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Interludes I

Blogs > Deleted User 135096
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Deleted User 135096
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
3624 Posts
February 03 2014 13:39 GMT
#1
This blog will be part of an irregularly occurring series where I will do short excursions into a specific piece of music, some of the really cool bits that make it up, how they work, and maybe some historically interesting facts.

I love music. It's always been something that I've understood like a second language, and whether it be Rihanna, Duke Ellington, Justin Timberlake, The Decemberists, Michael Buble, or even Phoenix. I love variety and I love exploration of the new (because hey, new is all about context), and I felt that it was probably time that I started a series of pieces on the field that has defined my career path as an artist, and constantly challenges me to reexamine who I am and why I like the things I do. I am of course talking about classical music.

This is how this is going to work. I'll be writing a short piece on a work that I've either been recently been listening to myself or like a whole lot, talk a little on how It's constructed, why I like the choices made, and some of the historically important information that could provide some interesting insight into how you hear the piece. The pieces I'll be looking at are likely going to be more off the beaten path than you might be used to because as a composer I'm much more interested in outlying and interesting topics than popular works. I hope that this series helps to show you just how interesting, dynamic, and fun 'classical music' can be, because it is a field that I love dearly.


<span style="font-size:32px;font-weight:bold;">Carlo Gesualdo</span>
Tristis est anima mea


This isn't my first experience of the sheer crazy that is Gesualdo, but it certainly personifies why I love this composer so much. But a little context. Gesualdo was a nobleman and composer who lived with his wife in Venosa Italy (circa 1600), until he caught her having an affair and killed both her and her lover. He then mutilated the bodies and left them for all to see, as, being an Italian nobleman the law considered this matter closed. But this haunted him for the rest of his life.

Say what you will about this, as a composer he wrote some of the most daring, and innovative music with styles and ideas that were in upwards of 300 years ahead of their time. Much of this probably sounds ok to your ears, but here's a little context:


This music by Heinrich Schutz is much more of a typical example of compositional writing of the time (written in the same year). Predominantly diatonic stepwise motion, closely related key relationships (usually by 5th), and not too many chromatic deviations. The Gesualdo however uses a lot of dissonance, odd scalar figurations (major/minor mode mixing), and all of a sudden will have bizarre chordal relationships that either don't resolve or don't see any kind of use until much, much later.

One great example is between 0:50 and 1:15 where the melodic line that you would expect to go to a G-major triad instead goes to a-minor with an F-sharp passing tone that completely obscures the chord to make you think it's an augmented triad. Not only does this accented passing tone confuse the listener, but this is quite odd as we approached this passage from F-major which wants to resolve to C-major (and does), but instead of following traditional practices it resolves to D-major instead of d-minor (mode mixture), and then follows a series of cadences that you think are going to resolve in one way, but don't until the E-major triad at about 1:20, so that's about four separate deceptions in a row that thwart the resolution of that line for a long time.

Another is between 2:04-2:33 where we start in D-maj and would expect a half cadance at 2:14, but instead it resolves on III. What? And then things get really nuts. With no preparation whatsoever an E-maj triad appears, which then resolves to C-major with a 7-6 suspension, which then resolves to B-major, and from B to A.

This makes the overall progression here - I - bVI - V, where the flat VI is a chromatic upper neighbor chord to the dominant, but the V is actually V/V (V of V, or secondary dominant), which doesn't resolve to V but straight to I through some clever chromaticism. This is also of course noting that in our D-maj context that the final resolution on A-maj is a V in D (secondary of a secondary), and somehow all that crazy we just heard in-between relates back to the original tonal center. For music in the 1600s this had never been done before, and are tonal relationships that wouldn't really see much, let alone regular use until after Beethoven's death (~210yrs later).

And it's beautiful. Regardless of whether you've studied theory or counterpoint, you still can hear how striking those sounds are and how exciting they can be when your expectation is set, and then thrashed by the choices of the composer. This is why I - and coincidentally most composers - love Gesualdo, and why this is a great example of him, because he so often does what no one dared to do, and ends up with some of the most exciting and interesting sounds.

