Hope ([info]hopechan) wrote,
@ 2008-10-26 09:45:00
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There is one type of music I hate more than the music the fucking sophomores blast at two in the fucking morning when some of us are seniors, and insomniacs, and need to cling to whatever sleep happens to drift our way.

And that is baroque music.

Shit all sounds exactly the same! I have a test today in which I have to identify by name pieces we've heard in class. What the shit! It's fucking 4/4th all the way through, orchestrated with a harpsichord, strings, oboes, and occasional horns, and it's all frilly and dancy and uninteresting. There's nothing to distinguish one piece from the next, and there's nothing to distinguish one piece from the monotony that will follow death.

God, Bach you, motherBachers.

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[info]runesque
2008-10-26 04:04 pm UTC (link)
*looks at own Baroque playlist*

I... like the dark, gothy feel of it? *fails at descriptions* And supposedly it stimulates a certain part of your brain so you perform better at work.... so say the people who produce Mozart Effect For Babies compilation CDs. ahdafhfs I dunno.

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[info]hopechan
2008-10-26 04:11 pm UTC (link)
Oh! No, I dig the hell out of classical music. Like, I would dig up Mozart and stage fake weddings with his skeleton, that sort of thing. And I like dark, gothy things in general, too.

But ick. Like, all that heavily over-ornamented dance music from the Baroque era? It's a pity, too, because I love the harpsichord so, so much, but all this one-two-THREE-four-one-two-THREE-four courtly mannered frothiness - there's only so much I can take.

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[info]cal_reflector
2008-10-26 04:05 pm UTC (link)
Classical music is my favorite genre, but I won't unfriend you because Baroque is not my favorite subgenre (Romantic is), plus I understand.

Good luck with the exam. *Thumbs up*

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[info]hopechan
2008-10-26 04:12 pm UTC (link)
I don't even consider it classical. It's practically muzak. Classical music is passionate and tempestuous. It's music that you have to stop and listen to. This is stuff that's fit for the background.

Thanks. >.> It can only end...well?

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[info]cal_reflector
2008-10-26 04:17 pm UTC (link)
Baroque: The R&B of Classical Music.

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[info]rainbow_cnxn
2008-10-26 04:20 pm UTC (link)
YES.

Baroque music is something that must be taken in small quantities sporadically over a long period of time. A fugue or a gavotte here and there is sometimes nice because sometimes you're just in the mood for something dancy and gilded, but for the life of me, I don't see how one can sit through multiple movements of such flair and ornamentation. (In my mind's eye, if Baroque music was a tangible object, it would be a massive pile of tinsel.)

If you don't mind me asking: What is your favorite genre/time period of "classical" music? For me, it's late Romantic (just like it is for everyone else), though I am also quite fond of 20th century Americana.

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[info]hopechan
2008-10-26 04:34 pm UTC (link)
♥

Exactly. So much of baroque music sounds artificial. I like the tinsel metaphor: it's shiney and pretty but false. It's all fake smiley and mannered and feels completely divorced from real emotion.

In terms of my favorite time period...Romantic. GOD. NATCH. Music should express emotion, I feel, not just be presented as something pretty. But! I especially like sort of more eastern, folky pieces. Mahler and Chopin's Mazurkas, for example, = do want.

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[info]rainbow_cnxn
2008-10-26 05:10 pm UTC (link)
Moreover, like tinsel, it gets everywhere, and after coming in contact with it, you can never seem to rid your body/mind of little bits and pieces of it. Nothing is more infuriating than an 8-measure snippet of vapidity looping itself over and over in your head.

Fuck yeah, Romantic era! I have a friend who can't see images when listening to tone poems. She is deprived. =(

Mahler's very interesting, but I find him quite a challenge to listen to. Speaking of eastern folksy pieces, Dvorak, Liszt, and even Brahms are ace. Also Russian ballets: when Wagnerian bombast is just too much!

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[info]hopechan
2008-10-28 01:09 pm UTC (link)
Hee. Confession: I love Wagner. It's just so effing grand. Sometimes you just get in a mood where you wish that bassoons and timpani would herald your crossing to the other side of the room.

