Slightly off-topic

During the semester we have at times talked about the money woes of many composers. The link below shows us the earnings of a successful composer, the Finnish Jean Sibelius. Sibelius's estate still pays out to Finnish composers. On the chart - earnings are in green, debts in red.
http://www.sibelius.fi/english/erikoisaiheet/raha/raha_01.htm

Exploring the site also demonstrates Sibelius's taste in cigars and spirits.

rhapsody in blue

I'd never listened to Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue in its entirety before tonight, and I just felt compelled to say how cool it was. I especially liked the virtuosic piano solo that starts at about 15:14, which is a serious contender against that crazy bit in Bach's Brandenburg no. 5 mvt. 1. (:

Plus, if anyone's ever watched Jeux d'Enfants, there's a little double three-note ascending figure in Rhapsody that really reminded me of the main theme of the movie. try 11:30 or 12:26 to hear what i'm talking about...

Oliver Sacks Talk

At the Music Hum lecture today, Oliver Sacks mentioned that Brahms' music was religious in nature but that Brahms himself was an atheist. Upon a few Google searches, I've learned that Brahms' religious beliefs are more ambiguous and unclear. Assuming that he was an atheist, or that he was nonobservant, this relates to a question that we discussed earlier this semester: if music does not arouse the feelings in the listener that were originally intended, has the composer failed? alternatively, is it possible for music to arouse feelings that the composer him/herself did not feel when creating/conducting the music? What do you all think?

Check out this essay on Google Books written by our friend Schoenberg for more on Brahms and his interactions with other composers of his time.

Rite of Spring

YouTube provides us with video of a reconstruction of the Rite of Spring ballet. It was broadcast on PBS many years ago and has never been released commercially.
Enjoy it:
Part 1

Part 2


Part 3

Wagner’s Problematization of Traditional Harmony

Wagner disregards the harmony of the Baroque and Classical periods epitomized by Bach and Haydn, each of whom helped to establish the reigning traditional form of harmony. Thus, his unique style of composing create a confusion of sorts within the classical genre.

His concept of the all-encompassing Gesamtkunstwerk and the notion of endless melody rather than periodic cadences complicate the idea of music as performance and minimizes the achievements of his predecessors. Tristan und Isolde successfully represents the human striving to surpass the material world (day), and to reach the enlightened and eternal world of the spirit (night).

Wagner's use of various leitmotifs, particularly the friction created by the “Tristan Chord,” demonstrates the flexibility of musical modes of expression.

Wagner's Ring

I want to alert you all to a radio program from WNYC and the inimitable Radiolab about Wagner's Ring - it's not the best, but it does give you an overview about the operas, leitmotives and Wagner's conception of theater.
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2008/01/01

Wednesday's Quartet

I missed class on Wednesday. Can anyone tell me about the quartet? What was it like?

schumann's dichterliebe

What I like most about this song cycle, is the way the lieds ends.

#16 'Old Angry Songs' betrays deep sadness and resignation in its lingering end, after all the sarcasm and fury of the verses. The three attempts to reach a (major) cadence starting in the fourth minute are really very sad and sweet.

I also really like #13, "Nightly I see you in my dreaming", it tapers off rather suddenly and into spotty moments of silence and little minor triads. I thought there was a problem with the recording at first, haha, but in any case, if he was trying to convey that bitter post-dream feeling, but also the self-reassurance that the dream is over, I think he did it really effectively.

Maybe this song-cycle is the inverse of Monteverdi - rather than trite word-painting, Schumann's Dichterliebe expresses in music what is sufficiently alluded to in the text, but still left unsaid.