Administrator
intrigue
Profile Blog Joined November 2005
Washington, D.C9933 Posts
February 03 2014 14:54 GMT
#2
man, many years ago i was super enchanted by this piece i forget the name of (sucks that they're often named so forgettably, at least to modern english speakers). kyrie # something, not by any famous composer, ugh so vague

compositionally it was nothing amazing, mostly monotone in the beginning with an unexpected superbeautiful swell (at 1:12, i still remember the timestamp) immediately afterwards. just the most amazing harmony though. gave me the lasting understanding of why a person could believe in god, which is a fairly elementary step in a person's intellectual realization. but it was counterpoint that did it for me!

this gesualdo piece is very interesting to listen to. it is a constant tease, and i get the impression that he's very good at foreplay. unfortunately it gets a bit frustrating because despite its curiousity i eventually realize he's never going to let me have a satisfying climax. which is probably how his wife felt =(
Moderatorhttps://soundcloud.com/castlesmusic/sets/oak
farvacola
Profile Blog Joined January 2011
United States18821 Posts
February 03 2014 16:02 GMT
#3
On February 03 2014 23:54 intrigue wrote:
man, many years ago i was super enchanted by this piece i forget the name of (sucks that they're often named so forgettably, at least to modern english speakers). kyrie # something, not by any famous composer, ugh so vague

compositionally it was nothing amazing, mostly monotone in the beginning with an unexpected superbeautiful swell (at 1:12, i still remember the timestamp) immediately afterwards. just the most amazing harmony though. gave me the lasting understanding of why a person could believe in god, which is a fairly elementary step in a person's intellectual realization. but it was counterpoint that did it for me!

this gesualdo piece is very interesting to listen to. it is a constant tease, and i get the impression that he's very good at foreplay. unfortunately it gets a bit frustrating because despite its curiousity i eventually realize he's never going to let me have a satisfying climax. which is probably how his wife felt =(

Can you find it in this list? Unfortunately, Kyrie isn't a very narrowing detail lol.

Nice blog and two good selections.
"when the Dead Kennedys found out they had skinhead fans, they literally wrote a song titled 'Nazi Punks Fuck Off'"
snorsorbet
Profile Blog Joined April 2011
6 Posts
February 03 2014 16:43 GMT
#4
Very interesting. I suppose you hear the harmonic progressions naturally, you dont have to think about it, at least you seem to be able to think quite freely in harmonic language. Do you listen to contemporary classical music (like post-Cage)? I would love to hear what someone knowledgable has to say about that, I can sadly not really pick apart the music and understand what it is about.
Deleted User 135096
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
3624 Posts
February 03 2014 17:16 GMT
#5
Yes I do (hint, I am a classically trained composer), and part of this series I hope will aim to open music since 1900 up to people who are less familiar with it, and give them avenues of music to explore that they might find interesting. I originally was going to do only contemporary pieces and it probably will be heavily weighted to looking at those, but Gesualdo is just too good to ignore. If I do more 'common practice period' stuff It's gonna be less common things, like Verdi's quattro pezzi sacri, which aren't as often heard, but are great pieces.
Administrator
aike
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
United States1629 Posts
February 03 2014 23:56 GMT
#6
On February 04 2014 01:43 snorsorbet wrote:
Very interesting. I suppose you hear the harmonic progressions naturally, you dont have to think about it, at least you seem to be able to think quite freely in harmonic language. Do you listen to contemporary classical music (like post-Cage)? I would love to hear what someone knowledgable has to say about that, I can sadly not really pick apart the music and understand what it is about.

The fact that this is your 2nd post on TL is the reason why I love having a TL tab open anytime I'm at my PC. We all come here for the gaming community, and yet there is so much amazing discussion to be had outside of gaming that takes place here.
Wahaha
Grumbels
Profile Blog Joined May 2009
Netherlands7031 Posts
February 04 2014 13:41 GMT
#7
My father recently started listening to Thomas Tallis, I think he's a 17th century composer. It was awkward, it seems he was logged in on my youtube account and because a Tallis piece is used in the 50 shades of grey movie I kept getting youtube recommendations for 50 shades stuff.
Well, now I tell you, I never seen good come o' goodness yet. Him as strikes first is my fancy; dead men don't bite; them's my views--amen, so be it.
Deleted User 135096
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
3624 Posts
February 04 2014 16:26 GMT
#8
haha, my youtube recommended is so fucked up because of my eclectic proclivities, so I can relate to that. Also Tallis is a great composer of the 16th century renaissance. Interesting factoid about Tallis is that he was the court composer for the Tudors, notably Henry VIII, and his children, Edward VI, Mary, and Elisabeth I.
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