# What Annoys Me



## userfume (Nov 21, 2012)

When an amazing work is often only noted for something other than its actual content. Prime example: Shostakovich 5

You hear people refer to Shost 5 as "one of the most important symphonies due to the situation it was written in" blah blah but this seems to cause some people to neglect how amazing the music is. The orchestration is incredible, the themes heart wrenching, genius everywhere.

Or his 7th symphony as well


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## Kieran (Aug 24, 2010)

I know what you're saying: people put an agenda on the music, and by doing this actually make it more narrow than it is.

Or am I wrong?


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## conclass (Jan 12, 2013)

...Or Maybe people put an agenda on the music in order to understand the music better? I must admit that i'm one of these people. At the same time that i feel overwhelmed by a piece, i get this feeling of emptiness, that maybe there was something more to it, so an agenda is helpfull sometimes. We can always understand the form, the technical aspect of the piece, but it still lacks something, something to hold on to. I'm stricktly speaking from a lay man perspective.


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## Cheyenne (Aug 6, 2012)

I recommend this article: http://www.oocities.org/kuala_bear/articles/Taruskin-AM.html


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

I think that both points of view have validity. Music is never just patterns of sound; some musicians might think so, but they are wrong. Music is art, thought, culture and history. On the other hand, if we just look at the context, we might ignore the actual qualities of the piece in question, and just talk bullcrap. I think we need to keep both of these views in mind when we talk about art.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Seems like everybody wants a story! Does any critic ever write about Beethoven's 2nd Symphony without once more dredging up the Heiligenstadt Testament? Even though it has nothing at all to do with the music?

In all fairness, Shostakovich begs for this kind of thing. But at least people should remember that he lived through several periods in Soviet history, and his environment when he wrote his 5th Symphony was different from when he wrote his 9th, or his 10th, or his 15th.


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

When Shostakovich's music is talked about, maybe the equilibrium is often too much on the side of the context. The reverse might be true with Bach.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Cheyenne said:


> I recommend this article: http://www.oocities.org/kuala_bear/articles/Taruskin-AM.html


I've found an article by Taruskin that I not only agree with, but wholeheartedly? Stop the presses!

Great find.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

Cheyenne said:


> I recommend this article: http://www.oocities.org/kuala_bear/articles/Taruskin-AM.html


hmm, Taruskin never lived in Russia, what can he know about such subtle subjects he writes of in his article?... he completely overlooks the fact that Shosty possessed a freedom of being subsidised and promoted, which renders all other freedoms insignificant.


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## Kieran (Aug 24, 2010)

sharik said:


> hmm, Taruskin never lived in Russia, what can he know about such subtle subjects he writes of in his article?... he completely overlooks the fact that Shosty possessed a freedom of being subsidised and promoted, which renders all other freedoms insignificant.


That doesn't even make illogical sense, let alone logical sense. People who are "subsidised and promoted" by murderous tyrannical regimes are not free to tell the truth, which is the only significant freedom an artist desires...


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

*Shostakovich*´s "Rayok" chamber cantata doesn´t indicate a sense of being particularly satisfied with the official supporting system
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Formalist_Rayok
http://russian.psydeshow.org/music/
text http://russian.psydeshow.org/music/Rayok.pdf

*Tarushkin* studied at the Moscow Conservatory back in the 70s, cf. http://prelectur.stanford.edu/lecturers/taruskin/


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## TheVioletKing (Jan 9, 2013)

*Unpopular Opinion* - I believe in Music for Music's Sake

I believe that a piece should not rely on anything but the quality of the music. Knowing some background may help you attain a better respect for the composer, but it should never affect the opinion of the music itself.

Just my two cents, feel free to ridicule me if you want.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

Actually, you can't divorce music from its extra musical context . This is especially true in the case of Shistakovich, whose music is absolutely inseparable from the context of Soviet tyranny .
His 5th symphony is not a great work because it was written in those circumstances, but those circumstances definitely influenced him profoundly when he was writing it . The same is true for his music in general .


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Perhaps Stalin did both DSCH and us a favor when he gently nudged Shostakovich to a less extreme path. I'm not sure Dmitri ever expressed his gratitude, though.

Maybe Comrade Stalin wasn't such a lousy music critic! After all, he loved Mozart...


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

KenOC said:


> Perhaps Stalin did both DSCH and us a favor when he gently nudged Shostakovich to a less extreme path. I'm not sure Dmitri ever expressed his gratitude, though.
> 
> Maybe Comrade Stalin wasn't such a lousy music critic! After all, he loved Mozart...


Agreed, Comrade Stalin was apparently trained as a priest (good training for a dictator!), but not so sure liking Mozart shows such good taste..............


