# Invitation to discuss 'the music': Shostakovich's 11th Symphony



## Guest (Oct 20, 2013)

At the risk of being accused of obsession (it'll pass, and in any case, I'm not the only one here with an obsession) I'd like to pick up a point made by some guy (no, not just any old guy) in another thread and ask him, and anyone else, to discuss the music of Shostakovich's 11th Symphony: The Year 1905.

This symphony is supposed to 'describe' or 'be about' the year in which peaceful demonstrators were massacred by cavalry in front of the Tsar's Winter Palace.

Here's a chance to discuss how 'the music' does this, if it does it at all. How do the notes, their pitch, duration, dynamics etc and the orchestration convey any of the things that a listener might be able to hear, if s/he is suitably attuned. It's also a chance for those with the technical know-how to educate the enthusiastic amateurs among us (that's me for starters) to listen beyond the emotional.

Thanks.


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## Guest (Oct 20, 2013)

This is a curious choice of pieces, MacLeod, in that it does purport to describe non-musical things. It might have been better to start with something abstract. Simpler to talk about musical things, to start, than take the initial plunge into the jungle of programmatic music.

But maybe not. Maybe this is the ideal way to start.

How does Shostakovich's eleventh describe an event? Well, partly it does so by using things that are already musical, or already sonic, at least. Music can mimic anything that is similarly sonic, from a thunderstorm to a train to gun fire. Question remains whether mimicking a sonic event is at all the same kind of thing as depicting that event. And whether it is more or less musical.

There are also other pieces of music or kinds of music that can be put into a piece. Marches, waltzes, lullabies and the like. We make fairly predictable responses to those things because we already know how we're supposed to react to marches and waltzes and so forth.

If Shostakovich's eleventh is going to satisfy musically, is it going to have to transcend those things? Or, rather, are we going to have to transcend them? How easily does the eleventh allow one to transcend them? Well, as far as the gun fire goes, not very easily. (I have the same problem with the storm in Strauss's _Alpine Symphony,_ which is a piece I mostly get a lot of pleasure from. But he's so obviously trying to mimic the sonic event of a storm, that the musical logic of the piece is at least temporarily suspended.)

Otherwise, I'm uncomfortable with the implications of "suitably attuned." Do you mean, if we know the story ahead of time, will we be able to hear the music telling the story? And if we don't know the story, will the music tell us that story anyway?

I strongly suspect that unless we've been primed by non-musical things, like programs, we can none of us tell whatever story a programmatic piece is supposedly telling. I think if you sit down a hundred people who have never heard Dvorak's _Noonday Witch_ and ask them to tell its story after they've heard it, you will get very diverse responses. You may not get a hundred different stories, but I'd be willing to bet that you'd never get anything close to the actual program for that piece.

Once we know the stories, though, it is almost impossible not to hear the music telling us those stories. Or the illusion of being told by the music. But that's the power of language, not of music. Music has other powers.


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## Guest (Oct 20, 2013)

Well, thanks for starting. I chose this piece simply because it's the most recent piece that I've been listening to, it is new to me, and I like what I've heard of DS previously - the 7th and 10th symphonies.

My reference to 'being attuned' was to the post you made elsewhere where you said something similar (I'll find it and quote it).

What you seem to have done, however, is not to discuss the music at all, but express caveats about being able to listen to it without some kind of pre-conditioning getting in the way - either familiarity with the story, or being somehow desensitised by musical cliche. Perhaps I should start by asking a simple question: the sound of the tocsin at the climax of the finale has been likened to triumphant, celebratory bells - thus confirming DS's credentials as a true soviet citizen. However, other performances have used bells that give the tocsin a harsh, discordant and terrifying edge - thus warning us about the more recent problem of the tyranny that was the suppression of the '56 uprising in Hungary. Whatever the truth of the extra-musical component here, the fact that different orchestras use different bells does give a different tone and texture at that point, and this has the potential to convey something different.

Any observations?

[edit] I found the place where you refer to what I called 'attuned' (you actually called it 'receptive').

http://www.talkclassical.com/28599-beethovens-music-emotional-post544001.html#post544001



> Just listening to the Appassionata won't do anything for you unless you're receptive. Just try this: Get someone who's never heard any Beethoven, someone really passionate (
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

I am forced to agree with _some guy_, assuming (rashly I know) that he is objecting to the programmed nature of the work you selected. Unless you are interested in architectural details, the program 'contaminates' the music, and so the discussion.


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## Guest (Oct 20, 2013)

Hilltroll72 said:


> I am forced to agree with _some guy_, assuming (rashly I know) that he is objecting to the programmed nature of the work you selected. Unless you are interested in architectural details, the program 'contaminates' the music, and so the discussion.


?

So are you saying that it's all too late: we can't discuss the musical content of the symphony? Not even to consider the ideas that DS himself says the music contains?


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

For myself: the issue of "program music," and whether what one enjoys in a programmatic piece is truly "musical" or something "extramusical," is not something that has ever bothered me. It's also not something that has bothered most composers throughout history, except for a few in the twentieth century. If an artwork gives me some sort of enjoyment, that's fine with me. I'll let philosophers argue over what it is I'm enjoying.

It's an especially controversial issue with Shostakovich: the criticism that his music is overtly programmatic, and programmatic of political events at that, is exactly what was used to discredit him in the west. The privileging of the "purely musical" was a very useful strategy for Cold War debates over the role of music in society. That's why pieces like the Eleventh Symphony or (especially, thanks to Bartok) the Seventh Symphony took a while to be taken seriously here in the west, and even today there are some who still can't take them seriously.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

MacLeod said:


> ?
> 
> So are you saying that it's all too late: we can't discuss the musical content of the symphony? Not even to consider the ideas that DS himself says the music contains?


Discuss the thing all you want. You won't be discussing the 'sense' of the music though, you will be chatting about the program, and how the music assists the program. This is no different from movie music.


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## Guest (Oct 20, 2013)

Hilltroll72 said:


> Discuss the thing all you want. You won't be discussing the 'sense' of the music though, you will be chatting about the program, and how the music assists the program. This is no different from movie music.


Well go on then - you start - let's discuss the 'sense' of the music.


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## KRoad (Jun 1, 2012)

MacLeod said:


> Well go on then - you start - let's discuss the 'sense' of the music.


I'll second that. Yes, please.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

MacLeod said:


> Well go on then - you start - let's discuss the 'sense' of the music.


Well shhhhucks, that's my point. You know the 'story' - the story colors the music and provides its sense. You have no choice in the matter. And I have no interest in discussing the story.


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

I cannot discuss the sense of the music, as I only clicked-to-order 5 days ago. I will be listening soon (to the 12th, too, which is hitching along for the ride, and I am glad, as it is one I would not have chosen to buy, due to it's programme ).

In general, I don't concern myself with programmes. I put on the music and I try to let it sweep me away, to wherever it can take me. I read liner notes and very often look up websites where the work is discussed, so my pure experience is 'polluted' somewhat by what little I ever manage to remember about what the music is supposed to mean. Sometimes I feel that I can pick out certain musical signposts that point to the story, such as militaristic marching drumbeats, bugle calls, cowbells (Mahler), etc., but I have never been able to follow a programme right through solely on the images the music evokes in me, not in Berlioz, Beethoven, Strauss, Grieg, Schoenberg or in any work. Without a text to guide my experience (either sung or program notes), I am _mostly_ left to my own interpretation, coloured slightly by what I am expecting to hear, based on the parts of the programme I know.


