how to listen to music if you don’t know your Beethoven from your Bach, X
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Category: Mozart
March 2, 2023
how to listen to music if you don’t know your Beethoven from your Bach, IX
“The Spanish Guitarist” (1897)
____________
just as I was about to relegate the trill
to Mozart and the Classical Period, I
inadvertently came upon something
wonderful by Joaquín Rodrigo, a
Spanish composer, 1901 – 1999, a
concerto for guitar
the trill had been decorative, meant to
appeal to aristocrats frequenting
salons
then the French Revolution happened,
and the growth of the Middle Class,
and consequently popular avenues
of entertainment for the liberated,
concert halls, for instance, looked
for a more emotionally powerful
experience, arpeggios took care of
that
the trill died
but in 1939, nearly two centuries
later, Rodrigo wrote his Concierto
de Aranjuez, a descendent pays
homage to an elder, trills abound
it should be stated that a guitar can
play only one note at a time, it might
be that trills lend themselves better
to such an instrument than an
arpeggio would
then again, I’ve found that Spanish
music, the tango, the tarantella, for
instance, see above, has held more
rigidly to the imperatives of Western
music I’ve spoken of here before,
tempo, tonality, repetition, it is not
Debussy, Ravel, it is not even
Chopin, it is peripheral, maybe, to
the cultural establishment, but
potent, steeped in blood and
tradition
here’s Rodrigo giving you Mozart
enjoy
R ! chard
February 26, 2023
how to listen to music if you don’t know your Beethoven from your Bach, Vlll
“Polonaise” (1934)
Konstantin Korovin
________
cause the pickings are slim among the
shared musical formats between Mozart
and Chopin, Mozart, for instance,
composed eighteen piano sonatas to
Chopin’s mere three, Chopin’s First
even having been more or less
disregarded since for being promising
maybe, but not at all inspired, where
Mozart meanwhile also wrote 27 piano
concertos to Chopin’s only two, though
both, his, entirely mighty
Chopin, however, pretty well establishes
the nocturne, the scherzo, the prelude,
the étude, the polonaise, the mazurka
as musical forms, while Mozart never
establishes a thing, apart from his own
supreme talent
but here are a couple of fantasias that
they both share, Mozart’s Fantasia
no 3 in D minor, of four, Chopin’s
Polonaise-fantaisie in A-flat major,
Opus 61, Chopin blending here his
fantaisie to the beat of a polonaise,
a dance form of his native Poland,
see above
listen for trills in the Mozart, which
admittedly show up only near the
end of the piece, otherwise he
sounds a lot like, I’ll admit, Chopin
listen for arpeggios in the Chopin
a follow-up exercise in listening,
trills, notably, up against arpeggios
consider, enjoy
R ! chard
February 16, 2023
how to listen to music if you don’t know your Beethoven from your Bach, Vll (cont.)
