# Buttering Up? Or paying homage? Frederik Reesen Magle, and Bach of course



## Guest (Dec 10, 2020)

*Buttering up? Or paying homage? Frederik Reesen Magle, and Bach of course*

*Dane Science, Dane Art*

_Frederik Reesen Magle,
another Dane, at it again.
Not so many to go around.
Luck? Or they're just good?

Tycho Brahe, yes, that Dane,
gave to Kepler, gave to Newton.
Now more Danish contribution,
Frederik Reesen Magle._

*Now to Mere Forum Writing*

I _will_ terminate my participation as someone who posts and replies, but I consider my discovery today big enough to justify making this post. (Music Theory is the only place I want to operate, and it didn't work out.)

This thread is and will be about classical organ music: Bach's and Frederik Magle's. I say "will" because I have to do some research on Magle's music. I want to start the post now, and I don't want to rush writing up the rest of it. As a quicky, I'm pretty sure that exposure to this site is completely responsible for my coming to focus on Bach's organ and harpsichord works, which is about 900 MP4 files that I've recently ripped off of YouTube.

Therefore, this post satisfies the requirement for general discussion of classical music. Yes, there is the "Keyboard Instruments" section, but there's always overlap. I do put a lot of thought into trying to work things so that posting in "Classical Music Discussion" is at least a little justified. And if a thread goes off topic permanently, it's not my fault. Everybody does it. I merely follow how the crowd works here.

And why would anyone here begrudge paying homage to the rich guy paying the bills? If he is rich, and if Frederik Reesen Magle is still the site owner, if he ever was. I try not to assume the correctness of information until it's confirmed. Here's what I found:

frederikmagle.com/a-tale-of-two-music-forums-14.html

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederik_Magle

Well, how much better can it get? The rich guy paying the bills, if he is rich, is also, according to Wikipedia, a virtuoso organ player.

Actually, I'm not one to want to rubberstamp. I'll do my surfing on YouTube, and start storing data for future comparisons with other elite level organ players. If he's not the best among the best of the best, that's fine. "Best alone" doesn't get anyone anything anyway, and elite-level performers are like pro athletes, the differences are small.

Music is mostly about personality worship, which is not what I want to do. I want to show respect, learn from the those who are much better than myself, and be inspired so maybe I can work hard enough to make some very small contribution.

I don't know if the rich guy paying the bills likes being talked about, or whether he prefers to stay in the background, if he is rich, and if Frederik Reesen Magle is still the site owner.

The moderators know what to do with posts like this, if something's not right.

I'll make another post, though I don't have to. If someone doesn't want clutter based on principle that creates bad tangents, then that someone shouldn't motivate me in certain ways. Eventually, it won't be a problem anyway, even if it does occur a little more. And, yes, this meta-talk could make it happen. I don't consider myself guilty of anything.

If I was operating on the Ph.D logic-folk's mailinglist, sure, I'd be guilty, because they actually have more discipline than I do.

Take it away, move it away, or I'll be back.

(Arnold, we need you here, to say it right. I'll be Bach: The pun that can never not keep on giving, made by that other user. EDITS FOR SPELLING: Opportunities for inserting humor, humor that could possibly not be considered humorous. This place actually stresses me some.)


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

This is surely a candidate for weirdest post of 2020.


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## Guest (Dec 10, 2020)

MarkW said:


> This is surely a candidate for weirdest post of 2020.


 No way, with Tikoo Tuba, the best I can do is come in second. Weird's okay, though if you're taking requests, I do prefer eccentric, it makes me sound high class. I'm 1% of Million Rainbows. Thank God I'm not even 1.1% of that guy. But, I don't understand. If someone with bona fides told me Frederik Reesen Magle doesn't actually own this site, I'd edit the post above, and new readers wouldn't understand. Since writing the above, I saw in the Wikipedia article a reference saying that Mr. Magle owns this site. However, in no way would I want Mr. Magle to show up and clarify the situation, as it would benefit him in no way. Do you know how much it costs to run this site? I'll guess. U.S. $10,000 a month, though it could be as low as $5000 a month, though it could be as high as $20,000. I don't know. But even at $1000 a month, out of your pocket, would you pay for a bunch of people to be entertained? I don't care. TC led me to focus on Bach's keyboard works. Somehow that led me to Frederik Reesen Magle. One thing leads to another. He sounds like an interesting person. I've already gotten the benefit of living in the moment. I ain't into classical music, though I actually love it. I'm into drums, bass, and a modeled electric guitar, slightly distorted. RECIPE: Take Bach, make it sound popular, use it to entertain people, get hits. That's the recipe for one form of getting some exposure, but only God knows the future. Mr. Magle also funks it up, so I read, though I have yet to find out to what degree. But thanks for the comment. EDIT: The web is so ridiculous, though maybe not, though maybe yes when we don't do our homework before posting. I don't know, it really pays to assume near nothing. Here you go, bro (but that's in 2006): New owner of talkclassical.com! NOTE: The site's not working right. It stripped all the line returns out. Proving my point? Increases of speed generally can be obtained with more $$$.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