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## Guest (Oct 20, 2013)

Hilltroll72 said:


> Well shhhhucks, that's my point. You know the 'story' - the story colors the music and provides its sense. You have no choice in the matter. And I have no interest in discussing the story.


What I 'sense' is someone who read the title of the thread, but still decided to drop by and discuss 'about' the music, and not the music itself.

If you're not interested in the story, there is still the symphony.



brotagonist said:


> I cannot discuss the sense of the music, as I only clicked-to-order 5 days ago. I will be listening soon (to the 12th, too, which is hitching along for the ride, and I am glad, as it is one I would not have chosen to buy, due to it's programme ).
> 
> In general, I don't concern myself with programmes. I put on the music and I try to let it sweep me away, to wherever it can take me. I read liner notes and very often look up websites where the work is discussed, so my pure experience is 'polluted' somewhat by what little I ever manage to remember about what the music is supposed to mean. Sometimes I feel that I can pick out certain musical signposts that point to the story, such as militaristic marching drumbeats, bugle calls, cowbells (Mahler), etc., but I have never been able to follow a programme right through solely on the images the music evokes in me, not in Berlioz, Beethoven, Strauss, Grieg, Schoenberg or in any work. Without a text to guide my experience (either sung or program notes), I am _mostly_ left to my own interpretation, coloured slightly by what I am expecting to hear, based on the parts of the programme I know.


Me too: all of the above. And unless anyone is going to claim that we can revert to an uncontaminated state, we are all polluted, even before we listen to works we've never heard of, by whatever knowledge we already have about music, whatever opinions we've already formed, whatever emotions we've experienced...

Apparently, that means we can't discuss the music, despite that being what we're here to talk about.


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

MacLeod said:


> Apparently, that means we can't discuss the music, despite that being what we're here to talk about.


Uh, is that what you got out of what I said? I didn't mean it, honest  I'm sorry that my comment is so general, as per programme music, and not specific to Shostakovich's _Eleventh Symphony_, but the album has not yet arrived in the mail.


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## Guest (Oct 20, 2013)

brotagonist said:


> Uh, is that what you got out of what I said? I didn't mean it, honest  I'm sorry that my comment is so general, as per programme music, and not specific to Shostakovich's _Eleventh Symphony_, but the album has not yet arrived in the mail.


No, no, my comment was a throwback to what some guy and hilltroll have so far said. Sorry.

And you don't have to wait for the post if you want to listen on Youtube now...


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

....................... retracted


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Of course you can, See post #7 above.

Apparently, "we" are unwilling to accept the fact "we" chose the wrong symphony. Or maybe you should have titled the thread "Program & Movie Music - Shostakovitch vs. Morricone". Hey, it could include a _poll_.

Well, that a pretty long thread title; I guess I can't help out there either. Have a nice day.


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

MacLeod said:


> No, no, my comment was a throwback to what some guy and hilltroll have so far said. Sorry.
> 
> And you don't have to wait for the post if you want to listen on Youtube now...


Thanks, but take no offense. I'm listening to Elliott Carter's _Piano Concerto_ (for the first time... it just showed up Friday) and The New England Partiots are leading 14-7 against the New York Jets (video, without audio)  And what I'm getting from either is debatable, as I scan the recent posts


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## Guest (Oct 20, 2013)

Hilltroll72 said:


> Of course you can, See post #7 above.
> 
> Apparently, "we" are unwilling to accept the fact "we" chose the wrong symphony. Or maybe you should have titled the thread "Program & Movie Music - Shostakovitch vs. Morricone". Hey, it could include a _poll_.
> 
> Well, that a pretty long thread title; I guess I can't help out there either. Have a nice day.


Then you missed the point of my thread entirely. Some guy recently claimed that people here want to endlessly talk about talking about music, not about the music itself. Like me, and some others, he complains that too many threads go over the same old ground - emotions in music where there are none; tonal v atonal; popularity polls etc.

So, I offered to start a thread where the music could be discussed. Now, _I _chose 'the wrong' symphony, though only for reasons I've already given, but the solution is simple.

Pick something else and start a new thread.


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## Guest (Oct 20, 2013)

[Note: When I started this post, MacLeod's comment that I quote was the most recent post.]



MacLeod said:


> Well go on then - you start - let's discuss the 'sense' of the music.


Old trick. Maybe not the oldest in the book. but old.

Set up a situation for failure. Wait until someone says, "We're being set up to fail." Then challenge them to succeed.

Best, probably, to set up the situation for success to start with.

But what the hay. According to you, I've already failed. I have nothing to lose, woo hoo!! I'll try to stay away from technical vocabulary, though I wouldn't mind seeing someone take on the same task with technical vocabulary. And I won't mind if someone points out that "symphony" and "movements" and "motifs" and "themes" are technical, too, in a way.

So, the thing is called a symphony, and it has four movements. I don't know how conventional people's responses have been since 1957. But one is certainly free to have expectations and to note how those expectations are met or not in Shostakovich's eleventh. And the first thing that one notices is that the first movement is mostly pretty slow and quiet, without any sonata-allegro shenanigans. It goes back and forth between what the strings play and what the timpani (and brass) play. And it does this for fifteen minutes. There's one bit where the one motif opens up and sounds for a bit like a real theme, but that doesn't last.

The second movement comes as a bit of relief, with an actual theme. Though development is still not overwhelming, there's more variety here. A drum bit a little over half-way through ratchets up the excitement (the music is loud and fast and polyphonous--there's even a fugue) and then the brass come in, forte, with a motif from earlier in the movement, that one that ends with the three repeated pitches, which was quiet the last time we heard it. (This comes in again in the third movement, much slowed down, so really emphatic.) Forte, and egged on by the drums. Then comes a real shock--the sounds and mood (too soon?) of the first movement.

Not what one would expect from something called a symphony, but this is 1957, and the piece has a program, so....

So one will either forgive it for not living up to expectations, praise it for undercutting expectations, or damn it for just being four loosely connected tone poems.

Anyway, I'll let someone else take over for movements three and four. Or do something completely different. You know, show how certain musical patterns occur, with variations, throughout the whole piece, unifying it. Or maybe, eventually, even how the fourth movement basically "tells the same story" as the second all over again. (Too much unity?) ("Tells" in scare quotes, because it really does different things musically. It's not nearly as various as the second movement. Much more obvious in its effects, much more of the big, splashy stuff.)

In general,* the symphony swings back and forth between very quiet, slow bits and very busy passages (which are often the underpinning for big, loud music in the brass and percussion). So it's going to be terrifically exciting, if you like that kind of thing, or it's going to put you off. (A former girl friend's complaint was that Shostakovich's music was always too "male." Well, OK. Since he was a guy, after all....)

*In specific, it's much more complex and various.


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

Thanks, some guy, for getting this going. I _am_ interested in this, as I intend to follow what was learned here when the album arrives in the mail in a couple of weeks. I am interested and will be listening with ears perked. Thanks, MacLeod, for choosing this symphony. I really love Shostakovich's music!

Back to the football game (commercials have ended).


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## Guest (Oct 20, 2013)

some guy said:


> Old trick. Maybe not the oldest in the book. but old.
> 
> Set up a situation for failure. Wait until someone says, "We're being set up to fail." Then challenge them to succeed.
> 
> ...