But I love Russian ballets. Swan Lake will always be gorgeous.

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[info]chaos_harmony
2008-10-26 04:54 pm UTC (link)
I feel your pain. Seriously. Baroque music is just too damn repetitive. I wanted to cry when my CSEM professor decided to make us sit through three hours of Handel on a Sunday night.

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[info]hopechan
2008-10-26 04:59 pm UTC (link)
EEEEEK. Yeah, we did Messiah my first semester in Chorale, and I just about wanted to quit. (Glad I didn't; second semester was Verdi's Requiem. Siiiiigh.) But Handel needs to go back to where he came from. The boring, boring place he came from.

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[info]taithe
2008-10-26 06:11 pm UTC (link)
Ahaha, I think the only time I was forced to listen to Baroque in large quantities was when I began learning the piano. I got bored and skipped ahead to Chopin, who was my favorite composer at the time. When I was forced to go back to Baroque, I just started improvising the hell out of it.

Looking at my music folder, I don't think I have a single Baroque piece in there. It's all Classical, Romantic, and Contemporary. Plus a good sampling of jazz and ragtime. Heh.

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[info]hopechan
2008-10-27 12:37 pm UTC (link)
I like your music folder. Badass. And, for the record? Chopin is still totally one of my favorite composers.

But if Baroque is good for one thing, it's good for improvising. The beats and music are so predictable.

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[info]taithe
2008-10-28 03:23 am UTC (link)
Oh, Chopin's definitely still one of my favorite composers. He's just not my only favorite composer now that I've broadened my musical horizons. :)

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[info]emilytheodd
2008-10-26 07:28 pm UTC (link)
So like. Beethoven will always be the pinnacle for me, always, not simply of quote-unquote "classical" music but of, you know, human expression - but I love Bach. So much. So so so much. He stimulates my mind, and I love playing his preludes and fugues, and I cannot ever listen to the Brandenberg concerti as background music. I might try, but then it's nope, sorry, can't work and take this in at the same time. And "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" - ! So I'm just going to be over here, disagreeing. Sorry.

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[info]hopechan
2008-10-27 12:45 pm UTC (link)
This reply hurt my feelings because of that "Sorry" at the end.

In any case. I don't really think of Brandenberg so much as Baroque. Maybe that's self-justification and circular and et cetera, but Brandenberg is just so batshit out there that I consider it somewhat apart from most musical genres.

Still, that wasn't the main thrust of your argument, so. I guess I was being a bit dramatic for the sake of, you know, impending exam, etc.; I don't think all Baroque music worthless. But when a composer like Bach, who is fabulously talented, wastes his time on dreck like the Gavotte that follows the Air? I dunno. That's the sort of thing that'll leave you with a grudge against a musical style.

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[info]emilytheodd
2008-10-27 02:38 pm UTC (link)
I certainly didn't mean to offend; I simply disagreed with the main thrust of what everyone was saying. I am honestly sorry if that came across as snotty, because the "sorry" wasn't meant to be flippant.

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[info]hopechan
2008-10-27 03:45 pm UTC (link)
It didn't sound flippant! It sounded hurt, and I didn't mean to offend. I meant to be, you know, overly glib. As I do.

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[info]emilytheodd
2008-10-27 04:33 pm UTC (link)
Hey, I am a fan of the overly glib, trust me! Anyhoodle, have you ever seen Immortal Beloved? It is a bit ridiculous in lots of ways (Gary Oldman as Beethoven), a bit awesome in others (Gary Oldman as Beethoven), and mutual love of Romanticism put me in mind of it.

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[info]hopechan
2008-10-28 01:06 pm UTC (link)
No, but that sounds astounding. I love Gary Oldman. He is the only actor I know who I both love as a ham and a legitimate actor - like a combination of Nicholas Cage and Kevin Spacey, but weirder. PLEASE TELL ME IT'S ON DVD?

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[info]emilytheodd
2008-10-29 02:44 am UTC (link)
IT IS AMAZING! I was trying to sound nonchalant but no really I love it. Yes it's on DVD!

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