# Composers you finally came to Understand



## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

I don't remember if this idea was ever done for a thread before, but I would like to hear some stories from you all.

I had a cool experience about a month ago that I will truly cherish for the rest of my life. I was at a flute masterclass where this very excellent flutist was playing the Berio Sequenza for solo flute, a notoriously dissonant piece in the repertoire. The teacher talked with the performer in front of all of us auditing, asking this flutist what her methods were for "making sense" of this piece. She began by explaining it in the terms of a plot, and progression of thought, and she said it almost seemed to be like a mock play where vignettes of thought would be thrown at the audience in rapid succession, without any connection to any of them. This is what I agreed with, and if I was in her place, would have said the exact same thing: it's a disjointed, frustrated group of random stories (ideas) smashed together.

But the Master had something else to say.

Our teacher began by asking when this composer wrote the work. 1950s. Yes, and what was happening in society at this time? A technology revolution: the _computer_. Computers were all the rage because although few worked with them, curiosity was everywhere in the culture. Robots were a fascinating idea that sparked a ton of interest in science fiction. Composers such as Berio wanted to make images/impressions and also wanted to include the mystery/fascination of technology. Man was trying to make the computer like Man ... why not, for the fun of it, _make Man like a computer?_

After this idea hit the flutist, a whole other interpretation of the piece arose. This work is about being like a beeping computer! Imagine being like R2D2 who only spoke in beeps and whirs. The sounds are random, because that's only what computers could do! This sort of musical character thus had a far greater meaning. Later, at the end of the Masterclass for the performers' final Recital, she played this work, and not only her but I began listening to it in a completely other way. I imagined the flutist had turned cyborg, like an android trying to speak something human-like in its only way it could, which was artificial beeps and what-not. At the end of the piece, as the flutist-robot finished mimicking "breaking down," I was genuinely impressed and I clapped enthusiastically for an avant-garde piece like I had never done before.

And now, not only am I not afraid to play the Berio Sequenza, I WANT TO! Although I'm not sure when I'll get the chance, but one day I will, and I'll be happy.


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

When I first heard about John Cage's 4'33'', I, like most people, thought it was preposterous, That it must be a joke. Years later after being introduced to more 20th Century works by one of my professors, I wound up listening to Cage's works for prepared piano, and I loved the stuff, and I began to listen to what John Cage had to say about music and sound, and 4'33'' no longer angered me. The concept of any sounds being valid as music is actually something that I felt earlier in life, that anything could be a musical instrument, but now it had expanded to how sounds are organized as well, not just sounds themselves. They can be organized any way and be music, and Cage has become one of my favorite composers for his more personal works.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I'm not sure I understand Berg, but I have finally cracked his violin concerto. I have struggled with atonal music for years, and as I have mentioned before, I actually joined TC to learn to like it and other modern music. Once coming to TC I learned that many people who loved other works I loved felt Berg's violin concerto was spectacular (i.e. the greatest violin concerto of the 20th century). I read accounts of the concerto and realized that these views were held by many "experts" as well. So I decided that my standard for liking atonal music would be Berg's concerto. That was the work I should first learn to enjoy.

I would listen to the concerto several times sometimes focused and other times as background. I had no success and would drop the work coming back to it several months later. After perhaps 10 or 12 times listening I felt somewhat amazed. How was it possible that I loved so much classical music but could not like this work that was considered spectacular? Every time I picked it up again I fully expected that this would be the time I would find it beautiful/enjoyable/interesting.

Finally I found an audio analysis online that discussed the whole work in detail. The commentator discusses a portion of the work and then that portion is played. Each part is broken down sometimes in fine detail. After listening to the commentary I began listening to the first movement. It started to "make sense", and more so, I started to find parts of it enjoyable. Later in the day after listening to the first movement perhaps 4 or 5 times, I found myself actually singing the introduction.

I continued listening to the concerto more (and occasionally the commentary again) and eventually found myself enjoying most of the first movement. One day I was listening to the full concerto when my wife called me to go somewhere, but I couldn't pull myself away before the concerto ended (perhaps 3 or 4 minutes). The music was too beautiful to leave. It was then that I knew I had finally made a breakthrough.

Now the question is, "How easily will I learn to enjoy other atonal works?"


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

The key for atonal is just to enjoy it. Don't bother trying to remember it as most don't have that skill. Just enjoy the surprises it gives you even though it may be foreign to you. I think the strength of atonal music is that you don't get tired of it.


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## Klavierspieler (Jul 16, 2011)

My breakthrough for atonal music happened when I stopped listening to it as "modern" or "intellectual" music and began to listen to it like I listen to any other music.


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

Rather than the usual 7 notes used in most music, atonal uses 12. I think this allows for more sounds but also can be harder to get into for some.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Great idea for a thread, Huilu.

This kind of thing has happened to me a number of times, and often out of the blue, in an unexpected way.

With Varese, I got a cd of him in about 2002 (Naxos cd of orchestral works, vol. 1). I listened to it a number of times, but ended up taking it back for exchange to the store. I did not think it was rubbish but kind of alien to me, something I couldn't handle. Or couldn't think I could handle. Then by the end of that decade, I bought that same cd again. Things had changed in my life, I had more life experience. & upon first (re)listen, over 5 years later, I just naturally 'clicked' with the music. Don't ask me how. It spoke to me in ways it did not the first time.

Similar thing with J. S. Bach. I went to a concert of Baroque/Classical era musics, and one of the items was the 'Double Violin Concerto.' I was almost in tears, I didn't know I could connect with this composer. I had known the piece well, as well as other works by him, but something special happened at that performance. Since then, I have acquired more of his music on cd and went to concerts of his music, I have grown to like his instrumental (esp. small scale ) musics. So I went 'back to BAch.'

The others have been composers who'd I'd dismissed before, for a decade or more, as lightweight. Eg. Saint-Saens and Rodrigo. Now I am beginning to explore their music more, and got rid of ideologies that got in the way of me simply enjoying, engaging with their great music.

Another one was Schoenberg who I thought I didn't like, but it ends up that I had to make an effort to get different recordings than the ones I initially heard. This rarely happens to me, I am usually flexible with interpretation, but sometimes I am not and have to get alternative recordings to 'connect' with the composer.

I can give other examples, eg. how now after 2 years not listening to them, I am enjoying Bartok's string quartets, which I initially (wrongly!) thought to be little more than glorified technical exercises.

So taking 'time out' and analysing/challenging my thoughts of music and composers that I was 'iffy' on initially has really worked. So too has reading responses on this forum, in books, listening to cd's and concerts.


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