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From: jak@adelie.UUCP (Jeff Kresch)
Newsgroups: net.music.classical
Subject: Re: Knowing Large Pieces, Mahler
Message-ID: <531@adelie.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 5-Nov-85 20:37:10 EST
Article-I.D.: adelie.531
Posted: Tue Nov  5 20:37:10 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 8-Nov-85 07:07:37 EST
References: <199@sri-unix.ARPA>
Organization: Adelie Corporation, Newtonville MA
Lines: 48

> etc.
>
>     What I'd like to suggest is that one needs something to hang one's
> ideas on. With artworks a certain degree of basic memory is necessary
> to recall the pleasure of experiencing the art. I cannot stress this notion
> enough. I would not mention the need to recognize basic forms in serious
> music such as sonata form, variations, etc. without the view that the way
> these ideas are used in Music Appreciation classes does the whole notion
> a disservice by putting knowledge of form before knowledge of music. You
> have got to hear Mozart 40th Symphony in your head before you can appreciate
> the fact that the first movement is a sonata form. To talk analytically
> about music one has to assume that someone knows the piece you are talking 
> about.
>
> etc.

I strongly disagree with this notion.  First, there are many musically
illiterate individuals who appreciate the large, late-romantic works of
composers like Mahler and Bruckner.  How do you account for them?  I am
relatively well-educated musically, and I am sure I don't appreciate
one-tenth of the musical structure in many of these large works,
although I still enjoy them immensely, and not just on an emotional
level.

I believe that music should be enjoyed from the inside out, not the
other way around.  Individuals need to understand what makes a simple
phrase, or group of phrases sound good before they can appreciate
sonata-allegro form.  This is one of my pet peeves against music theory
and music appreciation classes in general.  They miss the trees for the
forest.  

When one approaches a new piece, one should start off by listening to
and remembering the smallest melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic ideas.  Try
to predict where the composer is going to go.  See how one's predictions
compare with what happens.  How did the composer create surprise?  Why
does what the composer did make sense?  

Gradually, one can expand outwards, examining aurally larger and larger
chunks.  One still does not have to know the technicalities of formal
structure to listen, compare, expect, and be surprised by what happens.

Most people are not going to learn how to sight-sing, read alto clef,
transpose, and all the other things required for reading a score.  Let's
give practical advice to those who want to appreciate music more, not
advice too difficult for the majority of people to follow.

                                        They call me when the sun rises
                                        JAK