# Is it all about the detail?



## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

When I listen to symphonies by greater and lesser composers it seems to me that a big difference (between great and lesser) is often made by the inventiveness of the details. A lot of composers can manage to make the main gestures and themes interesting enough but it is compelling detail that makes the real difference. That's how it seems to me. What do you think? Perhaps I am stating the obvious? Or perhaps I am wrong to big up the incidentals?


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

Enthusiast said:


> When I listen to symphonies by greater and lesser composers it seems to me that a big difference (between great and lesser) is often made by the inventiveness of the details. A lot of composers can manage to make the main gestures and themes interesting enough but it is compelling detail that makes the real difference. That's how it seems to me. What do you think? Perhaps I am stating the obvious? Or perhaps I am wrong to big up the incidentals?


You hit on a key word in composition Enthusiast - invention. It's one thing to have a good theme, and be proficient in all of the expected techniques like advanced harmonic thought, counterpoint, orchestration etc. But it is something else entirely to have the invention to put it all together in cunning, musical and interesting ways. It's a trait in writing that is often overlooked at first, but when you go searching for it, it becomes apparent on every page of a masterwork. 
For example, the clever, inventive finger work in Schumann's piano music, the motor if you like, that impels pieces forward. Or a particular way of scoring that is different or unusual perhaps like a Stravinsky type spacing. Or perhaps a quirky bowing in the strings that goes against what might be considered more standard. All of these things are as much a product of invention as they are musical thought and contribute enormously to the difference between the ordinary and the extraordinary imv (and yours so it would seem..).


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Detail, coupled with great melody, is the huge strength of Brahms' symphonic writing.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

Detail (or at least perceived detail), expression and originality are three key factors in music for me. To any work be considered first rate in my book it must have all these three qualities.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

While I may notice detail, what matters the most to me is that the work seems to 'go somewhere' rather than meandering aimlessly. The ability to think in large AND long term scale is as important in symphonic writing as it is in fiction, and just as hard to find!


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Becca said:


> The ability to think in large AND long term scale is as important in symphonic writing


Try telling that to Morton Feldman or John Cage.

(It is true that I can't think of anything quite analogous in literature. In Finnegan's Wake Joyce talks about The Tunc Page in The Book of Kells. Even a late poem by Mallarme has a narrative. Maybe this is a respect in which music is more flexible than literature, I don't know.)


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Enthusiast said:


> When I listen to symphonies by greater and lesser composers it seems to me that a big difference (between great and lesser) is often made by the inventiveness of the details. A lot of composers can manage to make the main gestures and themes interesting enough but it is compelling detail that makes the real difference. That's how it seems to me. What do you think? Perhaps I am stating the obvious? Or perhaps I am wrong to big up the incidentals?


A couple of performers have said the same thing to me about this, independently. They say that in early and recent music big gestures tend to be less important in working out how to perform the music, less important than small details. This is one reason why there are so many musicians who are interested in the very early and the very recent, and who just don't care about the stuff in the middle.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Details are what makes some music so interesting. But not always; there are some composers whose music is so overloaded with details that the big picture becomes utterly obscured. The big symphonies say of Klughardt, Furtwangler, Draeseke and many other lesser composers take a long time to "hear" because of all the detail. Composers who avoid endless detail, like Dvorak and Tchaikovsky, wrote music that is instantly and memorably listened to and that has a lot to do with their popularity. I love the symphonies of Franz Schmidt, but I do think one of the reasons they have made little incursion into our concerts is the complexity and abundance of detail - the opening of the 2nd Symphony is a prime example.

Then there are some conductors who see the big picture and don't sweat over the little details: guys like Monteux, Paray, Reiner, Munch, Walter. Conductors who are obsessed with the most minute detail often get lost in the weeds or destroy the momentum: Rattle, Maazel, Celibidache. Even record producers are guilty - they find some obscure detail and want to make sure the listener hears it and turns up the mic volume to make sure.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

I don't disagree with your thesis though I've known conductors who spent too much time fiddling with details and too little deciding what is going to be the big picture sound of the piece. Carlo Maria Giulini, a terrific conductor from the golden age, was one that I often thought overfocused on details to the point of distraction. 

