Make the Music Personal

Submitted by jsdubois015 on Fri, 02/05/2010 - 16:29

Last night I was doing a little random surfing on the Web. I wasn't looking for anything in particular, just more or less getting an idea of what other people were writing about concerning classical music. I stumbled across two things from different sources but actually go together quite nicely. The first is from a photography blog:

"Glenn Gould turned his back on the classical music stiff-upper-lip society to immerse himself in the music and perform it his own way."

Music for the Heart...and the Mind

Submitted by jsdubois015 on Thu, 02/04/2010 - 16:03

I mentioned in yesterday's post about the challenges that classical music presents to the mind of a listener. Harmony and counterpoint present immediate "problems" for the mind to work out. Form, on the other hand, presents long-range organizational issues that the mind has to comprehend. The intrinsic beauty of classical music thus lies in its complexity. It stands to reason, then, that this complexity can only be a result of classical music's intellectual nature.

What Makes Classical Music Unique

Submitted by jsdubois015 on Wed, 02/03/2010 - 15:21

What is it about classical music that makes it unique? Why do certain pieces, like Mozart's Symphony in G minor or Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, remain immortal classics, enthralling listeners 200 years after their composition? I believe it has a lot to do with classical music's inherent nature. During the Renaissance, the music of the learned composers, such as Palestrina, was termed "High Art" to distinguish it from the music of the troubadours or the folk music of the common people. The term "High Art" is no longer used, but I believe the distinction still remains.