Post by darkehmen on Mar 16, 2008 7:52:39 GMT 1
I'm fascinated by the question of how to describe music in words. It's very difficult, and nothing more vividly underscores just how difficult it is than reading badly-written CD reviews.
I've always been skeptical of temperature references, for example. It never makes any sense to me when I read that a performance or a CD is "cold" (whether that word is used in a complimentary or pejorative sense). What does that even mean, "cold"? How can music be "cold"? I find it absurd.
Describing a performance in terms of heat makes a little bit more sense, if only because one can imagine a listener being so struck by the intensity of the music-playing that he senses the physical friction that the instruments must be making (e.g., the bows rubbing the strings) -- such friction presumably generating heat.
Even when I read that a performance is "fiery," I think the analogy has more to do with the physical look of flames -- flickering, dancing, a blur of motion -- than temperature.
On the other hand, I am very receptive to the idea of describing music by physical analogy, using concrete objects or geometric shapes as metaphors for music. Long before I read Karajan's own words on the subject, I always thought of his 1982 digital recording of Eine kleine Nachtmusik in a tangible sense -- like a crystalline object. But Karajan himself was the one who showed me how illustrative this approach can be.
Here are three examples of Karajan describing music in concrete terms that have always impressed me.
From Conversations with Von Karajan:
"He is a composer who cannot really be compared to anyone else. He is in his way like the Erratic Blocks. They are there, they are colossal, they are of another age; and nobody knows how they came there. So it is better not to ask why. This for me is Sibelius."
From Herbert von Karajan: An Autobiography:
"The last time we performed Anton Bruckner's Te Deum, I spent a great deal of time and a good deal of effort ensuring that the final chord ended as powerfully as it began. I managed to do it. The final chord stood there like a monument. I'll never forget it."
From Karajan in Salzburg, describing the Prelude to Tristan & Isolde:
"The most important thing about this piece is this: The tremoli are played so fast that you can't even see the bows move. It must tremble. As though the air had turned to crystal."
Erratic blocks. A monument. Air turning to crystal. I find these analogies extremely apt and memorable. They stay in your mind as you listen to the works in question -- and others like them. Karajan always thought visually as well as sonically.
It's also why I always found his late DG album covers, which usually featured abstract objects or graphic designs rather than pictures of the musicians, extremely compelling. The images didn't seem random, but visual expressions of the music in the recordings.
If anyone comes across any other examples of HvK employing physical metaphors to describe musical works or concepts, please share them.
I've always been skeptical of temperature references, for example. It never makes any sense to me when I read that a performance or a CD is "cold" (whether that word is used in a complimentary or pejorative sense). What does that even mean, "cold"? How can music be "cold"? I find it absurd.
Describing a performance in terms of heat makes a little bit more sense, if only because one can imagine a listener being so struck by the intensity of the music-playing that he senses the physical friction that the instruments must be making (e.g., the bows rubbing the strings) -- such friction presumably generating heat.
Even when I read that a performance is "fiery," I think the analogy has more to do with the physical look of flames -- flickering, dancing, a blur of motion -- than temperature.
On the other hand, I am very receptive to the idea of describing music by physical analogy, using concrete objects or geometric shapes as metaphors for music. Long before I read Karajan's own words on the subject, I always thought of his 1982 digital recording of Eine kleine Nachtmusik in a tangible sense -- like a crystalline object. But Karajan himself was the one who showed me how illustrative this approach can be.
Here are three examples of Karajan describing music in concrete terms that have always impressed me.
From Conversations with Von Karajan:
"He is a composer who cannot really be compared to anyone else. He is in his way like the Erratic Blocks. They are there, they are colossal, they are of another age; and nobody knows how they came there. So it is better not to ask why. This for me is Sibelius."
From Herbert von Karajan: An Autobiography:
"The last time we performed Anton Bruckner's Te Deum, I spent a great deal of time and a good deal of effort ensuring that the final chord ended as powerfully as it began. I managed to do it. The final chord stood there like a monument. I'll never forget it."
From Karajan in Salzburg, describing the Prelude to Tristan & Isolde:
"The most important thing about this piece is this: The tremoli are played so fast that you can't even see the bows move. It must tremble. As though the air had turned to crystal."
Erratic blocks. A monument. Air turning to crystal. I find these analogies extremely apt and memorable. They stay in your mind as you listen to the works in question -- and others like them. Karajan always thought visually as well as sonically.
It's also why I always found his late DG album covers, which usually featured abstract objects or graphic designs rather than pictures of the musicians, extremely compelling. The images didn't seem random, but visual expressions of the music in the recordings.
If anyone comes across any other examples of HvK employing physical metaphors to describe musical works or concepts, please share them.
