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Posted: |
Nov 28, 2013 - 2:06 PM
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By: |
.
(Member)
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It's like comparing Charles Dickens to the authors of Superman comics.
Even though the text bubbles of comics are subservient to the pictures, and severely limited by space and pre-determined length, some could make a good argument that the authors of Superman comics have provided something more culturally significant than a work of Dickens.
But would even the most ardent Superman comic lovers suggest that because their comics use words and pages, just like Dickens, that the two are comparable as works of intellectual literature?
To me, that would be the equivalent of comparing film music in general to "classical" concert music.
Film music composers, like comic writers, might have the most brilliant minds and be genuine artists of Wagnerian or Dickensian level, but when working in film music and comics, they are showing their mastery of distillation, not full expression.
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Posted: |
Dec 4, 2013 - 4:35 PM
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By: |
ToneRow
(Member)
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For any who are interested, here's some postings from the website called Talk Classical on the subject of programme music:
To qualify as programmatic, it must be music written specifically to convey a literal narrative, or depict a scene of some sort. (Some of it succeeds better than much of the genre usually does.)
Certainly, especially without a grasp of form, i.e. formal structure and the syntax of music itself, many a listener will find themselves conjuring up either a story line, or picture a scene or a series of scenes which are also narrative in that they "tell some sort of story."
I would suggest that whatever story or image stream a listener might imagine could seem to be 'the true meaning' of the piece, where they are reacting to the musical sense of the internal logic and structure of that piece -- since the piece is cohesive, the narrative they imagine will be cohesive, ergo, their story seems "the right one."
A "good" piece of programmatic music does not rely on the meaning of the program to hold the listener's interest.
Couperin, by the way, loved to give titles with some humor to them, and sometimes his titles are a non sequitur or a red herring -- i.e. misdirection, or mocking the need to title a piece at all -- and some were meant to directly convey an image or idea.
A good number of the titles by which many know pieces of the classical era were given after the fact of composition, either suggested to the composer, who either agreed or said something akin to "Why not?" (Beethoven, "Pathetique" sonata, the title suggested by his publisher) ... or they were given to the pieces by others, sometimes after the composer was deceased :-)
Debussy's preludes, both books, have the title printed after the double bar, the index reading simply Prelude I, etc. We know sometimes Debussy had a title in mind when he began writing a piece, and just about as often, he did not :-)
Certainly, the minute you name a piece other than opus ___ or by form alone (sinfonia, partita, sonata, etc.) that is setting up a frame of mind in the audience bound to color most listeners perception, and sometimes that is a calculated idea, other times, an afterthought.
Still, you should know that some of those names seemingly welded to some pieces are in reality titles given after the fact of the music having been written: maybe the composer had some associative moment after the piece was done and gave the title. Others may work differently, the title giving them a transliterated idea of how the piece should sound, the form it takes, etc.
It seems the first "Tone poem" of Liszt got titled well after the fact of its actual composition...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_pr%C3%A9ludes
I think far too many people put way too much emphasis on "the meaning of music," including some of those pieces with actual titles.
All the names for the Chopin Etudes and Preludes were given those pieces by either editors, publishers, or music journalists: a few of the names given Beethoven sonatas were suggested by an editor, the infamous "moonlight" named by a music publisher after Beethoven was dead. Knowing this, many a composer will put a title on a piece because they know if they don't, someone else will!
And the vast majority of the repertoire, hiding secret stories or not, is titled very neutrally by form, or more modern appellations like "Music for Stringed Instruments, Percussion and Celesta," or "piano and string quartet."
That 90% of yours is more a fact if you reverse that to 90% of classical music is abstract, or "Absolute."
Whatever floats your boat, though :-
... and ...
I'd like to add to the discussion that the description "programmatic" generally isn't applied to works including a sung or spoken text, as it is taken for a given that the text will influence the music.
Also, what works as absolute music for listeners today, that is, needs no additional explanation or guiding hand for comprehension, is in some cases something that would have otherwise been difficult to an audience of the time. The example of Debussy above is a good one; the etudes for piano are to this day some of his least popular works. Although in musical terms they are not far removed from his other piano works, the abstract titles offer no interpretations that might help the listener.
For another example, look at Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima, which would certainly not have caught on nearly as well if it had retained its original title, 8'37". Yet people hear atomic bombs and screams in the music even knowing that the title was not in mind while the piece was composed. Appalachian Spring is another example. Copland knew nothing of the ballet scenario or its eventual title while he composed the piece, but people "read into" the music all the same. In this case they are getting Martha Graham's interpretation.
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) in which he largely wrote in a baroque mode which approaches the first segment of Batallia in style to some extent. But, still, they're not quite the same. It is very difficult for me to pinpoint exactly what the common element is to both. Tempo, perhaps?