C h r o n i c l e s ...

And The Beat Goes On ...

Human beings have been inspired to make music from the earliest times and more people are doing just that while an even greater number of listeners are out there providing economic stimulus to the music industry. Fifty years ago, no one could have predicted how music could become so easily accessible to a broader public and in so many different ways and means.

My preference in music is primarily ‘classical’ rather than ‘popular’ music. Music started out as what was music was music. What was not, was not. Now, however, it has been labeled 'good' or 'bad'. A local radio station went on air to sloganize theirs as 'good music; good life'. So what's bad music? Any music not to your taste is deemed bad music, and therefore bad life?

In spite of the widespread diffusion, music remains an enigma. For those who love music, to be deprived of it is an act of unusual cruelty because music has become so central a part of life even to listeners who, like myself, cannot read musical notation and have never attempted to learn an instrument.

In the context of our Asian culture, many people assume that the arts are luxuries rather than necessity and that words and pictures are the only means by which influence can be exerted on the human mind. This is why music is seldom accorded a prominent place in our education that is utilitarian and directed toward obtaining gainful employment. The idea that music is powerful and can actually affect both the individuals and the state for good or ill has never been contemplated. Music is said to soothe the savage beast and can be used to stimulate mass emotion. The physical responses that music brings about or bring out in different people at the same time are about the same. This explains why it is able to draw groups together and create a sense of unity.

In the culture dominated by the visual and the verbal, the significance of music and what it can do for the mind is overlooked. Musicians and lovers of music know that music brings us more than sensuous pleasure. It penetrates the core of one’s physical being. Like being in love, it can temporarily transform our whole existence. Yet, what it brings is hard to define because the link between music and the reality of the human emotion is not transparent.

The art of painting originates from the human need to understand the external world through vision. The Palaeolithic cavemen drew and painted animals on the wall of their caves in an attempt to capture the image of the animal and probably felt they could better control their prey. The more detailed the artist’s perceptions of the forms he depicts, the better the chance of a successful hunt. Like painting, the art of literature is understood to have developed from an activity that was adaptively useful – the primitive story-teller who gave his people a sense coherence and unity through myths embodying its traditional values and moral norms. But as for music, what use is there?

If music is a universal language as it often claimed to be, why don’t we see any Westerners excelling in music originating from our part of the world whereas we have musicians from this part of the world (China, Japan, S. Korea and Taiwan) who excel as practitioners and performers of classical music from the west?

While music may be regarded as a form of communication between people, what it communicates, other than emotions, is not obvious. It is not usually representational and certainly not propositional. It does not sharpen our perceptions of the external world, nor does it imitate life in a way that art is said to. It does not put forward theories about the world or preach morality. It is incapable of conveying information in the same way that language does. Perhaps therein lies the beauty of music, a beauty we do not see but feel intensely.

Here are some works of the great masters of classical music that strike a responsive cord in me. The list is by no means complete or exhaustive.

Beethoven’s 5^th symphony: opens with one of the most portentous rhythmic ideas in all music. The short-short-short-long motif supposedly depicts fate knocking on the door, in which case, it will be faith answering it. One other ‘massive’ opening I can think of is Tchaikovsky’s First piano concerto, the stupendous piano chords that could almost split the piano apart. And in lighter vein.

Beethoven’s music is not mere entertainment but a moral force. His music is said to reflect his powerful and tortured personality. He used classical forms and techniques and infused new power and intensity into them. In his works, tension and excitement are built up into an explosive force. One might say he hammered out this symphony systemically and wielded the four movements as unified whole, making it an exhilarating listening experience.

There is the other facet to Beethoven’s music that isn’t all stormy and forceful; it is gentle and lyrical. These are his even-numbered symphonies, like the pastoral no.6. In contrast, the odd numbers are stirring and agitating. That is however only a generalization because each of his nine symphonies is unique in style and character and it is matter of personal preference which you consider his masterpiece. In the last movement of his last symphony, he introduced a chorus with four vocal soloists and had them all singing at the same time and still be heard individually. This is possible only in music. (Ode To Joy - 2nd movement)

Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra. Considered the composer’s most popular work, it treats the instruments of the orchestra in a soloistic manner, hence the title ‘concerto for orchestra’. It is showpiece for the collective and individualistic virtuosity of the orchestra. It is a work of contrasting styles, changing moods and colours, displaying jest, sternness, thrust and cut, emotional intensity, memorable themes and arresting syncopations. One is held spellbound from beginning to end. Equally enrapturing is listening to his Music for Strings, Percussion and Celestra, another composition in the same vein yet having a distinct approach.

Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun by Debussy evokes fleeting moods and misty atmosphere. It is unlike any other music in being highly impressionist. The prelude begins with an unaccompanied flute melody with vague pulses and tonality, making it dream-like. It seems improvisatory. As it progresses, the music swells sensuously with a mosaic of sounds and subsides in voluptuous exhaustion. The music ends from afar like the way it begins… with weightlessness and fluidity.

The Russian dancer, Nijinsky, gained spurious fame for his erotic portrayal of a faun basking in the afternoon heat based on his own choreography.

