Let's talk music, no genre boundaries

I want to add something about Scriabin...

Scriabin is not as most could think a composer among others composers...

Scriabin was not a simple composer when i discovered him without understanding why i loved him so much  listening to a pianist able to play him, which is the rarest thing...

(To play Scriabin you must understand the motivating idea behind the music from which the music emerge as a new dimension of time , it is different from the linear tonal time where it is the motives which emerge from the written music)

Scriabin educated me about music in way i did not consciously integrated at first...

I will explain it very briefly here :

(i spoke too much sometimes)

 If we divide all the history of Western written music in periods, viewed from a chosen perspective among many others possible, there is three periods with three names possible i will draw your attention to:

 ------The peak of tonal music as his highest expressive form is reached and mastered by Bach... (Few people can contest that it is a fact)

The next written revolution was Atonal dodecaphonic music, which co0mpletely quitted tonality then the usual emotive expressive character inherited  by history. Here it is Schoenberg the genius...

----But who created and explored and opened the immense  country between the tonal region and the atonal region, who walked between these two without falling backward or forward in neither of them. The only one who mastered it totally is Scriabin a genius on par with Bach and Schoenberg.

The truth is simple, it will take a new century to understand the real genius of Scriabin in the future and the road he opened...He influenced a few composers like Feinberg (whose sonatas are strikingly beautiful) but none takes his legacy to the next level.

Instead of making convenient motives emerging from the music why not making the music emerging from new motives themselves? it is why nobody can whistle Scriabin music but anybody must think and perceive a new world dimension listening Scriabin. 

@mahgister 

I have listened to the pianists you recommended playing Scriabin. I can see how they understand his spirit and bring it out. Do I understand Scriabin the way you do? I doubt it. From what I've heard, it's a bit to much strum und drang. That being said, it has taken me a long time to warm up to Schumann. Maybe if I live to 100...?

I don't quite see musical periods the way you do. Bach composed during the "Baroque" period. He wrote a lot of sacred music and I think all of his secular music was written to nobility. The Brandenberg Concertos were presented to the lord of Brandenberg who put them in a drawer and never had them played. Such was the life of 18th century composers.

From Bach through Mozart, composers were constantly writing for nobility, hoping to gain favor and a lucrative post. Mozart did write for the masses also. But Mozart stands above, as does Beethoven who followed and began the Romantic period. I think in Beethoven's day, composers were beginning to write for publishers who sold their compositions to the public. In my mind, it changed music a lot. I think Beethoven is the most complete composer. That is not to say that Bach was not the most spiritual and Mozart the most prolific writer of very accomplished music. (We must factor in that he died at 35--otherwise I guess that prize goes to Haydn or maybe Telemann.) Although I love more modern composers, Beethoven and Mozart are most often on my turntable. 

As you know, I have seasons tickets to the L.A. Phil and hear a lot of "current" music. The composer comes on stage and bows as the audience claps. Some are not even that old.

Essa Pekka Salonen was our principal conductor until he gave up that position to compose, which pays much less money than performing. Rachmaninoff often complained about having to perform so often he could not compose as much as he'd like. What he did compose is often on my turntable as is Sibelius. So, I do have a liking for the late Romantics. But I play Stravinsky (considered a neo-classicist--whatever that means) just as frequently. I also like Salonen's compositions, though I've never played them on my stereo. I should now that I can stream.

I think the difference between our tastes is that I like to become acquainted with new music, and as you've said, you like music which struck you and moved you in your youth. If I may, I will call the the strum und drang period of life. The first composer I played a lot was Wagner--his orchestration, not arias. He is very strum und drang. Probably moreso since that is a German expression. 

Next time I post here, I want to post about a very modern composer. As I have said, I think Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla will be one of this century's greatest conductors. She is only thirty-eight so she has some time to be even more recognized than she is. She has recorded two symphonies by Mieczyslaw Weinberg, whom she is championing. I have listened to them a few times, but never really listened. I will do so soon, and hopefully write about what I think.

