Let's talk music, no genre boundaries

Monteverdi as Gesualdo as Scriabin are not something we catch on the spot ...

They are an acquired taste even for those who liked them at first listening...

They are expressive artists on a high level, Gesualdo is almost more "modern" than most classical composer in the 20 th century...

 

 

@mahgister 

I was listening to Monteverdi yesterday. I didn't like his madigrals from book 8 but I did like a long piece very much. I think it was something about the creation.

I will read your book ..

It is evident that our social fabric is completely unbalanced..

 

The human social fabric is a living organism like our body...

as our body is divided into three main function: nervous system, respiratory/circulation system, members system,or thinking,feeling,willing,our social fabric cannot operate in a healthy manner without a complete understanding of these functions and their directing principle.

Culture/education correspond to thinking and is ruled by a principle of total freedom and independence...

Politics correspond to feeling, values perception,intuition, and is ruled by sovereignty and equality between men at the root of democracy...

Economical life correspond to will and the fraternal possibility to participate and associate in works...

if we dont makes this threefold social fabric imbricate layers the ground of our life, we are facing the possibility to reduce this threefold fabric to two opposite power: one totalitarian power in politic (communism) or an oligarchical economical power (capitalism) with no real democracy in the two cases.

We are right now facing the reduction of the threefold fabric to one single layer of absolute control : transhumanism hive of cyborgs (anti-christic and demonic in Nature)...

Our actual neo-liberalism has its roots in the mimetic desire at the heart of men (René Girard deep insight) as understood by the genius Calvinist Bernard Mandeville the social engineer of modern capitalism, whose main idea, "in the fable of the bees" is to operate as God plan it in eternity to solve the scarcity problem using our inevitable sins as a positive tool...

The conclusion of his fable, root of capitalism is : " the private vices makes the public virtue"...

Thinking about Calvin predestination the genius Mandeville thought, placing himself in the God head : how do we solve the creation of wealth problem, in a period of scarcity, after the loss of leadership (after Cromwell) and the popular demand ?

Simple, we use sins as a motor to create a social engineering of the social fabric.. I will not explain here how Mandeville did it... Read him...

Mandeville works was put in the fire as a work of the devil (man of the devil ) because glorifying the usefulness of the vices in his new social construct...

I will only say that Adam Smith was inspired by Mandeville, whom he plagiarized by making him presentable and by transforming the concept of vice with the concept of self-interest. Marx read Mandeville and held him in high esteem. Freud did not invent the concept of the unconscious; it was Mandeville who said that every man is unaware of his true place and identity in society. Mandeville treated people by making them talk and confide in each other, as Freud did later. Hayek, the great economist, called Mandeville: "The Master of Us All."

Now we see that the social engineering of society composed of psychopaths,nevropaths,sociopaths, as described by Mandeville in his own vocabulary created capitalism and the market idea but more the marxism itself is only a consequence of this social engineering.

We are with capitalism and communism in a two-fold social fabric in perpetual war as enemies.

To progress we must understand what is a threefold social fabric...

If we do not understand soon we will go into the absolute totalitarian singular control, worst than neo liberalism the last form of capitalism , and worst than communism...The transhumanist of silicon valley dream is absolute technological control...And more because this demonic religion want immortality and recreating a new God (A.I. )

Rudolf Steiner predicted and gave the remedies in all fields seeing what was coming ...

Steiner was a universal genius and a seer a combination rarely seen. (Swedenborg was one)

Religions are social institutions...

They work as such and play their role in each culture...

Attacking religions is preposterous or useless..

 

Mystics in all religions are often  "heretics",   always free individuals, sometimes imprisoned because they disturb the institution...

If we speak of spiritual in music, the religions matter not so much, but the mystical insight of the musician matter...

Religions is no more an obstacles than a chair... It serve a purpose sometimes well sometimes not...

 

The feminine and the masculine are polarities in each of us male or female... What matter is the balance...

 More and more woman in politics for example will not improve politics if we live in a bad political set of institutions... There exist too much example of female psychopaths, nevropaths or sociopaths in politics to disprove this point...

 the fact that you observe a lost of balance between the polarities by the predominant power of one over the other  dont means that the feminine power will solve the problem by virtue of its nature... balance is needed thats all ...

 

 Do you know "the master and his emissaries" of Iain McGilchrist ?

He is a neuroscientist who describe the lost of balance in our civilization but not associating with male/female concerpt but with the modes of attention and their relation with the hemispherical brain...

This book will be very useful for you...not as deep as Gebser but deep too ...

