Music Discussion thread

[Froge]

That's a little unfair isn't it? It's a concerto - it's almost guaranteed to "show off" every aspect of the piano. And I happen to like Liszt. I'm not sure how you can say this is all over the place and yet worship Chopin, unless you mean to say it is simply bad piano writing - in which case I disagree. Also, compared to Liszt I think it's quite economic in its techniques actually, Rimsky-Korsakov uses little to achieve a lot. I don't agree with your diagnosis that it "spams" arpeggios and octave slides at all. Overall I think the piano part is quite melodious and a high emphasis is placed on creating unique textures by blending the piano into the orchestra.

My opinion derives from a lot of personal experience. Using a lot of arpeggios and notes descending swiftly across octaves is a beginner's technique, because that is how I've composed before, and the results aren't spectacular at all (though of course, Korsakov's compositional skills are still light years ahead of mine). Comparatively speaking, Korsakov uses more arpeggio slides than any other concerto I've ever seen. It's not bad piano writing at all, it's just not as interesting for the pianist as if s / he played a Liszt, Brahms, or Chopin concerto. And yes, I mentioned specifically "for the pianist." I don't have any experience composing, arranging, or studying music for the orchestra. My judgment of the orchestra in this concerto is based on how well I felt it supplemented the piano. I have nothing to say on its musical technique or depth.

By the way, Chopin's concertos are not "all over the place" at all. I've studied and can perform the first movement of his concerto in E minor. It's filled with intricacies devoted mainly to the the pianist (not the orchestra, as Chopin has been criticized for boring orchestration) and which I did not find in Korsakov's piece. There's no doubt that if I actually went and learned how to play Korsakov's concerto I would be able to find similar intricacies in it, but the same could be said of many, many other compositions. Therefore, the only criteria I can use to decide if a piece of music is worth analyzing is whether or not I go "WOWZA" on my first hearing.

Why does it remind you of modern soundtracks (apart from that one woodwind part that you do hear in film scores occasionally, or something similar in any case)? And why is it unsuitable to compare to other Romantic works, apart from it being short? Finally, what is so unspectacular about the piano? I can only speak for myself here, but I find the concerto absolutely riveting with just the right amount of balance between everything, whereas I sometimes do get bored listening to say a Beethoven concerto.

Well, to be honest, I can't really say why I think the piece feels "modern" and unsuited to comparison with the romantic era unless I go and listen to the piece a couple times more. I'm going to call that comment off and say it's just intuition.

As for what is so unspectacular about the piano, all I can really say is that there's nothing in it that caught my eye. From a technical perspective, I didn't really find anything unique, like chromaticism or counterpoint (once again, comparatively speaking - there may have been chromaticism in there, it just didn't stand out to me as much as other romantic composers' uses of it would). From a musical perspective, I'd agree with you that the concerto does not deserve its current criticism. It's not bad, but I don't find it to be awesome either.

[Bridge]

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Thanks for elaborating. I think we probably have differing definitions of "all over the place" but rest assured I don't mean it negatively, in fact the highly liquid chromaticism, frequent harmonic tangents and high level of virtuosity are the things I most love about Chopin. The rest I mostly agree with except I happen to like the piece a lot despite it not "comparing". Also, it's not an excuse but consideration should be given to the fact that Rimsky-Korsakov was not a pianist, at least not of any significant skill. What's your favorite concerto, excluding the Chopin concerti?

[Froge]

What's your favorite concerto, excluding the Chopin concerti?

An odd question, as I don't really know how to answer that, but I suppose I'll start listing composers.

For the classical era, I'd say that I enjoy Mozart's concerti most, even more than Beethoven's. I find Beethoven's concerti to be a bit boring to listen to. They are very complex thematically, and are probably a treat to play, but I haven't found them interesting to listen to. Mozart, on the other hand, is a very prolific melody composer. If you listen to some of his more famous concertos like op 23 or op 20 you can hear a very clear and beautiful melody. Mozart also excels at the interplay between piano and orchestra. In many of his piano concerti, he frequently uses the piano as "build up" to create rising tension followed up by an explosive orchestral "tutti".

In the romantic era, I'm not actually too impressed by the concerti available. Let's start with Tchaikovsky. Admittedly, I've only listened to Tchaikovsky's no 1, as that is his most famous one. Like many other Russian composers, he uses a lot of big chords and large octave jumps. Melodically, though, I'm not impressed. I don't mean to be prejudiced against Russian composers, but to be honest, I don't really feel much from large chords. I'm too used to the gentle and delicate nocturne style, where the right hand is a clear and flowing melody and the left hand is harmonic accompaniment. Call me narrow-minded, but I've listened to Tchaikovsky's concerto 1 over and over again and I've come to the conclusion that the only way I could possibly enjoy it is if I learned how to play the piece myself. I cannot pick out the intricacies from simple hearing alone.

One Russian composer who I find very interesting is Profokiev. I've listened to his second and third concerti and I think they offer much more creativity than Tchaikovsky's melody-wise. The best way to describe Profokiev's compositions is "quirky", in my opinion. His pieces also offer many large octave jumps, particularly with staccato, but his usage of it is more profound, creating the effect of cheeriness in either an upbeat or sometimes sarcastic way. Every time I listen to Profokiev I'm reminded of a curious child wandering dangerously into dark troubles. Personally, I enjoy his concerto 3 a bit more than 2.

The last famous Russian composer I'll mention is Rachmaninoff. I don't think there's much to say about his works that hasn't already been said by most musical critics. His concerto no 2 is quite brilliant, if not a bit "too" brilliant for me - it radiates positive energy that I sometimes feel unable to take in, mostly because my musical tastes are far too mellow. Yes, Rachmaninoff does still use a ton of large chords in his works, but I think still think he crafts a better melody than Tchaikovsky. I also really like Rach's concerto no 3. I believe this one is particularly known for its difficulty, and I haven't even looked at the sheet music for it yet, but from what I've heard it's tremendously more heartwarming than the second, perhaps also a bit sadder, so that would obviously suit my tastes more. Try listening to Martha Argerich's performance of the piece, which is readily available on youtube.

