What the haemorrhaging fuck were you thinking! “Gee, the third movement of Beethoven’s fourth is nice 'n all, but what it really needs is a choral arrangement complete with DRUM MACHINE!”?
AARRRGGHHHH!
makeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstop oh god pleeaase…
Damn right. And you know what else really pisses me off? Bloody evil presenters on bloody evil Classic FM calling EVERY SINGLE SLOW MOVEMENT THEY PLAY ‘relaxing’. And then you listen to it, and it’s Mozart or Beethoven, and even though it’s slow it’s certainly not relaxing, it’s agonising and demanding and weird and scary and yearning and unexpected. Because it’s CLASSICAL MUSIC. IT IS NOT ENYA. And so you don’t relax, just feel all het up, and then stress about why you’re not relaxing and you’re worse off than when you started.
Actually, I may need to start a thread merely about Classic FM and all that it stands for.
Classic FM is the work of Satan himself.
That is all.
That O Fortuna song really calms me down after a stressful day at work. Ah, Orff.
Argh. I hate people who say, “I like classical music-it’s very relaxing.”
No it isn’t, dipshit. Not all of it. Dammit. Listen to Rite of Spring then come back and tell me if you feel “relaxed.”
Hell, some of it is downright creepy. Montagues and the Capulets anyone?
Personally, I like to chill out with Khatchaturian’s Sabre Dance myself. Or drift away gently on Tchaikovsky’s soothing strains in the 1812 Overture.
Berlioz “March to the Scaffold” is always nice for candlelight dinners.
Actually, the most relaxing classical piece that I can think of off the top of my head is Debussy’s “Afternoon for a Faun.” (Or is that of a faun?
Classical music can so be relaxing. Listen to Vivaldi’s Spring sometime. Or Mozart’s Fur Elise. It isn’t tough to find relaxing classical music, just as it’s easy to find more agressive pieces.
a) Spring ain’t relaxing
b) that’s Beethoven’s Fur Elise
c) Beethoven’s Fur Elise ain’t relaxing
d) tch!
Well, there is Pachbel’s Canon in D. That, at least, is relaxing.
Otherwise, I agree with the rant. Heck, classical music can even be funny.
You mean there are musical jokes?
Fur Elise is very relaxing. I don’t know what you’re listening to, but it is relaxing. So’s Spring.
Fur Elise (pardon the missing umlaut) is pathetic (in the original sense), while Vivaldi’s Spring is energetic. Both are frequently mutilated by insensitive performers, but that’s not the composers’ faults.
Especially for the cello section. I used to nod off playing it.
The biggest problem underlying the “classical music is relaxing” statement is that it presumes that it’s all superficial background music you don’t really have to listen to. Which I suppose is fine if you’re listening to Telemann’s Tafelmusik, which is background music, but not if you’re listening to Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Bach, etc. Properly performed, there’s a lot of subtle nuances you’re supposed to notice.
If you want to listen to it to relax, fine. But don’t go telling me that’s what it’s for, or I may give you a reason to need to relax.
Yes. Mostly in the way it sounds or quoting of other works. Look up PDQ Bach (the non-serious work of Peter Schickele). However, like a lot of humor, you have to know the source material to understand why the parody is funny.
Yawn.
This thread is relaxing.
Look, Derlath, you sausage, you might find them relaxing, or you might play them to relax, but that doesn’t make them relaxing, any more than Muse’s Origin Of Symmetry (which I was relaxing to only last night).
Tch!
I really like hearing Moussorgsky-Ravel’s Hut of Baba Yaga when I’m at the dentist - for that relaxing sensation of the dental chair soaring off into the unknown on giant wings.
Are you joking?
I think you’re not. Gah!
I can laugh my way through Beethoven’s The Emperor. Strictly it isn’t funny, but it makes me laugh.
But then some works are chock-full of genuine comedy – Listz’s Hungarian Rhapsodies can have me rolling on the floor, holding my belly with tears in my eyes.
Maybe I amuse easily.
I was referring to Mozart’s Musical Joke. I’m wasted on you people.
There’s Haydn’s hilarious Clock Symphony. Which, er, sounds like a clock, ho ho. And Till Eulenspeigel (Strauss). I think Beethoven tries to be comical sometimes but doesn’t quite manage it. Anyway I much prefer Sturm und Drang.
There’s Haydn’s hilarious Clock Symphony. Which, er, sounds like a clock, ho ho. And Till Eulenspeigel (Strauss). I think Beethoven tries to be comical sometimes but doesn’t quite manage it. Anyway I much prefer Sturm und Drang.