On March 14 2010 03:08 Groslouser wrote: And what were they created to do? Entertain. The betrayal would be to forget that and to become some kind of ritual. I'm glad musicians don't stick to the old pieces because this is why classical music is a music and will continue to be: musicians in classical music are like in every other music, before trying to be "revelant" or to make money, they want to have fun, they want their public to enjoy their play and they want to play together.
Sorry, but that's plainly not true. The purpose of art is not to entertain. Their is a clear cutline between art and entertainement. If you define art by its entertaining value, then counter strike is an art and Disneyland a kind of great museum.
The fact that art is not meant primarily to entertain, you will find it amongst all philosopher and all great artists who have written about art. If you were telling Wagner or Beethoven that they are entertainers they would kill themselves (or rather you).
Aristotle already has made a clear distinction in his poetics between the entertainemnt value of the artwork and the catharsis, which is for him its purpose.
Now about the music industry, and Andre Rieu, you will find out with Adorno why art loses its value when precisely it becomes a business, an lucrative industry incorporated to the capitalist world. Andre Rieu is not an artist, or an artist of very very poor value.
Also, music is a ritual. Concerts are ritual, festivals are rituals. Look at Bayreuth, for example. It's the summum of the ritual. A recital is a ritual. In this sense, concerts are much more kind of a ritual than an entertainement place.
Here's an opinion that throws a spanner in the works - I have dismissed all but one of Beethoven's symphonies. I have listened to recordings by the likes of Kleber, Rattle, Bernstein, Bohm, Klemperer, Marriner, Szell, Furtwanglar (and a few more) and mostly Karajan but only one has truly convinced me.
Wait, are you saying you only like one of Beethoven's symphonies, or are you saying that Jochum's interpretation is the only conductor who makes you like Beethoven as a whole?
While we're on this topic, I highly recommend Frans Bruggen and the Orchestra of the 18th Century's Beethoven (and Schubert) symphony cycle to any and everyone. I'm almost tempted to say that if you only ever listen to one interpretation, go with Bruggen.
No the ninth I linked to was an interpretation from Ferenc Fricsay! And yes, he's the only conductor that makes me like Beethoven's symphonies as a whole.
To the person who mentioned Liebowitz below Sheep's post - I've got his Satie recording of Socrate and it is fabulous. He's a slightly obscure conductor though but has written a lot of his own material is seems - there's a CD labeled Chamber Music, including compositions opused to 87 O_O.
He wrote something titled Marijuana .
His Beethoven symphony cycle is great. He takes some daring approaches (but follows metronome markings) and I don't take to conservative approaches so I like it. Orchestral coloring is about as best as you can get. Orchestra is RPO right after the Beecham years in excellent condition. The 9th is probably the weakest link of the set as he takes his usual daring tempi (and probably why I tend to not listen to the Furtwangler recordings, at least the 1st and 2nd movements), but the main problem is the orchestra seems underpowered in it. I wouldn't call it the best ever but I would say get it.
Eroica 1st movement
Also 4th movement instrumental (before the chorus) in my opinion is of the highest standard.
On March 11 2010 09:00 Simplistik wrote: It's not about what they should do or what they should not do.
Orchestras are businesses that sell products in order to make a profit. If customers stop attending their concerts then orchestras will try to change their repertoire. If that doesn't work then they will close. As far as I can tell many long standing orchestras are doing well. There's no reason to believe that they will die out soon.
Just wanted to add that no orchestra really "makes a profit" in the normal sense of the word. Even the top orchestras such as Berlin Phil or NY Phil only earn, at the most, around 60% of their expenses. The rest is donations or government support.
There's a nice initiative of the Berlin Phil called the Digital Concert Hall. You get high quality live video streaming of their concerts, you can also buy access to their archives and such.. The site looks great. http://dch.berliner-philharmoniker.de/
On March 11 2010 09:00 Simplistik wrote: It's not about what they should do or what they should not do.
Orchestras are businesses that sell products in order to make a profit. If customers stop attending their concerts then orchestras will try to change their repertoire. If that doesn't work then they will close. As far as I can tell many long standing orchestras are doing well. There's no reason to believe that they will die out soon.
Just wanted to add that no orchestra really "makes a profit" in the normal sense of the word. Even the top orchestras such as Berlin Phil or NY Phil only earn, at the most, around 60% of their expenses. The rest is donations or government support.
There's a nice initiative of the Berlin Phil called the Digital Concert Hall. You get high quality live video streaming of their concerts, you can also buy access to their archives and such.. The site looks great. http://dch.berliner-philharmoniker.de/
to add on to this: most (or all) orchestras, in the US at least, are funded not by ticket sales, but by grants and corporate/private donations -- this includes musician's salaries, stage personnel salaries, building/property leases, pay for guest artists, etc. as you can probably guess, some orchestras fair better than others business-wise simply because of location and name (for example, the principal oboe of the metropolitan opera orchestra has an annual salary of roughly $200k, not including the pay she gets from teaching at juilliard/mannes), but i would say that there aren't very many orchestras who are doing too well nowadays because of the current state of the economy (donating to the arts is probably the last thing on those peoples' minds). this is particularly why musicians have one of the most difficult job markets out there.
in contrast, if you are a pianist/violinist/cellist/singer and you tour as a soloist then none of this really matters because these people make an upwards of $2mil a year anyway (assuming they are in demand).
