Let's talk music, no genre boundaries


This is an offshoot of the jazz thread. I and others found that we could not talk about jazz without discussing other musical genres, as well as the philosophy of music. So, this is a thread in which people can suggest good music of all genres, and spout off your feelings about music itself.

 

audio-b-dog

i like deep experience in books as in music...

But like everyone i read sometimes a novel or a biography for a relaxing lecture pleasure...

 All the jazz i listen to is not deep music...

 

What I am hearing you say, @mahgister, is that you like a kind of soul wrenching depth in performances. If that is true, and I'm not saying it is, my response would be that I like Dostoevsky but I also like to read other authors who provide lighter fare. Of course, most novels today are written and read by women. Jane Austen is still huge. 

 

 I dont mind the composer interpretation so interesting it is because it is not always the best... And a work well composed contain information and colors and images even the composer never think about...Music goes deeper than the human brain creative power...It is why it is an experience of the heights and of the abyss and for me cinematographic or/and geometric...

The best interpretation is always the more expressive, the one who make you not only feel the music but "seeing" it ... In the cathedrale engloutie with Moravec we see the cathedral silent  bell tower emerging from the sea.... I dont see anything with others pianist...

If you listen all Moravec albums you will know why someone called him "the pianist's pianists"...

@mahgister 

I happen to agree with you that great musicians can find expression in compositions that the composer was not aware of. But I thought I'd throw out Debussy's interpretation as a baseline.

I enjoyed Furtwangler's interpretation of Schumann's 4th. I have it recorded by George Szell who is a great conductor, but not so great on Schumann's 4th. I think all conductors and musicians excel on certain pieces. I also heard it played at Disney Hall and did not like it at all. I think it was an original version by Schumann without the orchestration help of Brahms. Schumann admitted that he did not understand the orchestra like Beethoven, Brahms and others, and the second versions of his symphonies are far more interesting in the color they get from the orchestra. 

I do not know if you have heard of Igor Levit, a young-ish pianist who I think gets extremely deeply into compositions. Here is a smple of him playing the first movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. I have never heard it played like this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EGdL_P2iXE

@frogman 

Thank you for that article on interpreting composers. I have a box set of Stravinsky conducting his three ballets. I have heard other interpretations that I like better. Being a great composer does not make one a great conductor which has not only to do with interpretation but the ability to convey to the orchestra that interpretation.

@mahgister 

I have to stop reading "Ever-Present Origin." We can't discuss it here. Maybe you can try a PM and I might get an email to respond to. Briefly, when the author began talking about the awakening of the soul in "archaic man," he just lost me. First, he did not define what he means by soul. And secondly, If there is a soul, I believe it existed long before Homos sapiens. To me, his outlook is very 1966. So much thought has happened since then. Again, if you want to discuss further, try to PM me. Thanks.

First, the awakening of the soul is that: an awakening of the self consciousness...Then Gebser never said that the soul  did not exist before homo sapiens but that it awake to new dimension of self reflection.

If you doubt  even the soul could exist i am not suprised that you close the Gebser book...But your opinion about the soul inexistence appear so much dated exactly from the materialism era, and industrialization, since then  things has changed recently , did you know ?

And  anyway in spite of my sarcasm about materialism  it makes no sense to critic a thinker saying his outlook is too much "1966"...We dont speak about design clothes here ...And the events which happened since Plato cannot be used as a reason  to close off the book of  a philosopher...

I understand that you already had your own set of ideas against which Gebser seems to goes opposite...

It is all good we do not understand things et see them from the same perspective...

I dont see what i can speak about which will beat Gebser ideas...

 

By the way i could recommend at least 50 others genius confirming his takes on the evolution of consciousness from all perspectives and fields...from acoustics to linguistics, to mathematics, psychology ,anthropology, history, epistemology... It was my job  before retirement ...

I stop to read only mediocre book...I dont even need to stop reading them i sense them before 15 minutes...

And yes the "soul" exist...I trust mathematics and if the primes numbers appear more solid than a table as for existence, then the soul too is real...But materialist think that numbers are from some  apes merely symbolic convention with no meanings... It is false but here the discussion is out of place... And too long with too many books to quote from ...

 

@mahgister 

I have to stop reading "Ever-Present Origin." We can’t discuss it here. Maybe you can try a PM and I might get an email to respond to. Briefly, when the author began talking about the awakening of the soul in "archaic man," he just lost me. First, he did not define what he means by soul. And secondly, If there is a soul, I believe it existed long before Homos sapiens. To me, his outlook is very 1966. So much thought has happened since then. Again, if you want to discuss further, try to PM me. Thanks.