Cafe Sceptico: The Objectivist Cafe - Page 7

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clarkmc2 

Total agreement. My listening favors Twentith Century and Baroque. I tired of the Romantic era and its huge ensembles several decades ago. I still enjoy Classical. Here is to sixteen piece orchestras, quartets, duos and solo works.
I admit that I have found serious Jazz to be the equal of "Classical" in every respect. Plus, it never banished improvisation. "Classical" has been impoverished in that department ever since cadenzas were written out. They used to be solo, improvised and in free time. All elements missing for more than a century.

Some (rare) musicians still improvise at least parts of cadenzas.  But these days, if you want to hear any classical music (in a sense) with improvisation, find a good organist.

This is unrelated to improvisation, but actually, for anybody with any interest in orchestral works, particularly for some weary of the 100+ piece groupings, I would recommend looking at the works since the 50s for wind ensemble (starting in the middle of Frederick Fennell's time at Eastman, and so on).  There's a whole lot you can do when you take an orchestra and cut out the violas strings, add saxophone and baritone.  Well, a large part of it is the music that was written, not necessarily the instrumentation.

Anything but hardcore trance and Dixieland jazz. Talk about a treble overdose. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixieland_jazz

Jeff Beck is my idea of 'jazz' - not a trumpet in sight - and I miss Clarence Clemons' sax. RIP, big man. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clarkmc2 


Thanks for the tips! I can highly recommend the opposite compact approach as well. The late great English String Orchestra under William Boughton was refreshing and bracing. Hard to find though. The titles were on the Nimbus label and are largely out of print. They went from Haydn to Britten and are very moving.
These are not adapted works. They were composed for string orchestra.

Yeah, there are smaller string orchestras out and about, particularly for playing Baroque music, maybe Classical.  There is some good modern music for that setup too, as you say.  There are certain advantages to this grouping.

But I have to admit, in an orchestra setting, this is the way I look at the strings:  they're kind of like rice or pasta.  They give you texture and a body of sound and are mostly homogeneous, but mostly what I mean is that they're a kind of base.  Most of the interesting stuff goes on elsewhere.  What percentage of great orchestral parts and solos happens in the strings, honestly?

That said, actually I have no problem with the big Romantic stuff; I just think there are also other worlds out there, and I'm not a huge fan of solo or chamber music.

Quote:

Originally Posted by rroseperry 

Seriously? There are a bunch of large symphonic scale music where the themes and solo work comes out of or passes through the strings. Richard Strauss' Metamorphosen is one example. Also for more modern composers, John Adams does some interesting things with strings in his orchestral works.

Sorry that I couldn't resist some light trolling today, but I think you got the wrong message.

Personally, I feel like the percent is definitely under 50% (not close to 0%), and that's what I was really driving at.  I wasn't expecting anybody to actually drop examples—you only need examples (counterexamples) to prove not 0% (100%).  When we're talking about buckets, you don't need to namedrop... water drops.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigshot 

The strings are the main voice of the orchestra.
I like big colorful classical music. Schehrezade, Tchaikovsky's Pathetique, Grieg's Peer Gynt, Stravinsky's Firebird, Mahler, Bruckner, Wagner... This stuff you can feel rattle your bones when it gets going. It's gotta spread out in the room with speakers. Canningit up in your head with headphones doesn't work.

Though my orchestral collection is pretty small and classical even less, I totally get what you mean. Headphones and that tiny 6.5 inch woofer/tweeter just can't throw out that image wide enough to fully appreciate it. Strings though are really my favourite part of an orchestral. It would be cool for someone to recommend me to something I can obtain and get started with :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by firev1 

It would be cool for someone to recommend me to something I can obtain and get started with :)

I'd go with a macchiato.  I hear they make good ones here.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikeaj 

 

But I have to admit, in an orchestra setting, this is the way I look at the strings:  they're kind of like rice or pasta.  They give you texture and a body of sound and are mostly homogeneous, but mostly what I mean is that they're a kind of base.  Most of the interesting stuff goes on elsewhere. 

Mike, the food metaphors in audio get way out of hand so very quickly, I swear Srajan is describing a chocolate dessert at least 50% of the time he is attempting to enunciate his impressions of a given component. I'm never quite sure whether he wants to listen to something or lick it. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by estreeter 

Mike, the food metaphors in audio get way out of hand so very quickly, I swear Srajan is describing a chocolate dessert at least 50% of the time he is attempting to enunciate his impressions of a given component. I'm never quite sure whether he wants to listen to something or lick it. 

I seriously wonder if some of those people are synesthetic... Actually, that would make me feel slightly better after reading some of that stuff.

In my opinion, metaphors using the functional relationships tend to be more intelligible (though that's not really saying that much).  Is that just me?  I don't think I ever make metaphors that aren't at least half facetious though.    Where people go off into the deep end is on comparisons using qualitative judgments, which will all be different for each person.  I mean, a metaphor is like a mapping onto a different domain.  If relationships in the other domain aren't any clearer, then why bother? (especially since the mappings themselves may not be that clear)