OK, I'll not say that you've not been 'set up', but don't overdo the over-interpretation of my motives. I don't recall posting anything that either explicitly asserted or even implied that you've 'failed' (in what way? on what terms?) My thread starter was a genuine attempt to engage you - and those others like you and me that are tiring of the talk about talk etc (jeez, must I really keep repeating myself? I'm beginning to post like you!) - in a discussion of a specific piece of music. Yes, it's a set up because I don't wholly believe what you've been saying in those other threads, and I wanted to test whether you'd follow through. And lo! You did (though there's obviously more to come).

Thanks for your summary of what happens in those two movements. I suppose what I was partly expecting was something along the lines of what you said (in another thread) was the kind of thing you were looking for. I quote:



> I have overlooked nothing. The posts you mention do not contain any information or description about any piece of music.
> 
> This particular thread does not encourage anyone to post even close to what I am asking for, but there have been a few posts that point in the general direction, at least, and some that are even quite close: #3, #22, #56, #69, #71, #78, even #87 (which I disagree with in every way). Also #88 and #96.


However, since you didn't elaborate on what was in those posts that was different from the ones I claimed you'd overlooked, I guess I don't know what I'm looking for anymore than you know (what I'm looking for).

What I'd like to know, now you've described what happens, is what you make of it. That long slow quiet movement: it's written to achieve some kind of effect, isn't it? What effect does it have on you; or, if you prefer, what effect do you think DS might have been aiming at?


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## Guest (Oct 20, 2013)

MacLeod said:


> (jeez, must I really keep repeating myself? I'm beginning to post like you!)






MacLeod said:


> However, since you didn't elaborate on what was in those posts that was different from the ones I claimed you'd overlooked, I guess I don't know what I'm looking for anymore than you know (what I'm looking for).


Oopsie. I assumed the difference would be obvious.

The ones I mentioned either talked about the music qua music or at least pointed in that direction. The ones you mentioned did nothing like that.



MacLeod said:


> What I'd like to know, now you've described what happens, is what you make of it. That long slow quiet movement: it's written to achieve some kind of effect, isn't it? What effect does it have on you; or, if you prefer, what effect do you think DS might have been aiming at?


Well, I've suggested its effect already.

But here goes: the first movement seems to be almost all anticipation. And even that one bit in the middle, where a theme actually flowers for a moment, seems, in practice, just to emphasize the overall trend, which is not to go anywhere or get anywhere. So, as I pointed out, the second movement comes as a big relief. It's got themes and development and variety.

I never knew Dmitri personally, and have never read any of his explanations of what he was trying to effect, so I cannot answer your last question, which is good, because it's not a question I would have any interest in answering, even if I did know all those other things.

Otherwise, the first movement strikes me differently different times. Sometimes what I feel is impatience. And relief at the second movement. Other times, I am aware of myself listening with impatience, and I sink into the static world of that movement and just let it be. And other times (most of the time, actually, when I'm just listening and not listening in order to write some essay for my good friend MacLeod), I just naturally sink into the static world. If I'm not careful, if I'm too successful at the sinking, the second movement is the one that can come as a big let down. It's more ordinary, more conventionally "musical."

Fortunately, I'm pretty careful most of the time.

I almost always have a hard time sitting through the last movement. Too easy to think my ex was right when I'm listening to that!

It's good exercise, though, to note one's limits and adjust one's listening so that one can make it through things that put one off. And even do it with pleasure. There is something almost appealing about such over-the-top brassiness (in every sense). Like listening to Khatchaturian (which I can also do with a great deal of pleasure--if I'm in the right mood).


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

some guy said:


> It's good exercise, though, to note one's limits and adjust one's listening so that one can make it through things that put one off. And even do it with pleasure. There is something almost appealing about such over-the-top brassiness (in every sense).


You're either very patient, or a Liberal  Make that NDP.


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## Guest (Oct 21, 2013)

some guy said:


> I never knew Dmitri personally, and have never read any of his explanations of what he was trying to effect, so I cannot answer your last question, which is good, because it's not a question I would have any interest in answering, even if I did know all those other things.
> 
> Otherwise, the first movement strikes me differently different times. Sometimes what I feel is impatience. And relief at the second movement. Other times, I am aware of myself listening with impatience, and I sink into the static world of that movement and just let it be. And other times (most of the time, actually, when I'm just listening and not listening in order to write some essay for my good friend MacLeod), I just naturally sink into the static world. If I'm not careful, if I'm too successful at the sinking, the second movement is the one that can come as a big let down. It's more ordinary, more conventionally "musical."
> 
> ...


Excellent! Thank you very much for your post.

Personally, I like to compare what I get from music with what the composer intended I should get, especially in the case of Shostakovich. Like you, the first movement is demanding in that it does very little...though I'm sure I need to listen to it a few more times to encompass it fully.

The last movement is easy for me to sit through as it stirs the blood. When this was on in the background and I was listening to it for the first time, it made me prick up my ears. The second movement of the 10th did the same. There is a particular variety of emotion he stirs that I enjoy, which is quite raw, primeval. In this case, the insistent strings, especially the basses, and, inevitably, the march to that highly percussive climax - tam tam, timpani working overtime - these combine in a way I've not heard in other compositions (so if anyone knows of any similar, I'd be happy for you to deal me a fix!)

It's a good exercise to know _and extend_ one's limits, and one of my limits is that I have to work through a genre of music over time - hence my awareness that if I keep coming back here to discuss DS for the umpteenth time while I listen to more of his symphonies, it'll turn folk off.

So, having heard Prokofiev's 5th for the first and second time through yesterday, my next thread...


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## Guest (Oct 21, 2013)

MacLeod said:


> Excellent! Thank you very much for your post.


De nada.



MacLeod said:


> Personally, I like to compare what I get from music with what the composer intended I should get


You like to compare something you know with something that you cannot know. I don't understand that. [You know, in literature, where one would think that intention was less questionable than in music, since literature is already in language, this has long ago gotten its very own fallacy, the intentional fallacy.



MacLeod said:


> my awareness that if I keep coming back here to discuss DS for the umpteenth time while I listen to more of his symphonies, it'll turn folk off.


Give them a chance to extend their limits....


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

I think most of Shostakovich's symphonies were very capable in the sense that he wrote what he wrote knowing that the repressive authorities would read every note of it - either damning it or supporting it for the "Soviet's cause". I have listened to all of them, a few of them performed live. My favourite is _Leningrad_.


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## quack (Oct 13, 2011)

The problem with threads like this is I don't have a good musical memory and I feel I need to hear the work again, then finding time to do that can be tricky. So apologies for not getting around sooner.

The long slow first movement probably bores some people although personally I have always liked meandering adagios like that. I was attempting to ignore any russian political contexts and to see if I could form an unsullied opinion without reference to the program. The soft slow woodwind melody can almost make you think of a pastoral scene but the recurring snare drum beat (excuse me if I get the instrumentation wrong) really makes that impossibly. It doesn't make you think rain or anything else natural, I think most people are conditioned to only think of something military. It is perhaps a minor, but constant looming presence in the beginning of the symphony, I don't think you can help but imagine something is coming.

