November / Month of the Sonata – 12
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Tag: Freud
February 15, 2019
“Années de pèlerinage”, 2nd Year – Liszt
“Petrarch“ (c.1450)
Andrea del Castagno
___________
for John, who would’ve
been 60 today
though the suite might’ve started with
Bach’s string of dance pieces in the
early 18th Century, it becomes evident
during the 19th Century, after a lapse
of nearly 100 years, while it fell into
disfavour, that its resurrection as a
valid musical form might’ve kept the
original structure, which is to say its
several separate parts to make up a
whole, its movements, but that it
now was serving a different purpose
where music had, through to the early
Romantic Period, followed dance
rhythms, or variations of tempo,
adagio, andante, allegro, and the like,
it now presented itself as a background
for settings, be it ballets, as in
Tchaikovsky’s, plays, as in Edvard
Grieg’s celebrated , “Peer Gynt Suite“,
after Ibsen‘s eponymous play,
specific locations, as in Debussy’s
“Children’s Corner“, or more
expansively, both geographically
and in its compositional length,
these very “Années de pèlerinage”
of Liszt
this is in keeping with the exploration
of consciousness of that era, which
would lead to not only Impressionism,
but to Freud, and the others, and the
development of psychoanalysis
you’ll note that music seems much
more improvisational in Liszt than in
Chopin, or Beethoven, prefiguring
already even jazz, more evocative,
less emotional, more personal, not
generalized, idiosyncratic, a direct
development of the newly acquired
concept of democracy, one man, at
the time, one vote, one, indeed,
voice, however individual, however
even controversial
listen, for instance, to Liszt’s “Années
de pèlerinage”, 2nd Year, Italy
1. Sposalizio
2. Il penseroso
3. Canzonetta del Salvator Rosa
4. Sonetto 47 del Petrarca
5. Sonetto 104 del Petrarca
6. Sonetto 123 del Petrarca
7. Après une lecture de Dante: Fantasia Quasi Sonata
today you can listen to suites
from famous films, for instance
“Blade Runner“, the beat, in
other words, goes on
but note the renovations, find them,
I dare you, you’ll be surprised at
your unsuspected perspicacity
listen
R ! chard
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
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