Jazz for aficionados
@maghister, I agree with your distinction between jazz and classical. One appeals more to the head and the other to the heart and soul. Jazz is primal. I would like to make a few distinctions, however. I think Stravinsky, for example, was searching for the primal in his ballet "Rite of Spring." Its rhythms are primal. When it was first played in Paris in 1918, people booed, threw things, and walked out. I love it. |
i think that jazz is more primal than classical...But some classical music are more primal than some jazz... I was speaking in my post above about the way musical time is understood in Jazz and classical... Scriabin is primal as jazz is for example for me ... Stravinsky was searching the "primal" you are right but he reach it in an external way...His concept of time seems imposed on the music ... By contrast Scriabin musical time is born from the chords and not imposed on them ... Scriabin , in his piano music impossible to play anyway by most pianist save very few unknown pianist in the West, has an internal experience of musical time more intrinsical so to speak than Stravinsky... The difference is the difference between the real Orient in Art and the Western evocation of the East in Western Art (orientalism)...
An anecdote : The mother of Stravinsky comparing Stravinsky music to Scriabin preferred Scriabin who was considered a god in Russia.
The reason for me is evident so genius was Stravinsky and he is one of the greatest Russian composer, Scriabin is more revolutionary, transforming piano playing into a "primal" musical time machine which goal was putting us in a trance. He succeeded. By the way in jazz Sun Ra is our Scriabin so to speak....
The mastery of Stravinsky was the witchcraft by which he could use all musical stylistic languages of all musical history in some patchwork way... The mastery of Scriabin was creating a unique writing style whose goal was recreating music itself...The greatest piano composer after Liszt in my opinion ...
«Medtner HATED Stravinsky’s music and the course of 20th century music in general, he loved early and mid Scriabin, but considered him a mad butterfly in his later works. Rachmaninoff thought Medtner perhaps the greatest of ’contemporary’ composers. The two were close friends.» is it necessary to say that this is not musical knowledge but only my listenings impression ?
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@mahgister, here is a poem I wrote many years ago about Stravinsky's Rite of Spring: Stravinsky
Such a leap from an oompah band to the dark primordial marshland sprawling beyond sight or imagination in an absolutely secret expanse finally brought to light. He grabs it by the neck, that captured goblin, & will not yield to its wailing & incessant rhythmic kicking, until it quiets & whispers ageless secrets in his ear / about fear & sensuality long forgotten. |
