Last night, my daughter and I went to hear the NC Symphony at the Green here in Southern Village. The entire square was packed (a couple of thousand people?). It was very enjoyable and an interesting choice of pieces. What was more interesting, and I am not sure I liked it, is the chosen ORDER of the pieces. The first half was filled with classics, the second half with pop stuff, including some not-well-known pieces. I am not sure that worked very well....
The concert started with Johann Strauss Sr.'s Radetzky March - a very powerful piece of music. But there is a reason why that is traditionally the very last piece to be played at the annual New Year's concert in Vienna - it takes some time to build up, through the duration of the concert, one's emotional response to music. The early parts of the concert are there to gradually break down your defenses. Then, at the end, there is nothing you can do to resist the powerful emotional effect of the Radetzky March - you nod, you clap, your foot keeps the beat, you cry...but you cannot watch and listen without passion unless you are a heartless, soulless corpse.
It is similar to "Hair" - I hate it when local radio stations play the hybrid combo of 'Aquairus' and 'Let The Sunshine In' for this same reason. The finale of 'Let The Sunshine In' means nothing on its own, without the intro. The crucial part is the slow crescendo, the gradual build-up of emotion during the first 2/3 of the song. Then, when the finale comes along, full-throated, open-airway, than it is one of the most powerful pieces of music ever - it moves you, makes you shake and cry and sing along out loud.
So, if I were a conductor of the NC Symphony I would have reversed the order - I would have played Irving Berlin's Patriotic Overture, the Circus theme and pop-song medley first, followed by John William's movie music from "Midway" and "Star Wars" (Yoda's Theme), followed by Terry Mizesko's Little Dance Suite (which is actually quite nice) and only then, once the brains of the people in the audience are already softened and captured and tuned in to emotion, start hammering with the powerful pieces like Tchaikovsky's 'Cossack Dance' from "Mazzepa" and a couple of scenes from "Swan Lake", Weber's overture to "Abu Hassan", and finally make the audience cry with Grieg's 'Morning Mood' and "In the Hall of the Mountain Kind" from Peer Gynt - one of the most powerful pieces of music ever (interesting that he did not choose 'Solveyg's Song' as part of this), and drive the last nail in your emotional coffin with the Radetzky March.
But those are quibbles. It was great fun and I am happy to see so many people show up. Not to mention that the execution of all pieces was absolutely perfect.
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You continue to amaze me with your breadth of knowledge. I would have had no idea that the order of the pieces could have been improved upon.
Is there anything upon which you cannot hold forth?
Back in the Music Jurassic of my youth, the order of songs on albums had meaning, and was carefully arranged by the musicians and/or producers. This was not something new and unique to rock...it existed, for example, with jazz albums, such as A Love Supreme (if I believed in gods, Coltrane would be in the pantheon) and The Shape of Jazz to Come, and with other genres as well. Ask any grizzled ol' Grateful Dead fan about the importance of the order and identity of songs played at a given concert; a few, in fact, are almost always played together. Some bands have carried this on-Phish and Widespread Panic, for example.
Because of personal music players like iPods, and the ready availability of individual songs for download, few people may listen to an entire carefully crafted album these days. I love my iPod, and I've always loved making compilation tapes and CDs for friends, but I think the ability to assemble cohesive music programs that appeal to a significant number of listeners is on the decline. It's rare to find a radio DJ who is skilled at this-every once in awhile I'll come across one while listening to a local university or community college station.
Yes, I think I still have around a couple of old audio tapes that some of my friends compiled that were perfect in this respect. One of them had 90 minutes of great music that was all on exactly the same beat, each song fusing seamlessly into another - that meant 90 minutes of non-stop slow dancing with the SAME partner. If you do not score after that, you are an idiot.
After many years of listening to some of these tapes, I still expect a song A to follow the song B when I hear it on the radio and am therefore disappointed...
"But those are quibbles." sezs you.
Indeed.
Because from Radetsky on, in this program, it is all popular music.
The difference is Radetsky, et al, have been popular longer.
The point of attending a concert is to attend the music ... in the director's order. Simply because h/she is the one speaking. this time.
--ml
Correct - those are all 'easy pieces'. And I enjoyed the show.
The point of attending a concert is to attend the music ... in the director's order.
Probably one of the few remaining circumstances in which the listener has very little control over the order and types of pieces played. Most day-to-day music experiences are cafeteria-style now, and perhaps some listeners only choose desserts, or pieces that are easily digested.
IMO, there are some albums that seem so carefully crafted, it should be a "crhyme" to listen to them piecemeal or rearranged. The Beatles Abbey Road and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, any of David Bowie's Berlin Trilogy (Low, "Heroes", Lodger), any of the Pink Floyd Roger Waters-era albums, the Talking Heads-Eno albums (More Songs About Buildings and Food, Fear of Music, Remain in Light), and King Crimson's Discipline, are just a few examples. I'm sure there are many others, in just about every music genre.
Didn't say 'easy' Said popular-- as in most people like them, even if they really sing only in a master's hands, or can be rousing when the first grader's get out their tissue paper and combs. Glad you did enjoy it cause I always thought that was the point from J S Bach and his antecedents to Young Ringo and his successors.
--ml