and also a Cello Sonata and one of the Preludes (Chanson de la folle au bord de la mer). Fascinating composer.
It’s certainly just a sometimes snack with me. I don’t know much about this composer but the Romantic flamboyance of like Liszt and Chopin is music I really only enjoy in moderation. It’s fun for a bit and then it starts to annoy me like Yngwie Malmsteen kind of showy wankerism. I get a little surly if a performer plays more than one showy Romantic piece. But... I can’t say that Alkan isn’t more tasteful because I honestly don’t know.
It’s certainly just a sometimes snack with me. I don’t know much about this composer but the Romantic flamboyance of like Liszt and Chopin is music I really only enjoy in moderation. It’s fun for a bit and then it starts to annoy me like Yngwie Malmsteen kind of showy wankerism. I get a little surly if a performer plays more than one showy Romantic piece. But... I can’t say that Alkan isn’t more tasteful because I honestly don’t know.
I've agreed with most of your posts in my short time here, but not this one: for most mature Liszt and most Chopin I don't think showiness is at all the point (or even present, granted a good performer), but rather they were both extremely original masters who greatly expanded the expressive capabilities of the instrument and used their discoveries to create previously unknown musical effects (and both also wrote works of a disarming simplicity). A work like this, for example, requires a virtuoso performer but none of the wonderful writing is for anything other than the musical/pictorial:
Of course, it's probably a simple matter of differing tastes here...
Black Francis
04-11-2018 01:44 PM
John Connor
04-11-2018 02:15 PM
OccultHawk
04-11-2018 02:20 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by josht23musiclover
(Post 1940158)
I've agreed with most of your posts in my short time here, but not this one: for most mature Liszt and most Chopin I don't think showiness is at all the point (or even present, granted a good performer), but rather they were both extremely original masters who greatly expanded the expressive capabilities of the instrument and used their discoveries to create previously unknown musical effects (and both also wrote works of a disarming simplicity). A work like this, for example, requires a virtuoso performer but none of the wonderful writing is for anything other than the musical/pictorial:
Of course, it's probably a simple matter of differing tastes here...
Thanks for responding. That’s a nice piece you linked to. I do like when they branch into that more ethereal impressionistic sound that Debussy mined.
I guess I’m going to have to backtrack and contradict myself a little. I think I made it sound like a felt like the showiness is just a circus act and not rooted in sound composition. I know that’s not true.
However, after time, with the arpeggios blooming out of arpeggios, my mind starts going big picture and I lose the ability to appreciate all the nuances in the minutiae.
A part of me wants to champion it as great music and leave it at that.
I was being lazy using a term like “wankerism” lol. It makes the point of how I feel about it after too much of it for my taste but it doesn’t mean I think the composer has lost the plot. I’m the one who loses the plot.
