The Fine Art of Listening

Observing the progression of musical ideas and fashion can be truly fascinating. What is good (even acceptable) today might sound ridiculous a century from now.

Case and point: Julius Caesar. A popular subject; there are many famous plays, operas, and movies about him – especially his death. When I think of imperial Rome, a very specific musical sound comes into my head. It’s the sound that was shaped by films such as Spartacus, Gladiator, The Life of Brian (not the silly songs – the incidental music), and of course, the video game Civilization (see 7:05). But that “epic” sound wasn’t always the sound of Rome. When Handel wrote his opera Giulio Caesar, the overture fit the style of his time. Nowadays, we can still enjoy the music, but I’d wager that most people wouldn’t associate this sweet, delicate sound with the leader of brutal, powerful, imperial Rome:

Again, reflecting on our modern associations with musical style, hearing this music makes me think of powdered wigs and ruffly coats, not togas. The music is great, but not Caesarian. Give me the music of Miklós Rózsa, and his score to the 1950s film, Julius Ceasar!

 

 

1, 2, 3, 4,
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

Happy birthday Albert Einstein! To honor you, how about we listen to a 5-hour opera with no plot and no intermissions?

Minimalist composer Philip Glass‘ 1976 opera, Einstein on the Beach indeed doesn’t have an actual plot, but instead presents a repetitive music with counting numbers and repeated spoken phrases. You could say that it musically presents the inner clockwork of the mind of a genius – pondering and calculating things that most people can’t even begin to understand.

Having played a limited number of minimalist pieces myself, I can say that this opera requires the very best musicians. The concentration of mind and strength of muscle required is enough to give most players some PTSD.

I haven’t read the book Cold Mountain, nor have I seen the movie, but I do know that its soundtrack has some great Sacred Harp music on it!

In a nutshell, Sacred Harp is the degenerate, revolutionary child of English choral music. It’s raw, it’s rough, and it’s definitely not cultivated. But it’s beautiful in its own way, and the passion in which it’s sung makes it powerful to hear.

Cold Mountain is set in the heyday of Sacred Harp singing, the American Civil War. Some musicians criticized the movie soundtrack because it uses trained singers instead of the “authentic”, untrained amateurs that are associated with this tradition. Authentic or not, the music and text have the strength to really hit home.