The Fine Art of Listening

Sometimes these posts just write themselves.

The internet is exploding because of David Bowie’s death. One of Bowie’s most popular songs is “Space Oddity.” That title was adapted from the Stanley Kubrick film, “2001 – A Space Odyssey.” The soundtrack to that movie included some fantastic pieces of Art Music, especially Atmosphères by György Ligeti. Here, Ligeti does away with many of the traditional musical elements and instead explores texture and timbre. The piece speaks for itself; many love it, some hate it.

If you read Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks, there are some interesting tales of musical amusia. I wonder how people who suffer from this condition would hear Atmosphères.

This is one you probably already know. Maybe you heard it in a famous war movie, or maybe you heard it in this triumph of human achievement.

Don’t let anything stand in your way this week! Turn the volume up and RIDE ON! (with special thanks to Richard Wagner)

(But don’t do this while driving. You will probably get a speeding ticket. Trust me. I’ve been there.)

The books and movies that are set in the medieval era usually portray a positive and a negative side to life in olden times. On one hand, famine, hunger, disease, plague, superstition, wars, cruelty – a harsh life. On the other hand, romance, heroics, bravery, passion, beauty – an over-romanticized vision of a charmingly simple life, without the madness of the modern age.

I am no historical scholar, so I won’t go into how things “really were” because I don’t know. What I do know is that the music of the high gothic era is as beautiful and complex as its architecture and art. If you compare the thick, heavy romanesque buildings of the earlier age to the light, ornate buildings of the gothic era, you can understand the profound difference between the monophonic (one note at a time) plainsong of the early medieval period and polyphonic (many independent notes simultaneously) gothic music.

Pérotin le Grand was one of the few named medieval composers from whom we have music. He is the most famous composer of the Notre Dame School of polyphony, and of the Ars Antiqua (“Old Art”) style. This piece, “Sederunt Principes” sounds a bit strange to our modern ears (each word takes about a minute to sing), but you can’t deny that it’s pretty cool.

I especially like some of the comments on this video: “eeeee e ee ee eee  e ee  ee  ee e e e e  eeee  e e e   ee” Yeah that just about sums it up.