By |

A nerd is a person seen as overly intellectual, obsessive, [or] introverted…. Such a person may spend inordinate amounts of time on unpopular, little known, or non-mainstream activities, which are generally either highly technical, [or] abstract….to the exclusion of more mainstream activities – Wikipedia definition

The world of classical music is full of nerdy people, especially amongst its audiences. These people are also called fans, enthusiasts, geeks, obsessives or weirdos, depending on your particular point of view; most niche activities attract their own set of nerds – from cycling (I live with one) to computing, knitting to classical music.

There is nothing wrong in being a classical music nerd, and indeed being one may have some distinct advantages:

1. Enhanced listening skills. Being a classical music nerd means that you listen to music more actively and attentively. You are more likely to notice the nuances and subtleties of the music, including the dynamics, phrasing, and timbre. This can help to enhance your overall listening skills and make you a more discerning listener.

2. Increased cultural knowledge: Classical music is a rich and diverse art form with a long and fascinating history. As a classical music nerd, you will gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of the music, as well as the cultural and historical contexts in which it was created. This can help to broaden your knowledge and understanding of the world around you.

3. Improved cognitive function: Studies have shown that listening to classical music can improve cognitive function and enhance brain activity. As a classical music nerd, you are more likely to engage with the music in a way that stimulates your brain and improves your cognitive function.

4. Greater emotional intelligence: Classical music is renowned for its ability to evoke strong emotions in listeners. By immersing yourself in classical music, you can gain a greater understanding of the emotional content of music, which can help to improve your emotional intelligence and empathy.

5. Community and social connections: Being a classical music nerd can also provide you with a sense of community and social connections. Attending concerts, joining music groups or societies, and engaging in discussions with other classical music enthusiasts can help you to connect with like-minded individuals and develop new friendships and social networks.

Classical music nerdery also helps to debunk the notion that classical music is elite and shameful and exclusive to the select, highbrow few. Most classical music nerds are ordinary people who simply have a real passion and enthusiasm. Concert venues and promoters should actively support and encourage these people are they are the ones who are often the most regular and ardent concert-goers, who book a whole swathe of Prom concerts as soon as the new season is announcement, and support their favourite artists by attending concerts, not just in their home country but abroad too. While some classical music nerds may be regarded as “sticky fans”, there is no doubting their commitment – an addition to regularly attending concerts, these people also help spread the word by sharing their enthusiasm with others.

So if you’re a classical music nerd (as I am – and have been since my teens), don’t be shy. Embrace your nerdery and share it with others: you’re doing classical music a huge favour!

If you enjoy these articles and would like to support this site, why not

BUY ME A COFFEE

By |

Meaning in music is elusive — in fact, there are those who have said that music has no meaning

Alan Gilbert, conductor

Must we always find “meaning” in music? Why can’t our listening experience simply be one of absorbing the sounds which enter our ears without constantly questioning what those sounds might “mean”?

But of course we find meaning in music: it triggers an intuitive, visceral reaction in every one of us, a palpable emotional response, regardless of the genre of the music, and that alone demonstrates that it has meaning. Exactly what that ‘meaning’ is is personal and subjective, and it is this emotional subjectivity in the listening experience that leads me to feel tearfully moved by the slow movement of a piano sonata by Schubert, for example, while others may not feel the same.

This emotional, subjective reaction to music, which we all experience (even those people who say they “don’t know anything about classical music” but can explain how ‘The Lark Ascending’ makes them feel) suggests that the music itself has no meaning, that we invest our personal meaning in the music depending on context. This notion was examined by the composer and scientist Dr David Cope in his explorations of music composed by artificial intelligence: “The feelings that we get from listening to music are something we produce, it’s not there in the notes. It comes from emotional insight in each of us, the music is just the trigger” (interview in The Guardian, 2010). For many of us, classical music in particular is associated with beautiful sadness, deep joy, dramatic battles (between themes or characters), excitement, celebration, reflection, melancholy, tenderness, affection….. The experience of music can be very cathartic for listeners, invoking tears or laughter, with or without reason for the release.

I slightly take issue with Dr Cope’s assertion that feeling is “not there in the notes”, for composers deliberately use various devices in the written score – tempo, dynamics, articulation, harmony, silence – to convey meaning (emotion), and as sentient human beings, just like us, composers experience the full gamut of human emotion which they seek to portray in their music. Performers transmit this meaning through their own response to the score which is based not only on their musical knowledge and expertise, but also their personal emotional response and life experience. And they would not choose to play the music if it did not have some kind of meaning for them. The listener then completes the circle by bringing their own personal emotional reaction to the music.