 

@mahgister 

I must admit that spirituality in music is difficult to talk about. Especially from my point of view because I see religions as something that get in the way. But first, of course, the composer must have a depth of feeling and spiritual connection. If that is the case, then any metaphors can be used as a lattice on which spiritual music can be strung.

 

 

 

There was something inside the earliest humanity that could only have been expressed through music and other arts, and humanity was obsessed with expressing whatever that was. For so many reasons, especially humanity's early obsession with the sky and stars, I belive that humanity felt connected to the univese. And music was a call to all existence that we too belonged. And that to me is spirituality. 

I understand you. I consider many didgeridoo Australian music spiritual.... Pygmies chorus too ...

By spirituality i had not suggested only Christianity, but any inside deeply moving relation with God or Nature as sacred...

Your observation about Mozart going from genius to deeply spiritual is my observation too ..

But the relation with Nature which is sacred music is different from Hildegard Of Bingen  or Tallis  moving spirituality toward God. But the other day i was listening Russian female chorus performing pilgrim songs ( song suggesting walk and prayers) it was very near the pygmies songs ... The relation between men of the same tribe and walking and praying or singing in Nature is sacred  music... It is why i loved it...

 

i cannot listen only geniuses composers or musicians... I need also spiritually, sacred Christian, Buddhist or African or Indian devotion music...

Music without spirituality cannot fulfill all my musical needs so genius it is... 

Poetry is also bordeline to  the sacred or the spirit or the religious...

Think about Leonard Cohen singing   about Joan of Arc...

Or even Dylan singing "murder no foul" is a sacred  musical event in the US history...

Music without spirituality or poetry is not very interesting for me...

The 8th book of madrigals of Monteverdi is pure poetry...

Poetry gives us a minimum of spirituality...

 

 

I wish i could explain the difference between spectacularly genius music and deeply spiritual one...

The requiem of Berlioz is pure incredible genius but do not move me spiritually as Christus of Listz or Bruckner motets for example...

Monteverdi  so genius he is in his sacred music do not move me either and beware i love him to death, i listened his 8th madrigal books one thousand times at least...But there not an ounce of spirituality in this absolute master of expression...

Josquin Des Prez and Hildegard de Bingen unlike Monteverdi and my beloved Gesulado are spiritual masters in a way nor Monteverdi neither Gesualdo can be ...

 

Sorabji is anything save spiritual...

Scriabin is almost spiritual in a demonic powerful way...

I wish i could put in words what is spiritual music...Why it matter the most...

 

 

The last time i was stunned by an opera was Akhnaten of Philip Glass.

The way he portrayed musically the Ancient Egypt feeling about  spiritual meaning was stunning.

I was so stunned i wanted to read his biography...

My next  will probably be Kepler ...

 

For me i dont want to "see" the theater of the opera only the sound and music...

I see music when listening and seeing  anything else will intrude and impede my experience...

But going live to an opera is a thing in itself and i understand people who want to "see" it...

 

I discovered the miraculous beauty of Opera listening  from TV  an opera of Mozart "Cosi Fan Tutte"... For me a totally uninteresting libretto and visuals...

but i entered in an ecstasy understanding with my ears how Mozart genius makes of each voice a perfect musical instrument  speaking to one another in a perfect musical way...No other composer ever do it in this "perfect" way...Not even Puccini which is my favorite opera composer...Mozart reach Bach transcendent level with a ridiculous story, incredible, using only voices as we can use a piano...

It was useless almost a desecration to understand the words and the action play... I do not want at all ... I succeed because i dont understand italian and it was easy to see without seeing on the TV set  only listening...

i discovered Mozart absolute genius this day 40 years ago...

 

But paradoxically,  there was an opera i wanted to see not only listening to... The Faust of Busoni...But by Fisher Dieskau...but he is dead and i doubt i will ever see it...

Faust is not like "cosi fan tutte" a ridiculous story. 

 

Another example : I like Kurt Weil very much...

All of his music...

But i dont feel at all the urge to see the three penny opera... Only listening it with Lotte Lenya is well enough...I could see from my recording version with her, a prodigiously well recorded opera, i could see in my first acoustic room all the play all around me even when the singers walked singing and turning their head my eyes closed or open so good was my acoustic... Alas! i sold my house, it is another story...

 

By the way, i had seen the Magic flute by Bergman and i did not enter in ecstasy  like listening to Cosi Fan tutte, why ?

Simple the story of the magic flute is a masterpiece tale not a stupid story, and Bergman realisation is a masterpiece movie... But here all the music serve a goal which is telling the tale especially the visuals use by the director...Nothing is pure music in itself like in the Cosi case...The goal of Mozart is more philosophicaql than musical here ...

