The Gymnopédies aren't the Satie pieces I would have picked as minimalist, unless one were speaking of all three of them collectively rather than individually; they are, after all, basically the same piece written three times. Much closer to minimalism in addition to the Sarabandes, I think, are the Ogives and Vexations. The former is also a rewriting of the same musical formula over and over again, of course, but there's more internal repetition within each piece to warrant the term "minimalist."
I guess that shows my lack of formal music education - I was interpreting 'minimalist' in a more general sense. ie in Gymnopedies there's a solo piano playing extremely downtempo, sounds almost like someone's holding down the sustain pedal and deliberately avoiding anything remotely 'interesting', no key changes, no dim 5ths, no chorus, no building climax, no real melody - it's really just a tonal pattern as you said.
That to me is minimalist (lacking complexity of form and elements) - will have to look it up in Groves to see what it means in musical terms.
Economy of material is definitely a feature of minimalist music, but most minimalist pieces also involve elements of "process" that you don't find in the Gymnopédies--i.e. there's some sort of overriding pattern that governs the moment-to-moment logic of the musical unfolding. As you mentioned, the Gymnopédies are extremely static, and in that sense they are almost the opposite of "processive." They're repetitive but not in the sense of generative patterns. (Again, contrast this to the Ogives.)
Even process in itself is not exclusive to minimalism, since it also characterizes the "avant-garde" stuff that was coming out of Darmstadt and Princeton. The big difference is that, as Steve Reich once put it, minimalist processes are audible--you can actually hear what the underlying logic behind the unfolding is. Unlike, say, Boulez's elaborate algorithms which are totally inscrutable and reveal themselves only through intense analysis, minimalist processes are more or less obvious: you can hear that the violin part is being phased, or that the canon is being offset by a single note, etc.
Thats an easy mistake to make.
Just because a piece is spartan, does not make it minimalist.
What makes it minimalist is the minimal use of ideas (normally called cells) which start off as a set cell and then gradually change and transform, often through the use of repetiton.
The Gymnopedies, I think were actually influenced by cubism- since each one one is a piece about a different angle of a statue. However I my be confusing this with the gnossiennes.
Shapeless knows a lot. maybe you can teach me things.
You pose a question then shapeless.
The Pentacle Queen wrote:The Gymnopedies, I think were actually influenced by cubism- since each one one is a piece about a different angle of a statue. However I my be confusing this with the gnossiennes.
Both the
Gymnopédies and the
Gnossiennes predate cubism by 15-20 years. It's funny you should mention cubism, though, because the first piece that got me into Satie was
Parade, a ballet for which Picasso provided the set design and costumes.
Hmmm. I heard that on a radio programme. Although it was a long time ago so maybe i got confused.
I'm right, you do know more than me. Yay, lets have a proper conversation then.
Hmmm. I heard that on a radio programme. Although it was a long time ago so maybe i got confused.
I'm right, you do know more than me. Yay, lets have a proper conversation then.
The conversation seems to be going just fine so far.
Anyone have any feelings about classical music of the last 50 years or so?
I told you I was bad at fostering these discussions.
We don't have to talk about music of the last 50 years if you don't want to.
I'm not really sure what is 'classical' in the modern context. Is Phil Glass classical? And if he is why isn't say Tangerine Dream or Bill Laswell?
Music that sounds like 'traditional' classical is seems largely the domain of film composers. And 'modern' classical seems extremely experimental and difficult to appreciate if you aren't used to it. I've had limited exposure but the Kronos Quartet springs to mind.
What makes something "classical" these days could of course provide enough fodder for its own thread. I frankly don't know how one decides; it's not something that's ever bothered me much as a listener. One way (and only one way) to do it might be to look at the composer's training. A composer liked Philip Glass, for example, has the kind of conservatory education (Peabody, Juilliard, etc.) that we associate with the "classical" kind. But it's not the most reliable marker, obviously. In this day and age I would even argue that the word "classical" has less to do with the sound of the music than the manner in which it is listened to: i.e. classical music is the kind we listen to in the concert hall, with the lights dimmed and the audience in reverent silence during the performance of the piece. (Not "classical music" has always been like that.) But like I said, that's maybe a topic for another thread.