Going back to the romantic era, there are still two famous composers that I haven't discussed yet, Brahms and Liszt. To be honest, I haven't listened to much Brahms. I know he's a prolific melody composer from the few sonatas of his that I've heard, but he's no Chopin. In particular I find Brahms to be a bit less intense. Many of his pieces are quite serene, and you won't find the sheer tension and buildup that is more characteristic of Chopin's ballades. The exception is Brahms' concerto no 1. I haven't listened to it in a while, but I recall that there was a very furious section in either the second or third movement which was completely astounding. Otherwise, nothing much of Brahms has particularly caught my attention. His concerti are decent, but they're not mind-blowing.

Liszt is a bit of a strange composer. I've listened to most of his concerti, and so far the only one that really impresses me is his first. Thing is, though, I find Liszt's first piano concerto to be so much better than his other ones that I really can't judge him as a whole. Maybe it's because Liszt, like Chopin, was primarily a piano composer - and indeed, I'm much fonder of Liszt's piano etudes and his b minor sonata than his concerti. What I really enjoyed of Liszt's first piano concerto was that it presented a fairly enjoyable and sweet melody throughout. It starts bombastically, with lots of orchestration, but is followed up soon enough by a quieter and more tranquil piano section. The rest of the piece is a bit more intricate, and further analysis is necessary - I've no time to learn how to play it, though.

There are still many other composers that I haven't mentioned like Schubert (whose sonatas and fantaisies I've experienced), but seriously, there are too many classical composers out there and I don't have something to say for each of them.

So to answer your question, if Chopin is excluded from my list of choices, my favourite concerti would vary from era to era. For classical, I'd definitely say Mozart, but I can't pick a specific concerto because he simply composed too many and I've only really had the time to listen to his most popular ones no. 20 - 23. In the romantic era, I have no means to choose between Liszt and Brahms, simply because they're too overshadowed by a certain Polish vodka brand. For the post-romantic era, I'll have to go with Rach 3.

[Bridge]

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Good stuff. One thing I have to wonder at though is why you feel analysis is necessary for your enjoyment of a piece. I don't mean to misrepresent you, it's possible I am misinterpreting you, but honestly it's music. Only good things can come of analysis, but I rely on my ears to tell me if a piece is good or not. Despite what some people might say, the so-called "laws" of music are not absolute and any meta-information you can gather from analysis is totally irrelevant to the aesthetics of the piece in question.

[Froge]

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Good stuff. One thing I have to wonder at though is why you feel analysis is necessary for your enjoyment of a piece. I don't mean to misrepresent you, it's possible I am misinterpreting you, but honestly it's music. Only good things can come of analysis, but I rely on my ears to tell me if a piece is good or not. Despite what some people might say, the so-called "laws" of music are not absolute and any meta-information you can gather from analysis is totally irrelevant to the aesthetics of the piece in question.

I mentioned analysis because I thought you'd want an explanation for why I enjoy one piece of music more than another.

[Bridge]

I mentioned analysis because I thought you'd want an explanation for why I enjoy one piece of music more than another.

Fair enough I suppose. I wouldn't think analysis would strictly speaking be necessary for that but I get what you mean.

[Froge]

So what's your favourite concerto from each era?

[Bridge]

Classical - Emperor Concerto
Romantic - Basically nothing
Modern - Ginastera's 1nd piano concerto, Ligeti's piano concerto

Not sure if you've heard the last two but they are amazing if you can tolerate modern music, which if I recall correctly you normally don't. Bela Bartok's concerti are also pretty good but I hesitate to call them my favorites as I'm really not that acquainted with them.

Here's probably the best movement from the Ginastera concerto if you're interested:





As you can clearly see there are huge gaps in my knowledge of piano literature. I'm much more drawn to other types of concertos, namely cello concertos but I do generally like piano concertos.

[Froge]

Not sure if you've heard the last two but they are amazing if you can tolerate modern music, which if I recall correctly you normally don't.

I don't mean to sound offended, but I have absolutely no idea where you got that from. Modern instrumental music is by far my favourite genre to listen to. I'm particularly fond of video game soundtracks as well as the works of many Japanese composers such as Joe Hisaishi, Nobuo Uematsu, and Yoko Shimomura. I just don't post their pieces very often because I haven't met many people on this forum who enjoys JRPGs and anime other than Traggey or Corinthian. Even then, neither of them really play the same games that I do. Outside of Japanese composers, I am also immensely fond of the works of Ludovico Einaudi, a popular Italian pianist. Some of my favourite pieces from Einaudi include "Le Onde", "Love is a Mystery," and "Nuvole Bianche," all of which are readily available on youtube.

The main reason I'd imagine why you might think I dislike modern music is because I keep making fun of instrumental stuff Kman posts. This is because I don't particularly like pure ambient music. That concerto you just posted, however, was awesome. I really enjoyed the piece. It reminded me of the feel of a number of orchestrated pieces by Uematsu known as "Distant Worlds" (symphonic versions of pieces from Final Fantasy games).

Yes, Chopin is not my favourite composer (definitely up there, though). I simply listen to him a lot because I'm a pianist myself and I find his pieces the most interesting to play.

But in general, Japanese composers top my list. I simply don't post their music very much because no one else does. They are very nice melodic composers, and some of their pieces are highly virtuosic as well:

[Wooderson]

Chrono, do you like this? I love this particular song and Persona fucking rocks.