# The power of suggestion



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Copland, famously, was certainly not thinking of Appalachia when he wrote his famous ballet music, though today we can't avoid hearing the region described so beautifully in it. Another example I just read:

"It's ironic that Grieg's music for _Peer Gynt_ is perceived as being quintessentially Norwegian, when the story line of Ibsen's play takes its hero on travels all across the globe. For most music lovers, the famous excerpt titled _Morning Mood_ might evoke the sun rising over the snowcapped peaks surrounding a Norwegian fjord-but in the context of Ibsen's play, in fact, it's the prelude to a scene set in the North African desert!"

What are some other examples of a backstory, real or imagined, influencing our perceptions of music? (Especially in ways the composer may not have intended...)


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Smetana's Má vlast for me, especially the Vltava part. Vltava is a river in Czech Republic. The story that I was told about the composition is that it starts with the musical description of the source of this river in South Bohemia and as the river gets stronger, so gets the music. Finally, the river reaches Prague and you can feel it in the music. 
Another piece I find quite evocative is Mount Saint Helens symphony by Hovhannes. The musical description of how the volcano erupts in the last movement is evocative. 
Strausse's Alpensymphonie is another example


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## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

If, as Ken writes, we just can’t avoid hearing the Appalachia region when “described so beautifully” by Copland, then neither can we avoid hearing the stages of an operation for removing a urinary bladder calculus so deftly portrayed in Marin Marais’ “Tableau de l’Opération de la Taille” from the 5th book of pieces for viol and continuo. We sense the apprehension, fear, and agitation of the patient as well as the mounting tension of the operation itself, building up to the climactic extraction of the stone. In case the listener should fail to discern the gory details of the procedure, Marais thoughtfully provides a detailed verbal account:

The appearance of the apparatus.
Shuddering at the sight of it.
Resolving to climb onto it.
Achieving this.
Descending again.
Solemn thoughts.
Securing the arms and legs with silken cords.
Now the incision is made.
The pincers are inserted.
Now the stone is pulled out.
Now the voice dies away to a croak.
Flowing blood.
Now the cords are removed.
Now one is carried to bed.
The recovery.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Ravel's Pavane for a Dead Princess had nothing to do with a dead person, but a dance by a little girl. 

Happens a lot in rock music. Critics and fans find any possible lead to meanings, no matter how thin the evidence.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

One of my favorite canards is the image we are usually given of Beethoven, a misunderstood genius trapped in the prison of his deafness, laboring over his late quartets as a sort of swan song while awaiting death. Well, the labor was real enough, but he had no intention of dying, and his motivations were a lot less romantic. Here’s Cooper on that one!
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Public demand for quartets was indeed rising rapidly, and other publishers had expressed interest in Beethoven’s latest two, including Steiner, Mathias Artaria (who had set up a ﬁrm in Vienna independent of the original Artaria & Co.), and Peters, although Peters later withdrew. Schott’s, who had taken Op. 127 for 50 ducats, were also shortly to ask for another one, and were prepared to pay the new rate of 80 ducats. Thus demand for Beethoven quartets greatly outstripped what he could supply. ‘Quartets are now in demand from all sides, and it really seems that our age is advancing,’ noted Beethoven a few months later. Schlesinger’s request proved decisive, and before long Beethoven was contemplating two new quartets to follow the three for Galitzin.

It is often assumed that, after the Ninth Symphony, Beethoven turned his back on the public, withdrawing into a private world to write string quartets purely for his own satisfaction. Nothing could be further from the truth. Although his late quartets were supposedly sparked off by a request from Galitzin and sustained by his own love of the genre, it was public demand, ﬁltered through a number of publishers, that fuelled this unprecedented burst of activity in a single genre. Beethoven had been asked for quartets by both Schlesinger and Peters even before Galitzin’s commission had arrived; and Schott’s and probably Steiner had also joined the chase before a note of Op. 127 was written. These and other publishers then sustained Beethoven’s activities in the genre with offers of high rewards unmatched, as Schlesinger conﬁrmed, in other types of music such as operas, oratorios, or symphonies, all of which were being planned by Beethoven. He had, it is true, received 600 fl. from Schott’s for the Ninth Symphony—more than the 360 fl. now being offered for a quartet—but in proportion to the work involved the rate was lower.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

A rose and its context by any other name.  The literal can be the enemy of the creative process. Copland's original title for Appalachian Spring? The nondescript & forgettable Ballet for Martha. I'm glad that some mysterous force of life has been known to intervene & make for a much better contextual fit.


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## LezLee (Feb 21, 2014)

Delius’s ‘A Walk To The Paradise Garden’ from ‘A Village Romeo And Juliet’ conjures up the idea of a Sunday afternoon stroll to a Victorian park with a lake and a palm house. In fact the Paradise Garden is the local pub.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

RICK RIEKERT said:


> The appearance of the apparatus.
> Shuddering at the sight of it.
> Resolving to climb onto it.
> Achieving this.
> ...


I had a urinary stone removed surgically a few months back. I'm happy to report that they do it differently today.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

I sometimes associate pieces of music with ideas that surely would ave been foreign to the composer. E.g. I was reading Gavin Maxwell's _Ring of Bright Water _when I first discovered Scheherezade, many moons ago when I was fourteen or fifteen. As a result, for me the piece is eternally associated with otters. I don't think it's likely that Rimsky-Korsakov had that sort of imagery in mind.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

British and Irish people of a certain age will know that Khachaturian's Adagio from Spartacus is a masterly depiction of a tall ship at sea.


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## Genoveva (Nov 9, 2010)

Albert William Ketèlbey - _In a Persian Market _ [the reprise 'Baksheesh, Baksheesh Allah!' makes me smile each time]


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## Michael Diemer (Nov 12, 2017)

Is Debussy's Prelude 2, Book I about Veils or Sails? Debussy himself couldn't make up his mind, and gave the listener both options. Personally, I choose Veils. 

I suspect he wrote some of his Preludes without really knowing what they were about, thinking up titles for them afterwards (Indeed, the titles appear at the end of each piece). 

Sometimes the creative process works that way. I myself was struggling with what to call one of my pieces, when I suddenly realized it sounded like a lullaby. I researched the Berceuse, and Lo, my piece was in Db, in triple time, as a self-respecting Berceuse should be. I had written A Berceuse without knowing it. This solved the problem of what to call it, except that it's in two sections, and the second suggests images of flight. I therefore settled on "Lullaby And Good Flight."


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