music is very powerful. It is very difficult to remain unmoved by music

Daniel Barenboim

Responses to music and interpretations of its ‘meaning’ may also be determined by extrinsic factors, such as the reputation of the composer and/or performer/s (classical music being rather too obsessed with greatness in this regard) or the urban legend or infamy surrounding a certain work (for example, Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight’ Sonata). It’s curious too how highly virtuosic music often has a greater cultural meaning for audiences and critics than simpler music (is it that the difficulty of the music makes it “better”?), yet many performers would agree that playing Mozart or the very spare music of a composer like Arvo Pärt is actually more challenging. Programme and liner notes also play a part in influencing how music is heard and understood; if the programme notes suggest that the Andantino of Schubert’s penultimate piano sonata is an expression of anguish because he was dying of syphilis, some people will inevitably hear that anguish in the harsh modulation, frenzied demisemiquavers and dark chromaticism. And then there are associations which come from other media where certain pieces used in film soundtracks, for example, when heard in concert immediately conjure up emotional responses associated with seeing that film; Also Sprach Zarathustra, a tone poem by Richard Strauss, is for many of us synonymous with space travel after it was used in Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Thus we find meaning through the association of certain pieces of music with personal experiences.

In terms of its construction, every element of music can trigger a response from the listener: a jaunty rhythm or fast tempo may set feet tapping and raise the heartbeat, thus increasing a sense of excitement and energy (think of the opening of Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries). A beautiful melody may elicit a sense of serenity, hushed pianissimo sections tenderness or intimacy, a particular interval or suspended harmony poignancy or yearning

The wonderful thing about music is that it offers the listener an experience of value which can be translated however she/he chooses. So while religious or politcally-motivated works of music, for example, may have a specific meaning for the composer in the context of the time when they were written (works by Messiaen or Shostakovich, for instance), each listener will take their own experience – and meaning – from that music. The great power of music, regardless of its genre, is that its meaning is ineffable – “where words fail music speaks” (Hans Christian Andersen) – and for many of us music perfectly expresses that which cannot be adequately expressed in words….

This site is free to access and ad-free, and takes many hours to research, write, and maintain. If you find joy and value in what I do, please consider making a donation to support the continuance of this site

Make A Donation

 

\

By |

We all knew the Proms would be different in this, the year of coronavirus (or The Virus, COVID-19, the Rona….). Rather than cancel the entire festival, the BBC came up with a compromise – a truncated festival which involved, in the first weeks, broadcasts of previous Proms, not necessarily a “best of the Proms”, but rather a selection of memorable or particularly striking performances and performers. I enjoyed these broadcasts, revisiting Proms of years past and recalling the excitement and pleasure of attending Prom concerts, which I have done since I was a little girl – that special atmosphere in the Royal Albert Hall which is like no other (for all the right, and wrong, reasons!).

For the last fortnight of this year’s season, the BBC broadcast live Proms from the Royal Albert Hall and a handful of other venues around the country. These included performances by the LSO with Simon Rattle, the Aurora Orchestra playing Beethoven 7 from memory (why?!), Benjamin Grosvenor and Mitsuko Uchida, violinist Nicola Benedetti, and Sheku and Isata Kanneh-Mason. Some performers originally booked to appear were not able to travel to London due to the UK government’s confused, scattergun quarantine rules, so others valiantly stepped in at the last minute. The programmes often reflected our strange times – music of quiet intimacy (Kurtag’s … quasi una fantasia …, performed with incredible delicacy by Mitsuko Uchida, following an equally compelling and introspective first movement of Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight’ sonata), hope (Vaughan Williams’ 5th Symphony, first heard at the Proms in the midst of the Second World War), reflection and memorial (Ravel’s Tombeau de Couperin), confidence (the rollicking joy of the finale of Beethoven’s 7th Symphony gave a much-needed boost to those of us who feel utterly ground down by the long months of lockdown and restrictions on daily life – including concert-going). The Last Night of the Proms, this year the subject of even more pearl-clutching and eye-pulling than usual, ended up as a compromise; bereft of its usual jollity and silliness (at least in the second half), it felt restrained and subdued, as if too much exuberance and celebration, balloons and whistles, flag-waving and a good old massed sing-along were inappropriate in these corona times.

There is no question that in all the live concerts the music was performed with absolute commitment. Watching the musicians (and thanks to lots of clever camera work, it was possible to read the range of emotions experienced by the musicians as they played), one sensed a collective sigh of relief, that they were working again, doing what they do best, united after long months of separation.

But something was missing. A very big something – and that was an audience. The Proms aren’t really the Proms without an audience, some 5000 people filling the Albert Hall’s vast auditorium with an infectious enthusiasm for the amazing shared experience that is live music. Admittedly, the BBC and Proms organisers tried their best this year to inject some “atmosphere” into the concerts by placing members of the brass section or singers in the boxes around the hall, enhanced by sexy lighting effects and clever camera angles. But for me all this did was to highlight the sad fact that there was no audience presence. It looked contrived, artificial – and perhaps the worst thing, in my humble opinion, was that it seemed to reinforce the notion that classical music is a ‘museum piece’, to be admired, revered even, from afar, instead of a living, breathing, vibrant artform.

