solorgan
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Excuse me for the approximate translation. I'm not very gifted for that !
Solorgan
Advises to appreciate the contemporary music much better:
First of all, it would be necessary to distinguish two big types of contemporary music. The first type concerns the purely intellectual, calculated music, ignoring voluntarily the contributions of past, too often little pleasant to listen to because it did not really consist in this purpose. The second type concerns the settled music, appreciatively of themes, always making reference to certain contributions of past, but by developing them; she wants very pleasant to listen to although we are familiarized with the new meaning dissonances at first settled and then written by such or such composer. We shall speak only about the second type because it is the only one, in our opinion, who respects the traditional musical Art, the art-beauty.
We notice still too often that even the beautiful contemporary music is not indeed included by the very great majority of the music lovers. But feel reassured, it is not indeed understood /estimated either by a great majority of professional musicians! And distrust performers who will say to you the opposite, unless they program such musics, regularly, in all their concerts: the waffles also exist in this domain! The inconveniences of this music are generally owed to a simple lack of musical culture and thus to a lack of regular listening of this music type since the youngest age. The music is not universal and you should not thus forget that the ear always has to educate so that it can be capable of appreciating all the new harmonious dissonances, or at least those who want meaning. It was always so, and in all the periods. Having said that, at the beginning of the XXth century, everything went far too fast and the public did not accept the various musical "fashions" which followed one another, to begin with the dodecaphony and the sérialisme who brutally wanted to sign the death sentence of the tonal system. Then, discouraged, the public music lover stopped going to the discovery of the other musical, thinking genres that he could not exist any more of good contemporary musics to be appreciated during this century of artistic "decline". For the first time, in all the history of the music, the public was irreversibly disappointed by his contemporary composers, in the point to want to ignore them totally. And nevertheless, there was - and there was always - a lot of good musics to be heard during this century, but they were often darkened by strong personalities of the musical world who wanted to hear only about a single music type, the one who was only intellectual, ( very too ) learned or still strongly calculated, and thus accessible only to certain intellectuals, mathematicians, or stuck-up who did not especially want be treated of "backward-looking". Yes, there are many musics which we can never appreciate, those of the first type, those who were not heard in the head of the composers before being lying on the paper. In 1979, I met Serge Nigg, professor of composition in the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique of Paris, to present him some of my compositions. He said to me, about these, that I heard what I wrote. Having looked amazed by what he had just said to me, he hurried to reveal me the bottom of his thought: " You cannot imagine the number of current composers, among which of very known, who do not hear what they write ". The musical inspiration always has to be the mainspring of the creation ; it always has to lean on the artistic contribution of masters of past. Every composer owes know them. Any musical creation must be pleasant to hear, never boring, or not to be. I would add that every composer owes be original; if he is not, he should abstain, today more than yesterday, from writing some music.
But the musical, quite subjective beauty that it is, can be appreciated only by a cultivated public (to like, it is at first to know). Then I am going to suggest you listening to major musical works (listen to one or two pieces every day during a whole week), with a difficulty of slightly increasing listening. This list is not exhaustive, naturally. Having listened to the major figures of the tonal music such as J-S Bach (do you know its Fantaisie and fugue in G minor for organ, and its Passacaille and fugue C in minor, always for organ?), Mozart (do you know his Requiem?), Beethoven, Berlioz, Schumann, Chopin (do you know well all his Studies, his Polonaises, his 4 Ballads and his 2 concertos for piano?), Liszt (do you know his Sonata in B minor and its 2 concertos for piano?) Tchaïkovsky (do you know the 1st Concerto for piano and the Swan Lake and its wonderful final?), Wagner, Fauré ( Do you know his Requiem?), listen to:
C Franck: 3 Chorals for organ, Symphony in D minor
S Rachmaninov: 2nd Concerto for piano
C. Debussy: the Sea, Prelude at the afternoon of a faun (do you know his Preludes and his Toccata for the piano?)
M. Ravel: Daphnis and Chloé (do you know his Sonatine and its Jeux deau for the piano?)
Attention, that complicates a little with the modern music:
S Prokofiev: toccata for piano (do you know his ballet music, Roméo and Juliette, only for the pleasure?)
I Stravinsky : The Rite of Spring ( 1913 ): it will be necessary to make to you for it necessarily, but as it is beautiful, then!
B Bartok: Music for Strings, percussion and celesta ( 1936 ), Suite op. 14 and Allegro barbaro for the piano.
