Penderecki

Any Penderecki fans out there? I'm listening to his complete sacred works and like it a lot. He must be the greatest living composer. I would like to listen to it again in midnight in the dark. Tones, get this one!

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t..._1_5/002-5815311-2162438?v=glance&s=classical

 

I only ever heard one piece by Pendericki, Bat, and I have vague memories running out screaming... I'm afraid modern music isn't for me. To me, it's purely an intellectual exercise without heart and emotion.

 

...oh, I see, you mean just like those interminable Bach cantatas


I do have to agree though that on the whole what Penderecki I've heard in casual acquaintance hasn't really left me aching for more. Was very impressed by his Sinfonietta for Strings at the Proms last year though (although just about anything would shine next to that inoffensive but mostly uninspired noodling that was the O'Connor 6th Violin Concerto) - so maybe should give him another go.

Have been much more impressed by Lutoslawski and Panufnik (although I have precious little of either - just the classic Salonen Luto 3&4 - would really like a recording of the Panufnik Sinfonia Sacra, but it's currently deleted - ah just checked up and there seem to be two about now - on Accord and Nonesuch). I guess neither of them qualify for the greatest living composer any longer though - being somewhat deficient in the life department since 1994 and 1991 respectively.

Have been even more impressed by what Ligeti I've heard recently, so really must get some of his stuff.

 

Hate to tell you this, Graham, but I feel the same way about Ligeti - basically, "2001: A Space Odyssey" put me off Ligeti for life and possibly beyond.

 

Now there's a surprise - NOT!

When I first heard it (Lux Aeterna), it did sort of put me off a bit, but now my tastes have matured enough to appreciate that not all JSB is interminably boring (and some of it is really rather good), I find just the same about Ligeti! Still agree with you about post-1908 Schoenberg though.

PS: I do have the complete works of Webern (fit nicely on a 3 CD set, picked up for GBP12 last year) though. While equally cat-scaring, his pieces do have the major advantage of being generally shorter than 3 minutes each - so it's not too painful. His longest works are the Passacaglia Op 1 (about 10 mins) which is lovely (although you'd still hate it), and his orchestration of Bach's Ricercar - which is also great.

PPS: How's your relationship coming on with Verklaerte Nacht? Recognised its greatness yet? Another one to try in similar external appearance (although very different mood internally) is R. Strauss' Metamorphosen for 23 solo strings - luvley!

 

Haven't had the chance to have another listen, between testing a subwoofer (see elsewhere) and putting the final touches to a patent presentation to be given in Paris tomorrow (now, if there's something more excruciating than Pendericki, Webern and Schoenberg, it'll be me on patents. With a decently southerly, you should be able to hear the screams from where you are).

You clearly feel it a duty to investigate new music and understand it. I once did too, but no longer - perhaps I simply lack the musical background to appreciate what the composer is trying to do. Or do you think they're like the Beatles, who, on realising that people were trying to find deeper meaning in their lyrics, would deliberately put in things with the attitude, "Let's see what they make out of this!"

I'm afraid that ol' JSB is just somehow satisfying - I find the same with Beethoven by the way. There just seems to be a certain rightness about it, a sense of solidity. I get the same with other composers, but generally to a lesser extent.

 

Ligeti's Requiem is a must for all who are scared by modern music. It is so serene and beautiful. Cats would buy Ligeti!

 

You mean, it would finish them off? (Isn't that the piece that was used in the ape-discover-monoliith scene of "2001" - lots of Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeing?)

 

Contemporary music – indeed, all new music – needs a very open mind and, perhaps chiefly, it needs that the listener is not put off by dissonances. For instance and if I remember correctly, Ligetti's Lux Aeterna is built upon the effect of the successive entering of voices at intervals of a second – a very strong dissonance – and the result (which is sought) is precisely the effect of the intensity of increasing dissonance.

Of course, the reason for this is often the search for tortured emotions – which are considered the emotions of the current times. That is understandable: lack of God, lack of sense, and also, let's admit it, an anti-bourgeois view of simple dichotomies as happy/sad and such things.

But in that sense, modern music is very instructive: there are all sorts of strange emotions that one learns from it. For instance, the Lyric Suite (Berg's) is extraordinary powerful and one learns a lot about human nature just by trying to understand these emotions. I really don't think one needs to be musically educated to understand them: one just has to free oneself – let oneself go to the music.

Of course, if one is quite comfortable with what one is right now, there really is no need to search for different emotions. As a matter of fact, some emotions are quite dangerous and unsettling: if you go on and on in search of different emotions you end up like the characters in Crash.

Which reminds me of the very odd comment of John Eliot Gardiner on Wagner: he called it 'pollution'. More or less like Nietzsche in his final years.

I understand that very well. In my case, I usually don't like Mahlerian emotions, because I actually think they are petty – the unending self sarcasm really bothers me. But if you die without listening to Um Mitternacht you will definitely lose something. The same with Messien's Le Banquet Céleste, which I just heard last night at the Cathedral and many, many others. The same happens with Verklärte Nacht. But that is no pollution, quite the contrary, and I'd urge Tones (a second time) to listen to it again. Just close your eyes and let the music sink in. There is no need to understand anything at all.

When I was younger I searched a lot of different music styles. Some of them appealed strongly to me. But I eventually settled on Bach. Its decantation of emotion and its technical complexity somehow soothes me and, at the same time, thrills me (the fugue in b flat minor of the 2nd WTC, for instance). So even if I understand a lot of contemporary music, and actually like listening to it in concerts, at home, I like to cultivate a quite different sort of emotions.

That is probably Tone's case.