“The Music Lesson” (c.1769)
Jean-Honoré Fragonard
_______________
having spent too much time, perhaps,
giving context, from Classicism to
Romanticism, in my last communication,
brought on by the worlds that open up
to me when l Iisten to this kind of music,
rather than imparting specific information
about how to sharpen one’s aesthetic
sensitivity, about listening rather than
just hearing, this time I’ll get technical,
if you’ll allow, with the help of the same
two pieces, Mozart’s 16th piano sonata,
Chopin’s 3rd, how are they different,
how are they similar, how do they
compare
first, similarities, they are both sonatas,
pieces of music consisting of more than
one segment of music, traditionally, three
or four, Mozart here has three, Chopin
four
Chopin doesn’t diverge from the trinity
of imperatives that Mozart set up
during the Classical period, tempo,
tonality, and repetition, the pace of
the music remains constant within
the parameters established by the
directions at the top of the page,
an adagio doesn’t change its beat
throughout the movement for either,
nor would an andante, a presto, an
allegretto
this will change
neither does any element of the
music produce discords, tonality
remains mellifluous throughout
for both, lilting, harmonious ever,
even often, in either, enchanting
this will also change
and everywhere, a flight of musical
invention will eventually return to
its original source, and you find
that you’ve come back from a sonic
adventure to home base, where the
whole thing starts all over again,
repetition, a condition considered
essential, until relatively recently,
to the definition of music
this will also change
but how are they different
listen to the decoration, Mozart
applies trills to individual notes,
a flutter of adjacent tonalities
to set the central one off, like
glitter, the twitter of birds
punctuating, here and there,
the stillness of a forest
Chopin colours his entire
keyboard with arpeggios rather,
runs up and down the scales,
turning melodies into not only
delights, but stepping stones to
entirely other dimensions,
extrapolations from the original
tune, seemingly spontaneous
evolutions, the first burgeonings,
incidentally, of jazz, before returning,
notably, to his original air, much as
Mozart does, to his core statement,
fulfilling the Classical requirement
of repetition
here’s Mozart, trilling
here’s Chopin, arpeggiating
how to tell your Chopin from your
Mozart, how to sharpen your
aesthetic sensibility, listen, listen
R ! chard
February 11, 2023
how to listen to music if you don’t know your Beethoven from your Bach, Vll
“The Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog” (1818)
Caspar David Friedrich
_____________
by now, if you’ve been listening,
you’ll probably easily tell your
Chopin from your Mozart, even
without looking
if not, the one who isn’t Mozart
is Chopin, the one who isn’t
Chopin is Mozart, cause you’re
likely to recognize the one if not
the other
here’s Mozart’s Piano Sonata
no 16 in C major, K. 545, from
1788, which even Mozart
deemed “for beginners”, but
its very elementary qualities
suit, here, my purposes
here’s Chopin’s Piano Sonata
no 3 in B minor, Op. 58, 1844,
some sixty years later, the
epitome of the Romantic Era
Mozart is Classical, the foundation
of the shape and sound of music
in the West, think of Oriental music,
Chinese, for instance, opera, as an
alternative inspirational direction
he sets, along with Haydn, incidentally,
the parameters of Western music, I
call it its grammar, tempo, tonality,
and repetition, its hallmarks, its sine
qua non, as we say in Latin, its trinity
of imperatives, its without which there
would be no Western music as we
know it
Romanticism, after two revolutions,
the French and the American, comes
along to turn all of that into literature,
prompted by the spirit of democracy,
the first expressions of it since Caesar,
Ancient Rome, where earlier,
everywhere, kings had ruled, and by
extension, even more autocratically,
the Church, for monarchs had
received, morally, and consequently
politically, from it, their mandates
from God
one man, one vote, even theoretically,
upended that entire metaphysical
construct, therefore Romanticism
everyone had a voice, everyone had
a story, the birth of the individual,
and of, by extension, human rights,
for better or for worse, see above
therefore Chopin
listen, Chopin is the new Jesus,
prophet, but for a new age
stay tuned
R ! chard
February 7, 2023
how to listen to music if you don’t know your Beethoven from your Bach, Vl
“The Potato Eaters” (1885)
Vincent van Gogh
___________
where do you start with Chopin, he is
in our Western cultural bloodstream,
as identifiable in music as, say, van
Gogh is in painting, you don’t need
to be interested in any kind of art to
have not been given even only a
whiff of these iconic artists
nearly anything I might present here
of Chopin you’ve probably already
heard somewhere before, if only in
bits
of van Gogh, well, he goes back in
the public imagination to at least
Vincent, 1971, the song, no one
doesn’t know about him, when I