For me the best performances are those where the conductor and orchestra have a clear idea of what they are going to present and do so well. It is up to the conductor to create this vision and then influence the players to make it come true.

If you visit the blind comparison link for Debussy's La Mer that is here right now you'll get an idea of how differently at least 4 people can present the same piece of music. It is their respective vision of Debussy's seascape.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

larold said:


> If you visit the blind comparison link for Debussy's La Mer that is here right now you'll get an idea of how differently at least 4 people can present the same piece of music. It is their respective vision of Debussy's seascape.


That's one of the hallmarks of so-called impressionistic music isn't it, those minute carefully plotted details. Ravel is the same - all those little details matter. I'll get to the Debussy blind comparison later today.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

mbhaub said:


> Then there are some conductors who see the big picture and don't sweat over the little details: guys like Monteux, Paray, Reiner, Munch, Walter. Conductors who are *obsessed with the most minute detail often get lost in the weeds or destroy the momentum: Rattle, Maazel, Celibidache.* Even record producers are guilty - they find some obscure detail and want to make sure the listener hears it and turns up the mic volume to make sure.


I seem always to be "defending" (or at least explaining) poor misunderstood Celibidache ... but here I go again. I don't hear his Munich conducting - the period when he was notoriously often slow - as detail obsessed at all. Not in the slightest bit. He gives the music space, and some of his decisions seem perverse at the moment you hear them, but there is always a reason - he is always going somewhere and he usually manages to make sense of those decisions that seemed perverse. For him it seems his conducting is always about the bigger picture, the powerful moments that the music has been leading to.

Rattle and Maazel for much of his career do indeed fiddle with the detail and it can destroy the momentum for them.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

The reason I do think Celi was obsessed with detail was the ungodly number of rehearsals he demanded to work out every nuance he wanted and to make it sound natural and unforced. His wonderfully graduated crescendos/diminuendos are one such item.


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

_*"Attention to Detail"*_ is _under_rated.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

For me, it's less the detail and more how things fit together, doesn't matter if it is simple or complex.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

I recently started a thread on this subject in regards to conductors. 
There are some conductors who obsess over detail - Karajan, Celibidache, Leinsdorf come to mind...others aren't so concerned with detail, and look for the big picture - Tennstedt, Furtwangletr, Munch are examples, for me.
The greatest, IMO, are those who accomplish both - they have the big picture in mind, always; but they also sort out the details, find those touches of genius in the score, stress precision, balance, ensemble - Toscanini, Reiner, Monteux, Solti are some in this category...
Detail is important, crucial even, but it must be combined with the big view, the overall concept.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Except that the OP is referring to composers not conductors. The conductors are (hopefully) not going to find details that the composer didn't put there! (Although I am sure that some make the effort!!)


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Becca said:


> Except that the OP is referring to composers not conductors. The conductors are (hopefully) not going to find details that the composer didn't put there! (Although I am sure that some make the effort!!)


Yes. I understand that....but the two are intertwined....some music is so complex or thickly scored,, that even the greatest conductor/orchestra cannot sort it out...detail is important, but it must be audible, "presentable"....
Boris Goldovsky (opera guru, and a very fine conductor) said that one of a conductor's jobs is to go into the score, find those little details, touches of genius....what needs to come forth, what does NOT need to be prominent..


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## Malx (Jun 18, 2017)

Heck148 said:


> Yes. I understand that....but the two are intertwined....some music is so complex or thickly scored,, that even the greatest conductor/orchestra cannot sort it out...detail is important, but it must be audible, "presentable"....
> *Boris Goldovsky (opera guru, and a very fine conductor) said that one of a conductor's jobs is to go into the score, find those little details, touches of genius....what needs to come forth, what does NOT need to be prominent..*


Is that not just interpretation rather than fully representing the composers intentions, unless of course the conductor had conversed with the composer.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Malx said:


> Is that not just interpretation rather than fully representing the composers intentions, unless of course the conductor had conversed with the composer.