The 2nd movement's introduction of the brass really brings on the film music accusations. Whether that is because Shostakovich is copying his own and others film music or if he is creating these tropes that later composers would adopt is unclear to me. But again the associations I get trump any alternative interpretations, i've heard music like this used in big budget battle scenes so that is what it sounds like. The rushing strings may sound like running water but people hurrying from the more powerful sounds is the first thought.

The 3rd does repeat much of the 1st in style but I think the absence of the snare drum, replaced by plodding strings gives it quite a significant difference. The first two movements really do lead the listener into Shostakovich's programme but after that it becomes a lot less obvious to me, less like a funeral march as it is purported and more just a clam (calm too) after the storm.

The last movement is odd in that it doesn't seem to follow from the 3rd but from the 2nd. It makes me think they are out of order or that the 3rd is unnecessary, perhaps it should have formed an expanded slow middle of the last movement. I don't especially hear it as a triumphant tocsin rather it just seems like a way to end the symphony rather than have it peter out. Any drama or conflict introduced in the first two movements don't seem to be resolved, which is I suppose what Shostakovich was trying to suggest.

I only refreshed my memory on the programme after I had finished listening so as not to taint my impressions. The significant point seems to be Shostakovich quoting well known tunes. Well they aren't well known to me and I guess not well know to a fair few others here, particularly as I have been listening to Ives and Schnittke who do quote obviously to my ear. I think that helps divorce us from the details of the programme making it unconnected with revolutionary politics. A dramatic, unequal confrontation is seemingly an inescapable reading to to me at least, perhaps fed more on the expectations of hollywood movie music tropes than Shostakovich's work.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

_quack_ writes:

I only refreshed my memory on the programme after I had finished listening so as not to taint my impressions. The significant point seems to be Shostakovich quoting well known tunes. Well they aren't well known to me and I guess not well know to a fair few others here, particularly as I have been listening to Ives and Schnittke who do quote obviously to my ear. I think that helps divorce us from the details of the programme making it unconnected with revolutionary politics. A dramatic, unequal confrontation is seemingly an inescapable reading to to me at least, perhaps fed more on the expectations of hollywood movie music tropes than Shostakovich's work.

You've made a good effort there, quack. Those tainted impressions are unfortunately unavoidable, both inescapable knowledge (for you) of the program and the perceived similarities with movie music. Minds possessing both ignorance of the symphony's announced associations (from both 'program' and commentaries) and familiarity with classical music, are thin on the ground. When movie music associations are added, hearing the symphony as 'pure' music is an experience for a privileged few.

Given that situation, I suspect that I have misread the OP's intent; a (non-musicological) analysis of the work as pure music cannot be his aim. My apologies for the misunderstanding, _MacLeod.

:tiphat:
_


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## Guest (Oct 21, 2013)

quack said:


> The soft slow woodwind melody can almost make you think of a pastoral scene but the recurring snare drum beat (excuse me if I get the instrumentation wrong) really makes that impossibly. It doesn't make you think rain or anything else natural, I think most people are conditioned to only think of something military.


Along with "strings...like running water" and "people hurrying," these are the kinds of things I was trying to get away from. These are not musical things, they are alternate non-musical associations.

I would like to see if it's possible, even with a "program" symphony like Shostakovich's 11th, to hear the music and to talk about what the music is doing without reference to any types of associations. Just the music.

It may not even be something enough people want to do to keep threads like this going.

But it interested me to see the soft, slow woodwind melody contrasted with the recurring timpani lick. (I'm guessing you meant the timpani lick. It certainly recurs, anyway. There are a few places where there's some snare drum stuff in the first movement, but I don't think it could any of if be described as recurring.) Why? Because those are very similar rhythmically. I'm tempted to call them "it," and refer to "it" as the same tune. It's not really, but the main musical contrast in the first movement is between the slow, static, vibrato-less string music and the sorta tunes (motifs) that the other instruments, including that recurring timpani, play.

It also interested me, noting that the motifs are made up of triplets, that the "static" string stuff is one, one, one, one, one. (It's in four, but presented as undifferentiated ones. You have to listen to get the sense of the meter.)

And it's not all that static, either, come to think of it. Sinuous lines. All over the place, registrally. (If that makes sense--the tune that the strings play goes high and low.) Rhythmically, it tends to be a string of single notes. Melodically, it covers quite a range of pitches. In fact, the more rhythmical music, in the timpani, the trumpet, the horns, and then the flutes has less of a range, registrally, though it sounds more "normal," more like tunes or motifs or melodies, while the string part sounds like background, underpinning, accompaniment.

And that's another thing. While the trumpets, horns, and winds are all foreground, the melody on top of the accompaniment, the timpani, with basically the same rhythm, is always background. It's like you have two different kinds of contrasts going on in this movement, that between the background and the foreground and that between the two backgrounds, one played by the strings, one played by the timpani (playing the rhythm of the foreground music).

That's some really cool stuff going on there, I think, and able to be understood and enjoyed without any of it needing to sound like something else. Although, having said that, I find that I have no quibble with this conclusion at all:



quack said:


> A dramatic, unequal confrontation....


Indeed!


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## quack (Oct 13, 2011)

some guy said:


> Along with "strings...like running water" and "people hurrying," these are the kinds of things I was trying to get away from. These are not musical things, they are alternate non-musical associations.


I suppose that is where we differ. Hearing a beautiful violin is all very nice but being able to imagine it is more than just that and it sounds like or represents something more is always of interest to me. Whether it is something the composer might have worked to achieve and perhaps lots of people will agree they can hear or whether it is an accidental effect that only one person can hear, both are interesting and I like the metaphor they produce. I read someone describing a Corelli work as spaceships moving through the universe, not something Corelli intended at all I am sure and not something I could hear but their association fascinated me.

The snare drums were the part that stood out for me in the first movement, not so much the timpani, they might not have reoccurred as frequently as I implied but the fact they are fairly soft and minor maybe makes them more obvious, like what's that in the background lurking around the tune.

A lot of these effects--the actual instrument being used, the triples, the use of motifs--aren't something I consciously listen for or identify usually. I don't look for the architecture that makes the work only the effect it has. I certainly didn't register the background/foreground contrasts you noticed, if there were competing forces of the 1905 encounter they sounded unified in the symphony for most of the time.


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## Guest (Oct 26, 2013)

Ukko said:


> you will be chatting about the program, and how the music assists the program. This is no different from movie music.


First, what's wrong with movie music? Second, even if you were to demonstrate that 'movie music' is, in some way inferior to 'proper' music, you'd need to establish that what Shostakovich wrote in the 11th was defective because of the specific hallmrks of movie music that it allegedly bears.

Eschbeg's post summarises my view, I think, especially his reference to the privileging of the 'purely musical':



Eschbeg said:


> For myself: the issue of "program music," and whether what one enjoys in a programmatic piece is truly "musical" or something "extramusical," is not something that has ever bothered me. It's also not something that has bothered most composers throughout history, except for a few in the twentieth century. If an artwork gives me some sort of enjoyment, that's fine with me. I'll let philosophers argue over what it is I'm enjoying.
> 
> It's an especially controversial issue with Shostakovich: the criticism that his music is overtly programmatic, and programmatic of political events at that, is exactly what was used to discredit him in the west. The privileging of the "purely musical" was a very useful strategy for Cold War debates over the role of music in society. That's why pieces like the Eleventh Symphony or (especially, thanks to Bartok) the Seventh Symphony took a while to be taken seriously here in the west, and even today there are some who still can't take them seriously.