heard it playing in Amsterdam at
the museum, with the first piece I
saw, The Potato Eaters, dominating
the first wall, insisting on van Gogh’s
vision, his prophecy, his profound
compassion, I cried, I understood
what art is, see above
Chopin exerts a different kind of,
however equally potent, magic
Mozart might sound like Haydn,
Beethoven might sound like
Schubert, all of the Impressionists
sound like all of the Impressionists,
be they Ravel, Debussy, Satie, or
Saint-Saëns, to the untrained ear
but no one sounds like Chopin,
he’s, culturally, a North Star
here’s one of his nocturnes, the
moonlit one, in E flat major
here’s a polonaise, here’s an étude,
in English, a study, a finger exercise,
an iconic, here, prestidigitation
here’s an impromptu, his very,
indeed, Fantaisie-Impromptu, just
to get your categories going
consider its construction, having
some information already about
fantasias, a work of the imagination,
open to any experimentation within
the confines of one movement, with
an impromptu, something purported
to have been created on the spot,
also in one movement
the answer requires you to sharpen
your aesthetic pencil, always a
delight – an impromptu, a
spontaneous invention, a fantaisie,
a work of the imagination, how do
they differ, which part is a fantaisie,
which an impromptu, how do they
nevertheless coalesce
this exercise is the first step in
listening
enjoy
R ! chard
January 29, 2023
how to listen to music if you don’t know your Beethoven from your Bach, lV
“Fantasy“
Sergey Solomko
________
trying to find a quick piece, nothing
ostentatious, like a symphony, or a
concerto, nor even a sonata, that
would get in the way of my point,
the difference between, by way of
the intermediary, and transformational,
Chopin, Mozart and Prokofiev, I found
the fantasia, the only musical form
that was carried forward, among them,
during the intervening years, a good
hundred and fifty, Mozart, 1756 – 1791,
Prokofiev, 1891 – 1953, Chopin, 1810 –
1849
what’s a fantasia, a musical form
consisting of one movement,
no breaks, but with, otherwise,
unlimited compositional liberties,
see above, only circumscribed by
the temper of the times
Western music has since its
Classical inception, and even
earlier, had a trinity of
commandments, that regulated,
even defined, what was meant
to be music, tempo, tonality,
and repetition, the history of
music in the West is the
chipping away at those
conventions
here’s Mozart, Fantasia in C
minor, K.475, establishing the
form, but also the foundation,
the grammar, that aspirants
would follow in the footsteps
of so great a master, children
and grandchildren of their
erudite elder
Chopin followed, here’s his
Fantasy in F minor, Op.49,
in this instance, a historical
moment you won’t want to
miss, when Van Cliburn, an
enemy American at the time,
played it for Nikita Kruschev,
First Secretary of the Communist
Party of the Soviet Union then, in
Moscow, and tempered thereby,
for an incandescent moment –
ticker-tape parades in New York
City ensued – the very Cold War
reliving it, I cried
the greatest difference between
Mozart and Chopin, I thought,
was volume, a consequence
of the development of the piano,
Mozart never gets as loud, also
tempo was much more expanded,
again a development of the piano,
neither was repetition with Chopin
so much in evidence, but shrouded,
less manifest
also Chopin wears his heart on
his sleeve, idiosyncratically
with Prokofiev, his Fantasia on
Themes from Scheherazade
tests tonality, gives us musical
conjunctions that are askew,
discordant, though completely
in syncopation with his own,
testy and unsettled, times
compare, consider, enjoy
R ! chard
January 24, 2023
how to listen to music if you don’t know your Beethoven from your Bach, lll
“Flowering Garden in Spring” (1920)
Henri Martin
_______
violin sonatas, apart from a few notable
exceptions, are accompanied by, usually,
a piano
the violin, as do a great many other
instruments, can only play one note
at a time, the piano can play as many
as you’ve got fingers, a harmonization
is a valued component of any musical
composition, therefore the piano
here’s a violin sonata of Mozart, here’s
a violin sonata of Prokofiev, you’ll
recognize Mozart, he’s the one you’ve
already got in your bones, the one we
grew up with, however ephemerally,
peripherally
Prokofiev is the other one
let me point out that Mozart is foursquare,
the music is straightforward, tonality and
pace, which is to say tempo, are never
eccentric, just delightful, while repetition,
another defining element of Classical
music, the recurrence of a theme, is
unmistakable, and often too often
reiterated, we get it, we want to
tell Mozart
Prokofiev is no longer any of those
things, but the underlying vocabulary
is the same, the rules set out by the
forefathers but extrapolated, turned
into unexpected, exotic flowers, just
as spring delivers its ever distinct,
and surprising, even astonishing,
blossoms every new year, see
above
we are so very blessed
R ! chard
January 17, 2023
how to listen to music if you don’t know your Beethoven from your Bach, cont.
