# Signum Quartett 2007-09-21 Chennai, India - "Review"



## opus67

I have just come back from the second concert that I have attended. This time, the Signum Quartett had a new viola player, Simon Tandree. He gave a brief introduction to each work. For some reason, they cut short the programme to just three works. (Escaped Webern!  )

*Haydn Op.76 No.5*

A beautiful second movement, which reminded me of the slow movement from the _Emperor_ quartet.

*Jörg Widmann String Quartet in 1 movement*

Now this...I'm not sure what to say about this. My first encounter with "modern" music (written in 1997), but it was more like the encounter of the Third Kind.  I don't mean to offend anybody, but why must most "modern" music sound like soundtracks to horror films.  Well, it had a strange start...you have to see it to believe it. Lot of pizzicato. It was a good experience. It was in one movement, or so we were told.

*Schumann, R. Op.44 No.3*

Back to familiar ground. Another fine work.

For the encore they played sonata No.2 from Haydn's _*The Seven Last Words of Christ*_. First time I listened to (any part of) this work.

Overall, it was one and a half hours well spent.


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## ChamberNut

Happy to hear you enjoyed the concert, op67. 

I would have loved to heard that live performance, especially the Schumann and Haydn works.

I get to attend my first concert on the season on Sunday.

Chamber music featuring Brahms Piano Trio Op. 101 and Beethoven String Quartet Op. 74 "Harp".


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## opus67

One thing I forgot to mention: Compared to last time, the whole quartet sounded much better, since there were no microphones and bad audio in the way, so we could hear the pure sounds.


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## Guest

opus67 said:


> Jörg Widmann String Quartet in 1 movement[/B]
> 
> Now this...I'm not sure what to say about this. My first encounter with "modern" music (written in 1997), but it was more like the encounter of the Third Kind.  I don't mean to offend anybody, but why must most "modern" music sound like soundtracks to horror films.  Well, it had a strange start...you have to see it to believe it. Lot of pizzicato. It was a good experience.


Hmmm. Hard to sort stuff out here, opus. You say this is your first encounter, but then you go on to generalize about "modern" music in a way that implies that you've listened to a lot of it if not all. Well, at least you had a good experience.... Or did you?

Anyway, to answer your question, most modern music does _not_ sound like soundtracks to horror films. But if your personal experience with tighter harmonies, say, is in horror film music, then the tighter harmonies in some modern music might remind you of those film scores. It's a matter of your experience, you see, not of the music itself. I know people who can think of nothing but science fiction movies when they hear electroacoustic music. That's their only experience of electronics, I guess. I even know people who think of movies in general whenever they hear any (older) classical music. An acquaintance of mine once asked me, when I was playing Verdi's Requiem, what opera that was. And so it goes.

It's all about familiarity. When you hear something unfamiliar, you try to understand it by thinking of something you _do_ know. That's pretty normal. Just don't load up the unfamiliar thing itself by attributing qualities to it that arise solely out of your individual attempt to understand it.


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## opus67

some guy said:


> Hmmm. Hard to sort stuff out here, opus. You say this is your first encounter, but then you go on to generalize about "modern" music in a way that implies that you've listened to a lot of it if not all. Well, at least you had a good experience.... Or did you?


Let's say it was the first time I listened to music created in recent times for more than 10 seconds. 



> It's all about familiarity. When you hear something unfamiliar, you try to understand it by thinking of something you do know. That's pretty normal. Just don't load up the unfamiliar thing itself by attributing qualities to it that arise solely out of your individual attempt to understand it.


Okay, let me put it another way: It was too abstract for my liking. 

In fact, that's what I was thinking while coming back. While a Michaelangelo or a Leonardo may be visually appealing to a layman, like me, even though he doesn't understand the subtleties of the painting. While "Modern Art," to him, is just a mess on canvas.


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## Guest

Exactly. Leonardo and Michelangelo are part of the culture. They are already familiar. So there's an illusion that they're easier to understand (or even that they're more beautiful) than Pollock or Rauschenberg.

They're not. All great art is demanding. The older stuff, just because it's been around longer, just seems less demanding. Even "lay" people are more comfortable with it, because it's familiar. But, you'll notice, moving back to music, if you don't mind (I know it slightly better than I know painting), that even Beethoven and Bach are more difficult to take than Beastie Boys and Justin Timberlake.

Modern classical music has just as much beauty and grace and elegance and ferocity and as little interest in compromise as nineteenth or eighteenth century classical music. In the earlier stuff, we often hear only the grace and elegance; in the later, many people hear only the ferocity and harshness. As for beauty, well, that's always the primary goal, but what's considered beautiful does change from age to age. (What used to be beautiful often turns, by familiarity, into the merely pretty. What is now beautiful is often taken, by unfamiliarity, to be merely ugly. It has always been so.)


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## opus67

Here's a proper review.


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## Quartet

Ahhh modern music. 

I agree with the fact that it is strange to most for the fact it’s unfamiliar. People from 200 years ago would dumbfounded if they heard rap music, yet these days many enjoy it or at least accept it. 

But i tend to think that the true testament to how well music is written is the emotion the music evokes. It can be bleak and dissonant and still be a worthy piece of music. 

Some of the modern music that i have listened to bring out one emotion, pain from the headache it’s causing. 

Now this is not to say no one enjoys it, but i can't follow it. It sometimes begins to remind me of the sounds my first car made.


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