a veritable Schubertiade, III
“Impression, Sunrise“ (1872)
Claude Monet
________
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Tag: Debussy
August 15, 2023
how to listen to music if you don’t know your Beethoven from your Bach, XVIII – Rachmaninov
“Portrait of the composer Sergei Rachmaninov“
Konstantin Somov
______
though you probably still wouldn’t be able
to tell a prelude from a hole in the wall,
nor, admittedly, can I, unless indicated,
if you’ve listened to the pieces I’ve
recently presented, you’ve noted, even
merely sensed, really, that the preludes
of one composer don’t sound at all like
those of the others, Bach doesn’t sound
like Chopin, who doesn’t sound at all
like Debussy, the first step in telling
your Beethoven from your Bach, as
promised in my title
you might not even be able to tell which
is which as you’re listening, but you can
tell they’re different, you do the same
thing telling your Monet from your
Renoir
Rachmaninov also wrote, like Chopin,
and Debussy, 24 preludes, and, like
Chopin, in every key, major and minor
but spread out through three publications,
Opus 3, no. 2, from 1892, comprising of
only one prelude, but a scorcher, The
a second set, Opus 23, consists of ten,
mostly iconic, pieces, you’ve heard
them somewhere before, therefore
iconic
the final set comes out in 1910,
Opus 32, with thirteen preludes,
for a total of 24
you’ll marvel, even Marilyn Monroe
famously did
enjoy
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
September 13, 2018
Piano Concerto no 2 in G major, opus 44 -Tchaikovsky
“Beech Grove I“ (1902)
________
if a sonata, or any composition for one
instrument, is a meditation, a rumination,
an introspection, a concerto is its entire
opposite, it’s a declamation, a very
harangue, the performer is not only
before an audience, but before an
orchestra, before the conductor of that
orchestra, that soloist had better be,
therefore, something
Tchaikovsky’s 2nd Piano Concerto
hasn’t cut the cultural mustard, you’ve
probably never heard of it, never mind
heard it, not even in the miasma of our
collective unconscious
why
who knows, it’s magnificent
I suspect that Moscow’s distance,
St Petersburg’s, might’ve had something
to do with it, Russia would still have been
a backwater to Europe, regardless of what
Catherine the Great might’ve done for its
intellectual edification, indeed a veritable
Elizabeth the First, Queen of England,
she, in her sponsorship of the arts
something like that happened, but in
reverse, to Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele
in art, Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, the
Second Viennese School in music, in
literature, Robert Musil, his “The Man
Without Qualities“ a very rival to
Proust‘s epic trip down memory lane,
“Remembrance …“, when the centre
of gravity for the arts moved from
Vienna to Paris in the late 19th
Century with the advent of
Impressionism
France had entered its Fourth
Republic by then, was to finally
entrench its democracy, and we got
Monet, Debussy, and indeed Proust
instead, not to mention all of that
city’s celebrated others
leaving creative Vienna, meanwhile,
the undisputed engine of the Zeitgeist,
the spirit of the times, for over three
quarters of an earlier century, thereby,
in the dust
New York would take over in the
1950s, similarly, for a time, Andy
Warhol and The Factory, eclipsing
any other town
in other words, location, location,
location, in tandem with historical
events
R ! chard
September 16, 2012
a Chopin Fantasia, opus 61
in this Chopin Fantasia, his “Polonaise-Fantaisie“
to be specific, opus 61, you’ll more easily notice
already the more abstract peregrinations of his
disciple, Debussy, and even the first stirrings of
improvisation incidentally, which is to say the
free-wheeling of idiosyncratic jazz, the very
inversion of Classical order, personal expression
was trumping even ecclesiastical dictates, those
very earlier immutable fundamentals of the long
unimpeachable Ten Commandments
Oh Moses, Moses you stubborn, splendid, adorable
fool, as Anne Baxter, Nefertiri, pagan, therefore
insidious seductress, would admonish in the film
pronouncements, a film which of course fashioned
the Biblical iconography of my entire generation,
a veritable “Divine Comedy” for our still recent
enough times, nothing has come up to displace it
meanwhile, though a progressively alternative
cultural morality seems steadily to harken
was Moses then a fool, a Prometheus in Christian
clothing
time alone tells, and time is an inveterately
temperamental arbiter
it would appear now that faith equals
unconditional conformity, when I thought
that faith could not, by definition, be
constrained, faith had been meticulously
a considered personal conviction, an
individual emancipation rather than a
conformist, and nefarious ultimately, it
would appear, code
I count on thoughtful efflorescence then,
and a garden of societal consideration,
a pantheistic and cooperative accord
not excluding, let it be noted, the indeed
worthiest, by thoughtful process, of those
very Ten Commandments
without my own children, for instance, I
still recommend honouring one’s parents,
this will bring, I knowlegeably warrant,
untold benefits, indeed grace, peace and
profound satisfaction, plenary solace to
the very reaches of each our indeterminate
soul
take it right here from an appropriately
distinctive Chopin, unparalleled poet to
the panoply of possible gods
Richard
September 1, 2012
Debussy Preludes, Books 1 & 2
with only twelve preludes apiece however, but for an
equal number of 24, to cover likewise all the keys, it
might be that his piano teacher, Mme de Fleurville, a
student of Chopin, she claimed, would have had him
duly practice her master’s musical methods, manner
and propositions, accounting for the similar textures,
colours and even templates the diligent acolyte uses,
devout responses in effect to his mentor’s mentor