The greatest opera of Mozart are the magic flute and Don Giovanni...but his greatest pieces are the Requiem and Cosi fan Tutte... Which are more than a mass and more than an opera, in the case of Cosi especially pure music like the Art of the fugue by Bach...It is like Mozart saying, gave to me a stupid text and a stupid play and i will create an absolute piece of music... Incredible he did it...But he could not do it again like Bach writing once the art of the fugue...Mozart wrote the art of song...

 

The time we use is precious.

You can work for more money or you can read a book any oligarchs will miss because they dont have time nor the passion to read it...

I listen music 4 hours a day, i read 4 hours a day, i walk 3 hours a day...

The most important thing is the book which could have change my perspective and which i can miss ...One book if it is an important one will explode your mind...

I love discovering new music times to times , but what i love the most is listening  the same geniuses again and again for all my life...

I am retired...

But my job was, lucky me, advising people a book useful for their  field of interest...

I miss students...

I meditate more now and if i discover a tremendous important book  i had no student to advise about it ...

It is my only problem and it bother me...

 

 

 

Try Jakob Obrecht and Josquin Des prez masses... Super geniuses of the highest order..."Missa super Maria Zart" with Prague madrigalist though is my treasured version because of the rythm...Missa pange lingua  but with Ensemble Clement Janequin because of the rythm ...Tallis scholars for example kill it with no rythm so well the sing and they sing well for sure ..

 

I am in love with Purcell Anthems... But i never retrieved the Wilcocks album i owned long ago and the actual complete Anthems version i own is  acceptable but nothing more ...

There is too much geniuses in sacred music before Bach  for only one thread...

it is not well known generally ...In fact most geniuses are not known at all ...Especially the Franco Flamish school...

 

 

I was stunned with my first battery transistor radio  when i was 14 61 years ago, i remember my impression as yesterday, walking and listen to Otis Redding...

I just discovered blues with him but i did not know it yet...

I became conscious of the blues existence with John Lee Hooker and it was Hooker who touch me more than the blues itself...

 These two singers were "cool" as ice spewed by a volcano ...

 

And here is the great Otis Redding, who died much too young, singing "Sitting on the Dock of the Bay."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTVjnBo96Ug

He was dressed as any decent man of his generation and social context was dress if he could afford it...

He was a minister not only a musician...

 

He was one of the great and the one who reveal to me as Marian Anderson what was genius in gospel or blues and top genius, well dress or not...

I dont give a damn about  dress....

With Billie Holiday and Anderson and Armstrong and Ray Charles and John lee Hooker he was for me the top....

Nobody can fake spirituality...

 

«While he was alive, Davis' music was recognized by musicians of the era as exceptional. Bob Dylan called him "one of the wizards of modern music," while Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead said Davis had "a Bacchian sense of music which transcended any common notion of a bluesman." Jorma Kaukonen of the Jefferson Airplane suggested Davis is "one of the greatest figures of 20th-century music."^[11]»

 

 

 

 

I must explain, though. I have a dry sense of humor and posting a spiritual by a guy who looked like John Denver was slightly pulling your leg.

Songs about injustice after world war 2  must not be  generally labelled "anti-fascist" for evident historical reason...

In some case, ironically, they could though be labelled "anti-fascist",  as in the Rzewski work case...( it was a piece against  Fascist Pinochet installed by US decision, the same country  victorious of fascism with communist USSR)

It is why i reacted and asked examples of fascists and antifascists music ...( The tortured Chileans under Pinochet as  the musician Victor Jara, how do they perceived American national anthem  when they understand who installed Pinochet ?) 

It is not a good idea to politicize music...

But i like protest songs ... A lot ... It is more than music though ...

My favorite is Bob Dylan about JFK  murder...I was stunned by the genius of Dylan who stay a poet more than just  a mere "antifascist" propagandist...

 

« Poetry and music  beat propaganda from any side»--Anonymus dead poet

 

I am picky about music like spirituals... After Marian Anderson, whom I consider, along with Callas and Scharzkopf and a few others, to be one of the most powerful voices of the century, I discovered Reverend Gary Davis, my favorite spiritual album. Original guitarist, hypnotic voice, powerful expression.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6W9PuLcoZMM&list=RDEMIym3Jmh7U3xruAlIVxfy3g&start_radio=1

@mahgister 

I love music that calls out fascism and injustice.

I suspect you are misinterpreting "calling out". 