The Stolen Kiss (1788)
Jean-Honoré Fragonard
_____________
if you listened to the couple of pieces I
recommended in my last commentary,
you would’ve indeed recognized, if
even only subconsciously, that the
first work wasn’t composed by the
composer of the other, that different
spirits infused either
a visual representation of the same
thing might be to juxtapose a
contemporary painting of the one
epoch with a corresponding painting
of the other
over a hundred years had passed
between Mozart and Prokofiev,
Mozart’s Piano Sonata no 18, K576
– his last piano sonata, incidentally,
he died a short two years later –
was written in 1789, the year of the
French Revolution, a still safe
distance from Vienna, where
Mozart could still cater to an,
however endangered, species
Jean-Honoré Fragonard, a contemporary
painter, 1732 – 1806, had been doing the
same thing, The Stolen Kiss, 1788, for
instance, a mere year earlier, see above
meanwhile, over a hundred years later,
inches only away from the First World
War, Matisse is doing in art what
Prokofiev is doing in music, taking the
temperature of his own time, Seated
Riffian (1911 –1912) – a Riffian, a Berber,
a North African tribesman – see below,
to corroborate Prokofiev’s equally
emblematic vision of their shared era
you can hear this in the music
mostly through the difference in the use
of volume, languorous softs, thunderous
louds, but also in the more expansive use
of pace, fast, slow, the rapidity of some
notes, the embrace, the extended caress,
of others, in the later composition
which, in a word, follows the development
of the piano from harpsichord to the
instrument we’re used to today
Mozart still had the harpsichord in his ear,
he was writing for the fortepiano, which
evolved, through the pianoforte, to the
piano we know of today, no flexibility of
pace, no flexibility of volume then, listen,
hear, you can hear it in the juxtaposition
we hear a lot more than we think we
hear
R ! chard
__________
Seated Riffian (1911 – 1912)
Henri Matisse
__________
January 13, 2023
how to listen to music if you don’t know your Beethoven from your Bach
“Music“(1895)
Gustav Klimt
________
how to listen to music if you don’t know your
Beethoven from your Bach
the first thing to do, I would suggest, is to stop
and listen, spend the time with the work you’re
listening to, it’s no different than spending half
an hour with a friend
but you have to be there, listen, as you would
with a friend, no cell phones
the next thing I suggest is to compare, put your
work up against a different composer, a
different interpretation, a different version of
the piece you have on hand
I learned this as I learned to tell one artwork
from another, while I turned European art
museums into personal art history classes,
spending hours comparing one painting
with another, doing so chronologically,
century after century, imbibing thereby the
history of Western art
it’s not necessary to know who you might
even be listening to, just listen, hear,
later the names will come
here’s some Mozart, here’s some Prokofiev,
for instance, you’ll tell the difference
instinctively, forget about the composers,
just surrender to the magic
here’s a poem which says more or less
the same thing
How to Read a Poem: Beginner’s Manual
First, forget everything you have learned,
that poetry is difficult,
that it cannot be appreciated by the likes of you,
with your high school equivalency diploma,
your steel-tipped boots,
or your white-collar misunderstandings.
Do not assume meanings hidden from you:
the best poems mean what they say and say it.
To read poetry requires only courage
enough to leap from the edge
and trust.
Treat a poem like dirt,
humus rich and heavy from the garden.
Later it will become the fat tomatoes
and golden squash piled high upon your kitchen table.
Poetry demands surrender,
language saying what is true,
doing holy things to the ordinary.
Read just one poem a day.
Someday a book of poems may open in your hands
like a daffodil offering its cup
to the sun.
When you can name five poets
without including Bob Dylan,
when you exceed your quota
and don’t even notice,
close this manual.
Congratulations.
You can now read poetry.
Pamela Spiro Wagner
music is also like that
R ! chard
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