|
|
Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
|
posted May 11, 2017 08:08 AM |
|
|
|
Ok I understand. Critics often use complicate words to just say "is superficial" or "mannered", that way they can differ each other. From what I heard in your example, it is very mannered, in the sense that the rhythm is too often distorted then the touch is voluntarily stung and shortened, to make it sound different from what we usually know. Sometimes it is fresh and intriguing (Glenn Gould, Goulda), other times it looks like is done just for the sake of proposing something unusual. Of course, this also is a rhetorical (superficial) judgment as I only heard a small example, a more accurate review should be done when you hear at least 10-15 sonatas so you see clearly what is this musician vision on the whole range of Beethoven ways of expression.
|
|
Galaad
Hero of Order
Li mort as morz, li vif as vis
|
|
posted May 11, 2017 09:44 AM |
|
|
artu said:
Btw, who would you suggest I add to this "project" of mine, I already have:
Alfred Brendel: Full set
Andras Schiff: Full set
Annie Fischer: Full set
Artur Rubenstein: 18, 23 (1940's), 8,14,18,21,21,26
Artur Schnabel: Full set
Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli: 3
Claudio Arrau: Full set
Danieal Barenboim: Full set (EMI), Full Set (DG)
Daniel-Ben Pienaar: Full set
Emil Gilels: 8,14,23
Fazil Say: 32, 14
Freddy Kempf: 8, 14, 23
Friedrich Gulda: Full set
Glenn Gould: 1,2,3,5,6,7,8,9,10,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,23,30,31,32
Maurizio Pollini: Full set
Paul Badura-Skoda: Full set
Paul Lewis: Full set
Remi Geniet: 2,9,14,31
Richard Goode: Full set
Stephen Kovacevich: Full set
Svaitoslav Richter: 3,4,9,11,12,18,19,20,22,23,27,28,30,31,32
Vladimir Ashkenazy: Full set
Vladimir Horowitz: 14 (1946), 8,14,21,23,28
Walter Gieseking: 8,9,10,13,14
Wilhelm Kempff: Full set (1950's), Full set (1960's)
I think that's the first time I see a list including both interprets I adore and others I can't stomach. On Beethoven I like Schnabel a lot but possibly I prefer Aldo Ciccolini which I don't see in your list.
____________
|
|
artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
|
|
posted May 11, 2017 10:54 AM |
|
Edited by artu at 11:50, 11 May 2017.
|
I don't adore all of them either but I like having and comparing different approaches, I don't think any of them are delete worthy terrible. My favorites are Kempff, Annie Fischer and Kovachevich. Rubenstein is Rubenstein but he's not among my favorites when it comes to the sonatas, except maybe Appassionata's third movement. Gulda is also interesting but I prefer him on Mozart. Fischer's Moonlight third is like lightning strike, I never thought I would prefer a version to my childhood's Kempff but she's getting there. Badura-Skoda's set is interesting in another way because he uses period instruments and the sound from those pianos are really different, so, you think like "so that's how they heard it in the late 1700's.
Downloading Ciccolini now.
____________
Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
|
|
blob2
Undefeatable Hero
Blob-Ohmos the Second
|
|
posted July 13, 2017 11:05 PM |
|
Edited by blob2 at 23:17, 13 Jul 2017.
|
Shifting to another tone, I recommend a German Neo-Medival group called Corvus Corax.
They were around for quite some time (since last centuries late 80's) and are still playing. It's quite a numerous group that plays authentic instruments and creates medival music with their own twist. They also have spectacular concerts.
Their musical tones are vast, earlier creations present Central and Western Medieval Europe inspired tunes: some are traditional, lively and climatic pieces like In Taberna or Totentanz (don't mind the name  ), and others more epic with choruses (for ex Canticas) like
Hymnus Cantica, Mille Ani Passi Sunt or Sol Solo.
In recent years they tried some Nordic/Celtic themes and they've also shown their incredible talent with albums Sverker [2011] and Gimlie [2013]. Some great examples of tunes from those albums are Gjallarhorni, Ragnarok, Derdriu or Crenaid Brain.
If you like this kind of music check more of their albums, you won't be dissapointed.
