The Fine Art of Listening

As I mentioned yesterday, today is FAoL’s birthday.

It all began as a way to keep my mind fresh, to fight off the mid-life blahs and boredom: one post a day, 300 words maximum, for one year.

I’m under no illusions that I have more than a dozen or so readers, but that’s ok. If you’re reading this, please accept my humble thanks for taking time out of your life to read my ramblings, whether it was every day (thank you, my wonderful supportive wife) or only when Facebook was so miserably boring that you decided to click my daily spam. I do get the occasional note from a perfect stranger, thanking me for the blog, which is always uplifting.

At first, I wasn’t sure I could find 365 pieces worth writing about; ironically, I have a long list of pieces I still want to feature. Then I was concerned about finding something interesting to say; I’m proud of many posts, though certainly some are just “meh”. The future? I’ll be reposting stuff I’ve already written, and writing new content on occasion.

For FAoL’s half-birthday, I had a (musical) champagne toast. For its actual birthday, something more sincere and contemplative: Franz Schubert‘s setting of An die Musik. It’s one of Schubert’s 600+ art songs for solo voice and piano. For me, the spirit of the piece is better captured when sung by a choir – music is so much more glorious when it is shared!

Translation from Wikipedia:

You, noble Art, in how many grey hours,
When life’s mad tumult wraps around me,
Have you kindled my heart to warm love,
Have you transported me into a better world,
Transported into a better world!

Often has a sigh flowing out from your harp,
A sweet, divine harmony from you
Unlocked to me the heaven of better times,
You, noble Art, I thank you for it!!
You, noble Art, I thank you!

The Roman god Janus is the deity of doors, gates, beginnings – basically any point that marks a transition from one state to another. The month of January is named after this god, being the start of a new year.

Tomorrow, this blog will have reached its birthday. It is now over 100,000 words – about as many as Huckleberry Finn, but only half of Moby Dick. I certainly haven’t written a great work of literature here, but even so, The Fine Art of Listening is now a rather large opus.

So as I approach this milestone, this doorway to the future, let’s take a grand, celebratory stroll through Mussorgsky‘s Gate of Kiev.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_L-FsFeR3I

We humans like to organize, categorize, and label things. This is usually a good thing. Organizing food into specific groups (meat, vegetables, grains, etc.) helps to prepare our tongues for what we are about to eat. Labelling a piece as “French Baroque” helps us know what sort of sounds we will be hearing. On the other hand, it takes no stretch of the imagination to see how social categorization of human beings can cause huge damage.

So, what about the word “modern“? Does it mean turn-of-the-20th-century, or just current/contemporary? When exactly was (or is) “modern music” written? Is it an intellectual concept rather than a time period? Or perhaps it’s just coded talk for “ugly”? I offer no answers here – the best I can do is point out that the context of the conversation changes how we use the word.

I’m imagining your average high school or college level music appreciation class. The time comes for the 20th century – “modern music”! Without a doubt, the Rite of Spring is played, and enthusiastic discussion ensues. If it’s a high school class, the performance is probably accompanied by the dancing dinos of Fantasia, while college students get to hear stories of riots, orgies, human sacrifice. What ends up happening is that the Rite ends up becoming the piece that defines what modern music is supposed to sound like. Later, when these students hear Stravinsky‘s later works (labelled “neoclassical” and “serial“), they are shocked that it sounds so completely different.

There might have been a riot at the premiere of the Rite, but not because of the ground-breaking modern sound. Five years before, Arnold Schoenberg (who, as a Jew, was labelled by the Nazis as “degenerate”) wrote his Five Pieces for Orchestra. Knowing this piece came first, the Rite almost seems like a step backwards toward romanticism. Fifty years later, Pierre Boulez would label Schoenberg as not modern enough.

Be careful with labels.

This is just the first movement. Listen to the full 5 pieces here.