Classical Music for Aficionados

I listened Satyagraha this night and i was not disappointed at all...

I dont know which one i prefer, i will say that Akhnaten seems more formally mature and i think was written 4 years after Satyagraha...

Anyway the music in Satyagraha is like in Akhnaten , incantatory, but at a level near gripping ectasy...

Then like meditation and silence could be boring to some, a ritual could be insupportable for unprepared listener... And to appreciate these operas we must see and lived immersed through them anyway...It is not works written to be evaluated at distance by esthetical values on a performance scale, it is a world revelatory of the deepest and the oldest stratas in the human mind.... It is way more intense work than only a merely beautiful work.... They are more like therapeutical catharsis....They dont move you by touching feeling only , they grip you completely at the level of the will...

Glass created here more than a mere "art" work but reach the level of Bach passions, which are way more than an exercise in musical style....A spiritual event is not a pleasurable distraction....( By the way here i dont say that Glass has the musical genius mastery  of Bach, no one have this mastery in occidental history for me,  i only say that this 2 works of Glass may be  impactful in the future  like Bach passions were in  traditional christianity, they own this potential)

History is throwd in the cosmos like in very ancient religion and is based on experience not on dogmas as much...This feeling of Akhnaten pervade also satyagraha... The force of the will here is a cosmic event not only a human free choice...

We must listen very carefully to appreeciate this opera which is thought to be like in Wagner, a worldwide event impactful ceremony, a bit like the spiritual musical ceremony to save the world in Scriabin idea ....

No direct use of classical Indian music permeate the work, instead a telluric inspiration coming more from very old rythms or hypnotic varying melopea remind me of pre-historical tales......

This music grip us and is designed to do so like in trance ceremony, or probably the rythm in ancient mysteries...

This music is created by Glass and suggest to me that the consciousness level of the artist put him on touch with the common spiritual ground of any religion : the pure experience of the sacred...

His operas , all of them, but i know just 2 for now,remind me of the "Passion genre" in occidental musical history....And after all Christ has revealed also the most intimate human experience with God on the world stage for ALL and each humans not for a few chosen one...Satyagraha is the " passion" for justice and freedom....

Glass made history with these 2 works....

It is not moving melodies who will stay in your ear, it is complete transformative ceremony designed to rewire the brain...

Music is not there to be loved only , like we love our most precious esthetic values and chosen love one or our childs...

Music is to be thought of like a "mystery at play" in our body and mind and soul, and we must wait for a new surprizing and sometimes troubling revelation each time ....Music teach us something and is not only an esthetical possession by our feeling, it is also an ethical an spiritual education of the will, a yoga... ...

But we must be ready...

I was ready to welcome Philip Glass....

This music is at the genius level of Wagner not so much by creating something ideologically "new" like in the Wagner purely "german" case, but by reinitializing ancient spiritual experience in the brain/heart stratas of all humans....

My best to all....

I know a "frogman" but i am embarassed to say that i dont know what frogman first law is...

The Frogman's first law states:
There is a perfectly good and logical reason for every situation you may find  as pertains to the music, the players, the composers, and their success / popularity, or lack thereof. 

For example, there is a reason why Mozart is Mozart, and old whats his name,  Stockhausen is Stockhausen.

There is a reason why The Marriage of Figaro is what it is, and why Satyagraha is what it is.

So there is no reason or room for argument.  

And to think, Mozart, Beethoven, Bach etc......   did it all without the help of paid mass media hype.

Cheers

Thanks for this illuminative and enlightened  explanation...

I like it a lot....

I enjoyed my Nyiregyhazi Lizst LP for a good while but, yeah, he’s not exactly for the long haul.

I think we must not judge E.N. on the same scale than most others contemporary pianists...

Sometimes a genius put the scale balance himself and created it and accept to be weighted only by his own standards...

Being a "romantic" player means, in the case of E.N. like it was for Liszt , of which he was almost a direct pupil, means i said, not a "rendition" of written music like it was written from the sheet information, not at all...

It means recreating the works for the TIME moment actually in process, to WORK and transform the listener soul and consciousness willing it or unwilling...

It is first an intense ceremony and it is a beautiful possible experience only in a secondary manner...

No intense ceremony can be produced WITHOUT to some level the active conscious/subconscious participation of the listener... If a beautiful object wait passively there to be seen for example, a loving woman need an active embrace...Love is not an esthetical experience only...

E.N. passionnately hated with all the power of his soul concert touring, his abandonning of his carreer and the paying price is testimony for that...He never practice nor even own a piano for decades...He afford one when he can between his 10 wifes he must successfully feed before paying for a decent room with a piano.... He lives a life of misery and glory at the same time... We must read about his life to understand😊

A sacred ceremony cannot be a concerts string of repeated same works.... E.N., like Liszt was, according to the history and legend, way more than a pianist reproducing some work, it was a theurge recreating the link between God and man....

Then comparing him to the average great pianist is meaningless...A volcanic eruption does not compared to a mountain so great the mountain is....

It is easy to point to some " imperfections" of his playings... But to repeat a great french poet René Char, "imperfection is the peak"....No one ever played at the end of a broken chain, with so much power at his own risk...NONE....

Like seeing an angel is terrible, and was, saying Rilke, like seeing "death",listening E.N. is not at times tasting a beautiful piece at all...It is being transformed by the event, willing or unwilling, by going for it or going back with contempt and fear or hate away from it.... So is God or a volcanic eruption, some throw themselves in the crater others panicked or only careful and cautious go back and retreat in more pacified water....