes during meals, some while they’re relaxing or in order to relax, and some all the time. Some people like to have classical music on in the background while they’re working, and some people absolutely can’t work that way, and only want to hear classical music when they can pay close attention, whether it’s at home or in a concert hall. And the same people will listen to music in different ways and for different reasons depending on when and where they’re listening. Those of us who play classical music for a living sometimes get a little huffy at the thought of people “relaxing” to great music. But that’s when we need to check our PCMSQs—our Personal Classical Music Snootiness Quotients—and remind ourselves that there’s no single right way to listen to classical music. Our needs and intentions naturally vary in different situations, and everyone is entitled to listen in one way at one time and in another way at another. People listen to classical music in elevators, it’s true; but couples kiss in elevators, too, and at airport ticket counters, and I doubt it would occur to those couples that they’ve exhausted all the possibilities for kissing.

Empathy

Why is it that when we’re feeling sad, or lonely, or downright miserable, we’re usually drawn to music that somehow reflects our mood, rather than music that might jar us out of it? Personally, I think in our darker moods, we’re not looking to be told that everything’s really just fine in this bright and shiny world and that we needn’t, or shouldn’t, be feeling the way we do. We try not to tell our children that their feelings are “wrong,” so why should we tell...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 20.12.2019
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Musik
• ISBN-10: 1-5439-9777-5 / 1543997775
• ISBN-13: 978-1-5439-9777-4 / 9781543997774