Does too much Bach ruin you for many other things?

Noel Coward: 'Extraordinary how potent cheap music can be'

 

Dear Blue Note

I think Noel Coward said that about cheap music.

The reason why it is difficult to write the software for definite actions by robots is, I think, because you actually have to think of all the variation of output. I mean, when I do something and I somewhat get it wrong, I have to correct by an appropriate amount and there are so many things that can go wrong (the feedback loops are so variable). In chess every move has definite results and possibilities - they are discreet possibilities, not continuous ones. Might I be right?

Now, also to Joe:

I do like simple melodies. I very much like simple music and, indeed, simple things. As a matter of fact, since I like innocence very much, it could not be otherwise. I find that, say, a beech leaf is overbearingly beautiful.

In the same spirit, there were many pop tunes that I liked and that moved me. As a matter of fact, I love Irish tunes (dances and jigs, but chiefly the doleful female solos) precisely because of that. In the same vein, I once watched a tv program about the migration of Irish music to the USA and how the sadness turned to anger and despair, which led musicians to mingle with the softer forms of rock (I'm not sure it qualifies as rock).

Jacques Brell always moves me very deeply - Le plat Pays, Le Port d'Amsterdam, Ne me quitte pas - and, from the standpoint of complexity, architecture and the like it is not very good.

So I am not against simple music. I am only saying that Bach, Bruckner, and the like, have this level of simplicity and beauty (for Bruckner just consider the slow movement of his 6th Symphony: it is breathtakingly beautiful even for the completely uninstructed in music; or the famous Mahler Adagietto), AND also hierarchical structural complexity. Therefore, it is silly to compare, because of course, by these criteria, 'classic' music is better.

What I really miss in rock and pop is the following. Let's take the second movement of Beethoven's opus 111. You can marvel at the variations by themselves. But, after listening for the first time, the music is plain odd, and seems incomprehensible because there are too many things happening.

Then you try to understand the emotions that spring for each variation and to relate them one to the other; you get three or four groups of emotions. Easy going confidence and elation leading to absolute self confidence and enthusiasm; them despair, and towards the end, whimsical soul searching, leading to the last variation, which just says that it does not matter.

I cannot possibly give the sense of the music using words. But this kind of relations actually makes us grow as persons because it makes us understand - bodily understand, not through words or mind alone - many emotions we never would have felt left to ourselves.

Exactly the same thing may be said of most of Buxtehude's really good organ works.

Bach is a little different because it is so understated, but just consider his best fugues and you will understand what I mean: in about four minutes you are crushed to despair, risen to hope and God, and in the end despair and bliss are mixed and you face a mind boggling coincidentia oppositorum - meaning that opposites come together. In this sense, Bach is really cosmic: a kind of musical Newton.

Now if all this was obtained at the expense of melody I would understand that one might like a bit of Simon and Garfunkel or Candle in the Wind (perhaps bad examples). But the magic thing is that it is NOT. In terms of melody I have yet to find the equal of many Chorales, Bach's Arias (and the G major Sarabande) or of Beethoven's Hammerklavier or opus 132.

So I really think I am not being pretentious: I'm just saying that the great composers make you emotionally richer and make you develop as a person to a much greater extent than rock and pop.

I hope, dear Joe, that I have qualified what you interpreted as 'ranking': it is not about better or worse, it is about differentiation and inner richness.

 

I like some old rock but I find it safe to say that as a rule Bach is better than rock. Animals do not appreciate music, children like simple children's songs, ect. Taste can and will develop.

Paintings by Caravaggio or Botticelli or Raphael really ARE better than the art you can buy at flea market. Dostoyevsky writes better than Dan Brown. Vegetable curry is better than "fish and chips".

Then when art surpasses a certain level it becomes impossible to objectively say that e.g. Caravaggio is superior to Botticelli.

Perhaps I should not claim that I remain objective when I say that Bach is not the best there is.

But I would say that in all art there is an eternal ultimate beauty, and through hidden spiritual evolution our tastes develop, we become spiritually adults and we begin to appreciate beauty which is beyond time and space.

 

Thanks for the thoughtul response, Rodrigo. It's very helpful to have someone explain the strengths of specific pieces in that way. It's encouraged me to listen to them more carefully (I have recordings of most of them).

 

Dear Joe:

Very glad you liked it.

 

A great post, RdS - the signal-to-noise ratio on the internet being what it is, it's always a nice surprise to read a really considered, thoughtful contribution to a forum. I'd heartily echo your observation that going from pop/rock to classical is nearly all gain - retaining the comparatively 'simple' pleasures of melody and rhythm, while gaining depth, power and subtlety. (In passing, I'll just add that amongst the late quartets of Beethoven, for me the epic struggle of the C sharp minor opus 131 - with that supremely satisfying cliffhanger of an ending - wins out over the opus 132, which of course everybody else in the world prefers...)