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

This thread has veered seriously off-topic. If you wish to discuss politics in clear reference to music, fine, but otherwise, please use the groups for political comments.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

TheVioletKing said:


> *Unpopular Opinion* - I believe in Music for Music's Sake
> 
> I believe that a piece should not rely on anything but the quality of the music. Knowing some background may help you attain a better respect for the composer, but it should never affect the opinion of the music itself.
> 
> Just my two cents, feel free to ridicule me if you want.


No, formalists here outnumber contextualists. I did a poll on it a while back to find out:

http://www.talkclassical.com/21483-formalism-contextualism.html

So you're in the majority, while I'm not, hence getting heaps of grief from a minority of members here - of all tastes from 'conservative' to 'radical' to in between (but mainly from the two extremes unsurprisingly, maybe they should make some unholy alliance?) - for my bias, agenda, ideology, etc. Of course 'formalists' they don't have any of these things. They are totally impartial. Right, and pigs might fly too.

Which brings me to this:



KenOC said:


> Perhaps Stalin did both DSCH and us a favor when he gently nudged Shostakovich to a less extreme path. I'm not sure Dmitri ever expressed his gratitude, though.
> 
> Maybe Comrade Stalin wasn't such a lousy music critic! After all, he loved Mozart...


This I feel is really in poor taste. What, doing Shostakovich a favour when there where nights he slept in the lift lobby of his apartment building to prevent the secret police from disturbing his family, anticipating they'd come in the dead of night and take him away? You must be joking. I have known people who went through Stalinism and it was no joke. People would be taken in the dead of night and end up in the gulags. Ha ha very funny (NOT).

More often than not these days, I wonder why the bloody hell I keep coming back on this forum. Do people know what it was like to live under those conditions? I don't think so otherwise these types of comments would not be made on this forum, year in year out. But forget it, who cares about history, its all just fun and games around here, right?

Ok next genocides up for grabs. Bring on jokes about the Shoah, the Rwandan genocide, the Yugoslav one, any you please! Oh what fun we can have!


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## Rapide (Oct 11, 2011)

Sid James said:


> So you're in the majority, while I'm not, hence getting heaps of grief from a minority of members here - of all tastes from 'conservative' to 'radical' to in between (but mainly from the two extremes unsurprisingly, maybe they should make some unholy alliance?) - for my bias, agenda, ideology, etc. Of course 'formalists' they don't have any of these things. They are totally impartial. Right, and pigs might fly too.


Just curious: can you kindly explain what you meant by the "extremes" of "conservative" in the context of a classical music discussion forum (given that the vast majority of music is indeed, old)? Truely, if one member listens to Monteverdi all her time and nothing else, is there something "radically extreme" about that?


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

Rapide said:


> Just curious: can you kindly explain what you meant by the "extremes" of "conservative" in the context of a classical music discussion forum (given that the vast majority of music is indeed, old)? Truely, if one member listens to Monteverdi all her time and nothing else, is there something "radically extreme" about that?


You know that he won't answer you,


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

userfume said:


> When an amazing work is often only noted for something other than its actual content. Prime example: Shostakovich 5
> 
> You hear people refer to Shost 5 as "one of the most important symphonies due to the situation it was written in" blah blah but this seems to cause some people to neglect how amazing the music is. The orchestration is incredible, the themes heart wrenching, genius everywhere.
> 
> Or his 7th symphony as well


I get what you're saying, but in fairness I don't think anyone would be talking about those symphonies if it wasn't already pretty much taken as a given that they're great pieces of music. I'm sure there are many other works written by composers under circumstances similar to those of Shostakovich, but they don't get discussed.

To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, "There is only one thing worse than being noted for something other than one's actual content, and that is _not_ being noted".


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## CoCo (Mar 19, 2013)

I like Mozart and I have _very_ good taste!


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## GGluek (Dec 11, 2011)

What I find delightful about the Fifth is how it can be both a parody of the kind of music a dictator like Stalin would like, while at the same time being exactly the kind of music a dictator like Stalin would like.

g


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## ahammel (Oct 10, 2012)

"It never seems to occur to people that a man might just want to write a piece of music."
—Ralph Vaughan Williams

Although, I suppose in Mitya's case, it might be more appropriate to say "It never seems to occur to people that a man might just want to write a piece of music because the alternative is a few decades the Gulag Archipelago".


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Xaltotun said:


> ...Music is never just patterns of sound; some musicians might think so, but they are wrong. Music is art, thought, culture and history. On the other hand, if we just look at the context, we might ignore the actual qualities of the piece in question, and just talk bullcrap. I think we need to keep both of these views in mind when we talk about art.


