ravel30 wrote:
Hey Fergus,
I thought that this thread (and the listening projects) would be like a book club where people review a book and express themselves about it. That is kinda how I started the whole thing but quickly realized that it was difficult to do so. I really thought that I could find lots of infos on that piece and had high hopes with the books that I found. I wanted tell a lot of infos of the pieces to help people who are listening to that piece for the first few times and help the veteran with that piece like myself to hear the work with new years. I just don't feel like I have done that as much as I would have wanted and the books did not really say much when it came to it. That been said, it is probably me who is too hard of myself.
I appreciate the reviews of recordings and I am sure that they are helpful for some but I feel that the thread is becoming just that. A thread about recordings. But I totally understand why because it is a lot easier to talk about a particular recording than a piece as a whole. I know that it is important for most of you but I am personally happy with just 1 or 2 recordings of a piece and I honestly don't find many differences between recordings (at this point in my career with classical music :) ).
Matt.
Matt, I think that you are indeed being too hard on yourself! I also say this with the greatest of respect Matt that I think that you are being over optimistic and unfair on yourself if you believe that you can come to a work like the Sibelius symphony No. 5, read a couple of books and from that secure a good understanding of such a complex work that operates on many emotional and intellectual levels.
We all struggle to understand the complexities of the music just like you but some of us have come to understand them a little bit more with years of listening and reading. Unlike CMG there are no professionally trained musicians, composers or conductors here whose wisdom we can call upon and to the best of my knowledge the only person who has any formal training is Simon (Diapason). Therefore we do not have the ability, training or vocabulary to formally analyse, dissect and sum up a work as complex as Sibelius 5 or to attempt to help you to do so either my friend, so you certainly should not beat yourself up because you feel that you cannot do so either. I also believe that if someone attempted to analyse a work in such a way they would kill it and bore people.
My approach, with my limited knowledge, is to try, by comparing different recordings, to highlight certain important or stand out sections and to try to demonstrate how different conductors interpret these particular sections. This can be a practical example of how I and many other listeners at our level of expertise analyse works such as this; we learn by listening and comparing as many of us will have the same versions of a particular work.
Many of us know that to understand the beauties and complexities of Early Music one has to have a grasp of or at least an “ear” for modes (not scales) and an appreciation of dissonant harmonies and their effects. Similarly, one needs to have an understanding of the strict architecture, or form, of the Classical symphony to fully appreciate its order, sense of movement and ultimate arrival at its predetermined goal. Likewise we also know that Romantic composers, although loosely using classical form, strove to impose the “personal” as opposed to the “aesthetic” of classicism as their primary means of expression and we also know that the atonal movement went in its own direction in an effort to get their own points of view across. My point here is that any such technical discussions would probably be lost on most people and would also probably alienate them. Perhaps I am wrong and I certainly would love to hear from those who would feel differently.
Far from being condescending Matt I am attempting to illustrate to you that what you seek is perhaps not that easy to achieve. However I would also try to encourage you in whatever way that I can my friend.
Perhaps you could start over again Matt by saying what you “feel” about the work and we could try to follow from there. I certainly hope that you do not get discouraged at this early stage Matt. As I said before, just remember that just because the month is about to close does not mean that the thread has to finish; a thread such as this is something that we should all be able to delve into from time to time. You are a valuable member of our small community here Matt and I do not want you to get frustrated so I think that by trying to get it right will be important. Please let me know what you think.