But I'd go further. There is no 'pure music'.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

MacLeod said:


> First, what's wrong with movie music? Second, even if you were to demonstrate that 'movie music' is, in some way inferior to 'proper' music, you'd need to establish that what Shostakovich wrote in the 11th was defective because of the specific hallmrks of movie music that it allegedly bears.


I very much like a lot of Shostakovich, but have to agree that the 11th is too much like movie music. Nothing wrong with that, except there's no movie! If there were, it might be quite effective as accompaniment. But I find it too slow, too uneventful by itself.

A Russian person might think otherwise, but I am not sufficiently concerned with what happened there in 1905 to try to reconstruct it from the music. Give us the movie, please!


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## Guest (Oct 26, 2013)

KenOC said:


> I [...]have to agree that the 11th is too much like movie music. Nothing wrong with that, except there's no movie! If there were, it might be quite effective as accompaniment. But I find it too slow, too uneventful by itself.


Highly illogical tosh, Ken. By all means dislike it for being slow and uneventful (though my contrary opinion is that it is highly eventful). But where's the sense in _complaining _that it's movie music without a movie? Forget the non-existent movie. There isn't one. It's a symphony that stands or falls because of its musical content, not the extra-musical content that doesn't exist!


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

MacLeod said:


> Highly illogical tosh, Ken. By all means dislike it for being slow and uneventful (though my contrary opinion is that it is highly eventful). But where's the sense in _complaining _that it's movie music without a movie? Forget the non-existent movie. There isn't one. It's a symphony that stands or falls because of its musical content, not the extra-musical content that doesn't exist!


Not at all illogical. I find it tedious, a fact. I believe it might be an effective accompaniment to a movie, also a fact (my belief, that is). Where's the illogic? So to my taste, without the movie, it falls. If my opinion offends you, that doesn't bear on the logic of the situation.

BTW I have your avatar, or a close relative, sitting on a shelf in the living room. Courtesy of the British Museum.


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## Guest (Oct 26, 2013)

KenOC said:


> Not at all illogical. I find it tedious, a fact. I believe it might be an effective accompaniment to a movie, also a fact (my belief, that is). Where's the illogic? So to my taste, without the movie, it falls. If my opinion offends you, that doesn't bear on the logic of the situation.


Well, 'slow uneventful' and 'tedious' music tends not to make good movie music. By all means argue that it would make a good accompaniment to a slow, uneventful and tedious movie, but don't expect your reader to accept that the facts of your opinions constitute a legitimate argument for the failings of the piece.

[edit]


> BTW I have your avatar, or a close relative, sitting on a shelf in the living room. Courtesy of the British Museum.


At least you've got good taste in something.


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## Guest (Oct 26, 2013)

Wait a minute.

So MacLeod, you invited us to discuss something you don't even believe exists? That you didn't believe existed when you started the thread?

Wow. Bad dog!!!

Sit!!!!


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## Guest (Oct 26, 2013)

some guy said:


> Wait a minute.
> 
> So MacLeod, you invited us to discuss something you don't even believe exists? That you didn't believe existed when you started the thread?
> 
> ...


Sorry some guy...you've lost me. You'll have to speak plainer.


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## Guest (Oct 26, 2013)

Actually, I needed to have read more carefully.

That would have given me two things, not one.

The thing I was reacting to was "I'd go further [than Eschbeg]. There is no 'pure music'." (I think interjecting "pure" into the conversation was probably not the best idea, but "oh well.")

Then later you said that Shostakovich's eleventh "stands or falls because of its musical content, not the extra-musical content that doesn't exist!"

Indeed. (So why did we do this thread, again?)

So what _do_ you think? Of course there is no actual movie to which the symphony is the accompaniment.* In fact, that is Ken's point. But there _is_ "extra-musical" content. And the thread has heretofore been all about the difficulty of listening to the piece as a piece without referring to (or even being aware of) that extra musical content. You have been following this thread, so I know you know that.

So what I should have said was "what the...?" and just left it at that.

*And if there were, the music and the movie together would not seem "slow, uneventful, or tedious" at all. The point there was that the music _by itself_ seemed, to Ken, to be that way. And that's only because the movie part is missing (because the music seems to him to be accompaniment for something that doesn't exist. If it did exist, he'd be fine with the music). The claim that slow, uneventful music doesn't make good movie music misses that point entirely. If it were music accompanying scenes in a movie, it would not seem slow or uneventful at all. It would just be there, in the background, accompanying. Which, if I've got it right, is exactly Ken's point.


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## Guest (Oct 26, 2013)

some guy said:


> Wow. Bad dog!!!


Lol!



some guy said:


> Actually, I needed to have read more carefully.
> 
> That would have given me two things, not one.
> 
> ...


All music has extra-musical content. It's unavoidable. (I'll elaborate on that later, if you want me to).

But that doesn't mean that we must attribute to it, explicit things that patently don't exist.

It isn't music for a movie. There is no movie. There is only the music. To complain that the music is of lower quality because there is no movie is just absurd. Whether it would make good music to accompany a movie is also irrelevant to whether the music is good...

...but then that's going to take us away from what you wanted, which was a discussion about what the music does, without discussion of emotional reaction ('tedium') or extra-musical ('music for a movie'?)

To be honest, I tire of trying to infer what people mean or what their reasoning is. For example, Hilltroll aka Ukko will, I hope, return and answer my questions. If he doesn't, I could, of course, post a response based on what I think he thinks is wrong with movie music. As we all know, the easy reply to that is, "You attack my argument for something I didn't say." Ken did at least offer something, but rather than explain his first post further, he merely rejects my accusation of 'illogical'. Of course, a suitable film could be found for the 11th to be put with, but that doesn't help us work out what is wrong with movie music, how the 11th is inferior because a film could be found for it to accompany...any of the multiple combinations of music, movie, suitable, unsuitable etc etc etc etc etc...

You ask, "What _do _you think?" About what? Do you mean, "Let's go back to the beginning, and please explain to me all over again why you invited me [not exclusively you, I must add] to try to talk about "the music" and nothing else?"

If so, my answer is that which I posted earlier. There is no such thing as absolute or pure music (though I know such a category allegedly exists) because it cannot be heard without either the baggage of the composer or the listener infecting it with the extra-musical. Therefore, the best discussions about music deal with all the relevant baggage and all the music. There is less value in discussing 'the music' without either or both of the composer's intent and the listener's response.

I'll stop there and let someone else get a word in, or ask a question, or explain their position a little further.


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## Guest (Oct 26, 2013)

MacLeod said:


> Lol!






MacLeod said:


> All music has extra-musical content. It's unavoidable. (I'll elaborate on that later, if you want me to).


OK. I disagree, so we'll be able to have a conversation about it. Good-o.



MacLeod said:


> But that doesn't mean that we must attribute to it, explicit things that patently don't exist.


But that is just what Ken did _not_ do.



MacLeod said:


> It isn't music for a movie. There is no movie. There is only the music.


Yes. Still well within what Ken's point was. Indeed, it's almost a quote.



MacLeod said:


> To complain that the music is of lower quality because there is no movie is just absurd.


