Years ago it was used as background music in a PSA about water safety. There was a shot of a lake taken from the beach and a narrator was reciting statistics in a solemn voice about how many children drown each year. I used to think of the piece as “The Drowning Song.”
Mahler’s First Symphony is interesting. The third movement starts with “Frère Jacques” in a minor key, played as a round. Then it goes into a klezmer bit (my favorite part).
Another one by Ives: “The Unanswered Question.” Very existential. The horn asks a question, and the orchestra more and more desperately tries to answer it; in the end, there can be no answer.
Eerie, mesmerizing, oneiric and slightly unsettling - one of the greatest pieces for a cappella chorus in history IMHO. As matter of fact, almost all of Ligeti’s oeuvre qualifies. If you have the time, you must listen to his Requiem (similar but with some truly terrifying parts), Lontano, Cello Concerto or Clocks and Clouds.
And a recent discovery. Did you know that industrial music was not invented in the 1970s as is generally thought but 50 years earlier? I have proof:
The Dream of Gerontius. The final movement, “Softly and gently, dearly ransomed soul” has been aptly described thus: if it doesn’t break your heart, it’s time to check yourself in for a transplant. It makes me tear up and I don’t even believe in Purgatory.
Good one! Following on that piece, I clicked on the first of the 1973 Harvard Norton lecture series by Leonard Bernstein, titled “The Unanswered Question.” One of the main themes LB presents is that beauty in music comes from ambiguity. In which the Ives piece is exhibit A.
I first listened to these lectures, when they were new, on the radio station WCLV 95.5-FM. At one point they played the whole series over the air. LB had a huge influence on me when I was young, not only because I was immersed in classical music and was busy teaching myself music theory, orchestration, and composition, but particularly the way he links the universals of music theory with the universals of linguistics, after Noam Chomsky. Relating music to linguistics was irresistible for me, as I was already heavily into linguistics, which as it turned out became my professional career. This is the first I’ve seen the video of it. Thanks for my chance to hear it again!
Eerie, mesmerizing, oneiric and slightly unsettling—those are some well-placed adjectives. Coincidentally, I just rewatched 2001: A Space Odyssey for the first time in many years. It’s uncanny how perfectly the Ligeti complements the scenes it’s in.
Did they re-write it or add repetitions? It’s one of my favorite moments in classical music.
I’m happy to report that the first time I ever heard it was like being hit by lightning. I loved it instantly, and 42 years later it still moves me to tears.
Milhaud: Saudades De Brazil
Suite of twelve Brazilian dances, each with the left and right hands playing in different keys. Hauntingly beautiful.
William Bolcolm playing one of them, from my preferred album https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZYoPqfSH0A
and a poor quality recording of someone else playing the first six of them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qF5M7FcjOfc
There’s Bach’s Crab Canon, which is awesomely complex, while appearing to be very simple. I read about it in Douglas Hofstadter’s Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Braid. Here it is, diagrammed on a Moebius Strip on YouTube:
I’m thinking they just repeated the last 2 to 4 measures. Getting quieter. And quieter. And quieter. For 5 minutes.
All the while, the conductor is just standing there, back to the audience, not moving a whit. Not a movement or sound from the orchestra (and it was a BIG orchestra). And you couldn’t tell where the “ahhhhhhs” were coming from. The Meyerhoff had/has outstanding acoustics. I suppose it would have been cliche to have turned down the lights in time with the “ahhhhhs,” but that would have been cool.