GezzMontC said:


> No way, with Tikoo Tuba, the best I can do is come in second. Weird's okay, though if you're taking requests, I do prefer eccentric, it makes me sound high class. I'm 1% of Million Rainbows. Thank God I'm not even 1.1% of that guy. But, I don't understand. If someone with bona fides told me Frederik Reesen Magle doesn't actually own this site, I'd edit the post above, and new readers wouldn't understand. Since writing the above, I saw in the Wikipedia article a reference saying that Mr. Magle owns this site. However, in no way would I want Mr. Magle to show up and clarify the situation, as it would benefit him in no way. Do you know how much it costs to run this site? I'll guess. U.S. $10,000 a month, though it could be as low as $5000 a month, though it could be as high as $20,000. I don't know. But even at $1000 a month, out of your pocket, would you pay for a bunch of people to be entertained? I don't care. TC led me to focus on Bach's keyboard works. Somehow that led me to Frederik Reesen Magle. One thing leads to another. He sounds like an interesting person. I've already gotten the benefit of living in the moment. I ain't into classical music, though I actually love it. I'm into drums, bass, and a modeled electric guitar, slightly distorted. RECIPE: Take Bach, make it sound popular, use it to entertain people, get hits. That's the recipe for one form of getting some exposure, but only God knows the future. Mr. Magle also funks it up, so I read, though I have yet to find out to what degree. But thanks for the comment. EDIT: The web is so ridiculous, though maybe not, though maybe yes when we don't do our homework before posting. I don't know, it really pays to assume near nothing. Here you go, bro (but that's in 2006): New owner of talkclassical.com! NOTE: The site's not working right. It stripped all the line returns out. Proving my point? Increases of speed generally can be obtained with more $$$.


Okay. Most Eccentric is cool, too.


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## Guest (Dec 13, 2020)

_(NOTE: After my bullet points, there's some valuable YouTube links.)_

I have two reports of bad news:


 *Bad news:* Commenting on Frederik Magle's music and his life cannot possibly be achieved, most likely, in less than 8 long posts. This means I need to stretch this out over about 2 months. As to how I think that can be beneficial to certain parties, that I would explain towards the beginning. As a small heads up, there is the organ music of Leif Thybo. Leif was a private teacher of Frederik Magel. If you know Leif was his teacher, and you listen to certain of Frederik's albums, you'll probably agree there's an influence, though Leif's and Frederik's organ music are significantly different. At any time, a moderator can say, "A simple thank you to Frederik would be fine," at which time I would reply, "Dude, you be the man, and though I'll learn things from a detailed listening of Leif's and Magle's music, I'm happy to not do the work, because I don't normally do this with musicians. I'm only recently trying to do it with Bach." _(However, it's not work in respect to finding organ music by Thybo and Magel that I like a lot, and also piano by Magel.)_ 
 *Poll, more bad news:* In thinking about this, I thought about how there's a top-this-element to a number of things around here. In particular there's a top-this-element to people posting polls like this: "Beethoven or Bach". Well, hey, I sometimes go with the flow, and I can be badly influenced. Also, I'm a competitive person, so I'm thinking of a top-this-poll. The title will be *"Child Prodigy, Evgeny Kissin or Frederik Magle, Choose Only One"*. 

Are you laughing? I'm not, because laughing is a waste of time when top-this-humor has been employed. Acknowledge what has been achieved, and go on with life.

Before burying the YouTube playlists in future posts, playlists that have greatly benefited me, I'll give them here. Bulk in future posts, as I see it now, will come from describing multiple parts of multiple songs. That could be tedious and mostly useless to people. The main value I have to give is the album playlists.

What I was looking for in the last week was different than what I normally look for. What I came to want is complete, professionally recorded albums or consistent sets, rather than videos of performances. YouTube auto-generates "Topic" playlists of copyrighted material, that publishers put up. In the past, I ignored these "Topic" lists, because they were full of useless videos. This time, once I payed attention, I saw they were giving me the complete works of Bach, as studio recorded albums. Having learned that for Bach, I quickly found albums that are up for Leif Thybo and Frederik Magle.

I assume these topic lists could go away, since it's tied into record companies. Get it while the gettin's good. If you want Bach's harpsichord works, search on "J.S. Bach Complete Edition, Vol. n/10", where n is 1, 2, and 3.

With non-Bach music, don't rush, by making judgements based on the first 30 seconds of a song, or only by listening to a few songs. Organ music is a different breed of music, though many people here don't need to be told anything by me.

I go in order of Bach, Thybo, Magel, and Karsten Gyldendorf.