The music itself is what will endure and communicate universally, like all great art; the rest is after the fact. Of course, all art has a context, but if we concentrate too much on that, the practice of "listening" tends to become some sort of scholarly pursuit. We must decide, do we we want to listen, or read a book?


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## ahammel (Oct 10, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> We must decide, do we we want to listen, or read a book?


For me, anyway, the answer is "yes"


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

millionrainbows said:


> The music itself is what will endure and communicate universally, like all great art; the rest is after the fact. Of course, all art has a context, but if we concentrate too much on that, the practice of "listening" tends to become some sort of scholarly pursuit. We must decide, do we we want to listen, or read a book?


Indeed, the music will endure and communicate universally, just by being what it is; but what will happen to the context, the rest? It will change, to better reflect our perception of reality and history that is always in flux. Thus, the context will always be fresh, it will always communicate to us as well. The only thing that will get old is old perceptions. At least I will always need both to listen and to read the book.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

ahammel said:


> "It never seems to occur to people that a man might just want to write a piece of music."
> -Ralph Vaughan Williams
> 
> Although, I suppose in Mitya's case, it might be more appropriate to say "It never seems to occur to people that a man might just want to write a piece of music because the alternative is a few decades the Gulag Archipelago".


There will always be a kind of struggle between formalism and contextualism, both in terms of composers and performers (and listeners too, how they take in a work). It really up to the individual I think.

Re Shosty's 5th its worth noting there are broadly two ways to do the finale. One is at a slower speed, which is what most Russian and European conductors tend to do. The other is at a faster tempo, which is what Americans tend to do. The former comes across as ironic, eg. you are told to be happy by Stalin so you are happy, even though its forced and you are doing it under threat of death. That kind of 'happiness' (eg. not real happiness at all). The American one, which Lenny did in the composer's presence when he went to the USSR, basically takes the piece at face value, eg. that it is about marching forward and triumph, etc. When Shostakovich heard Lenny do that, he said he never thought of his own work like that, but he thought it to be interesting. He never said it was wrong and the other more conventional 'sarcastic' interp 'right.'

So thats what I'm getting at. You can appreciate a work on many levels, in any way you want. I just find it interesting to learn of these histories and anecdotes, thats it. This one was actually related by a conductor at a performance I went to of Shosty's 5th. He thought it important for the audience to know this, and they played an excerpt from the finale contrasting the two different ways to do its speed. At the performance that followed proper, they did the conventional slower speed.

Re the gulags I was not joking before. Prokofiev's wife ended up there (partly because she was Jewish, Stalin being just as anti Semitic as Hitler) and I believe the composer Vainberg actually had a long stint being incarcerated as a political prisoner. If you wanna see who got the real glory in the Soviet state, see the wiki page on Khrennikov, a horrible Stalinist Zdhanovite who believed in that toxic ideology (and benefited from it) until his dying days. Here's a chilling quote from wikipedia by him, towards the end of his life, way after Stalinism. He condemns Perestroika and basically advocates dictatorship. What a horrible man.

"It was a betrayal by our leaders. I consider Gorbachev and his henchmen, who deliberately organised persecution of Soviet art, to be traitors to the party and the people..."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tikhon_Khrennikov


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

What Annoys Me
When an amazing work is often only noted for something other than its actual content.

I'm more annoyed by those who take it upon themselves to dismiss, slight, or otherwise underestimate a work of music or composer based upon external issues that have absolutely nothing to do with the music.

But there's no one like that here.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

moody said:


> You know that he won't answer you,


Nope I won't. I'm incommunicado with Rapide.


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## presto (Jun 17, 2011)

userfume said:


> When an amazing work is often only noted for something other than its actual content. Prime example: Shostakovich 5
> 
> You hear people refer to Shost 5 as "one of the most important symphonies due to the situation it was written in" blah blah but this seems to cause some people to neglect how amazing the music is. The orchestration is incredible, the themes heart wrenching, genius everywhere.
> 
> Or his 7th symphony as well


I totally agree, Shostakovich 5th stands on its own musical terms as one of the greatest 20th century symphonies, without even taking into account the political background that surrounds it.
I like to listen to the work as pure music, trying to fathom out any hidden meaning would get in the way of the enjoyment for me


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

Rapide said:


> Just curious: can you kindly explain what you meant by the "extremes" of "conservative" in the context of a classical music discussion forum (given that the vast majority of music is indeed, old)? Truely, if one member listens to Monteverdi all her time and nothing else, is there something "radically extreme" about that?


The name of this entire discussion forum is TalkClasscial. The vast majority of music that falls under the description would be classical, given the historical timeframe involved. It is as simple as that. Why does it appear challenging to accept that most of us here are and love listening to "very old" music? That's why we are here.


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