What kind of people do you meet? I have many musical friends and classical is great lol. It's easily accessible, public, not weird at all. I mean classical is the SHIT !!
On March 14 2010 18:53 evanthebouncy! wrote: What kind of people do you meet? I have many musical friends and classical is great lol. It's easily accessible, public, not weird at all. I mean classical is the SHIT !!
It's the shit but it's definitely not public. You must be very lucky to have such friends
On March 13 2010 22:32 SF-Fork wrote: off topic and quick question:
How do you name the chord B - D - F# - G???
gmaj7
ummmmm .. without a g in the bass this is just a bminor triad in root position with a 6th added,,, of course depending what key your in .. but since bm and g are relative through the d major chord ,, there isn't very many situations this wouldn't generally be viewed as a b minor chord in root
funny you view it as a gma7 it could be viewed as one with the g ommited but without any other context it should be viewed as a bminor ... with no bass to tell us this , and no context to draw from this is what it would be viewed as
On March 14 2010 19:50 chessmaster wrote: or if you add the g up top the first think you would think still would be bm7 ,, before one would think gmaj7 in a different position
The chord is g major seventh first inversion, period. Analyzing a chord has nothing to do with the context.
Why do you write four post on a completely off topic question which has been answered very clearly three pages ago?
many of you are still confusing the term classical with orchestral .. classical is a very select period of music between about the mid 18th century (1750 or so most agree ) to the the early 19th (1820 or so) beethoven mid to later works generally being regarded as the beginning of the romantic period .... .. music from different periods is NOT classical music ,,,,,, its very common to say classical = orchestral .. just likt previous posters were equating serialism=atonality ..
i replied to becuase i wanted to give the person asking the question a more detailed a more correct answer ,, viewing a chorh as first inversion instead of root form is just stupid
analyzing the chord has nothing to do with context ?????? did you really just say that ?? maybe you dont understand what context means ? in this situation it means the "tonic key.". if you seriously think the tonic key doesn't help name ambiguous chords well then there isn't much hope for you ,, or maybe you should stop pretending to know this stuff ... hahahahah you obviously know little about music theory.. i am still laughing ..
Ok, that "anyone who thinks any piece of art is better than the other" thing was mine. And i will stand with it. Pity You didnt read one of my previous posts in this topic ( it seems so), where i was explaing my position.
In short, it looks like that.
1.There is no coherent, aesthetical theory that will explain all forms of artistic activity. It either has a huge internal inconsistencies, or its not broad enough to include all forms of activity we would all agree to call art.
If You disagree here there is no realy much talking left, thats my view on status of modern aesthetic theory. Thats my personal opinion, its well founded (i have a degree in philosophy, currently getting a phd in philosophy of science- math particulary so i am maybe a little biased, but i still know a lot about aesthetics). You of course have Your own opinion, its propably different. Lets just agree to disagree then.
If however You agree:
2.Since there is no theory that You could use to judge art without falling into inconsistency (as all existing theories have its flaws) it is better not to judge art, because using theory we know is flawed, (as it fails to explain phenomenon of art), is just plain stupid.
3.Since You cant judge art, You cant say that one piece is better than the other, even if it screams to, Why You ask? Becuase even if it looks right, it can be wrong (Sun orbits around Earth yeah? It looks that way. But we have a theory thats says otherwise, and that theory works. There is no working theory in aesthetics (one critique use that, other uses different). One says that and other the oposite.
In short that is my view. Pity my English is not good enough to explain it properly but i hope You will get what i mean.
i really don't understand what you mean at all,, or maybe you are just biased towards minor chords lmao .....that is like saying an aminor 7 is a cmajor6 in a different position ,, all chords can be viewed as multiple chords ,, but is exactly the context i.e. what key (tonic) we are in that tells us the name of the chord ,,,, so when you have no musical data to draw from we as musicians generally name a chord by its bass when you have no tonic key to draw from calling a bm6 a gmaj7 in first inversion is over complected and WRONG when you have no chords that come before and tonic key as to analyze ,, this is exactly what context is stuff to draw from as to more accurately name inversions , intervals , chords , and relationships .. we are essentially talking about the intervals between these notes and their harmonic value ,, since ALL all chords have more than one name it is exactly the context that names a chord ,, that is why a bm6 can be a gmaj7 in the proper setting, but we have no such setting i.e a tonic origin and previous chords to compare and contrast , if you think context has nothing to do with analyzing music ,, then well... that says it all ,, yeah kinda some run on posts need to use the edit from now on ,, ifv you were to name a b-d-f#-g interval with figured bass it would show as a bm chord plain and simple if you were to ask any musician with more than elementary schooling they would agree without a tonic to draw from this would always be called a bm6 ,,, so let me get this str8 ,,, for every chord ,, when naming it , you choose to take the first inversion name ( outside of tonic pieces) as they stand alone instead of the more simple root form ? or do you only do this for some chords and not others ,, lol you have a very unique system whats it called ????, lets make a more simple situation... do you call a c major in root position ( just a simple triad ) would you call that an e minor chord with a suspended 5th ? lmao you make no sense.... enough of educating sophomoric posters ,,, on another front i like your philosophy silvanel .. i am nowhere near as schooled as you in philosophy but i appreciate it greatly ( never got past 6 credits in it during my schooling ) but i have done a lot of reading on my own after college , not near enough to deeply critique your theory or contrast it to previous or current philosophies ,, but the logic seems intact IF your assumptions are correct which imo they are