To "call out’ actually means to "draw critical attention to someone’s unacceptable actions or behavior."

Thus, this is the opposite of "calling for" or "supporting" ! 

I dont doubt that you and me or the poster himself are not fascist...

But i am very surprised to categorize music as "fascist" or anti-fascist"...

The National hymn of the Nazi for example and some political song are fascist music...

But when Bob Dylan denounce the assassination of JFK  in a written song with words, is it anti-fascist music ? No it is a song denouncing an injustice...

but perhaps i misinterpret his post...

"le chant des partisans" in France is specifically a beautiful anti-fascist song...

But generally speaking  there is no fascist music or antifascist music genre...

Most music is written for a specific event... Fascist event or anti-fascist event but these are exceptional and from the past history...

My surprise is that i never thought of music as fascist or antifascist music in general...

Then if i come and write in a post  that i like anti-fascist music it sound strange when i read this...  Who is fascist nowadays ?  Biden ,Trump, Macron, Putin, Xi ? or Trudeau ?

The concept of fascism is dated...And never used to speak about music ...and today politics is way over past distinction as fascist/anti-fascist,CommunisT/capitalist,left/right, these distinctions made  less and less sense with the passing years...

I like music denouncing injustice... Protest songs...but these are songs with written words, not anti-fascist music which do not exist anyway as a genre ...

Perhaps  i misunderstood this one line post...

I apologize then ...

 

 

I just think again about a great classical work which is antifascist and not a song ...

Rzewski... It is clearly an antifascist work...( against fascist general Pinochet put in place by US who battle against fascist 30 years before US selected Pinochet)

 ... And it is an antifascist work from not long ago (against capitalism) ...

My favorite version is by Rzewski himself all others interpretation lack the pulse the composer push in his piano playing ...

It is one of the great American classical work of music in my opinion ...I was stunned the first time i heard it 15 years ago...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnJ9wHo9Mgc&list=RDKnJ9wHo9Mgc&start_radio=1

 

 Then i overreacted to the post and i apologize...

 

 

i am flabbergasted by your post...

Gives us an example of music calling for fascism and injustice...

Then gives us an example of anti-fascist music calling for justice ...

 

«I dislike  totalitarian Pope music» -- Groucho Marx 

 

 

I love music that calls out fascism and injustice.

When  our friend intend we relate ...

Perhaps I’m interpreting this in a way you don’t intend, but I relate...

I dont know if i takes the times i will learn how to  appreciate every single individual artists. I dont think so.

For each singular artist i listen my gut and my feeling guide me...i rarely change my mind...But there exist a slow changin evolution in my musical journey...

 

For a style,genre,or for a cultural musical movement or way of being, it is another complete story...

Here my taste had been educated and trained with much humility and listening session whose goal  was : what this means ?

Once a culture is slowly integrated with many years, my opinion about any of his artists is felt  immediately almost without too much error...

 

Example ?

It takes me a slow habituation in the madrigals style of Italian  music to understand the difference between Gesualdo and Monteverdi and appreciate the two on equal footing....

 

 I discovered Jazz only i stumble onto artists that were geniuses i could understand on the pot but it has taken much times to appreciate all jazz musicians for who they are... Humility for sure ... 

 

 

 

Maria Callas sing "la rondine" under Tullio Serafim in a recording but it is not on youtube...

 

I prefer John Cowper Powys to Joyce litterary madness (genius) ...

I could not read neither of these two works ...Anyway for someone not mastering litterary English it is impossible...

I advise everyone to read Morwynn of Powys to begin with ... A tale about evil and Hell ... Powys was a seer not just a writer obsessed by writings as Joyce was ...

Who has read "Ulysses" or "Finnigan’s Wake" all the way through? More later when I have more time.

i will put the Mozart Requiem with Bach great mass and Bruckner great mass...I prefer the Hogwood version. Why ?  Because it direct it as an opera of the soul more than a liturgical mass. With children chorus. Astounding interpretation that beat even the others astounding one. What means this "a soul opera" ?

We all fear of dying and we all ask for mercy...

Mozart genius is so great his soul opera communicate this and only this perfectly...

Only Hogwood genius understood this and instead of a mass deliver the greatest soul opera ever written...

 

 A word about Antal Dorati genius un Haydn, i concur with frogman, a stupendous version...

But do you know the Dorati version of Liszt masterpiece "Christus"  which is also as the Te deum of Bruckner and the Mozart requiem a "soul opera" not only a liturgical piece ?

I understood Liszt only the day i heard a pianist able to play him...

Then i realized i knew nothing about Liszt mastery after Dorati  Christus, which inspired Bruckner...