But no one has done this. Not on this thread, anyway. Not yet. You reacted to Ukko's remarks, and then to Ken's, _as if_ they had done this, but if you look at what they said, there's nothing even close to that complaint. "Wrong, inferior, defective," those are all your words, your interpretation of some fairly neutral remarks. (Ukko: "Discuss the thing all you want. You won't be discussing the 'sense' of the music though, you will be chatting about the program, and how the music assists the program. This is no different from movie music." Clearly about the role of the music--accompaniment--not about the quality of it. And Ken: "Nothing wrong with that, except there's no movie! If there were, it might be quite effective as accompaniment.")

The invitation of the OP was to talk about music qua music, as per my naive request on another thread. The specific piece offered up for this exercise was a piece that has all sorts of extra-musical baggage, more than most. So there was some reaction to that. Understandably. And one way of talking about the situation was to refer to the 11th as movie music without a movie. I do not agree--_and I want on to illustrate my disagreement_--that we cannot talk about the 11th as simply music. But I do agree that it will probably be difficult for many people. Besides, as quack said, for himself "Hearing a beautiful violin is all very nice but being able to imagine it is more than just that and it sounds like or represents something more is always of interest to me. Whether it is something the composer might have worked to achieve and perhaps lots of people will agree they can hear or whether it is an accidental effect that only one person can hear, both are interesting...." So for that kind of listener (a kind that is in the majority, I'd guess), making up extra-musical stuff while listening to music is a desirable thing. And that person will make stuff up no matter what.



MacLeod said:


> Whether it would make good music to accompany a movie is also irrelevant to whether the music is good...


But whether the music is good is irrelevant to this conversation, which is not about goodness but about the possibility of listening to and talking about it without referencing any extra-musical stuff.



MacLeod said:


> To be honest, I tire of trying to infer what people mean or what their reasoning is.


Good! Because when you have tried to do that in this thread, you have come a cropper, for sure. For example, "I could, of course, post a response based on what I think he thinks is wrong with movie music." But that's just the thing, you see. He does not, _so far as we know from what he has actually said on this thread,_ think anything is wrong with movie music.



MacLeod said:


> As we all know, the easy reply to that is, "You attack my argument for something I didn't say."


That's one reason I have taken this on. So that Ukko or Ken do not have to look like they're just taking the easy way out. They wouldn't be, but it could easily look as if they were. And in this case, it's demonstrably (and I hope I have demonstrated it) the correct reply.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

MacLeod said:


> If so, my answer is that which I posted earlier. There is no such thing as absolute or pure music (though I know such a category allegedly exists) because it cannot be heard without either the baggage of the composer or the listener infecting it with the extra-musical. Therefore, the best discussions about music deal with all the relevant baggage and all the music.


This is not the normal distinction between absolute and program music. Music can be inspired by a particular incident/emotional situation and still be firmly within the bounds of "absolute" music. The line is drawn where music is thought to be _describing or depicting_ something specific, particularly where that something drives the musical sense more than abstract formal procedures (as in Symphonic Poems). It is a blurry line, though. Is Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony programmatic in the Straussian sense? No. It's a Classical symphony. On the other hand, it does have recognizable "images": a shepherd's pipe, bird song, thunder and wind (images that would have been pretty clear to audiences of the time whether or not titles were provided).

You are of course correct that no music arises out of a vacuum, and that we can at times gain insight into a piece by looking into the situation and the person that produced it. But with any work of art, this only goes so far. There are things about music, like the human mind, that will not be fully explicable in terms of immediate cause and effect.



MacLeod said:


> There is less value in discussing 'the music' without either or both of the composer's intent and the listener's response.


Depending on what you mean, I'm not sure I agree. If you're discussing the music, you are as a matter of course discussing what the composer put on the page (or whatever). But if you mean that we should look for what the composer intended a listener to feel emotionally, even if that were relevant (it isn't in some/many cases), I'm not sure we can recover it. People's responses are individual, and it's fine to discuss them, but to claim them as absolute, as something _in the music itself_, is to devalue others' different responses. Any great art gives rise to a multiplicity of interpretations and responses, and that's one of the things that makes art durable.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

MacLeod said:


> To complain that the music is of lower quality because there is no movie is just absurd. Whether it would make good music to accompany a movie is also irrelevant to whether the music is good...


Re the first sentence, you're reading that (wrongly) into my comments. The music is what it is, obviously.

Re the second, now *that* might be interesting to discuss. Is music that works excellently to accompany a film but less so standing alone "not as good" as, say, vice versa?


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## Guest (Oct 26, 2013)

Mahlerian said:


> ...recognizable "images": a shepherd's pipe, bird song, thunder and wind.


You'll note that all of those "images," as you refer to them, are already music, or at least sounds. Much closer to music than a tree or a building or an uprising of the masses (though that, too, may be accompanied by certain sounds.


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## Guest (Oct 26, 2013)

OK. Let's deal with this one point at a time. First, did I misunderstand Ken?



KenOC said:


> *I *very much *like *a lot of *Shostakovich*, *but *have to agree that the 11th is too much like movie music. Nothing wrong with that, except there's no movie!


What Ken says here is he likes a lot of DS, "*but*" (ie, what follows is something he doesn't like...). I concede that not liking does not _necessarily _confer inferior quality, but I would claim that any reasonable reading of this is that that is what he is saying. Even so, he is clear that he doesn't like movie music, or that he doesn't like DS when it is like movie music - though, perhaps, he likes it if it is with the movie - or even that he does not like classical when it is movie music.

On the point of 'logic' I raised earlier, it doesn't seem coherent to say that he doesn't like that the 11th sounds too much like movie music - but then says, "Nothing wrong with that."

Ken will, I'm sure, return and clarify whether I have misread him or not.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

This thread has 'progressed' into a cul de sac, as seemed inevitable from the start - but not for the reasons I expected it to. I *expected* the difficulty to be in discussing a work of pure music without using musicological jargon *or* subjective reactions to it. Mainly because I don't know what is left to discuss. I was hoping to find out though; so far, no joy.


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## Guest (Oct 26, 2013)

MacLeod, what follows the "but" is not something he doesn't like, though.

What follows the but is agreement that the 11th, which he may or may not also like, we just don't know, is too much like movie music. And then immediately, that that is not to criticize the 11th, except to note that there's no movie.

If I were in a concluding mood, what I would conclude from that is that Ken would like the symphony better if there were a movie to go with it. That better vaguely implies that he doesn't like the 11th as much as the other DS, which he likes without qualification (at least here). Sure. Granted. But I wouldn't put it any stronger than that. Not from what Ken has actually said.

But perhaps we've spent enough time on this side-topic? I dunno, it's your thread after all. You may be like me, not really concerned if a thread gets side-tracked. Anyway, it is starting to seem clear to me that you really are more interested in being right in your interpretations than in finding out what your colleagues really think about movie music. And so I myself am losing interest in this particular topic.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

some guy said:


> You'll note that all of those "images," as you refer to them, are already music, or at least sounds. Much closer to music than a tree or a building or an uprising of the masses (though that, too, may be accompanied by certain sounds.


I think he did, since he put "images" in scare quotes. But perhaps "onomatopoeia" would be better?

As a general principle, I favor approaches to music criticism that judiciously select from a range of materials--the score(s), biographical materials, historical records, one's own emotional and intellectual responses to music as one hears it, music theory, performances, etc.--in order to make an interesting claim. I wouldn't like to be restrictive when we're speaking so abstractly.

