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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.