Liszt is a musical genius not just a pianist  on par with all the greatest ...

 

 

 

For the Bach great mass i cannot quit listening Klemperer huge interpretation, the greatest mass ever written ... I will put Bruckner great mass in second...

I am not a fan of Opera (save exception as Faust Busoni with Fisher-Dieskau or Kurt Weil or Mozart operas or Akhnaten from Glass etc ) Because it is almost impossible to speak and saying  and singing at the same times in perfect musical harmony...It takes giant singers...I prefer sacred music... But i like Puccini ...

Here Scotto succeed for me  to keep perfect balance between  pure music and poetical diction without falling into "theater" ... When i love an opera i listen to it as music not as theater, I prefer even to not read the libretto...I listen  to it many times... If we listen Scotto here we can listen her "on repeat" as music without being bothered by a " speech"  in a "play" ...I love her here ...

 

Renata Scotto : "Chi il bel sogno di Doretta

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-t3L-ZWtKs&list=RDg-t3L-ZWtKs&start_radio=1

 

Montserrat Caballe  do as Scotto a marvellous Doretta for the same reason but in his own  way:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZ5cL-sJZhw&list=RDg-t3L-ZWtKs&index=2

 

I like Mirella Freni i discovered long ago and loved  in Vivaldi and in Mozart who was my first Opera love ....

 

i apologize to  audio-b-dog in throwing so much suggestions interrupting his works......

I had another book to suggest though which contain in it the mystery of music in relation to sound...

but i will wait your OK before speaking about it ... 

In the mean time for everybody a documentary about the greatest pianists... for everybody probably one of the best piano documentary ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlxzvkkLfpc&list=RDxlxzvkkLfpc&start_radio=1

To end my rant with serious talking...

I understood how music is about "time"  not physical measurable time but "heart time" listening a pianist genius playing with some false notes on a bad piano, the heart of Liszt music "la vallée d’Obermann" which piece nobody can play  really to make felt Liszt heart...( i discovered musical  heart/time also with australian didgeredoo but it is another story )

I begun to understand Liszt with this supreme pianist which only Moravec and  Sofronitsky and few others rival ; by the way his biography is a stunning incredible book : 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLk6vqaxU1Y&list=RDdLk6vqaxU1Y&start_radio=1

If you think i dont know what i talk about, you must read the letter of Arnold Schoenberg to the young Klemperer about Ervin Nyiregyházi playing... He litteraly melt like a glacier facing a volcano about this pianist asking Klemperer to cross Atlantic to hear him  ...

By the way what you will hear in this youtube video is a pianist who never played on a piano for 40 years without never practicing...He begun another world career at 70 again to gain money to cure his 10th wife of cancer ...Read his biography...

now listen when he is in another mood :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0S1KDOC8is&list=RDO0S1KDOC8is&start_radio=1

When he play Mephisto waltz of Liszt, it is Mephisto himself playing, it is not "beautiful" it is mesmerizing as Liszt certainly was:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtSHsZj566Q&list=RDwtSHsZj566Q&start_radio=1

If you want to know what Rachmaninoff is about listen him playing it not merely  beautifully but deeply moving us, he use  musical time as a master, he dont play virtuoso and perfectly at all as all others pianists  :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1rklL4qkPE&list=RDp1rklL4qkPE&start_radio=1

 

Music is about the way to create time anew...(Out of any measurable time ) Music is not about beautiful notes...It is about the heart becoming a volcano ...

 

I dont like most popular music...

But there is exception when i fall in love with a woman...

Alas!  i am too old for this goddess, the most erotic singer i ever listen : 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4jHHihEsC4&list=RDU4jHHihEsC4&start_radio=1

most of the times i listen sacred religious chorus music but there is exception...

Ok i am eclectic...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0tPFW88Yso&list=RDq0tPFW88Yso&start_radio=1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2XUrySbdUE&list=RDi2XUrySbdUE&start_radio=1&t=37s

Another giant master of the female vocal is Abida Parveen :

His voice moves mountain born from the heart ...

She sing here with another singer  in a duo :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7D4vNcK6D38&list=RD7D4vNcK6D38&start_radio=1

 

 The same genius born from the heart is to be heard by the Goddess Amalia Rodrigues:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARS7Zi-Zpkw&list=RDARS7Zi-Zpkw&start_radio=1

 To stay at this genius level we can go to hear Oum Kalhsoum (Umm Kulthum):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndUg3n9C1vc&list=RDndUg3n9C1vc&start_radio=1

We must not forgot India  because Abida Parveen was a sufi singer from Pakistan, But Tripti Mukherjee is an Indian female singer of the highest order : 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4j4brANIdE8&list=RD4j4brANIdE8&start_radio=1

i dont think i am eclectic... I like almost nothing save what i perceive spiritual genius... All the rest i forgot on the spot...

