New Music!!

[Judith]

Of the pieces you listed, I've only heard (and LOVE) Barber's Adagio for Strings. It's the weekend, so I have time to go to Borders and pick up the music you suggested. I'm so excited!!!

When you hear the Rachmaninoff prelude, I think you'll understand why Peter mentioned it. I said that your piece was nothing like Rachmaninoff, but when he mentioned that piece, I thought, "But of course!"

Judith

[PalePower]

Michael,

I listened to the Don Ellis track, and then I listened to another, and then another, and then all of them, and then all of them again. If you couldn't guess.....WOW!!! That is some fantastic music! And it's so refreshing because I have...never gotten into jazz. (Probably because I've never heard that much of it.) What a pleasure! I definitely need to buy some of his work.

Speaking of which, jeez! There's so much music I need to check out now, thanks to this thread! Sadly I didn't get out to Borders, but I did download the 2nd movement of Rachmaninoff's 2nd symphony. Spring break's here - I've got shopping to do.

***

Rodney,

I do believe I know pretty much know exactly what you're talking about. (How's that for an oxymoron?) And I have to agree with you about the Lehar on youtube - that jumped out at me as soon as I started listening to it. I really don't know what produces that sort of melodic effect - whether it's the chord progression, or something about rhythm, or the actual individual sounds of the notes themselves. Sometimes when I'm fiddling around with a melody on the piano, I realize that there have been words playing along in my mind subconsciously based on the notes... like, F# has a "where"-ish sound, G is "don't", B is "plank"...or any other like-sounding word. Perhaps the trick is to model a melody both of the rhythm and literal sound of speech.

Tchaikovsky's music is a lot like that, and that's one of the reasons he's my favorite composer - the vitality of his melodies. An EXCELLENT example (and one of my all-time favorite piecesof music) is the Valse from Swan Lake. Also, the Swan Lake "Danse Espagnol" (I think it's from Swan Lake..) and the Nutcracker Pax de Deux.

I'm not as familiar with Dvorak as I'd like to be, but check out the Slavonic Dance No. 2 in e minor: Allegretto grazioso (not to be confused with No. 2 in e, Allegretto scherzando, though that one's a jewel, too). I heard that on the radio for the first time a couple of months ago and was transfixed - I believe that's another piece that contains that speaking-melody quality. If it weren't for the instruments, I'd swear a person was singing. To me the first semi-phrase sounds something like, "Then hold me in your arms" or "So what was I to think?". I picture a woman in solitude walking through a garden and it's just evening so the sky's this deep, rich velvet blue and there are stars everywhere.

***

Judith,

I am DEFINITELY heading to Borders soon. So much good music to hear!! Let's just hope my mom doesn't forbid me to go to the mall because it's Holy Week and I need to be self-sacrificing. *blech*

~Elizabeth

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

... but I did download the 2nd movement of Rachmaninoff's 2nd symphony.

Elizabeth,

It's the 3rd movement (Adagio), not the 2nd, where the huge glorious climax is.

I am pleased you like Don Ellis. To me (at least what I have heard of his work), he did jazz as it could and should be.

Michael

[Judith]

Judith,

I am DEFINITELY heading to Borders soon. So much good music to hear!! Let's just hope my mom doesn't forbid me to go to the mall because it's Holy Week and I need to be self-sacrificing. *blech*

Order it online from Amazon. Tell your mother you're reading prayers online.

Judith

[Rodney]

I really don't know what produces that sort of melodic effect [the rhetoric of melody]. Perhaps the trick is to model a melody both of the rhythm and literal sound of speech.

Tchaikovsky's music is a lot like that, and that's one of the reasons he's my favorite composer - the vitality of his melodies. An EXCELLENT example (and one of my all-time favorite pieces of music) is the Valse from Swan Lake.

I tend to think of it as mastery of the specifically musical manner of speech. (And, incidentally, I suspect that language partakes of music more than vice versa.) It's not just the ability to compose good melodies, but the ability to write melody as naturally as one might speak. In Tchaikovsky, this manifested itself in the ability not only to write good tunes, but to write ones so good as to induce awe. (Just now I am thinking of the Sleeping Beauty waltz, and the way he extends the syncopated phrases that end each section of the main tune.)

The Swan Lake waltzes are favorites of mine also. Tchaikovsky is in fact a "Waltz King" if there ever was one.

On the topic of "Waltz Kings," Lehár is considered one, but I have to admit that Strauss of Blue Danube fame has more claim to the title. After listening to this concert-waltz for a few dozen bars, one starts wondering: "Where the hell is he finding all these fantastic tunes?" And then he spins out more and more of them--and they all sound like they've been around forever. (Ayn Rand, who said she hated this composition, obviously at the time of her writing had not reached a full appreciation of this quality of melody.)

Edited April 21, 2007 by ashleyparkerangel