Schmaltz, Sentimentality and Emotionality

[rojo]

Have you a limit? Are some pieces just too much for you to take, emotionally speaking? How important for you is the emotional element of music?

I ask because I've been reading this article-

http://www.scena.org/brand/brand.as...ts_and_entertainment/music/article4956392.ece

Personally I don't have any limits per se, although I avoid any music that is sad and depressing (as most of you here know lol.)

I would think that there are other aspects that one could appreciate in Tchaikovsky's music than the emotionality, as in any other composer's music.

How about that attention-grabbing headline: I Hate Tchaikovsky lol. Well, it worked on me lol. But in reading the article, he doesn't really hate him. How can one hate a composer just because one doesn't enjoy his music, anyway?

 

[Tûrwethiel]

I despise The Nutcracker Suite, especially Waltz of the Flowers and Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, with a passion and I don't know why. However, I love the Pathetique and have fond memories of the conductor giving us a small break to get into the mood for the last movement, in the olden days when I played with an amateur orchestra.

As a young, snotty musician, I thought of Tchaikovsky, along with a few others, as "pap for the masses", but then I grew up.

Every now and then, when I feel like a good cry, I'll put on a CD that's bound to help it happen. Bruckner is particularly good at that, as is Bach's St Matthew Passion.

And yes, "hate" is a bit too strong a word for not being impressed with someone/thing. Shoot the sub-editor!

I think that writer is dwelling a bit too much on Tchaikovsky's life, rather than his music.

 

[Corno Dolce]

Tbh, for me at least, listening to rap conjures up visions of gangbangers shooting up neighborhoods with 40mm grenade launchers.

Otoh, listening to Rachmaninoff conjures up visions of Epic Russian History.

 

[marval]

I don't think I hate any music, there is definately some music I don't like listening to. I use the word music very loosely when it comes to rap, and the noise that some people play at full volume, with no tune whatsoever just bang bang bang. There is some music I prefer, and some music of one composer I like than another piece of theirs. I still have to get into Wagner and Mahler, but that is just a case of listening and then deciding. I really like Greig, Chopin, Bach and some Beethoven. I think my tastes vary on the mood I am in.


Margaret

 

[greatcyber]

Well, I'll have to agree. I don't hate any one composer. The music one listens to is akin to what you happen to wear on any particular day. It goes to what mood you are currently feeling.

But rap? ... should that really be considered music? Some of it can be clever, but mostly it's apt to make me want to bite the head off a kitten...and you all know that I love kittens, so I would venture to say that doesn't bode well for where it fits into (my) life.

grins

 

[rojo]

How has this discussion veered off onto the topic of rap? :lol:

I think Tûrwethiel has got it; I was referring more specifically to classical composers, hence my use of the word 'pieces'.

I'll try again.

Are there pieces of music that you avoid because they make you feel uneasy as to the emotions you feel upon hearing them? And is there one composer whose works you avoid for that reason?

Sometimes when I listen to a piece, the emotional reaction is so strong that I feel overwhelmed; it's almost too much, yet I love those pieces. But of course, I don't listen to music exclusively for the emotional reaction either, and I appreciate listening to all kinds of composers' works for all kinds of reasons.

Also, can the interpretation of a piece be overly sentimental? Can one exaggerate when it comes to trying to communicate feelings to others through one's musical instrument?

Sugary, overly sweet, syrupy... when is it 'too much', in your opinion?

 

[Contratrombone64]

I still can't listen to Aase's Death from Peer Gynt as it was a piece of music I was playing (in an orchestra) when my father died.

 

[Corno Dolce]

Sorry Ms. RoJo,

My Bad

Yes surely there are pieces which turn my world upside down but not in the sense that I wish to avoid them. For example, listening to the blood-curdlingly epic clashes and overwhelming grief in the 11th and 13th symphonies of Shostakovich leave me utterly and physically drained and exhausted.

Rachmaninoff's 3rd Piano Concerto and 2nd Symphony make me cry tears of *Umilenie*, which when roughly defined means you have been taken down, brought to your knees, and overwhelmingly humbled and at the same time cascading kaleidoscopic emotions of tenderness, humility, tender sadness and rapture thunderously course through your whole body.

Cheers,

CD

 

[greatcyber]

Well, if I am feeling pensive, I might listen to Ride of the Valkyries. Or if I feel like getting lost in myself I might put on Night on Bald Mountain. But when I'm blue that's when the opera comes out. I can't remember many of the names of the arias, etc. but I believe one is Mi Bambina Cara and another is Quando Men Vo Soletta. I'm pretty sure that I would be an embarrassment to attend the opera with as it would be akin to a scene out of Victor Victoria with me weeping in the balcony. Heck, I even puddle up at parades...always have (just like mom).

Music is very powerful, indeed.

 

[Kuhlau]

Does the mood one is in at the time of hearing a piece of music alter its emotional impact on the listener? I'd argue that it does.

Take today, for example. BBC Radio 3 were playing a performance of Vasks' Cantabile. Now, I'm currently experiencing some difficult times (trying hard to find work during the UK's latest recession), and the intensity of this work - a new one, for me - was almost unbearable. It amplified my feelings of hopelessness, and drew me towards an almost melancholic state of mind.

This isn't typical for me: I'm usually quite optimistic. But it just shows how potent an emotional force music can be.

FK

 

[Kromme]

I do not have a limit on how much emotion one can have in score but some interpreters exaggarates (Leonard Bernstein,springs to mind immidiately)them and i have a limit on that sentimentality.

 

[Kuhlau]

I do not have a limit on how much emotion one can have in score but some interpreters exaggarates (Leonard Bernstein,springs to mind immidiately)them and i have a limit on that sentimentality.

Interesting that you should cite Bernstein in this respect. I've always had a problem with this aspect of his music making, although I think the way he draws out the opening of the Tchaikovsky Sixth Symphony with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra on DG is extraodrinarily beautiful and very moving. (As an aside, it was only once I'd heard the music played this way that I fully appreciated the brilliant simplicity of the first movement's structure.) Bernstein's instincts here are absolutely right, and the intensity he generates as a result is just marvellous.

FK