I forgot to say that i have a spot for Armenia :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ka7ShrDdAA&list=RD4ka7ShrDdAA&start_radio=1

And for China :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bggLkHp6tdg&list=RDbggLkHp6tdg&start_radio=1

 

 Sometimes i think i love fado so much because it sing  from  the heart  of an Empire lost the loss of a love...I like Ana Moura :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lh9YHtZzHfk&list=RDlh9YHtZzHfk&start_radio=1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXIGO7gB-eU&list=RDlh9YHtZzHfk&index=2

 

But if you want to hear the human soul, it takes the pygmies chorus to locate it exactly at the center of the earth... nothing moves us so deep out of history in the eternal femine of Mother Earth : 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSpR-dIiQxw&list=PL6hoM1XotAS7ME-PAVuiZWceHCakb3tzF

 But what about the way drums can speak and sing from the cosmos, neither male nor female : 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYXahxuxLDY

 

I cannot protest against the word "eclectic" to describe my taste...

It fit well what anyone could think about my choices, motivated not by style or specific culture but  by what i perceived as genius in music...

My second female choice  is Marian Anderson...

She is the greatest singer born from America not by popularity but by genius and raw talent in any style :  it could had been  any genre...

She mastered all and dominated all ...

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_E7zjNiz2ZI&list=RD_E7zjNiz2ZI&start_radio=1

Mahgister - I’m always impressed by how eclectic your music taste is!

 

One of my favorite female singer in one of my best album  of songs...

 

«Persian Love Songs & Mystic Chants" is a collection of traditional Persian music, primarily featuring the vocals of Shusha Guppy. The album, released in 1973, includes songs that blend romantic themes with mystical and spiritual elements. This video presents a collection of traditional Iranian folk music, which is related to the topic of Persian love songs and mystic chants:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS065XPSCFc&list=RDeS065XPSCFc&start_radio=1&t=67s

it is worth reading the wiki entry about her : 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shusha_Guppy

 The clear and pure voice catch something very grounded in the earth but very spiritual in Farsi a language i recognized as one in my past life so to speak.

The feminine embodied a part of the soul in each one of us, because as the farther past which is always "an ever present origin" , the farther future prepare us  making a balance between the feminine and masculine polarities in us, for the need of the present era.

History spoke with a voice which cannot be muted...

 

It is a dead end to listen music  only by nostalgia and it is a dead end to listen music with no nostalgia at all ...

Why ?

Music understanding and feeling are developed in  different stages in each of our life...

It is then normal to be nostalgic and listen again "Moondog" i discovered at 20 for example as i do times to times...I listen to him differently now...

It is normal to discover new musical languages too ...

But the more we internalized a new experience, the more it will have a growing  meaning in later stage in our life and then we will listen to it differently with nostalgia and sometimes surprise about what we missed or what we overvalued......

 

« I am nostalgic only about the woman i did not love anymore.»-- Groucho Marx

 

 

@mahgister 

Slowly working my way through Orgin. It's a very interesting view of the world and philosophy. I think it might help in my endeavors.

I am glad if it could be a useful book for you...

Anyway i will read your book if i am alive here ...

 

it is  by far the best one hour about "creativity" course  with an example related to the geometry of the heart by an artist who picked his intuition in Rudolf Steiner description of the heart :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQMpEAsNHmY&t=266s&pp=ygUMY2hlc3RhaGVkcm9u

 

It is the same thing in natural science if we study Goethe...

It is the same in mathematics which need our act of interpretation at the end... As illustrated by  Godel famous alternative : " (1) the human mind is not a Turing machine or
(2) there are certain unsolvable mathematical problems"

For Godel meaning is an embodied symbolic form and we are more than machine...

 

more :

«Furthermore, Godel consideres that there must be a nonmechanical plan to
machines, as he reportes "Such a state of affairs would show that there is something
nonmechanical in the sense that the overall plan for the historical development of
machines is not mechanical. If the general plan is mechanical, then the whole race can
be summarised in one machine." (Godel in conversation with Wang).»

 

 

https://scispace.com/pdf/godel-on-the-mathematician-s-mind-and-turing-machine-4n7mymlm38.pdf

 

 

@mahgister 

Meaning is an embodied felt  symbolic form

In art, this has certainly been my experience. I cannot comment on how this applies in math, science or other left-brain-dominant fields. 

