# Classical vs. Opera: What Moves You More?



## wagner4evr (Jul 10, 2010)

This is something that has bothered me for years: How common is it for one classical music genre to move you, and another to do little in the way of emotional impact?

I ask because I believe I'm in the tiny minority who is melted by opera, yet have comparatively little interest in other classical forms (now), with the exception of a handful of symphonies. I was trained in music, played the piano, and have studied it since 5yrs, yet it wasn't until my introduction to opera in college that I felt like my soul was being excavated for the first time *cough* Wagner *cough*. But...I had to really study and engross myself. I'm a firm believer that the more work/listens put in, the greater the reward on performance night. One of the things I love about opera is that each leitmotif/theme has a very specifically designed purpose--something that my imagination hasn't always been able to _create_ in other classical pieces.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I'm wondering what "specially designed purpose" you want themes (or other musical elements) to serve in non-operatic works. The combination of music and drama, the use of music to express emotions in drama, can certainly be very powerful and appropriate to what's happening in the story. What music expresses outside the context of drama is usually less defined and more subjective - that is, more dependent on how it strikes you, the individual listener. The "purpose" of a theme may be very definite in term of the _structure_ of a symphony, but is rarely intended to be as specific in its expressive content or emotional effect as it would be in an opera where the composer might use it in connection with a character or event. If you're looking for that kind of specificity (which, actually, is less specific than it might seem), I think you're looking for something that isn't there and isn't meant to be there.


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## wagner4evr (Jul 10, 2010)

Woodduck said:


> but is rarely intended to be as specific in its expressive content or emotional effect as it would be in an opera where the composer might use it in connection with a character or event.


Exactly, which I suspect is why opera hits closer to home for me emotionally. A piece can have all the technical virtuosity in the world, but if I can't marry its parts or even a whole movement to an experience, event, or nostalgic memory, then, while it may succeed in stimulating my head, it will never reach my heart. Bernard Herrmann's Vertigo, for example: A brilliant score by itself, but it was the film that gave it meaning (and obviously, vice versa). We have a whole wall of classical works that have enthralled me on a notational, structural, and intellectual level. But do they give me goose bumps? Nope. Which goes back to the original question of how we hear different genres. If a piece of music neither tells a story nor is specific in expressive content, it's musical tofu that can be individually personalized by the imagination. I've just never been very good at it. Or, do most of you not have to relate the music to _anything_ to fully appreciate it? After all these years in music, I can't believe I never thought to ask these question until now :lol:


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## opus55 (Nov 9, 2010)

Opera is the last genre of classical music I came to appreciate. It took me a long time to get used to the operatic singing style. There are some operas that I enjoy and have *never* read the libretti or even synopsis. Sure, it adds more enjoyment and understanding if I know the text. I usually listen to new purchase without libretto and later, when I feel like it, read the libretto.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

wagner4evr said:


> This is something that has bothered me for years: How common is it for one classical music genre to move you, and another to do little in the way of emotional impact?
> 
> I ask because I believe I'm in the tiny minority who is melted by opera, yet have comparatively little interest in other classical forms (now), with the exception of a handful of symphonies. I was trained in music, played the piano, and have studied it since 5yrs, yet it wasn't until my introduction to opera in college that I felt like my soul was being excavated for the first time *cough* Wagner *cough*. But...I had to really study and engross myself. I'm a firm believer that the more work/listens put in, the greater the reward on performance night. One of the things I love about opera is that each leitmotif/theme has a very specifically designed purpose--something that my imagination hasn't always been able to _create_ in other classical pieces.


I don't think there is any one genre which could be rationally argued as better or as being somehow superior in having a more immediate and direct power to communicate to the listener. And that is because people perceive things quite differently one to the next.

I mightily enjoy Berg's _Lulu_ as much as I mightily enjoy his _Violin Concerto._ One has a text, the other a dedication which for some listeners may or may not at all affect 'what they hear, what they feel' when they hear the concertante orchestral work.