The Albert Hall is vast; it would not have been impossible to bring in a limited, socially-distanced audience, but the organisers’ timidity regarding this reflects, to me, a general timidity amongst bigger organisations and institutions towards the resumption of live performance. It is possible to present live concerts within the current government restrictions – and the Proms could have led the way in this, signalling that live music, with an audience, is far from dead.

Let us hope that the 2021 Proms festival is able to go ahead in its “normal” format, with a full Albert Hall, a roster of fine musicians and a varied programme of great music.

All the performances are available to listen to/watch via the BBC Proms website

(Header image: BBC)

By |

Guest post by Sylvia Segal

Sylvia is a music-lover and The Cross-Eyed Pianist’s most longstanding reader

Dear Fran,

Your blog’s 10th anniversary reminded me that I’ve been meaning to send you a musical message. Lockdown has meant a lot more listening time which, though solitary, has been a great pleasure.

As you know, I have a tendency to have mini love affairs with selected composers, meaning that temporarily I listen to little else. You’ll remember my ‘Chopin period,’ I’m sure. Before that there was Ravel. And Mendelssohn’s chamber music. Bach puts in an appearance regularly, as does Haydn, who always lifts my spirits. And so on.

Anyway, lately it’s been all about Schubert’s piano sonatas for me. Not necessarily the final three, but early and middle ones. Years ago, I bought a 7-CD set of them, played by Ingrid Haebler. The earliest sonata on there is no. 3, and already he’s modulating in a way that reminds me of a tightrope walker without a safety net! It makes me smile to hear him tie himself up in knots, only to untie them a moment later, as if by magic.

Beethoven famously remarked that the piano “couldn’t sing,” but I think Schubert put paid to that idea. (And Mendelssohn.) If you’re able, listen to the slow movement of Schubert’s sonata in B major (D.575). It’s a song. It IS a song. A beautiful, sad one.

On the subject of whether the piano sings or not, I have never forgotten the study day that Robert Levin presented at the British Museum about the evolution of the piano. Focusing on the period that is his forte (sorry, pun), late 18th/early 19th century, he made the very interesting point that composers like Mozart and Haydn didn’t expect the piano to sing, they wanted it to SPEAK, in the manner of well-argued discourse or civilised conversation.

I was reminded of this in Paris in February, where I picked up a free copy of the New York Times in our hotel, and read an article about John Eliot Gardiner entitled “Treating Beethoven as a Revolutionary.” It was about rehearsing Beethoven’s symphonies with his Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique in connection with Beethoven 250 (I expect those performances didn’t happen, sadly), and he said something that really struck me:

“Another thing I think is important [as well as the clarity and exhilaration you can achieve with original instruments] is to encourage the players to “speak” their lines, so that each phrase emerges as a kind of sentence made up of words that they articulate with consonants as well as vowels. Beethoven, it seems to me, is asking for declaimed narration. He conceives of his symphonies as developing and dramatic narratives, and that, in turn, demands an acutely conscious declamatory approach from the players.”

So interesting! I do often think of music as a language, and individual composers’ styles as their ‘handwriting.’ This wordless language has its own structure, vocabulary, grammar—none more so than the music composed around the time of the Enlightenment. Mozart and Haydn spoke it fluently and effortlessly, and we as listeners need to be familiar with the rules of the language before we can experience the thrill that comes when we hear them broken.

Beethoven and Schubert – both voracious readers – inherited this formal language. But I think they became less and less interested in the discourse/conversation aspect, focusing rather more on what Gardiner calls “dramatic narratives.”

Lockdown has afforded me time to think more about the music I’m listening to, which is one of the many good things that have come out of it. A good friend and I keep marvelling at how unconstrained we’ve felt (I know, a contradiction!), and how the extra time we’ve had has not been a burden. Rather, it’s been a gift.

I’ll leave you on that happy note.

With love and warmest congratulations on The Cross-Eyed Pianist’s tenth birthday,

Sylvia

A note from The Cross-Eyed Pianist:

Sylvia is a good friend of mine and, when she lived in London, a very keen concert-goer, especially at the Wigmore Hall. It was Sylvia who encouraged me to start going to classical concerts again, when my son was at an age when he could be left more happily with a babysitter, and we have enjoyed many memorable concerts together. Sylvia was this blog’s first reader and remains a loyal supporter (and eagle-eyed proof-reader!).

 

The Cross-Eyed Pianist is free to access and ad-free, and takes many hours every month to research, write, and maintain. If you find joy and value in what I do, please consider making a donation to support the continuance of the site

Make A Donation