In order to fully represent the composer's intentions, one must go into the score, and see, hear what is written, what the composer intended.


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

mikeh375 said:


> You hit on a key word in composition Enthusiast - invention. It's one thing to have a good theme, and be proficient in all of the expected techniques like advanced harmonic thought, counterpoint, orchestration etc. But it is something else entirely to have the invention to put it all together in cunning, musical and interesting ways.


I would say the opposite. Not that invention wasn't (and still isn't) needed for advancement, but usually my favorite pieces take already great elements from elsewhere and combine them.

To the OP however, I don't personally understand the question. Detail is a very vague term when compared to the plethora of viable soundstyles one can appreciate and focus on in composition. That is to say, there are other building-blocks to address. Detail could imply (a) you have more variation, markings and ornamentation (which in essence is not what it's all about, since it doesn't account for the base elements of music theory happening, why things sound resolved vs built-up, and why form sounds right or good) or it could also imply (b) more notes, but gives no account of their quality or purpose.

I would say focusing on the details is perhaps the only thing one can achieve in music; that is how music is written and how vague the term is.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

In probably all genres of art and every aspect of life, it's easy to get the big stuff right if you're consistently getting the little stuff right.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

science said:


> In probably all genres of art and every aspect of life, it's easy to get the big stuff right if you're consistently getting the little stuff right.


Not necessarily....the saying "can't see the forest for the trees" may apply at times.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Heck148 said:


> Not necessarily....the saying "can't see the forest for the trees" may apply at times.


I've never seen such a forest!


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

science said:


> I've never seen such a forest!


Is it Because you're too pre- occupied looking at the trees??


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## 1996D (Dec 18, 2018)

It's not 'all' about anything, there are many factors, but if one is above all others is that the note that follows is the right one. Congruence is the most important thing, and it's why Beethoven is considered the greatest.

The music has to feel right, it has to come from a pure source, and it has to flow completely. The challenge is always in being able to create into the world what you've already created inside yourself and let it flow out naturally, explosively. If you don't have that then you must grow in strength and as a person; you can't compose what you aren't.

Composition is spiritual and instinctual, and the more you can make it that way the better it'll be. Revision is like banging your head against the wall, it's exactly that. Not that it's a bad thing, but congruence within yourself is the most important thing - even more so in revision. Too much attention to detail can make you crazy.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Ethereality said:


> To the OP however, I don't personally understand the question. Detail is a very vague term when compared to the plethora of viable soundstyles one can appreciate and focus on in composition. That is to say, there are other building-blocks to address. Detail could imply (a) you have more variation, markings and ornamentation (which in essence is not what it's all about, since it doesn't account for the base elements of music theory happening, why things sound resolved vs built-up, and why form sounds right or good) or it could also imply (b) more notes, but gives no account of their quality or purpose.


It seems to me that the music I have been getting the most out of over the decades has a lot of inventive stuff going on in it, all perhaps in the service of the main ideas. Some of this "detail" is under the surface but is doing much more than just filling out the sound. Some is perhaps about variation but I was thinking more about how no note is wasted. It may be like great paintings where the background is filled with incident, character and symbol - none of it threatening the focus of the whole (indeed the opposite is true - it builds it and makes it more complex and complete). I'm not sure I recognise your two options for what I might have meant by detail: I don't think I was talking about either, or maybe I was talking about both.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Mandryka said:


> A couple of performers have said the same thing to me about this, independently. They say that in early and recent music big gestures tend to be less important in working out how to perform the music, less important than small details. This is one reason why there are so many musicians who are interested in the very early and the very recent, and who just don't care about the stuff in the middle.


Mmm. I think it probably is the case that the aspect I am talking about - the importance of detail - doesn't apply in the way I was thinking with early music and some post-1950s music. It may not even apply that strongly to Baroque music? But the sense that great music has no filler, that every note serves a purpose related to the whole, seems still to apply?


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Heck148 said:


> Is it Because you're too pre- occupied looking at the trees??


I see only leaves, branches, birds, butterflies, caterpillars, squirrels, etc....


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