Tchaikovsky’s Pathetique: (In this footage, Charles Hazlewood explores 'Romeo And Juliet' and The Pathetique on BBC 4. and explains why you need no specialist classical music knowledge to enjoy the works. More video can be found at http://www.open2.net/tchaikovsky)

Concert promoters all over the world know that classical music lovers have an insatiable appetite for the music of Tchaikovsky and all they have to do to ensure fat box-office taking is to include at least one of his works as a crowd-puller. The secret to the composer’s popularity is in his profusion of strikingly expressive melody, and melody, as a component of music, is the most appealing to the ear. We remember most and hum what has melody in it. More than just a master tactician, his works are full of lyricism and orchestral colours. He gave equally importance treatment to all instruments of the orchestra and knew how to coax each instrument to sing as individuals.

Although not necessary my favourite of his 6 symphonies because of its inclination to melancholy, I consider it be most ‘loaded’ in emotional contents - a symphony arising from deep personal feelings, an expression of ‘life, love, disappointment and death’. He was confronted by the death of his sister and three of his friends. The nick given to this work is misleading for its association with the English pathetic as weakness when in fact it is a work of pathos in the original Greek sense.

The opening movement begins with a very low-pitched woody sound from a wind instrument the name of which presumably takes after a primate probably because that’s how a baboon coos or let out air.

Anyway, the woody melody leads to the strings section picking up and introduces a love theme. So romantically melodic is this love theme it has been vocalized as “story of a starry night’ not just in English but in Mandarin as well. I remember this musical theme was used to good effect in Chinese dramas aired over Rediffusion whenever there was a need to convey heart-felt anguish for which words will not suffice.

The love theme continues to be heard intermittently sometimes softly and sometimes loudly until, unexpectedly, a full-throat outcry from the entire orchestra pierces the air with startling effect. A hymn-like burial melody follows and the love theme resurfaces again, bringing the first movement to a gentle conclusion.

The second movement is in the form of a waltz, airy and light but at the same time halting in character going neither forward nor backward. It is maimed, dragging its feet.

The third movement sounds like a vivacious march progressing with increasing tension and hectic intensity that the full orchestra must necessarily arrest with a tremendous climax before mass hysteria sets in.

I do not know what to make out of the final movement except that one get the feeling of descending into depths of sorrow of the heart with agonized phrases, turmoil and struggles to find release or escape. A love fated to fail even before it’s began. I don’t know how others see it but to reiterate, it is melancholic in character and best avoided when your emotional immunity is low.

Falla’s Nights in the Gardens of Spain captures powerfully all the enchantment of Spain and the scent of its exotic nights. One is literarily transported if not implanted in the musical folk culture of Spain. Rich in spirited dance rhythms that flare up from time to time through out the work, this piece of work closes in the dreamy opening mood the way it started. What stands out is the occasional pounding on the piano and beating of the drum in unison and yet both instruments are not regarded as ‘soloists’ but incorporated into the orchestra. With each listening, it is an entrancing experience that repeats itself. It never tires with its passionate sensuousness that sends your heart beat pulsating. (No video presentation could be found in You-Tube. However, The Miller's Dance from The three Cornered Hat typifies the exhilarating music of Falla and an extraordinary Ritual Fire Dance on the cello.

Spanish music, largely folk-music, owes it attractions to rhythms that are full of vitality, turns of phrase and colours as displayed in a flamenco dance. Spanish music exerts a captivating charm, languid and fiery by turn. It has the gipsy in them. This explains why a large volume of Spanish music is written elsewhere. In this respect, French composers were always good at evoking the atmosphere of places they did not know personally. Chabrier’s Espana is held as a classic evocation of Spanish rhythm that is genuine-sounding. So were Lalo’s symphonie espagnole and Bizet’s Carmen in successfully capturing the Spanish idiom.

Other notables in the ‘Spanish’ genre include:

Massenet: Le Cid
Rimsky-Korsakov: Capriccio Espagnol
Rodrigo: Concierto de Aranjuez. Rodrigo wrote some of the best-known music for the instrument identified with Spain – the guitar.
Granados: Spanish Dance No. 4, 5 (Andaluza ) & 10
Falla: Love The Magician & The Three-cornered Hat
Albeniz: Suite Espanola, Tango, Intermezzo from Goyescas
Tarregar: Recuerdos de la alhambra
Ravel: Suite Espanola & Bolero

What I consider to be some gems in the classical repertoire:
Rondo Capriccioso, Havanaise by Saint-Saens
Poeme by Chausson (a sensuous and melancholy work for violin and orchestra)
Tzigane, Pavane by Ravel
Arabesque 1, Golliwog’s cakewalk, Intermezzo from “Thai” by Debussy
Adagio for strings by Barber
Invitation to the dance by Weber
Dance of the hours by Ponchielli
Intermezzo from Thai by Massanet
L’Arlesienne suite two by Bizet
Andante for String Quartet No.2 and Polovtsian Dances by Borodin
Die Moldua by Semetana
Serenade by Torselli
Romance of violin and orchestra by Beethoven
Fantasia on Greensleeves, The Lark Ascending and English Folk Song Suite by Vaughan Willaims
A Shropshire Lad and The Banks of Green Willow by Butterworth
Intermezzo by Mascagni
18^th variation from Paganini variations by Rachmanioff
Schon Rosmarin, tambourin chinois by Kreisler
The compostions of Albert Ketelbey

posted by Victor Lai @ 11:54 AM