PS: Fun fact - they've created the first version of the Game of Thrones famous intro theme for the pilot episode (and even played as ministrels in it), but ultimately the episode was heavily changed into first episode of the series and they were removed...
|
|
JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted November 01, 2017 03:25 PM |
|
|
|
Interesting short piece on the drumming of John Bonham and what makes it special. Quite instructive.
|
|
artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
|
|
posted November 02, 2017 08:12 AM |
|
|
I used to hear a little Gene Krupa in him but thought it was just my mind playing tricks on me. Both are similar in the sense that they almost play the drum to the point as if they wish it to be a melodical instrument.
____________
Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
|
|
JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted November 02, 2017 10:13 AM |
|
|
And I'd always been thinking that the guitar in Black Dog was playing slightly (seemingly) out of sync with the steady drum beat, but didn't really check on it. 
Anyway, what came as some sort of surprise to me was the simple summary of him playing with regard to the guitar and not the bass in the way this is usually done, (although, if you think about it, it's fairly obvious, that's why I was so surprised), which seems to be something like a logical step if you have Krupa as one of your idols, doing more than just keeping a steady beat (which is what Jimmy Page also referred to in some lengthy interview in which he stated that Led Zeppelin simply was the perfect vehicle for them all to explore their artistic aspirations, challenging them all to go over the limits).
|
|
artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
|
|
posted November 04, 2017 06:14 PM |
|
Edited by artu at 18:32, 04 Nov 2017.
|
A month ago or so, I was reading Harari’s new book, Homo Deus and I took a mind note to quote this part in here. It’s important to mention that for the sake of emphasizing the contrast between the branches, Harari oversimplifies their positions. Liberals don’t claim that their five-year-old niece’s latest clay figurine is as good as Michelangelo or socialists don’t reduce classical music to an imperial manifesto, actually if we directly take the example of Beethoven from the writer, Lenin himself said “I know of nothing better than the Appassionata and could listen to it every day. What astonishing, superhuman music! It always makes me proud, perhaps with a childish naivete, to think that people can work such miracles!” Nevertheless, the modelization is accurate in many aspects and I’d like to put this quote in here:
To make sure we understand the difference between the three humanist branches, let’s compare a few human experiences.
Experience no. 1: A musicology professor sits in the Vienna Opera House, listening to the opening of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. ‘Pa pa pa PAM!’ As the sound waves hit his eardrums, signals travel via the auditory nerve to the brain, and the adrenal gland floods his bloodstream with adrenaline. His heartbeat accelerates, his breathing intensifies, the hairs on his neck stand up, and a shiver runs down his spine. ‘Pa pa pa PAM!’
Experience no. 2: It’s 1965. A Mustang convertible is speeding down the Pacific road from San Francisco to LA at full throttle. The young macho driver puts on Chuck Berry at full volume: ‘Go! Go, Johnny, go, go!’ As the sound waves hit his eardrums, signals travel via the auditory nerve to the brain, and the adrenal gland floods his bloodstream with adrenaline. His heartbeat accelerates, his breathing intensifies, the hairs on his neck stand up, and a shiver runs down his spine. ‘Go! Go, Johnny, go, go!’
Experience no. 3: Deep in the Congolese rainforest, a pygmy hunter stands transfixed. From the nearby village, he hears a choir of girls singing their initiation song. ‘Ye oh, oh. Ye oh, eh.’ As the sound waves hit his eardrums, signals travel via the auditory nerve to the brain, and the adrenal gland floods his bloodstream with adrenaline. His heartbeat accelerates, his breathing intensifies, the hairs on his neck stand up, and a shiver runs down his spine. ‘Ye oh, oh.Ye oh, eh.’
Experience no. 4: It’s a full-moon night, somewhere in the Canadian Rockies. A wolf is standing on a hilltop, listening to the howls of a female in heat. ‘Awoooooo! Awoooooo!’ As the sound waves hit his eardrums, signals travel via the auditory nerve to the brain, and the adrenal gland floods his bloodstream with adrenaline. His heartbeat accelerates, his breathing intensifies, the hairs on his neck stand up, and a shiver runs down his spine. ‘Awoooooo! Awoooooo!’