I think the difference between our tastes is that I like to become acquainted with new music, and as you’ve said, you like music which struck you and moved you in your youth. If I may, I will call the the strum und drang period of life. The first composer I played a lot was Wagner--his orchestration, not arias. He is very strum und drang. Probably moreso since that is a German expression. 

I discovered and learned to hear music all my life...

I was not at all in "sturm and drang"...

You miss my point about the  Western written tonal music...

I did not want to makes history gravitate around tonality... 

History of music is more complex than that...

I wanted to present Scriabin as the main interesting composer between two extremes : tonality and pure atonality, three regions...

By the way i am fanatic about Indian and Persian music and Jazz...

I listened much music before Bach not mainly Mozart Beethoven and the romantics...

I think Robert Simpson is a genius as Philip Glass...

Then your "strum and drang" qualification defined a nostalgia from my youth is completely  wrong... Young i listen to few poets (Ferré Dylan Joan Baez) but mostly choral music before Bach where there is no "sturm and Drang"... My discoveries of different music era and languages came later...

By the way Scriabin is not a "sturm and drang" Romantic at all save in his beginnings ... His ideal is spiritual he was a theosophist whose goal was elevate mankind soul by creativity and the sense amplification... Nothing to do with Wagner  or the first Schoenberg excessive use of the emotions by saturation... Scriabin is more sophisticated than the first Schoenberg and Wagner...Even more sophisticated than the first Liszt... Nearer the late Liszt of the Christus but with a more volcanic language...

I learned to appreciate very different musical languages and form..But i am not a person who look for novelty each listening session at all ... I goes back to all i had discovered all my life, the most important...This dont means i hear by nostalgia... I  hear to improve the depth experience of what i love... I need novelty not as a distraction for boredom, i need novelty of genius work...The new which i cannot consider total genius bore me,....

@mahgister 

Well, you do like Phillip Glass. Have you seen the film scored by him, Koyaanisqatsi? I think it means life out of balance.

I will keep trying Scriabin. It so far seems like a lot of emotion. But sometimes it takes me a long time to get used to a particular sound. As I have said, I had Flora Purim's more abstract albums for many, many years before I could appreciate them.

I did not like Beethoven that much until maybe 15 years ago. I think that sometimes he creates very short themes, such as in his Fifth, bum, bum, bum,. bum. They are not always melodic, but they are extremely versatile when he pulls them apart and puts them back together again like a great jazz musician. When you listen to his Fifth, the theme, bum, bum, bum, bum, is for all the movements. He changes the cadence and the tonality, etc. so much that you hardly realize it. Brilliant.

I think we must be careful, though, not to rule things out too quickly. Some music takes a lot of time to get used to.

As you know, I traveled through the Middle East for many months. I was in Iran for at least a month. I heard their music every day, but I guess it was their popular music. I got to like it, but I did not miss it when I left. 

The cantalever on my phono cartridge got bent, so I can't listen to records. The app that connects me to my streamer is disconnected and I can't figure out how to connect it. So I'm digging through my thousand CDs. I can't believe the music I've collected and forgotten about. All of Charlie Parker's recordings. A lot of other jazz I've forgotten about. Tomorrow I'll dig through the classical stuff.

I am slow to understand music new language too...

I was not born with the habit to prefer talking Nigerian drum...

music speaks to our feelings but to our mind too ...

I like Scriabin not because his music is emotions...

I can have emotions in many others composers or musicians...(for example the great Gesualdo)

I love him because he master the way we can make an idea sensible with sound body...

I love him because his goal was to make mankind more creative... You do not this with only music packed emotions but you do it initiating mankind  with a new language... This is why he is beside  Tonal Bach and Atonal Schoenberg in my book as a god on the same footing... 

I dont "taste" music, all things are not equal and relative for me... I had my "best" geniuses the others will bore me...times to times i discover  a new one...but i go back without end half the time to what i had discovered progressively in my life...

For example i discovered Akhnaten of Glass, and each month it is difficult not to listen to it one more time...it is why i listened the 8th book of madrigals 500 times since the moment i discovered it at 23...

This hierarchy between composers reflect my personal history, it is not universal truth for all, but one thing is sure, this musical hierarchy reflect the depth of my personal search...