From what I can infer from the discussion so far, both MacLeod and Mahlerian might agree with this.

*p.s.* Don't be so hard on us, Ukko--_if_ that's even your real name! :lol:


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Blancrocher said:


> As a general principle, I favor approaches to music criticism that judiciously select from a range of materials--the score(s), biographical materials, historical records, one's own emotional and intellectual responses to music as one hears it, music theory, performances, etc.--in order to make an interesting claim. I wouldn't like to be restrictive when we're speaking so abstractly.


Absolutely! Music is hard to describe in words, so approaching it from multiple angles at once (objective, subjective, analytical, intuitive) is the best way to go.


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## Guest (Oct 26, 2013)

Ukko said:


> ...so far, no joy.


Not even post #29?

Surely there's some joy there.

#22, yeah. It's OK. #25, not too happy with that one.

But #29? That really digs in there and talks about the music itself, no associations, no story, no speculations about intentions. Just the notes and the themes and how they interact.

I was hoping that #29 would give you some joy. (You're not just determined to have no joy, are you? No matter what? In that case, "oh well." But I'm hoping not.)


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

some guy said:


> Not even post #29?


Damn--this shameless self-advertising just wrung a "like" out of me! :lol:


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## Guest (Oct 26, 2013)

some guy said:


> MacLeod, what follows the "but" is not something he doesn't like, though.
> 
> What follows the but is agreement that the 11th, which he may or may not also like, we just don't know, is too much like movie music. And then immediately, that that is not to criticize the 11th, except to note that there's no movie.
> 
> ...


I guess we'll have to disagree on the function of the 'but'.

It's not 'my' thread. But I don't mind side issues anyway. Too much can come up at once to deal with things in one go.

So far, no one has been clear enough on the 'side issue' of 'movie music' for me to understand what it is about it that people object to. Ukko has just dropped by to complain, rather than elucidate.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

MacLeod said:


> Ken will, I'm sure, return and clarify whether I have misread him or not.


Durn tootin' right I will! 

1. I like a lot of Shostakovich.
2. I don't like the 11th so much.
3. Too much like movie music, but there's no movie.
4. I'd probably like it better along with the right movie.

I think that's pretty simple. And BTW when I say I don't like something, that's exactly I mean. If I want to comment on the quality of a piece of music, I'll do so. I don't confuse the two things, so please don't assume I do. Your idea of a "reasonable reading" is purely your own.

And a misquote in your post. I didn't say, "Nothing wrong with that." I said, "Nothing wrong with that, except there's no movie!" Seems coherent to me...


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## Guest (Oct 26, 2013)

Mahlerian said:


> Music is hard to describe in words, so approaching it from multiple angles at once (objective, subjective, analytical, intuitive) is the best way to go.


Hmmm. I would say that _everything_ is hard to describe in words. As the Lagadoan linguist well knew. Furthermore, it strikes me as counter-intuitive to identify that something is difficult and then say that making things more difficult (more complex, more involved) is the way to go.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

some guy said:


> Not even post #29?
> 
> Surely there's some joy there.
> 
> ...


#29 mostly delves into musicology for me; quite a ways into it.


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## Guest (Oct 26, 2013)

MacLeod said:


> So far, no one has been clear enough on the 'side issue' of 'movie music' for me to understand what it is about it that people object to.


Well, I would certainly say that I was clear enough that I didn't think anyone was objecting to it. You may indeed disagree, but it's not because of any lack of clarity.

Anyway, if no one is objecting to movie music, then it doesn't surprise me that no one is being clear about what it is they're objecting to!! Hard to be clear about something that doesn't exist. (Hard enough to be clear about things that DO exist!!)

What I saw in the movie comments was pretty plainly articulated, too, I think. Movie music performs an accompanying role. it's not as independent as music that's just itself. (Music for ballet or opera seems to me to be more independent, but that's another topic.) And one of the most prominent issues of the thread, from the get-go, is whether music that is bound up with extra-musical things, whether moving images or a story or someone's private imaginings, can be described or discussed without referring to those things. I gave it the old college try, and I think I got pretty close in post #29.

But then again, I might just be trying to get another like from Blancrocher. (But with the same reference to the same post? That's just crazy!)


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Ukko said:


> #29 mostly delves into musicology for me; quite a ways into it.


You raise a good point--I just "unliked" it.

:lol:


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

some guy said:


> Movie music performs an accompanying role. it's not as independent as music that's just itself.


I think that's right. And I've always thought that Beethoven would be absolutely wretched at movie music!


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Blancrocher said:


> You raise a good point--I just "unliked" it.
> 
> :lol:




Whew! That's a relief; I wasn't sure I had a point.


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## Guest (Oct 26, 2013)

Tee hee!

Anyway, Ukko, surely knowledge of music is a legitimate thing for a music discussion board.

And surely the language in post #29 (Blancrocher's starting to consider unliking all of my posts, I just know it!!) is pretty well jargon free. I admit that registrally is pushing it, but that's such a homey way of referring to "register," I thought that would take some of the sting out.

You're not gonna say that words like "melody" and "rhythm" and "licks" are inappropriate to use when talking about music, are you? 

There's just no pleasing you!


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

some guy said:


> it strikes me as counter-intuitive to identify that something is difficult and then say that making things more difficult (more complex, more involved) is the way to go.


It's pretty intuitive to me. Music is never as simplistic as our usual categories for discussing it ("program music," "absolute music," "Renaissance," "atonal") suggest, so increasing the angles from which we view it, while more difficult, is also more realistic.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

some guy said:


> Tee hee!
> 
> Anyway, Ukko, surely knowledge of music is a legitimate thing for a music discussion board.
> 
> ...


You can use any words you wish. I am adept at sailing on past words I don't know the meaning of. Sometimes I pause at the end of paragraphs and check to see if I understood anything in there... .


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## Guest (Oct 26, 2013)

Eschbeg said:


> It's pretty intuitive to me. Music is never as simplistic as our usual categories for discussing it ("program music," "absolute music," "Renaissance," "atonal") suggest, so increasing the angles from which we view it, while more difficult, is also more realistic.


Hmmm. Well, I must say that that sounds pretty convincing to me.

Consider my counter-intuitive comment to be successfully countered.

Otherwise, Ukko, you will never convince me that you sail past words like "melody" or "rhythm."


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

some guy said:


> Hmmm. Well, I must say that that sounds pretty convincing to me.
> 
> Consider my counter-intuitive comment to be successfully countered.
> 
> Otherwise, Ukko, you will never convince me that you sail past words like "melody" or "rhythm."


"Melody" is OK, but when you start discussing it, where do you go? "Rhythm' is OK as long as its bit-a-Bing bit-a-Bang, but after that I may launch the boat.

That's OK though. You guys should get right into this; it'll be good for you.


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## Guest (Oct 27, 2013)

Mahlerian said:


> You are of course correct that no music arises out of a vacuum,


Exactly my point. The listener does not come to it 'tabula rasa', but with a collection of personal instincts and associations to sounds and music that are probably impossible to shed. Along with prejudices and preferences of course.