Which of these four experiences is the most valuable? If you are liberal, you will tend to say that the experiences of the musicology professor, of the young driver and of the Congolese hunter are all equally valuable, and all should be equally cherished. Every human experience contributes something unique, and enriches the world with new meaning. Some people like classical music, others love rock and roll, and still others prefer traditional African chants. Music students should be exposed to the widest possible range of genres, and at the end of the day, everyone could go to the iTunes store, punch in their credit card number and buy what they like. Beauty is in the ears of the listener, and the customer is always right. The wolf, though, isn’t human, hence his experiences are far less valuable. That’s why the life of a wolf is worth less than the life of a human, and why it is perfectly okay to kill a wolf in order to save a human. When all is said and done, wolves don’t get to vote in any beauty contests, nor do they hold any credit cards. This liberal approach is manifested, for example, in the Voyager golden record. In 1977 the Americans launched the space probe Voyager I on a journey to outer space. By now it has left the solar system, making it the first man-made object to traverse interstellar space. Besides state-of-the-art scientific equipment, NASA placed on board a golden record, aimed to introduce planet Earth to any inquisitive aliens who might encounter the probe. The record contains a variety of scientific and cultural information about Earth and its inhabitants, some images and voices, and several dozen pieces of music from around the world, which are supposed to represent a fair sample of earthly artistic achievement. The musical sample mixes in no obvious order classical pieces including the opening movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, contemporary popular music including Chuck Berry’s ‘Johnny B. Goode’, and traditional music from throughout the world, including an initiation song of Congolese pygmy girls. Though the record also contains some canine howls, they are not part of the music sample, but rather relegated to a different section that also includes the sounds of wind, rain and surf. The message to potential listeners in Alpha Centauri is that Beethoven, Chuck Berry and the pygmy initiation song are of equal merit, whereas wolf howls belong to an altogether different category. If you are socialist, you will probably agree with the liberals that the wolf’s experience is of little value. But your attitude towards the three human experiences will be quite different. A socialist true-believer will explain that the real value of music depends not on the experiences of the individual listener, but on the impact it has on the experiences of other people and of society as a whole. As Mao said, ‘There is no such thing as art for art’s sake, art that stands above classes, art that is detached from or independent of politics.’ So when coming to evaluate the musical experiences, a socialist will focus, for example, on the fact that Beethoven wrote the Fifth Symphony for an audience of upper-class white Europeans, exactly when Europe was about to embark on its conquest of Africa. His symphony reflected Enlightenment ideals, which glorified upper-class white men, and branded the conquest of Africa as ‘the white man’s burden’. Rock and roll – the socialists will say – was pioneered by downtrodden African American musicians who drew inspiration from genres like blues, jazz and gospel. However, in the 1950s and 1960s rock and roll was hijacked by mainstream white America, and pressed into the service of consumerism, of American imperialism and of Coca-Colonisation. Rock and roll was commercialised and appropriated by privileged white teenagers in their petitbourgeois fantasy of rebellion. Chuck Berry himself bowed to the dictates of the capitalist juggernaut. While he originally sang about ‘a coloured boy named Johnny B. Goode’, under pressure from white-owned radio stations Berry changed the lyrics to ‘a country boy named Johnny B. Goode’. As for the choir of Congolese pygmy girls – their initiation songs are part of a patriarchal power structure that brainwashes both men and women to conform to an oppressive gender order. And if a recording of such an initiation song ever makes it to the global marketplace, it merely serves to reinforce Western colonial fantasies about Africa in general and about African women in particular. So which music is best: Beethoven’s Fifth, ‘Johnny B. Goode’ or the pygmy initiation song? Should the government finance the building of opera houses, rock and roll venues or African-heritage exhibitions? And what should we teach music students in schools and colleges? Well, don’t ask me. Ask the party’s cultural commissar. Whereas liberals tiptoe around the minefield of cultural comparisons, fearful of committing some politically incorrect faux pas, and whereas socialists leave it to the party to find the right path through the minefield, evolutionary humanists gleefully jump right in, setting off all the mines and relishing the mayhem. They may start by pointing out that both liberals and socialists draw the line at other animals, and have no trouble admitting that humans are superior to wolves, and that consequently human music is far more valuable than wolf howls. Yet humankind itself is not exempt from the forces of evolution. Just as humans are superior to wolves, so some human cultures are more advanced than others.There is an unambiguous hierarchy of human experiences, and we shouldn’t be apologetic about it. The Taj Mahal is more beautiful than a straw hut, Michelangelo’s David is superior to my five-year-old niece’s latest clay figurine, and Beethoven composed far better music than Chuck Berry or the Congolese pygmies. There, we’ve said it! According to evolutionary humanists, anyone arguing that all human experiences are equally valuable is either an imbecile or a coward. Such vulgarity and timidity will lead only to the degeneration and extinction of humankind, as human progress is impeded in the name of cultural relativism or social equality. If liberals or socialists had lived in the Stone Age, they would probably have seen little merit in the murals of Lascaux and Altamira, and would have insisted that they are in no way superior to Neanderthal doodles.
