bernard666

really love him

Burning Down

Who's the great one?

zombie kid

Vivaldi has always been one of my favourites. The Four Seasons violin concertos are great to listen to, but very hard to play and that definitely offers a different perspective on them. Those pieces are really the pinnacle of his work.

anathematized_one

I view Vivaldi the same as I do Mozart; 90% of it is crap and it is the only stuff you can find because it is popular ["Four Seasons" is the absolute most trite and wanky garbage he ever composed much like the most popular Mozart pieces] because at the time, the trite, kitschy stuff is what sold, so they made tons of it so they could afford to live and the actual good compositions with genuine feeling flew under the radar and are difficult as hell to come across. Like trying to find anything by Pacheball that is NOT "Cannon in D".

I find nothing wrong with complexity, but it is only the wanky complexity tthat is vacuous and simply a masturbatory and display of technical skill that people are impressed by.

Such as the difference between Jason Becker and Yngwie Malmsteen. Yes, Malmsteen is technically magnificent at playing, but it actually is nothing more than ornate wankery from a purely musical expression standpoint over a generic pentatonic rhythm and people eat it up.

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Sardonicus
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Burning Down

Do you listen to much classical at all or are you just making this opinion based on the popular stuff you've heard a million times?

anathematized_one

Actually I do listen to a lot of classical.

Should I need any more proof that my opinion is not simply of one that any might illogically consider to be unworthy of having one, I also have studied music theory and music history extensively to include university courses, as well as play ajd compose classical music, which many might think would make one more qualified to make such an assertion as what I did, but in actuality doesn't mean anything.

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Sardonicus
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Burning Down

Have you played any of it, like for lessons or performances, if you play an instrument? Playing this music always offers a different perspective.

I hold a different opinion, so I'm trying to understand yours.

anathematized_one

Technical ability is not good or bad, but technical ability or skill without genuine expression is pointless masturbation.

That is my position. The most technically difficult piece, in lacking expression, cannot even hold a candle to the most simplistic composition that actually has genuine emotion and expression.

I wrote a poem about that idea after listening to a bunch of ego-masturbation in an existentialism course:
"The World is Sunshine and Roses"
When everyone is so dry and vapid, a shot glass of water spilled haphazardly on the driest desert appears as deep as the graceful ocean. Some say I should get out more, but that only makes it worse. At least when you’re not surrounded by manure, you can imagine the roses haven’t wilted and withered; if you get out in the fields though, walking through only stirs up that smell of death in the grey vastness of empty stems and the **** from which they failed to gain fertility.

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Sardonicus
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Burning Down

I get that, I've been playing flute for quite a number of years. Technical ability and virtuosity is expected of every flautist, along with being able to express it. Before I started working on Chaminade's "Concertino", I pretty much believed that virtuosity, both on the parts of the composer and the instrumentalist, was for the birds, and only worked at it when forced to do so (i.e. with etudes and caprices for my lessons). But it really isn't and I got a wake up call with that piece, lol.

It's definitely important not only for the composer to be able to put texture and expression at the forefront of a piece, but also for the performer to be able to convey that to the audience.

But you didn't answer my question yet! I'm just wondering, that's all.

anathematized_one

Yes I play several instruments and never played any of "Four Seasons". I don't have to play it to hear that it lacks any genuine expression of feeling.

I play: guitar, bass, violin, viola, cello, double bass, harmonica, harp (to include full 47-string concert pedal harp) and various percussion instruments (timpani, djembe, various single-drum instruments, melodic toms).

Either way... nobody needs to be able to play or even know music history or theory to hold my position on the piece, so whether or not I do play, compose or have studied any of it academically should be entirely irrelevant.

I can appreciate skill, but I can't bear to listen to technical music that lacks expression and you don't need to play or study to hear that there is none beyond kitschy, empty fluff.

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