*"Bach: Complete Organ Works", by Marie-Claire Alain, on a super special organ, 266 videos:*

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL91w8DJ6W_ZTgitzPvJWqJHcXUpk4I48u

*Bach's organ works by Stefano Molardi, "J.S. Bach Complete Edition, Vol. 10/10 (2014)", about 322 videos:*

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtxzH2doMQ1n1lBLFXyOF0cj7uJPnTAPE

*Leif Thybo's organ album, "Thybo: Mouvement Symphonique / Organ Concerto / Contrasti":*

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_leapWFb9Fjfb6XVx4t1mbkHoyf29Y7QqM

*Magel's organ album "The Infinite Second - Works For Organ", produced at 16 or 17 years of age:*

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mx8-LAs5zQWQ0nrJA5DoF3yPwsNTjMO_0

*Magel's organ album "Like a Flame", 2017, produced at about 40 years old:*

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_l_c3s8z5GQCcDzGCJllbMc2YdfkfMH2co

*Magel's YouTube downloads playlist:*

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=UUrj55jchfg1bVqADZx8tBJg

*Magel's album "Lys På Din Vej":*

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_n9VsLo9BnnH0oyxyvTrmZTo2Ep72Z6ByY

*Magel's album "Anastasis-Messe":*

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lucVud2vWaLjEXtu0MgHnqmObzsbSHjBk

*What looks like an album by the Dane organist Karsten Gyldendorf; Karsten does 3 of Leif's compositions:*

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4aon_D_GYIkJCV5z0ykMGnXuSdBRRRTm


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## Guest (Dec 14, 2020)

CORRECTION: "Like a Flame" was released about 2010, so Magel was about 33, not 40.

It's a hopeless idea to try and describe Magel's music, and by extension, some of Leif's music. I would need one reply on this thread a week, for 54 weeks.

Instead, I'm extricating myself. If this site ceased to exist tomorrow, I wouldn't care, because I'm thinking I don't need the advanced music theory I thought I did.

If you do care, you should figure out how to periodically thank Magel without making too big a deal out of it.

His other forum statistics show 1000 visitors in 24 hours, but no one much posts to the site. This site is obviously active, yet it's had performance problems. I have to guess here, but it's this site that's costing him more money. Performance problems indicate he's not paying enough money. Please read this page if you didn't:

https://www.frederikmagle.com/a-tale-of-two-music-forums-14.html

*Quote from that page:* "So, on June 6th, 2006 I finally took the step all out and moved both sites to a dedicated server. It's extremely expensive..."

*Pre-motif acknowledgements*

I did see that thread about what is melody. Here I use "motif" when it seems a short piece of music is not big enough to be called melody. Fix what's needed with motif, theme, or melody.

*Leif's Music*

As to Leif's music, motif, it's a thing he can do if he wants to. See "Alle, welche dich suchen":






It's immediate. It's the first 4 notes of the song. At the tempo I'm counting, it's 4 half notes. It's in my brain because I've listened to the song several times.

*The easy stuff, Magle's piano music*

The easy part to talk about is Magle's piano music. Good old fashioned beautiful piano music, some of it of the dramatic style.

From his "Lys På Din Vej", there's "Flyvende (improvisation for klaver)":






It's at 16 seconds where the magic kicks in. Finger rolls, keeping an 8th note melody line for parts of it. I think that describes it.

There's his "Ragnarok March for Piano by Frederik Magle":






His most dramatic piece, though, is "Via Dolorosa - Dramatic Piano Music Improvisation on the Passion of Christ":






It's builds up, and at 1:47, there's a slight high-note pause before the heavy of heavy hits.

The heavy stuff, we who like the dramatic, want him to stay there, but he's an organist, and that makes Magel different. He doesn't serve music, he serves the purpose of what the music is supposed to accomplish. He finishes the crucifixion scene, goes to the burial, then to the dramatic but less heavy resurrection.

Composers give you the motif, and because they know you want it again, they give to you, and then give it to you most likely even more times.

Magel doesn't serve motif and melody. There most likely was a potential motif in Via Dolorosa, but he didn't turn it into a motif.

*Punks, not Punk*

There's too much to write about when it comes to his organ music. I don't want to tie myself into him that much. In thinking about how I could use his music for my own benefit, I decided I really don't need advanced understanding of music theory, and that's what totally breaks my mind free from this place.

Advanced understanding of music theory doesn't help musicians come up with better melody lines, or good melodic bass lines that support things. Advanced knowledge seems to make musicians unsatisfied with the normal things that make for good music. What they do starts to be intellectual sport more than music.

It's none of that nonsense that Million Rainbows says. The musicians can do the same things as everyone else, but they're not satisfied by doing the same things.

But as to Magel's organ, he maintains the ability to stay musical, even though he does lots of exploration at the edges.

I'm no authority on what advanced level organ players are. I'm pretty sure what they do is find the punk in themselves, and then, while playing, they say, "In your face, punk."

Sometimes they find super-punk inside, at which time, while playing, they say, "Your existence, punk. Are you even there? Just because I'm talking to you, punk, doesn't mean you exist."


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

I had no idea who Magle and the site owner is till now. Seems you're right.

Thanks Frederik Magle

I would like to offer a buttered bagel to Mr. Magle.


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