(no subject)
Oct. 25th, 2005 08:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nnyI am really enjoying having the internet again, and the opportunity to download music again; it's been so terribly long since I've actually been able to afford music that I have almost entirely stopped listening to it. I just forget it's an option. And now I have downloading capabilities and I'm listening to Danse Macabre and it's making me grin like a lunatic and bounce delightedly.
Expect a post of various Dies Iraes soon, too.
I will never be a learned and sensible appreciator of classical music. The terms confuse me, despite having learned piano up to grade five - please note that the theory exam is necessary in order to progress to grade six, and that would be where I stopped. I don't think that learning is necessary in order to enjoy the music, not at all, and I think that to a certain extent learning too much can lead to a risk of taking it Entirely Too Seriously.
I've seen it with friends who've done degrees in English Literature - a book is no longer a book but is instead a construction. It's taken apart and examined for metaphor and literary allusions and the like, and while that's certainly a valid way of appreciating a book it's not mine. Likewise with music. I'm not particularly bothered by which period in comes from, any further than such labels serving as an indicator of what else I might perhaps enjoy. I like music that I have an emotional reaction to, even if that emotion (or the expression of it, at least) is laughter.
Dies Iraes are amusing in isolation. As part of a requiem, they are completely affecting and dramatic, but out of context, especially if you're listening to a number of them in sequence, they're completely overblown and needlessly dramatic and amuse me terribly. I'm far too old for headbanging, these days, I only end up buggering my neck; dancing around my room and frantically conducting requiems seems, somehow, simultaneously a more mature and an equally as silly thing to do.
A recommendation, then.
Symphonie Fantastique by Berlioz. It's another piece that's ridiculously overblown and yet such amusement is offered. It is always a danger, with classical music, that one might take it entirely too seriously. With this piece, that's never really a worry. It switchbacks from mood to mood and from style to style with a rapidity that literally makes me laugh out loud when I have it on my walkman, and it's just tremendous fun to listen to.
As an aside, I apologise for being so verbose lately. It's just so nice to want to talk again that I'm going to be yammering terribly for a little while yet.
Expect a post of various Dies Iraes soon, too.
I will never be a learned and sensible appreciator of classical music. The terms confuse me, despite having learned piano up to grade five - please note that the theory exam is necessary in order to progress to grade six, and that would be where I stopped. I don't think that learning is necessary in order to enjoy the music, not at all, and I think that to a certain extent learning too much can lead to a risk of taking it Entirely Too Seriously.
I've seen it with friends who've done degrees in English Literature - a book is no longer a book but is instead a construction. It's taken apart and examined for metaphor and literary allusions and the like, and while that's certainly a valid way of appreciating a book it's not mine. Likewise with music. I'm not particularly bothered by which period in comes from, any further than such labels serving as an indicator of what else I might perhaps enjoy. I like music that I have an emotional reaction to, even if that emotion (or the expression of it, at least) is laughter.
Dies Iraes are amusing in isolation. As part of a requiem, they are completely affecting and dramatic, but out of context, especially if you're listening to a number of them in sequence, they're completely overblown and needlessly dramatic and amuse me terribly. I'm far too old for headbanging, these days, I only end up buggering my neck; dancing around my room and frantically conducting requiems seems, somehow, simultaneously a more mature and an equally as silly thing to do.
A recommendation, then.
Symphonie Fantastique by Berlioz. It's another piece that's ridiculously overblown and yet such amusement is offered. It is always a danger, with classical music, that one might take it entirely too seriously. With this piece, that's never really a worry. It switchbacks from mood to mood and from style to style with a rapidity that literally makes me laugh out loud when I have it on my walkman, and it's just tremendous fun to listen to.
As an aside, I apologise for being so verbose lately. It's just so nice to want to talk again that I'm going to be yammering terribly for a little while yet.
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no subject
Date: 2005-10-25 01:43 pm (UTC)I'm with you on that. It's one of the reasons why I stopped studying English Lit. I was not only taking apart everything I read and loosening my enjoyment of a good book, I was also beginning to take apart my own writing which was even worse.
It's much ore fun to just enjoy something simply because one does, without any scientific reasoning and explanations.
no subject
Date: 2005-10-25 01:47 pm (UTC)I love masses. One that I enjoyed taking part in hugely was by Cherubini, unfortunately I don't remember the actual mass or the key it was in and he seems to have been hugely prolific! I can remember performing it as part of the Henley Regatta in a Church by the river. Fun times, the coach trip back to college (in West London) was raucous as I recall. Music students seem to know how to enjoy themselves!
no subject
Date: 2005-10-25 03:05 pm (UTC)*flutters lashes*
I can give you...hmm. At the moment I'm loving the overture to The Barber of Seville (as usual) , Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez (as even more usual) and the Vienna Boys Choir doing Carol of the Bells