Information is not meaning...

Meaning is inaccessible using only  information or bits...

Meaning is an embodied felt  symbolic form not a set of bits....

IT is BITs from the tip of Babel PIT.

But heart beats beat bits.

Data makes us beta.

I think as audio-b-dog...

As for AI creating art. AI cannot feel love or the fear of death. AI cannot know what it is to have a broken heart.

if there is overlap between Gebser and you i want to read your book...

I will wait...

@mahgister 

I read the intro, preface, and the first chapter of "The Ever-Present Origin." I'm not sure if I will read the rest now or later. I'm in the middle of "The Plumed Serpent" by D.H. Lawrence and I want to finish it. Although, Lawrence's constant repitition and old style of writing (I've been trained to use one modifier, whereas Lawrence can string together a long list of adjectives) might drive me away from the book.

I think "The Ever-Present Origin" might overlap with me on the research I've done for my book. Our Ven diagrams might have a lot of overlap. I'll have to look further.

@mahgister, I, too, was an alter boy and choir boy. My love of polyphony and liturgical music began with music in the church. I’ve been to Italy 3X and saw some stupendous churches and cathedrals there, as well as in the U.S. I have zero religiosity: all I want from religion are the buildings and the music. As for J.S. Bach, I could live on a diet of nothing but and die happy. I listen to his music ~12 hrs/day, every day.

I listen Bach almost everyday since my youth...

I never see Europe... The one day i was supposed to quit and travel i use the 1000 bucks to pay for my books order 50 years ago... A big order... I never quitted... But i dont regret the books order... Nothing beat a deep book which will change you life for the better  as a travel can do in some case (Not all case my friend came back very  ill ) 

There is no age appropriate music...

There is only exposure,education, ears training...

When a child i  was going to Catholic masses and Vespers and ceremonies, I even worked as a boy altar...

My mother and father  were singing  "Ave Maria Stella" as i was a baby, and i remind it clearly and i was 2 years old or 3 max, then  i listened to choral music at the Radio  before noon( very old french and english folk song or popular chorus songs).

Then when all my friend listened Cream and Beatles and Hendrix, i was listening ,Monteverdi, Gesualdo, Josquin Des Prez, Jakob Obrecht, Purcell Anthems, and Bach  etc...

Training ears biases when a baby will determine your music journey...

 It was so strong conditioning, i discovered Jazz  only at 35 years old...I decided it was not an inferior music style no more because i discovered music is done by musicians not written for singing by great past Masters...

Already in my twenties, i listen Indian sitar... It becomes after my  35 years a passion for Indian and Persian music especially .,..

Today i listen to many world musical cultures...

But the Choral music stay my all time favorite...

I like Armenian and Persian songs ...

Popular music has no real appeal to me save few poets exceptions (Dylan Cohen  Baez, Ferré, partly because i was a "hippie" against war in the 70  etc )

 

Alas! if i can wrote a book about Bruckner symphonies describing them in metaphors i had no talent for music at all ...I was discarded from the Choral of boys because of my unability to sing correctly...

I "see" music with my eyes and do not hear it a way a musician hear it...

In my next life i want to play piano as Ervin Nyiregyházi playing Liszt... Or as Sofronitsky playing my god Scriabin...

if not i did not come back here ...

 

 

I didn’t really answer your question about the correlation between genius and chronological time.

 

A genius in art is someone who stay in our collective memory as a representative of his era.

 

The history of art is parallel and perpendicular to the story of science whose two are part of the history of consciousness which we can read  in the history of language itself...

See Owen Barfield : history in english words...

 

Monteverdi is a genius because he manifested his era  on another level inventing opera ...

I dont like many opera...

I like madrigals a lot especially Gesualdo and the 8th book of Monteverdi...

 

 Art is not about "taste" which are only an expression of our own personal biased history... Art is about some truth of an era and his link to universal truth...

 I recommend Jean Gebser masterpiece book about consciousness history " the ever present origin" ...

If you dont fall out of your chair i will pay the book price...

 

Is Monteverdi 8th book of madrigals, all Gesualdo and  Josquin Des Prez   are boring or correspond to your definition ?

For me there is no relation between genius and chronological time ?

 

I have certain criteria that I love in music. If music does not have most or all of those criteria, I find it uninteresting, emotionally and/or intellectually. And it’s not like I made a conscious decision to only like music that meet those criteria, it was an evolution over the years.