J Langlais: Te Deum ( Gregorian Paraphrase) for organ
L Vierne: 3rd symphony and Toccata for organ
J. Alain: Litanies and Three dances for organ
Mr Dupré: Prelude and fugue in G minor Op. 7 and Symphony passion for organ
Mr Duruflé: Toccata (and Prelude and fugue on Alain's name, only for the pleasure) for organ ; Requiem
J Demessieux: Dogme (extracted from 7 Meditations), Six Studies and Te Deum for organ
A Schnberg: Lunar Pierrot
A Webern: Variations op. 30 for orchestra
O Messiaen: Turangalila-Symphonie, the Ascension Day and the Christmas for organ
And to finish, of beautiful examples of recent musics:
T. Escaich : Fantaisie concertante
T. Pallesco : Rhapsodie, Christ a vaincu la mort, Harmonies en Paradis, Prélude et fugue en ut #, 5 Caprices poétiques for organ.
Then, it is the most important stage; you have the choice of the name (no matter the order, it is really " hard " for ears!):
Boulez, Stockhausen, Xenakis, Nono, Aperghis... It is necessarily necessary to know the musics of these last composers (it is a minimum!) to educate your ears up to the end. We do not ask you to like them one day, but just to listen carefully them to accustom your ears to the worst musical dissonances. Sometimes, you will catch shivering tuned to certain passages (rarely more than 30 seconds over a quarter of an hour of listening, but it is already the positive beginning). Sometimes, you will laugh even (there are works - especially vocal music - to make people laugh)! It will be necessary you a good " cure of hearing " - 1:30 am a day - with this music type during several weeks to make for you for it at least, and especially to be then able to compare these musics with the modern and recent musics which you will listen again then with new ears; you will realize that there are all the same many contemporary musics which sound much better than the others, and in any objectivity! You will eventually adore certainly some.
Every music lover, professional of the music or not, should master all the contemporary music. As I said it at the beginning, many performers - a great majority - do not know this music, having had time never only or the desire a lot to take the necessary time to perfect their knowledge in this domain. If they knew well this beautiful contemporary music, they would like it and would program it regularly, believe me! It is generally performers who specialized in particular from the beginning of their career in the performance of the music of the Renaissance, or still the baroque, classic and/or romantic music. We recognize them by the fact that they play practically never contemporary music during their various recitals. It is their choice, and we need these specialized performers because of course it is necessary to master the early music to be able to play it as it took place in the period.
I am going to make for you a confidence: when we know very much the contemporary music, we eventually like it so much otherwise more that the musics which preceded her. It is necessary to persevere in the daily listening of this music. Your pleasure will grow and you will eventually listen to maybe more than this music type, or, at least, to listen to it much more often than the others! Remember yourselves: to like, it is at first to know! Do not stop thus in the first musical disappointment! Courage, it's worth it! At the end of a few years, beautiful will be your award.
Thierry Pallesco, 11/14/2011
Solorgan
Advises to appreciate the contemporary music much better:
First of all, it would be necessary to distinguish two big types of contemporary music. The first type concerns the purely intellectual, calculated music, ignoring voluntarily the contributions of past, too often little pleasant to listen to because it did not really consist in this purpose. The second type concerns the settled music, appreciatively of themes, always making reference to certain contributions of past, but by developing them; she wants very pleasant to listen to although we are familiarized with the new meaning dissonances at first settled and then written by such or such composer. We shall speak only about the second type because it is the only one, in our opinion, who respects the traditional musical Art, the art-beauty.
We notice still too often that even the beautiful contemporary music is not indeed included by the very great majority of the music lovers. But feel reassured, it is not indeed understood /estimated either by a great majority of professional musicians! And distrust performers who will say to you the opposite, unless they program such musics, regularly, in all their concerts: the waffles also exist in this domain! The inconveniences of this music are generally owed to a simple lack of musical culture and thus to a lack of regular listening of this music type since the youngest age. The music is not universal and you should not thus forget that the ear always has to educate so that it can be capable of appreciating all the new harmonious dissonances, or at least those who want meaning. It was always so, and in all the periods. Having said that, at the beginning of the XXth century, everything went far too fast and the public did not accept the various musical "fashions" which followed one another, to begin with the dodecaphony and the sérialisme who brutally wanted to sign the death sentence of the tonal system. Then, discouraged, the public music lover stopped going to the discovery of the other musical, thinking genres that he could not exist any more of good contemporary musics to be appreciated during this century of artistic "decline". For the first time, in all the history of the music, the public was irreversibly disappointed by his contemporary composers, in the point to want to ignore them totally. And nevertheless, there was - and there was always - a lot of good musics to be heard during this century, but they were often darkened by strong personalities of the musical world who wanted to hear only about a single music type, the one who was only intellectual, ( very too ) learned or still strongly calculated, and thus accessible only to certain intellectuals, mathematicians, or stuck-up who did not especially want be treated of "backward-looking". Yes, there are many musics which we can never appreciate, those of the first type, those who were not heard in the head of the composers before being lying on the paper. In 1979, I met Serge Nigg, professor of composition in the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique of Paris, to present him some of my compositions. He said to me, about these, that I heard what I wrote. Having looked amazed by what he had just said to me, he hurried to reveal me the bottom of his thought: " You cannot imagine the number of current composers, among which of very known, who do not hear what they write ". The musical inspiration always has to be the mainspring of the creation ; it always has to lean on the artistic contribution of masters of past. Every composer owes know them. Any musical creation must be pleasant to hear, never boring, or not to be. I would add that every composer owes be original; if he is not, he should abstain, today more than yesterday, from writing some music.
