Ludwig van
Oct. 8th, 2002 12:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
violachicAhhhhhhhhhh, I love this man! I know Beethoven isn't always a favorite. In fact, many of my friends who are into modern music, and have studied extensivly advanced levels of theory and musicology don't care for him, or at least feel fairly apathetic towards him. But me, in my blissfully (relatively) ignorant state, I love him.
There's this part in the second movement of the third symphony- about eight minutes in- which is labeled "Marcia Funebre (funeral march)" to begin with, there is this absolutely AMAZING fugal section. It is my favorite part of the entire symphony. It goes on for maybe forty measures or so, and it is so incredibly...well... BEETHOVEN. He really likes to put down a dissonant chord as a pedal point or something and just create mountains and mountains of tension above it. Its absolutely just.... well, at times it can be just plain orgasmic.
I think one thing I find so intriguing about Beethoven's symphonies is that they remind me very much of Elizabethan sonnets. There's this form, and you have to follow a form, but within that form there is so much potential to do.... whatever. Sometimes the creator works so subtly within that form that you can't even tell by reading or listening that there IS a form to it. In fact, in rehearsal tonight thinking about this, I remembered one of my favorite sonnets of all time. Its written by a Black poet of the early 20th century named Claude McKay.
There's this part in the second movement of the third symphony- about eight minutes in- which is labeled "Marcia Funebre (funeral march)" to begin with, there is this absolutely AMAZING fugal section. It is my favorite part of the entire symphony. It goes on for maybe forty measures or so, and it is so incredibly...well... BEETHOVEN. He really likes to put down a dissonant chord as a pedal point or something and just create mountains and mountains of tension above it. Its absolutely just.... well, at times it can be just plain orgasmic.
I think one thing I find so intriguing about Beethoven's symphonies is that they remind me very much of Elizabethan sonnets. There's this form, and you have to follow a form, but within that form there is so much potential to do.... whatever. Sometimes the creator works so subtly within that form that you can't even tell by reading or listening that there IS a form to it. In fact, in rehearsal tonight thinking about this, I remembered one of my favorite sonnets of all time. Its written by a Black poet of the early 20th century named Claude McKay.
Harlem Dancer
Applauding youths laughed with young prostitutes
And watched her perfect, half-clothed body sway;
Her voice was like the sound of blended flutes
Blown by black players upon a picnic day.
She sang and danced on gracefully and calm,
The light gauze hanging loose about her form;
To me she seemed a proudly-swaying palm
Grown lovelier for passing through a storm.
Upon her swarthy neck black, shiny curls
Profusely fell; and, tossing coins in praise,
The wine-flushed, bold-eyed boys, and even the girls,
Devoured her with their eager, passionate gaze;
But, looking at her falsely-smiling face
I knew her self was not in that strange place.
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But also, I think once I've played a piece of music, rehearsed it, performed it, and really gotten INSIDE of it, it becomes a different being. My absolute favorite pieces of music to listen to are mostly stuff I've played, because I know them intimately. I know where my part lies, and when I am listening to a recording, I know where it is headed and all of that.
Does that make any sense?? If I weren't so tired I could explain it better.
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Date: 2002-10-09 08:37 am (UTC)that's DEFINITELY the case with me and choral music. I enjoy singing it, but as a rule I dont enjoy listening to it unless I've sung it.
exception: contemporary music. (cant say 20th century anymore.....bummer)
obviously I cant really get inside an orchestral piece like that, though....
and songs are a different bird entirely......even opera arias......the choruses?.....see choral music, above.
Re:
Date: 2002-10-09 07:52 pm (UTC)