Those criteria being (no particular order): very high level of musicianship, deep and broad levels of emotional and/or intellectual content conveyed, fairly high levels of complexity and sophistication, (usually) long form song structure that goes through changes in: mood, intensity, tempo, dynamics, time changes, etc., over its length.

 

I believe that art (including music) and "religion" were one thing to  the primitives. They had no distinction between the two.

I think you are right on this. 

Women sing for the child even before birth...

It is women that create humor to control the male hubris, the women were center to the social net, and they  co-create speech which is music with the hunting male group imitating animals and communicating between them...

 S. Pinker once said that music was secondary...

https://iai.tv/articles/pinker-vs-nietzsche-is-music-the-basis-of-language-auid-3247

 

Nietszche said the opposite...

 

 He was right and this explain why i never read Pinker...

Music and linguistics are linked if we think about language origin and more so if we observe the hidden iceberg part : the motivation of sounds...The sound signs are not absolutely arbitrary,Saussure for methodological reason establishes  the arbitrary of sounds system as starting point. Others linguists takes this further and posed it as a dogma...They are wrong..

But it is another story...

I am interested by linguistics too and especially by the differences between oral first cultures and the invention of written signs and after it by the huge abyss of the Greek alphabet created and its impact on Greek thought ...Not just music and acoustics...

 

 

Very important observation about breathing and non written music... breath is a gesture as is speech or playing an instrument... Some gesture can be written some others not, the flow in time and his cycles created a time dimension proper to music and not to metronome measured by the clock time...

I own 20 albums of didgeridoo, not one is like an other...

This music may be very powerful...

 

Didgeridoo players can breathe continuously into the instrument while ’talking’ to create an incredible variety of sounds.  Clapsticks (hundreds of them) and didgeridoo featured in the opening work of the refurbished Sydney Opera House, in "Of the Earth" by Willian Barton. I cannot conceive how music for the didgeridoo can be written down!

 

You dont get what i spoke about it seems...

When you speak are you conscious of the complex mechanisms behind syntax and semantic ? Not at all, we learned it without even knowing what we do...

It is the same for the musical time, which is born from our complex response to society and to Nature from the body members (rythm) and from the throat/mouth (timbre and tonality)...

Then this  "musical sophistication" occurred from the beginning...But it is now that we get this sophistication consciously understood...

Ancient language are not less complex than english... it is the opposite...

 And Einstein concept of time or Newton concept of time has nothing to do with "musical time" not measured by the watch, and if so is being denatured and lost...It must be felt not counted...

@mahgister,

All of this musical sophistication couldn’t have occurred at once. Certain things must have happened first, then others, then others. Early Homos sapiens probably didn’t have a concept of time beyond the sun setting and rising.

In the beginning there was not speech on one side music on the other. Social interaction must had been motivated by rythms to unite the tribe in a work.

Speech dont exist without body members gestures rythms and without throat/mouth motivated  tonal sound (continuous vowel and discontinuous consonants) and specific body timbre.

In the beginning speech and music are one, and when they separate in the days activities they reunite in the calm of night.

Speech makes music through not only singing but speaking. And music spoke as in the Nigeria the Yoruba they call their drum "talking Drums". Yoruba is the name of a tribe of his language and of his drums.

 

Also music not only exist in time but exist as time itself, at least a time of his own.

Musical time is a specific musical concept...Musical time cannot be reduced to measurable physical time. It is a qualitative rythmic time linked to the body gestures felt as a rythm.

here from the web a few concepts  about musical time you certainly know:

«Beat: The basic unit of time in music, providing a regular pulse. 

Tempo: The speed of the music, often measured in beats per minute (BPM)

Meter: The grouping of beats into recurring patterns, indicated by time signatures.

Measure (or Bar): A segment of time corresponding to a specific number of beats, separated by bar lines

Time Signature: A notation that indicates the meter, specifying the number of beats per measure and the type of note that receives one beat. 

Rhythm: The arrangement of sounds and silences in time, encompassing note durations, rests, and patterns»

 

Now these concepts come from written classical music.When i speak about musical time ( Ansermet wrote a huge book about it) i spoke mainly from the phenomenology of felt conscious qualitative  time(a duration said Bergson debating with Einstein) 

In our evolution it was the body improvising gestures that created his own time as a meaningful content to be repeated or commented by others body gestures as a musical and spoken answer in the tribe or in the social group.

 

 

I often wonder what the earliest music must have sounded like. I assume it had a strong beat and the melody from a flute or whatever was less important than it is today. Music is the only art that exists in time, as @mahgister has talked about, and I have a feeling that the beats in time are fundamental to any human music.