But the musical, quite subjective beauty that it is, can be appreciated only by a cultivated public (to like, it is at first to know). Then I am going to suggest you listening to major musical works (listen to one or two pieces every day during a whole week), with a difficulty of slightly increasing listening. This list is not exhaustive, naturally. Having listened to the major figures of the tonal music such as J-S Bach (do you know its Fantaisie and fugue in G minor for organ, and its Passacaille and fugue C in minor, always for organ?), Mozart (do you know his Requiem?), Beethoven, Berlioz, Schumann, Chopin (do you know well all his Studies, his Polonaises, his 4 Ballads and his 2 concertos for piano?), Liszt (do you know his Sonata in B minor and its 2 concertos for piano?) Tchaïkovsky (do you know the 1st Concerto for piano and the Swan Lake and its wonderful final?), Wagner, Fauré ( Do you know his Requiem?), listen to:
C Franck: 3 Chorals for organ, Symphony in D minor
S Rachmaninov: 2nd Concerto for piano
C. Debussy: the Sea, Prelude at the afternoon of a faun (do you know his Preludes and his Toccata for the piano?)
M. Ravel: Daphnis and Chloé (do you know his Sonatine and its Jeux deau for the piano?)
Attention, that complicates a little with the modern music:
S Prokofiev: toccata for piano (do you know his ballet music, Roméo and Juliette, only for the pleasure?)
I Stravinsky : The Rite of Spring ( 1913 ): it will be necessary to make to you for it necessarily, but as it is beautiful, then!
B Bartok: Music for Strings, percussion and celesta ( 1936 ), Suite op. 14 and Allegro barbaro for the piano.
J Langlais: Te Deum ( Gregorian Paraphrase) for organ
L Vierne: 3rd symphony and Toccata for organ
J. Alain: Litanies and Three dances for organ
Mr Dupré: Prelude and fugue in G minor Op. 7 and Symphony passion for organ
Mr Duruflé: Toccata (and Prelude and fugue on Alain's name, only for the pleasure) for organ ; Requiem
J Demessieux: Dogme (extracted from 7 Meditations), Six Studies and Te Deum for organ
A Schnberg: Lunar Pierrot
A Webern: Variations op. 30 for orchestra
O Messiaen: Turangalila-Symphonie, the Ascension Day and the Christmas for organ
And to finish, of beautiful examples of recent musics:
T. Escaich : Fantaisie concertante
T. Pallesco : Rhapsodie, Christ a vaincu la mort, Harmonies en Paradis, Prélude et fugue en ut #, 5 Caprices poétiques for organ.
Then, it is the most important stage; you have the choice of the name (no matter the order, it is really " hard " for ears!):
Boulez, Stockhausen, Xenakis, Nono, Aperghis... It is necessarily necessary to know the musics of these last composers (it is a minimum!) to educate your ears up to the end. We do not ask you to like them one day, but just to listen carefully them to accustom your ears to the worst musical dissonances. Sometimes, you will catch shivering tuned to certain passages (rarely more than 30 seconds over a quarter of an hour of listening, but it is already the positive beginning). Sometimes, you will laugh even (there are works - especially vocal music - to make people laugh)! It will be necessary you a good " cure of hearing " - 1:30 am a day - with this music type during several weeks to make for you for it at least, and especially to be then able to compare these musics with the modern and recent musics which you will listen again then with new ears; you will realize that there are all the same many contemporary musics which sound much better than the others, and in any objectivity! You will eventually adore certainly some.
Every music lover, professional of the music or not, should master all the contemporary music. As I said it at the beginning, many performers - a great majority - do not know this music, having had time never only or the desire a lot to take the necessary time to perfect their knowledge in this domain. If they knew well this beautiful contemporary music, they would like it and would program it regularly, believe me! It is generally performers who specialized in particular from the beginning of their career in the performance of the music of the Renaissance, or still the baroque, classic and/or romantic music. We recognize them by the fact that they play practically never contemporary music during their various recitals. It is their choice, and we need these specialized performers because of course it is necessary to master the early music to be able to play it as it took place in the period.
I am going to make for you a confidence: when we know very much the contemporary music, we eventually like it so much otherwise more that the musics which preceded her. It is necessary to persevere in the daily listening of this music. Your pleasure will grow and you will eventually listen to maybe more than this music type, or, at least, to listen to it much more often than the others! Remember yourselves: to like, it is at first to know! Do not stop thus in the first musical disappointment! Courage, it's worth it! At the end of a few years, beautiful will be your award.
Thierry Pallesco, 11/14/2011