Others will most gravitate to music with text, sung (lied, opera, choral works) while others may not.

There are people whose entire interest in classical is only opera, and for them, the text, the drama, the spectacle (seen or imagined) are all completely necessary for them to 'feel' all that to the maximum.

Others can get the completely same import from, say, a string quartet, as much depth of emotional experience, and either love vocal works as much the same -- or shun them, finding the literal content off-putting.

I won't even say it is a shame if you 'get only one genre,' because for that listener at least, it is their 'complete experience.' For others, it could be any and all genres have for them a complete and equal import.

A little swipe, done with a bit of humor: 
Debussy likened Wagner's invention and use of leitmotif to "a musical telephone directory," and he did not mean that in any positive way or to imply it had a useful utility


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

PetrB said:


> A little swipe, done with a bit of humor:
> Debussy likened Wagner's invention and use of leitmotif to "a musical telephone directory," and he did not mean that in any positive way or to imply it had a useful utility


Debussy just had to take his little swipe, as did Nietzsche, Stravinsky, and who knows how many people who felt the need to keep the BIg Bad German's influence at a safe distance. His description of Wagner's use of motifs is of course intentionally absurd and doesn't begin to describe its musical complexity and dramatic subtlety.

Just for the information of anyone who doesn't get the humor.


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## Giordano (Aug 10, 2014)

wagner4evr said:


> This is something that has bothered me for years: How common is it for one classical music genre to move you, and another to do little in the way of emotional impact?
> 
> I ask because I believe I'm in the tiny minority who is melted by opera, yet have comparatively little interest in other classical forms (now), with the exception of a handful of symphonies.


I am the complete opposite of you in this regard. Operas generally do not move me, but I am very fond of certain songs (arias, duets, etc.) from certain operas, mostly of Mozart, Purcell, & Handel. I think the crux of the matter is that "emotional" is a different thing to different people. I also dislike how operas are staged and performed these days, and the over-emoting that is taken to be "deep," "human," & "profound" (which is actually everywhere you turn, not just in opera) is totally off-putting to me.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

I don't get the 'vs' thing -- isn't Opera classical? Why is it being positioned as something entirely different?


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## wagner4evr (Jul 10, 2010)

@Petr,

Good points there. Opera may be the most comprehensively affecting to me, but using it as the foundation for superior/inferior claims would be silly. Other music genres appeal to me in very different ways--southern jazz, film scores, Sondheim. It's all so personal in taste and approach. My mom has to have a libretto in front of her while learning an opera's music, while I can't. I learn it faster though XD

Debussy...pfft. The faun meets Fasolt:




;-)


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Classical music is a wonderful thing but there are not all that many pieces that grab my soul. Things like Mahler's 5th (in fact Mahler altogether) or Shosty's 5th for example really dig deep, and anything Wagnerian, which was how I came to discover his operas as well. It was the sopranos high screeching and the unappealing sound of a heldentenor that put me off for years until I began seeing them as though they were just another instrument in the orchestra and then I was home free. 
Maybe that's why I prefer "Parsifal" the most, because it lacks that soprano and helden sound I dislike.

Strange for me is that opera, being my magnificent obsession, offers me the orchestral parts that absolutely wow me and while I certainly adore the arias, I sense that without things like the Prologue from "Mefistofele" for example or chorales from different operas like "Romeo et Juliette", I might not be quite as attached to the form as I am. 
It's like having my cake and....


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## wagner4evr (Jul 10, 2010)

Funny that Debussy and Mahler are mentioned so early here. I've been listening to the latter recently and its tempting me to reconsider my original post :lol: Two of my very favorite composers to be sure.



Morimur said:


> I don't get the 'vs' thing -- isn't Opera classical? Why is it being positioned as something entirely different?


Yeah not the best choice of words in the title. I guess I was referring to Opera as opposed to symphony, concerto, etude, fugue, sonata, etc.


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