____________
Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
|
|
JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted November 04, 2017 09:27 PM |
|
|
Do you agree with that?
Because I don't. Wrong answers to the wrong questions.
It's a very long article that merits a very long answer, but I'm not in the mood for that. I just think that he's completely beside all points. And compares the wrong things (subjective experiences are incomparable because there is no objective position to compare the quality of subjective experiences, while the strength or quality of the SINGLE subjective experience as such doesn't allow objective conclusions with regard to the quality of what caused the experience).
Lastly, I don't think it makes sense to rate the human experience as more "valuable" than that of a wolf - again, that needs an objective position (wolves may have completely different experiences based on smell that we cannot begin to understand - there are no human olfactory pieces of art that I know of).
|
|
Salamandre
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
|
|
posted November 04, 2017 10:10 PM |
|
|
|
artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
|
|
posted November 04, 2017 10:11 PM |
|
|
Agree with whom? Harari is more like a narrator of all three positions as an observer rather than a strict advacote of one. I personally think all three positions have truth in them to some degree, liberal point is valid in the sense that art cant be quantified, socialist point is valid in the sense that tastes and ideology are interlinked, the evolutionary point is valid because the subjectivity of what constitutes quality has its limits (on this aspect I wrote a lot in this thread already a few years back, remember the Garfield/Picasso comparison.) Yet, taken to extremes they can result in Mvass, claiming there is no difference between Britney Spears and Bach, Mao with his statement in the quote above or the Nazis with their "degenerate art" cleansing. (The book also describes Nazism as a deviant, twisted version of evolutionary humanism.) I agree with the causality he detects between the ideologies and the approaches though, those are the ideological roots of the existing stances on aesthetics. Before liberalism for instance, there was no argument of "cultural relativity" and before capitalism there was no liberalism. Just like before Marx and his analysis of the dialectics between infrastructure (production) and superstructure (art, ideology, religion), there was no tradition of examining how the concept of beauty differs according to the structure of the society that produces claimed beauty. Pop as we know it can not exist without industrial mass production for instance and even the average length of a typical popular song is determined by the limitations of early records.
____________
Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
|
|
JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted November 04, 2017 10:40 PM |
|
|
I still think, it's wrong answers to the wrong questions.
There is no art without an "audience". That is - in a very extreme extrapolation of this - if god is an artist and the universe is his creation, then it becomes ART only through the act of creating an audience (humans). (Which would be an answer to why god created humans - he needed the audience that would appreciate his art.) Not that I'd believe in god, mind you.
No. What I mean is, art becomes art because of its effect on others. And that is also the reason why it's difficult to rate it. Sure, Britney Spears may have an "effect" on a lot of others who listen to their music. The question is, is the effect on adolescent teenagers comparable to the effect Beethoven has on musically educated intellectuals, and is that comparable?
Do we really WANT to compare that? Or isn't that comparing the experience a very hungry man has when offered a BigMac with that of a gourmet dining at a celebrated star chef's?
Different creations for different needs.
The Taj Mahal is nothing to compare it with a straw hut. Still, the straw hut is nothing to compare with the Taj Mahal either.
|
|
JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted November 04, 2017 10:44 PM |
|
|
Salamandre said:
Well, liberals will hardly agree with that
I don't think, I'll shed a tear because of that.
|
|
artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
|
|
posted November 04, 2017 10:48 PM |
|
|
Well, that's a fair point. If a music piece specifically targets teenage audience, you can't expect it to be some opus magnum. I guess. But a lot of great bands started out that way.
____________
Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
|
|
JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted November 04, 2017 11:00 PM |
|
|
Well, what I mean is that different things fulfill very different purposes. The Big Mac and the gala dinner, Britney and Beethoven, the Taj Mahal and the Straw Hut. These things are made for very different audiences and purposes, so there is no reason whatsoever to compare them.
