Re: Messiaen
Posted by dieter barkhoff on January 22, 2022, 12:50 am, in reply to "
Re: Messiaen"
I've been enjoying a conversation with a 'Brother' who became a Priest, who taught me and was my cricket coach in the mid to later 1960s. He was/is a gentle man, unlike many of his ilk. I had been sending him YouTube links to the magnificent Bachstiftung series of Bach Cantatas presided over by Rudolf Lutz- I urgently recommend these performances stretching back to 2006 and still evolving - and he is as struck by the text - The Word - as he calls it as the music. Ironically, as I asked my wife to sit with me to watch the glorious duet from Cantata 66, I had mentioned to her that I wish they hadn't flashed the sub-titles of the text on the screen. I'm very much the same with Opera, using some dialogue from Martinu's Passion of Christ to justify my ignorance of texts - let's face it, the plots of most operas are simply very silly Mills and Boon-like travesties of ART - and the dialogue - Martinu's opera is of course performed in its English translation - goes like this: Would you like onions? Cometh the reply: No, I don't like onions. I'm also very much a 'pure musica' man in relation to Proramme Music. It's probably why I rate Shostakovich Symphonies 7, 11 and 12s so lowly, but then again, there's Babi Yar.. And it's much the same with Taras Bulba, the Alpine Symphony, both works I love, I was going to say Liszt and his Tone Poems...but Liszt is someone I listen to very little and in my pantheon of way over-rated composers he is way, way up there. Regards and best wishes for the coming year to all. Mister Barkhoff In reply to Ralph, I guess it is just a lack of musical sophistication on my behalf. Programme music tends to leave me cold. If I can imagine it as "impressionistic" good and well, but not a line by line description of a text or a step by step exploration of a mountain! It is like film music. I can enjoy a film score even if the subject matter of the flick repels me! I just forget the story and enjoy the sounds... John F
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Message Thread
Messiaen - dieter barkhoff January 20, 2022, 8:50 am
- Re: Messiaen - John F January 21, 2022, 7:01 am
- Re: Messiaen - Mikeh January 21, 2022, 7:45 am
- Re: Messiaen - Ralph Moore January 21, 2022, 10:32 am
- Re: Messiaen - John F January 21, 2022, 5:28 pm
- Re: Messiaen - Ralph Moore January 21, 2022, 5:41 pm
- Re: Messiaen - dieter barkhoff January 22, 2022, 12:50 am
- Re: Messiaen - John Drayton February 12, 2022, 12:43 am
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