On 8 Feb 2005 at 13:06, Andrew Stiller wrote: > >And to get the point of the music, do you need to know this about the > >origins of the idea? > > > >If not, then it's not very important musically, in my opinion. > > > >If so, then it's probably not very good music to begin with. > > > >-- > David W. Fenton > > Depends what you consider important to know about different > composers' styles. Is is important to know that Beethoven was > influenced by French revolutionary composers? . . .
To get the point? Absolutely not! > . . . Is it important to know > that _The Magic Flute_ is full of Masonic symbolism? . . . Perhaps, because otherwise, it's fairly incoherent. I would say that proves that it's not a very good opera. > . . .This is the same > order of thing. If you want to just bask in Janacek's _Sinfonietta_, > fine, but if you have any interest at all into why this composer's > music sounds different from other composers, or how it achieves its > effects, then yes, you do indeed need to know about his acoustic > ideas, just as you also need to know about his insistence on > naturalistic text setting, and even about his long, extramarital > affair with Kamila Urvalkova. Well, now you're in a whole different set of issues, none of which are fundamental to the meaning and comprehensibility of music. > And BTW, it's not up to you to decide whether J's music is very good > or not. On that point, the verdict of history is in, long since. I never claimed the right to make any such decision. I just pointed out that if the music is incomprehensible without reference to outside information that is not musical in nature, then it's not very good music. It's up to you to decide the degree to which this is the case with Janacek -- I made no claim either way, since I don't know the piece except in passing. -- David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
