Classical music thread welcoming your suggestions and why...

I made an error creating this thread and i cannot correct it...And add an introductory post...

My introductory post dont exist...

 

Ok i looked for a classical thread and i discovered that there seems to be none...

And these posts of mine about Furtwangler in Schumann 4th had been posted at the wrong thead... Then looking for a thread there was none... I created one...

 

Feel free to give your ideas...To all...

Ah, a Classical Music thread that actually announces exactly what it is...😀

In any event, a good intro might be to say what I like like about the stuff...er...genre.

First off, the utterly excellent tunes. Or the exciting, mind-bending lack of same...

How it can express drama, danger, comedy, or romance to beat the band.

The utter beauty of the sound that's produced.

The complexity and sophistication that hides within the music's accessibility. Putting it another way, the sheer joy of being caught up in the profundity that lurks within the prettiness.

😊😊

Reading these posts I was reminded of the Toscanini quote about the famous first movement of Beethoven Fifth:  “For some, this represents Fate Knocking at the door: for me it’s just Allegro Con Brio”.   The point being that we can become so enthusiastic about a piece of music, or a certain performer, that we overload the language to try and express our enthusiasm.  Music is a language of its own, and it is difficult to place in a language that relies upon words instead of tones to describe it.  I once saw a You Tube of someone explaining a Debussy Chanson in Mandarin.  The attempt was earnest but didn’t survive the translation, and I suspect the recreation of classic Mandarin Poetry wouldn’t survive the reverse.

  Furtwangler had the effect of making Music escape bar lines.  The Orchestra seems to speak in paragraphs not in short phrases.  His Schumann Fourth sounds more like a Shakespeare soliloquy as delivered by a great tragedian than a series of emails (for contrast, try the same work conducted by Yannick Sezet -Neguin.).

  I was readin an article in the Gramophone the other day. A young conductor had been hired to rehearse the Luxembourg Orchestra in Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique.  He was a stand in for Gergiev, who was too busy having dinner with Putin or something to actually rehearse prior to the concert.  So this young pup is rehearsing the grousing orchestra until 20 minutes prior to the curtain, at which point Gergiev shows up.  The rookie is amazed that from the first downbeat the Orchestra sounds totally different.

    How does this happen?  What black magic do the really great conductors stash in their batons and transmit to players?  They have a vision and they communicate it, non verbally, to players who speak the language.  And imho, most of the greats phrase like singers

You are right :

 

Furtwangler had the effect of making Music escape bar lines. The Orchestra seems to speak in paragraphs not in short phrases. His Schumann Fourth sounds more like a Shakespeare soliloquy as delivered by a great tragedian than a series of emails (for contrast, try the same work conducted by Yannick Sezet -Neguin.).

 

The "black magic" is linked to rythm and to the source of all rythms as primal pulsation as the heart beat not on a "beat" but on a music of his own...The heart is not a metronome... This is the root of musical achemy...And old jazz african musician say it is "rolli’n" or not, it must not be just extended in a repeated uniform way but spiralling...

What is rythm?

A conductor can direct by imposing an external order( metronome) on the set of timing interpreting written score indication, if there is one, in search for a PERFECT rythm which cannot be written anyway and KEEP ALL totally under his control as a maestro ...Musicians for him are as good as dead soldiers...

This is Toscannini in Beethoven 9th ...Complete perfection... But a mechanical perfect one ,sometimes, all along the piece ...

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dr2mcEtCxnY&t=633s

 

 

A conductor can direct by listening the music INTERNAL un-written and un-writtenable order first and let this order surge in him and happen by not so much commanding it over the head of the musicians but letting them feel this internal duration extended as an organic rythm coming DURING THE PLAYING ITSELF Which can never be repeated and this at the risk to lose the control or at the risk of IMPERFECTION...

This is Furtwangler genius recognized By Gergyev or Ansermet themselves great conductors and recognizing Furtwangler as a master...

It is easy to prove if we use the circonstances during which Furt’ was recording the 4th of Schumann and ask the sound engineers to never interrupted it anymore and he directed it NON stop IMPROVISING IT for 32 minutes ... One of the greatest maestro recording of all time...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl4mW2Mc9is

 

The direction of Furt. dont reach perfection at all, and he dont look for perfection at all , as Toscanini aim at and in some admirable way reach ( there is a reason why Toscanini is so great among all maestros ) Furt, aim at something over perfection, called LIFE which is never perfect sound and beat but an imprevisible singing beauty who he is let herself free to speak in his own way to the heart ... The source behind behind the song melody is the archetypal rythm of life...Not the beat of a metronymic measure imposed... So perfect it is...

 

And speaking about music and some work of music any good writer must use METAPHORS and the poetic language and not only the prosaic one with exact knowledge from musicology...I am by no means a knowleageable musician anyway... I am a listener thats all...Not even well informed... But i love some music too much... For sure... But someone can speak well only about what he love over anything else...

In language there is two working levels at the same time: the prosaic and the poetic...None of these levels are to be reducible or prefered to the others...Music is not science...

And anyway the root of all rythm as it is felt even in improvising African rythms, is the body itself and the spoken language moved by no EXTERNAL command but by a spontaneous living each time new improvised order...Each ceremony is a divination and linked to the incoming future... Music is sacred as these old immemorial rythms ...

Furtwangler transform his musicians imitating him in dancers around a never felt before new dance coming from the Beethoven beating heart ashe felt it this day , not from the dead score...Beethoven spoke for each new day... He is not dead...

In a word the wand is a metronome or an improvised gesture coming from the song with always changing suggesting "hues" on the playing spot this day at this hour to the musicians ... The musician listen or not, BUT they never merely obey to Furtwangler because it is not enough to obey for him , they must give their soul to the music WITH Furtwangler and not UNDER him and never only playing the music well and perfectly ; because even written, classical music ask for improvisation especially in time and this improvisation surge FIRST through the conductor ... This is not a beating wand ordering commands , this is more a gesture asking to be ACCOMPANIEDin something completely new and resembling a revelation ..

It is what i hear ...

 

«What is prose ? A sum of dead hidden forgotton metaphors. Nothing more but nothing less»Anonymus teacher commenting Borges essay on old english and Old  Norse language  where a "beard" is "the forest of the jaws"..