Or take dressage riding and football. Sports, yes, but different audiences and different purposes. Why would you compare them and ask "what's better"?
|
|
artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
|
|
posted November 04, 2017 11:19 PM |
|
|
It is a question of aesthetics, they are not just products to be consumed, unlike the Big Mac. And in the narrative, although they have different audiences originally, they are all sent out to deep space in order to represent human achievement. Let me ask it this way, if you had shortage of room, which one would you exclude? I know you'd put Lord of Flies for a book in there but what about the song?
____________
Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
|
|
JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted November 05, 2017 09:16 AM |
|
|
These are all concepts I don't share.
Aesthetics are a very subjective thing. An anrthropod eye is something very aesthetic, imo, but if I would receive a signal from outer space involving one, while I could appreciate the aesthetics, I would also find it a bit disturbing.
Most human achievements can only be appreciated in their context. An aesthetic religious building may be appreciated because of its aesthetics and also hated because people did THAT instead of using the time, money and energy to fight poverty, save lives and so on.
We send this stuff out, hoping there are aliens receiving that, but we shouldn't send subjective stuff like that out, because they may find the stuff disgusting.
If I wanted to send the concept of music out, I'd go with the mathematics and physics of music first, follow with a couple of scales (played as vibrations, only), then come up with some simple variations and chords, played by different instruments, adding different rhythms, and then end with a few excerpts of more complex pieces. The key here is diversity. Music isn't something that has culminated, but has been diversifying. It makes no sense to pick a piece as epitome of human musical achievements.
I consider this as a flaw, this desire to crown "the best" - it's something I can't really say whether it's a flaw in human nature or whether it's something that makes money. Take one of those musical "lists", whether being it a Mojo Top 10, a Rolling Stone Top 100 or 500 or any other of those - they suck, because you will always find enough that have been done wrong by exclusion, not to mention the fact that it generally misses out on context.
It's all much more complex than that. Consider "Roll over Beethoven" - a classic Chuck Berry, a song highly regarded by basically every critic, although the message is that the time for classic music is over. I always though that the ELO version was a masterpiece, merging both, going a step further down the road. Music AS SUCH is the achievement, not a couple of single pieces.
|
|
artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
|
|
posted November 05, 2017 09:57 AM |
|
|
I prefer the Berry original in all its simplicity, the ELO version sounds plastic and I wouldnt call it a merger of the genres, it's more like there are samples of Beethoven here and there but using such samples is not exactly creating an organic combo.
I think the probability of an alien race enjoying our music would be something like 0.0000000000000000000000001 percent. At most, they would try to decode it like we do with chanting whales. But we are a specie which not only knows we'll die but also that the solar system will vanish someday, so we want to desperately leave a mark, something lasting.
____________
Are you pretty? This is my occasion. - Ghost
|
|
Galaad
Hero of Order
Li mort as morz, li vif as vis
|
|
posted November 05, 2017 10:36 AM |
|
|
JollyJoker said:
The key here is diversity.
Go tell that to bluesmen.
____________
|
|
JollyJoker
Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
|
|
posted November 05, 2017 11:58 AM |
|
|
With merge I don't mean something new, but co-exist. The message of Chuck Berry is, Rhythm & Blues (or Rock'n'Roll) is replacing classic, while the message of ELO is, hey, actually both is fine, and we can take classic parts to accentuate Rock (and vice versa).
Whether you like CB's version better or not is irrelevant in this context. (It's not like others wouldn't have used classic elements before that, say, the Beatles/George Martin, it's just the irony to take a song with that message and put Beethoven "quotes" in to accentuate the song.)
And we don't KNOW nothing of that sort that we as a species will die as well as the solar system eventually. It's too much time until the end of the natural life cycle of this solar system to predict what will ACTUALLY happen. We may all die unspectacularly from some viral disaster, from a collision with a bigger object, from mutual nuclear or more sophisticated destruction, from a hickup in solar activity, from a visit of some superior alien race or any number of comparable events - or nothing of that sort may happen, and instead we find the way into space, to a longer life and eventually to a way to transcend this way of life.
Who knows?
|
| |
|
|
This thread is pages long: 