but time and temperament get in the way of an exact
of course replication
Chopin follows the narrative line of melody, whereas
Debussy evokes a more nebulous mood, the line of
Romantic heroism has given way to the more abstract
investigation of the amorphous psyche or, if you like,
the suprarational soul, after Freud’s most recent
uncovering and elaboration of consciousness
listening to Debussy therefore is more like looking at
a painting than reading a book, you are moved by the
evocative aspects of the composition, colour, texture,
tone, rather than by the chronological tale it no longer
tells
unbending truth has given way to perspective, stream of
consciousness has superseded the narrator’s traditional
linear omnipresence, for better or for worse
Richard
psst: Europe, as I was informed by a friend of mine, is
celebrating Debussy‘s 150th birthday this year,
he was born August 22, 1862
may he live forever
thanks, Lajla
August 3, 2012
Debussy’s “Études”
“Man with a Guitar“ (1914)
______
while we’re on the subject of études, listening to
the other great set of these by Debussy, nearly a
hundred years later, 1830s to 1915, would prove
instructive, I deemed
picture me deeming, August 3, 2012, my brow
just slightly pensively constricting
if the basis of music as defined by the Classical
period depended on beat, tonality, and the repetition
of the tune, usually of both musical statements, these
apparently essential components of course would be
the first places to bear the scrutiny of probing musical
minds, seeking to find, seeking to set more expansive,
more profound dimensions to the areas of their quest,
that’s what artists do
and this of course is exactly what happened starting
with Beethoven, by the time of Chopin music had
relaxed its stricter Classical rhythmic precision,
allowing great expansive gestures in the more
malleable tempi, tempos, producing the effect of
more compassion and soulful examination than
the earlier less indulgent, more disciplined code
the fact of having musical tapestries, sound patches,
take the place of melody, narrative, in the musical
presentation of Chopin also suggests a more
diversified, dare I say prismatic, telling, than the
linear account of for instance Mozart‘s solitary
tuneful wanderer
it also evokes incidentally the vagaries of the
inconstant heart rather than its unflinching
condemnation, a repudiation of atavistic
Christian ecclesiastical intolerance
by the time the old order was about to be extinguished,
in 1915, at the onset of the First World War, Debussy’s
“Études“, like Chopin 12 of them per set, had seen
social injustice – see Charles Dickens, see Émile Zola,
see Karl Marx – the improbable discoveries of science –
Darwin, Freud, Einstein – the car, the airplane,
photography were changing everything, the old
paradigms no longer applied, were irrelevant, even
harmful, in this new context, the First World War
would prove all that
in the language of music, tempo, melody, repetition
would be inevitably subverted
Debussy produces erratic tempi, foregoes melody for
harmonic exploration, combining incidentally the
musical patches of Chopin with the intellectually
driven investigations of Beethoven for a more
cerebral understanding of music, a music for the
head, with expert displays of pianistic skill, indeed
prestidigitation, for, along with the intellectual
rigour, spectacle
is this then still music
is Post-Impressionist painting still art
what would 1915 have said
above is Georges Braque‘s nearly contemporary, 1914,
man with a guitar, who’d a thunk it
Richard
July 29, 2012
Chopin: “Études”, opus 10
if I haven’t brought up Chopin much in this series
it’s that I think of him more as a decorator than
as an innovator, he was developing a sensibility
that had been defined by the earlier Beethoven,
adding texture and style, form instead of function,
the wheel had been invented, now it remained to
be artfully applied
some break new ground, others decorate it, make
it enchanting, Chopin makes things enchanting
he is also the first composer we think of when we
think of Romanticism, which says quite a lot about
the quality, the universality, of his gift
here are his opus 10, “Études”, or “Studies”, 12 of
them, they are not sonatas, for not having more
than one movement, they are “études” , “studies”,
called by that name for being what they are, then
given numbers to differentiate them, also their
key, the convenience of universally attributing
titles not having quite caught on yet though a
couple of these do have them, the 5th, the
“Black Keys”, for obvious reasons, and the last,
the “Revolutionary”, again for reasons you’ll find
obvious once you’ve heard it
tonality however remains, no apparent discords,
that’ll come later
note that in comparison to Mozart the notes are
a shimmer, the same alphabet is used, the one
set up by Bach, but where Mozart made these
into narratives to follow, and even sing along to,
with Chopin the same flurry of notes becomes
a wash of sound you could never vocally keep
up with, a texture rather, an enveloping caress,
prefiguring incidentally the Impressionists, the
lush soundscapes of for instance Debussy
though you’ll find the same prerequisite opening
musical statement as in Mozart, followed by the
contrasting one, often these will be in altogether
constrasting rhythms as well, tempi, compared
to the single strict beat throughout of the
foundational Classical model
the tempo itself is also much more lax, some
passages surrendering formal rhythmic strictures
to greater emotional content, more self-expression,
less attention to rules, in accord with the newly
installed ideal of individual human rights
hence Romanticism, the fruit of the Revolution
note also that the musical argument is no longer
in the Mozartean playground but of a more mature
understanding, Chopin has known love
Richard
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