RdS has expounded upon the range and depth that can be found in classical music. In this context, it's perhaps worth restating that a lot of pop/rock music is simply very limited in terms of its fundamental music material: tempo usually moderately-slow-to-moderate (though sometimes you'll get a fast drumbeat superimposed on essentially slow musical motion); melody usually in a narrow range in the high tenor or low alto register; harmony restricted to a conservative-bordering-on-rudimentary subset of diatonalism; texture limited to melody-plus-block-chord-accompaniment; small-scale structure constructed from 4, 8 or 12-bar blocks bolted together Lego-like; large-scale structure non-existent. The comparatively crude emotional results expressed by the resulting music ("I'm generically happy!"; or "I'm horny!"; or "I'm quite sad!") are simply a function of the crude tools used to express them; contrast the subtlety, variety, precision and intensity of the emotions evoked by Beethoven and described eloquently by RdS above, which - in my opinion - are facilitated by the sophistication of the compositional language.

I have written at length on this subject before, in the context of looking at how the best (in my view) rock music is put together. A similar discussion of - say - the compositional features of one of those Beethoven quartets would need to be ten times the length and very considerably more in-depth to even scratch the surface, and would be far beyond my capability to attempt.

 

Dear PeteH:

Thank you, it is always encouraging to see that one's posts are appreciated.

Great link, great posts of yours - I'll learn from them.

 

Having been distracted by the mundane for the last week, I return to find that this thread has reached it final movement wherein the piece is resolved by a universal hymn of human brotherhood.
I must must say I greatly enjoyed reading all these threads in one go.

However.

I wonder whether, if comparisons have to made between classical and non -classical pieces, it might be more intersting to compare poplar songs with lieder or melodies, rather than Parsifal or the Mass in B Minor, or -come to think of it- the 48.

I one should bear in mind that the words are often more important in songs than the accompanying music; perhaps more important even than the notes which the songer sings-except insofar as they represent a poetic meter. Perhaps it would be better to regard this as a sort of muscial poetic hybrid. It is therefore not really a paradox to value a Brell song whilst considering it cheap in terms of complexity and architecture.

Be that as it may, is Sei Mir Gegrüßt indisputably superior to Don't think twice, it's alright? (let's leave Winterreisse out of it). And let's not forget that Schubert copied all of the words from poets.

Bluenote, I am delighted to hear that someone else bought the Punch and Judy on NMC; I received a copy a few days ago but have not yet had it out of the wrapper. It was given an ecstatic review on CD review a few weeks ago.

 

You mean such works as the organ fantasy and fugue in G minor (bwv 542). His great organ works are marvellous and elevating but after c. 1730 he wrote little works like this and almost nothing for the organ.

Simon and Telefunken: the Paul Simon Songbook (1965) is on my current desert island list. To my ears it is incredibly beautiful.

 

what a shame Bach wasn't born in the late 20th century. He could have written some great stuff for guitar, bass and drums. Or some wonderful modern classical music, without the constraint of having to write for the awful sound of organ and harpsichord.
He did the best he could under the circumstances, I suppose, but I can't help thinking what a waste of an undeniable talent.

 

Who says he wasn't born in the late 20th century?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastian_Bach

 

A slightly different slant on Bach:

I've just received a letter from an old colleague in the patent profession, saying that his two-year battle with small cell lung cancer is nearly at an end. What does one say to such a letter? What sprung to my mind was Bach, who had a word for most things. In particular, BWV 82 Ich habe genug (literally, I have enough, in the sense of I am content and ready to go), based on the story of Simeon (Luke 2:28-32). The gorgeous bass aria has it:

Schlummert ein, ihr matten Augen
Fallet sanft und selig zu!
Welt, ich bleibe nicht mehr hier
Hab ich doch kein Teil an dir
Das der Seele könnte taugen
Hier muss ich das Elend bauen
Aber dort, dort werd ich schauen
Süssen Friede, stille Ruh

(Slumber, you tired eyes
Close peacefully and blessedly!
World, I remain here no longer
I have indeed no part in you
That could be of use to the soul
Here I must put up with misery
But there, there I shall see
Sweet peace, quiet repose)

Whether one is or isn't religious, I think these are marvellous words (allied to a marvellous melody) and they speak to the whole of humankind. We all gotta go sometime, and this is the way to do it. When my time comes, I hope I can sing it too.

 

Dear Tones:
Moving post, moving situation, moving music. Also Actus tragicus.

 

To me, there are emotions and conditions not expressed in the music of Bach. I would relate them to an existential struggle that aims at breaking free from confinements imposed by the imperfections of life. For these aspects, I listen to Beethoven, Bartok, Schostakovich or others. Coming back to Bach however is always a happy experience.
Bruno

 

Absolutely! Going to make the bastards sit and listen to 106 when I go!