Canonists: from Handel’s Messiah 1742 to Mahler’s Ninth 1912
Baroque-First: before 1750 all is good, after it is, okay, they guess
Symphonists: from the Eroica 1805 to Shostakovich 11 1957
Omnivores: more or less everything
Classical-Era Skeptics: like Ominvores except everything between Bach and Beethoven
Everyone loves the nineteenth-century symphony and concerto
Everyone.
Except me.
I’m an Anti-Splendid Noise-ist
The big-band symphony and concerto, from after Beethoven to Shostakovich’s 15th, is a splendid noise. It does not have a tune, but it may have a `theme’, which is something half-way between a proper tune and a random collection of notes. There is no rhythm: compared to Sibelius, Bach swung, and that was because many of his pieces were based on dances. Those horns and strings frantically bowing and blaring fortissimo make the expression of any nuanced emotion impossible. Thrills and chills maybe, but not actual emotion. For five minutes or fifty, be it Shostakovich, Holst (except the Planets), Brahms, or Ernst Moeran, there are too many passages where the whole orchestra are bowing and puffing flat out and I find it impossible to hear what anyone is doing. It is one big monophonic modge.
Some of this is basic audio theory. Bass notes are perceived, for the same amount of energy, as quieter than treble notes. If the mid-range horns are giving it some welly, the bases and cellos may as well lay out. All they do is muddy the soundstage. Similarly, wind instruments are 10db louder at their natural playing level than violins and violas - which is why an orchestra has all those strings. A flautist hardly needs to strain her breath to be heard over the entire first and second violins at maximum effort. How many times have you looked at the violas sawing away energetically and wondered what they are playing? I’ll ask an easier question. When have you ever heard the what the violas are playing?
There are stories about conductors who stood on their rostrum with the orchestra at full tilt and called a halt to admonish the third second violin from the left for entering late and flat. Maybe there’s something acoustically special about standing on the rostrum, maybe some people really can do that. Or maybe it’s a trick conductors do to psych the orchestra. After all, nobody can hear what the third second violin from the left was playing. Not even her.
Big-band symphonies are not written with an ear to what the person in seat AA15 was going to hear. Except Mahler. Watch the orchestra at a Mahler concert, and when you see the basses sawing away, you can hear what they are doing. Individual woodwind and brass stand out against minimal clean backgrounds, and when he hits you with the full orchestra, it’s not often, and with a coherent theme and tone. Mahler was an early sound designer. Also, he applied the practice of composers from the early baroque to Beethoven. In that tradition, when one part of the orchestra, or a soloist, is carrying the tune or showing off, the rest of the orchestra backs off, providing chords to define the harmony.
Maybe I don’t have the ears or the concentration to hear romantic and later symphonies. There are moments here and there I like, and Classic FM plays all of them. I have tried. And tried. And tried. Dvorak, Sibelius, Nielsen, Tchiachovsky, Elgar, Shostakovich; Sir George Dyson, Francis Chagrin and Sir Hamilton Harty (oh, I left no stone unturned) …. and I gave up.
I like early church music; all the Baroque; the classical period (hold the Mozart); Beethoven, Louise Farrenc, Johann Kalliwoda, Camille Saint-Saens and Mahler; the Impressionists; Stravinsky, Bartok and Les SIx; some modernists (e.g. Toru Takamitsu), but no serialists; the minimalists. And do not doubt my musical bon fides: I was there at John Ogdon’s 1988 South Bank performance of Opus Clavicembalisticum. Look it up and be suitably awed.
Oh. And no opera, or lieder. My collection is a soprano- and tenor- free zone. Except Glière’s Concerto for Coloratura Soprano.
Is there anyone else out there who feels the same way?
Everyone loves the nineteenth-century symphony and concerto
Everyone.
Except me.
I’m an Anti-Splendid Noise-ist
The big-band symphony and concerto, from after Beethoven to Shostakovich’s 15th, is a splendid noise. It does not have a tune, but it may have a `theme’, which is something half-way between a proper tune and a random collection of notes. There is no rhythm: compared to Sibelius, Bach swung, and that was because many of his pieces were based on dances. Those horns and strings frantically bowing and blaring fortissimo make the expression of any nuanced emotion impossible. Thrills and chills maybe, but not actual emotion. For five minutes or fifty, be it Shostakovich, Holst (except the Planets), Brahms, or Ernst Moeran, there are too many passages where the whole orchestra are bowing and puffing flat out and I find it impossible to hear what anyone is doing. It is one big monophonic modge.
Some of this is basic audio theory. Bass notes are perceived, for the same amount of energy, as quieter than treble notes. If the mid-range horns are giving it some welly, the bases and cellos may as well lay out. All they do is muddy the soundstage. Similarly, wind instruments are 10db louder at their natural playing level than violins and violas - which is why an orchestra has all those strings. A flautist hardly needs to strain her breath to be heard over the entire first and second violins at maximum effort. How many times have you looked at the violas sawing away energetically and wondered what they are playing? I’ll ask an easier question. When have you ever heard the what the violas are playing?
There are stories about conductors who stood on their rostrum with the orchestra at full tilt and called a halt to admonish the third second violin from the left for entering late and flat. Maybe there’s something acoustically special about standing on the rostrum, maybe some people really can do that. Or maybe it’s a trick conductors do to psych the orchestra. After all, nobody can hear what the third second violin from the left was playing. Not even her.
Big-band symphonies are not written with an ear to what the person in seat AA15 was going to hear. Except Mahler. Watch the orchestra at a Mahler concert, and when you see the basses sawing away, you can hear what they are doing. Individual woodwind and brass stand out against minimal clean backgrounds, and when he hits you with the full orchestra, it’s not often, and with a coherent theme and tone. Mahler was an early sound designer. Also, he applied the practice of composers from the early baroque to Beethoven. In that tradition, when one part of the orchestra, or a soloist, is carrying the tune or showing off, the rest of the orchestra backs off, providing chords to define the harmony.
Maybe I don’t have the ears or the concentration to hear romantic and later symphonies. There are moments here and there I like, and Classic FM plays all of them. I have tried. And tried. And tried. Dvorak, Sibelius, Nielsen, Tchiachovsky, Elgar, Shostakovich; Sir George Dyson, Francis Chagrin and Sir Hamilton Harty (oh, I left no stone unturned) …. and I gave up.
I like early church music; all the Baroque; the classical period (hold the Mozart); Beethoven, Louise Farrenc, Johann Kalliwoda, Camille Saint-Saens and Mahler; the Impressionists; Stravinsky, Bartok and Les SIx; some modernists (e.g. Toru Takamitsu), but no serialists; the minimalists. And do not doubt my musical bon fides: I was there at John Ogdon’s 1988 South Bank performance of Opus Clavicembalisticum. Look it up and be suitably awed.
Oh. And no opera, or lieder. My collection is a soprano- and tenor- free zone. Except Glière’s Concerto for Coloratura Soprano.
Is there anyone else out there who feels the same way?