Mahlerian said:


> Depending on what you mean, I'm not sure I agree. If you're discussing the music, you are as a matter of course discussing what the composer put on the page (or whatever). But if you mean that we should look for what the composer intended a listener to feel emotionally, even if that were relevant (it isn't in some/many cases), I'm not sure we can recover it. People's responses are individual, and it's fine to discuss them, but to claim them as absolute, as something _in the music itself_, is to devalue others' different responses. Any great art gives rise to a multiplicity of interpretations and responses, and that's one of the things that makes art durable.


What I mean is that I can get more out of a piece of music if I listen to what happens and compare that with what the composer might have intended. In the case of the 11th, there is a passage in the fourth movement where the music has a 'jaunty' feel. Now, it might be only in _my _ears, and not anyone else's - some guy might hear just the notes, Ken will just 'see' the movie that he wishes were there, you might be able to describe it in purely technical terms, whatever. But when _I _am the listener, I'll wonder whether, in the middle of a movement that feels 'not-jaunty', whether the composer wanted me to feel that and why. I'm not searching from the outset for the composer's intentions, although as some guy says, in the case of music with declared extra-musical associations, it's difficult not to do that...

"Ah, this is about the Winter palace event in 1905...is that an imitation of gunfire, or soldiers marching I'm getting?...or is my blood quickening just because of the march tempo?...did he really mean to make me sad here, cry there, or is that the conductor's interpretation?" (My son said the use of real bells for the tocsin in the version we watched on TV together was too much, and he's never heard it before. We disagreed on this point, as I've heard versions since where the use of just tubular bells is insipid.)

I want to be able to reflect, sceptically, on what I'm hearing and feeling, not _assuming _that the composer meant it that way, but checking whether he might have done.

On this point, just to be as clear as I can: I'm not saying that any of these things are 'in' the music. I agree with the point made already elsewhere that a composer may know his sounds well enough to be able to _evoke _emotions and thoughts in the listener, but they are not, absolutely and objectively, in it.



some guy said:


> MacLeod, what follows the "but" is not something he doesn't like, though.
> 
> What follows the but is agreement that the 11th, which he may or may not also like, we just don't know, is too much like movie music. And then immediately, that that is not to criticize the 11th, except to note that there's no movie.
> 
> If I were in a concluding mood, what I would conclude from that is that Ken would like the symphony better if there were a movie to go with it. That better vaguely implies that he doesn't like the 11th as much as the other DS, which he likes without qualification (at least here). Sure. Granted. But I wouldn't put it any stronger than that. Not from what Ken has actually said.


I'll go with your conclusion: rather than 'like/dislike', I'll go with 'like better/like less'.



Blancrocher said:


> As a general principle, I favor approaches to music criticism that judiciously select from a range of materials--the score(s), biographical materials, historical records, one's own emotional and intellectual responses to music as one hears it, music theory, performances, etc.--in order to make an interesting claim. I wouldn't like to be restrictive when we're speaking so abstractly.
> 
> From what I can infer from the discussion so far, both MacLeod and Mahlerian might agree with this.


I _do _agree with this, and I have found myself researching the music, and researching _about _the music while I'm listening. However, I'm not so fixated that I'm desperate to hear the 'right' things - for example, what the composer meant, if he had any intentions that I could find out about. In the 11th, before I knew what it was 'about' I heard rhythms and pitches that implied tension and melancholy, aggression and fear, and this inevitably led to associations with other music - eg Holst, Zimmer, Beethoven - that does the same things. On top of this, I knew a little about the composer's other work and about the context of his writing, so I looked into it.

I find it _more _satisfying than _just _listening to the music, though I do find _just _listening to this symphony _very _satisfying.



KenOC said:


> Durn tootin' right I will!
> 
> 1. I like a lot of Shostakovich.
> 2. I don't like the 11th so much.
> ...


Thank you.



Eschbeg said:


> It's pretty intuitive to me. Music is never as simplistic as our usual categories for discussing it ("program music," "absolute music," "Renaissance," "atonal") suggest, so increasing the angles from which we view it, while more difficult, is also more realistic.


Yes, the problem I had earlier was that I didn't want to get into defining what is 'absolute' and what is 'program' so I just selected one term to stand for the idea of 'music that evokes no extra-musical association' (in contrast to music that does, whether by composer intent or not).


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## Guest (Oct 27, 2013)

MacLeod said:


> some guy might hear just the notes


Gaaaaah.

"There are two things that don't have to mean anything. One is music, and the other is laughter."
--Immanuel Kant

(When Cage cites this, he adds this little fillip, "Don't have to mean anything that is, in order to give us deep pleasure."

Not good enough for MacLeod.


MacLeod said:


> I can get more out of a piece of music if I listen to what happens and compare that with what the composer might have intended.


I don't see how comparing "what happens" (which we are apparently in no sort of agreement about what that is) with something that someone who is most likely dead _might_ have intended? Keerist! I'll take Ken's imaginary movie and Quack's actual brook over vague suppositions any day.

Wow.

You may indeed be "getting more," but it's certainly not out of the piece of music. I'd say you're getting less out of the music the more you use it in order to do other things, whatever those other things are: daydreaming, making up movies, imagining nature scenes, speculating about the possibility that someone might have intended something maybe.

Music has always seemed sufficient to me, thank God. So I'm with Kant on this one, for sure. (I would *NEVER* put the word "just" in front of "the notes," for instance.*)

I wonder why music seems insufficient to so many listeners. Unless you can do something with it, unless it's the accompaniment to non-musical things, it's just not all that good on its own. It's missing something. It's "just" notes.*

Well, OK. I know I'll never convince anyone of this, but you are seriously missing out on something. Oh well. As long as you never feel like you're missing out, then you'll never feel like you're missing out. But boy howdy, how you are missing out!

*Except when presenting a viewpoint that is not my own.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

I've said this before, but this subject seems like a place for a repeat: Music is not language. Thinking (ratiocinating) is language. Thinking gets in the way of music (that has no lyrics). So... music is best listened to without the thinking.

Yeah I know, 'Good luck with that'. If you can keep the thinking down to a dull roar, even that helps though.

When the music has finished, and you have brought your constituent parts back together, _then_ think about what just happened, if that is how you are built; you won't be drowning out the music then.

And that, my friends, is why program music is a different species.


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## Guest (Oct 27, 2013)

some guy said:


> Gaaaaah.
> 
> This isn't good for your blood pressure! I suggest that before you lose your rag, you double check whether what you think I've said is what I meant. I could try and point out my use of synecdoche there, where 'the notes' is used for 'just the music' as in, "I wish we could have a thread where we discuss 'just the music', and the not the extra-musical." I may not be quoting you, and that may be your objection - that I didn't - but I am merely paraphrasing. Thing is, you'd rather express an emotional response than cut me some slack and double check what I meant.
> 
> ...


Meanwhile, back at the 11th Symphony, I'm desperate for my visitors to go so I can listen to it again...to walk the dog so I can listen to it again...to have somewhere to drive so I can listen to it again...


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

MacLeod said:


> Meanwhile, back at the 11th Symphony, I'm desperate for my visitors to go so I can listen to it again...to walk the dog so I can listen to it again...to have somewhere to drive so I can listen to it again...


I really suggest you get the DVD so that you can see the movie too... :lol: Maybe Netflix has it.


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## Guest (Oct 27, 2013)

KenOC said:


> I really suggest you get the DVD so that you can see the movie too... :lol: Maybe Netflix has it.


I already did, but Richard Rodney Bennett obviously thought he could do a better job than DS.


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