Do musicians see music diffrently from Music Lovers?

I would draw this analogy. For a music lover to listen to a piece of music is like a person watching a movie in a foreign language. They may enjoy the visual aspects of the film but they don't understand the dialogue. For a musician to listen to a peice of music is live watching a movie in one's own language. The dialogue plays as important a part as the visual image. Music can function as a language as well as an artform. However only those who have learned to understand the language of a particular peice or music can appreciate it's 'linguistic content'. Of course, some music is very high in linguistic content but low in aesthetic content. That kind of music gains a following made up exclusively of musicians, it's appeal being totally lost on the general public. Other music, is low in linguistic content but has high aesthetic appeal and, generally, enjoys more popularity with non-musicians.

Jarl Sigurd

to listen to a symphony composed by Jarl Sigurd, visit: http://geocities.com/Paris/Lights/3333

The analogy is incorrect. To use this analogy correctly: musicians would be akin to cinematographers, actors, directors, producers who actually create movies. Their's would be a pov which included inside technical understanding of the mechanics of musicmaking and its necessary impact upon the artistic result that the general audience perceives.

This is much better

And indeed we do...

Heh, when I worked at Tower in the '70s and had almost completed my BMus, we got this import album in of Handel's Royal Fireworks Music with Sawaalisch <sp??>. There was this one customer I liked to talk with a lot (you could do this back then

: that music cannot be used as a language or that there is no linguistic : content to it that the musician is aware of but the general public is : not?

The latter (though I sometimes wonder whether the former analogy isn't overused). Some performing musicians may know more about the work in question, but I don't think it's right to refer to this as speaking a foreign language.

It may be that my analogy applies more to jazz than to classical music. Certainly in jazz, there are many 'musician's musicians' who use music as a language only other musicians can understand. I guess in a medium that is heavily based on improvisation, communication between musiciand becomes much more important.

Jarl Sigurd

to listen to music with no linguistic content, visit: http://geocities.com/Paris/Lights/3333

Sawallisch

Boulez/Sony vs. Boulez/DG, please?

One certain difference is between whether or not you are aware of the 'context' of a piece of music.

For example if you are used to the symphonic form as used by Mozart and Haydn then the early Beethoven symphonies come as something of a shock - as they did at the time. This 'shock and amazement' experience isnt going to happen in the same way if you arent aware of the rules that are being broken. Before listening to a piece you love, spend some time listening to contemporaneous music by lesser composers and you will then hear your favorite piece with new ears.

Its also matters whether you are used to the form or not. A newbie friend of mine once couldnt hear any real difference between Haydn quartets and Debussy quartets. To her all she could hear was that they were string quartets. She would now be very embarrased to admit this !

Its rather sad that we cant hear Starvinsky's 'Rite' in quite the same way as turn of the century audiences did, the impact of subsequent 'violent' music of this century has somewhat diluted its effect. Its also a pity that most of us listen to the Bach Goldberg variations blissfully unaware that some of the later ones include quotes from popular bawdy melodies of the time that no doubt would have raised a laugh when first performed.

But that's virtually impossible. The new listener will have innumerable opportunities to listen to the Top 40 (most of which are up there quite deservedly), and very few to compare with Beethoven's the symphonies of Méhul, Hummel, etc.

OTOH, having just become interested in Liszt, I'm going through the VoxBoxes of The Romantic Piano Concerto (most played by Michael Ponti) (12 disks in all) and am bowled over by the two works of Ferdinand Hiller in vols. 1 and 2!

And just this afternoon, I heard in an interview that the large lock of Beethoven's hair that's recently been analyzed (many of his symptoms, including deafness, were caused by lead poisoning, perhaps, they speculate, from a favored pewter mug or some such) was taken (with permission) the day after Beethoven died by the 15-year-old Ferdinand

Boulez/Sony (Columbia). The performance of the Opus 22 quartet is painfully draggy. It should DANCE!