It is true that contemporary music can sound strange if you're not accustomed to it, but I think (somewhat idealistically) that that is also true of, say, pre-Renaissance music. For me it is, anyway. As you said, it has a lot to do with what you've had exposure to before, and I've not had much exposure to medieval music so it sounds strange to me; I don't quite know how to engage with it. It's a different tonal language and what not. But I suspect that the way for me to get into medieval music is the same way I got into late 20th century music: just listen to it and try to immerse oneself in the sound. Sometimes it's enjoyable, sometimes it isn't. Among my favorite composers of the last few decades are Kaija Saariaho, Steve Reich, Hans Werner Henze, Lou Harrison and Gyorgy Ligeti. (And they already represent the "old guard"...) I can't say I think much of the Kronos Quartet, though they do some interesting things every so often.
Anotehr aspect you could decide on is the fact 20th centuary classical music is often described as 'art music'. Definately in the 20th century composers tried to push msuic on more creatively and latterallly, to the point where sometimes it has almost become art in the way that it is so conceptual.
In the last 50 years, I would have to say my favorite composers have been some film score writters, such as Yan Tiersan, who wrote the music for Amelie. He and another composer called Ludovico Einaudi write some wonderfull stuff. Minimalist normally solo piano, and very commercial using pop-chord progressions and predictable cadences etc. But it's wonderfull to play. I love to play through the books I have of it in the early evening sometimes, and because its simple, you can drift off into a kind of trance where it doesn't feel like you are playing at all.
I also love Alan Rawsthorne's piano works. Atonal stuff which plays on dissonant intervals. Tricky, but brilliant fun. Listen to bagatelle no.3 or 5 if you have the chance.
Of course I'm at a disadvantage really because I'm only 18 so I havent had as much listening experience as you guys.
However, I would say that I prefer the 1st half of the 20th century to the second, music wise.
What do you think about serialism?
If it's serialism in the sense of 12-tone music, I go for Webern, Berg and Krenek. I tend to like Schoenberg a little less, and what Schoenberg I do like tends to be pre-12-tone.
If it's serialism in the sense of integrated serialism (i.e. not just serialized pitches but also rhythm, timbre, etc.), I go for Boulez's chamber and orchestral music (his serial piano music doesn't do much for me).
Speaking of Satie and repetition: Kyle Gann recently posted an essay on
Arts Journal that reminded me of this thread. Here are some excerpts:
Quote:[Satie] is capable of writing a third movement virtually identical to the first, or one that quotes the first as though it is not a quotation, but a new creative odyssey leading back into identical material. Like Borges' hero who writes (not rewrites) Cervantes' Don Quixote, Satie was capable of writing the same music twice: not in absent-minded forgetfulness, but in acute awareness of every moment as new.
Having discovered Satie at 15 and instantly recognized him as an old friend, I am more and more trying to achieve the blankness of mind--and also the craft, because contrary to public impression, Satie was a painstaking reviser--that makes pieces like Trois Poèmes d'Amour possible. "What should I do in this section?" is a question I try to prevent from ever arising. By the end of the first measure, everything should be decided, and the only task is to continue. By continue I mean simply to sustain the idea, to keep it alive without having to resort to anything else. Although, it's hardly simple, it's damned difficult: so much easier to move to a contrasting section, to bring in a second idea, to swerve and create a facile "unity" by returning to the original material later. This is what La Monte Young meant, I surmise, when I asked him circa 1991 why the five movements of his early string quartet were so similar, and he replied, after a moment's thought, "Contrast is for people who can't write music" - an unnecessarily dismissive formulation, perhaps, but one I found inspiring. And possibly what Kierkegaard meant when he titled one of his books, "Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing."
The classical music world - which values educatedness in a composer over discipline of will, and speciously takes variety of techniques as evidence of education - does not much respect this goal, nor Satie. But that's the goal that continues to inspire me.
Thats interesting, yes it is true that to write something with so much repetition is a skill to not bore the listener and to change the thematic material slightly, to still add interest.
Have you heard shoenburg pelleas and mellisande?
Do you compose shapeless?
I believe I've heard Schoenberg's
Pelleas und Melisande once or twice in concert, though it's a bit hazy. If I'm remembering correctly, I recall thinking it was quite lovely, as are many of Schoenberg's pieces from that period.
Oh my--I tried my hand at composing
very briefly in college. It was more or less disastrous.
Lots of parallel 9th chords and what not... it came out sounding like bad Debussy.
Lol!
What do you do now then? do you work within music?
I love composition. i don't do enough of it. although I did brilliantly at it for a level.
