Sentimental - Beautiful - Kitsch

[ahinton]

I think we should all order Fish & Kitsch in The Restaurant at the End of The Universe....

!!!

With mushy pieces of the sentimental kind and a beautiful sauce tartare!...

[NatBalance]

First a correction of my statement "I suppose the point is that quality of art is entirely objective.". Of course I meant subjective.

My sister produced art work which was not deemed 'suitable' at both 'A' level and Degree level, and much wrangling ensued between her and her teachers to reach a compromise. Much of what she did is now mainstream( found art, performance art, using craft techniques for instance) but was decades ahead of its time and so didn't/couldn't get graded.

Gosh, that's interesting.

If the purpose of mentioning them in the same paragraph was not to compare them, I am unsure what it was. As to your question about Chopin, I have no idea, not least because I do not agree that the structures of his concertos IS weak.

I've heard Rachmaninov's 2nd symphony described with similar terms of distaste as the Warsaw Concerto. Even that it is not of much significance in the field of symphonies because he is just copying Tchaikovsky. I have a book about Chopin by Arthur Hedley where he says "It is the juvenile charm of the two concertos, the poetry of their slow movements and the brilliance of the piano writing that has kept them alive in spite of glaring weaknesses of construction". Not only weaknesses but 'glaring' weaknesses. Good grief.

Well, it does to my ears, to the extent that it is notable for its UNRachmaninoffian characteristics; …. …. …. If the commissioners really wanted some passable imitation Rachmaninoff, they might have been wiser to approach Roger Sacheverell Coke, or York Bowen, or Richard Arnell instead.

UNRachmaninoffian chacteristics? … Blimey. I've never heard of the composers you mention, you might well be right, I wouldn't know. Found something about Coke and it did sound Rachmaninoffian. I'll look up the other two sometime.

It can't, in all fairness, because imitating Holst's style was not Colin Matthews' brief or what he actually did in that work.

In that case I find it even more annoying that it is sometimes played after The Planets as if part of it, on some recordings aswell? It is a separate piece and should be played as such.

Most music carries some sort of structure, wouldn't one say? Criticism is not necessarily a matter of praise or condemnation, or even a matter of judgements located between those poles, but of looking at the appropriateness of the structure to the overall concept.

Agreed, it's just that whenever structure has been mentioned as being weak or bad I have never understood the significance because the music sounds great. There has only ever been two times I have noticed something not right with (perhaps) structure, and strangely that is in two pieces by one of my favourite composers, Holst. In one piece he builds up to create a wonderfull sound of swaying choral music and then stops and changes to something that doesn't fit, and I am left wanting it to carry on and develop further as it was. The other is of a similar nature. It's as if he is sticking to some structure which says he must change now, thereby keeping a good structure but ruining the music. It's a pity because it is otherwise some of the best music ever composed in my opinion.

….. but you don't have to be much of a connoisseur to appreciate not only Rachmaninov's "big tunes" but also the way he develops and contextualises them over a more extended timescale.

Well that is the advantage of having more time. It's like the difference between a novel being adapted as a many part TV series or squashed into the time limits of a film. I only used Rachmaninov's 2nd symphony as a comparison to the Warsaw Concerto because of the sentimental melodies, and the stick many classical music lovers give to such sentimental music. It's as if folks are saying this type of expression in music should be left to the world of pop music and not be allowed to touch the world of classical music.

My father, who was not very interested in music but as they say "liked the sound it made", once described his impression of Beethoven's symphonies to me in terms of big tunes with less interesting bits in between.

Ha ha, like it. Yes, I guess that is possibly someone who mainly likes pop music. Actually, now you won't tell anyone will you, but I feel that way about much Bach choral music that has solo singers aswell. I really love the choral sections and am hankering for the solo singer to hurry up and get it over with so the choir can come back on. Very naughty of me. I think it's the contrast. I like the solo bits, it's just that I find the choral bits are by far the best.

[ahinton]

In that case I find it even more annoying that it is sometimes played after The Planets as if part of it, on some recordings aswell? It is a separate piece and should be played as such.

Is it ever played as such? I don't know, but I agree that there is a case to be made out for its performance as a standalone item, although the obvious problems with doing so are (a) that it won't undermine the association with Holst's The Planets suite and (b) it might make less sense detached from that suite, whereas the equally obvious problem with appending it to that suite in performance is that Neptune no longer fades into infinity, as it were, because that fade-out is then rudely interrupted in a way that Holst would almost certainly never have imagined and of which he might possibly have disapproved. I can see that the commission posed something of a dilemma for Colin Matthews, as he himself admits and explains.

[Oakapple]

I'd be very interested to know if Pluto has been played on its own as part of a concert. The problem is that Matthews (and credit to him for this) uses the same orchestra as Holst, so that would mean getting a bass oboe, organist, female chorus in seven parts and more besides just for a six-minute piece.

[Stanfordian]

If there might be any fish there (which Jayne suspects there are not), they'd probably be affordable only to members of the Plutocracy...

That said, never ind the price of fish, it's unclear what Pluto the planet or indeed Pluto the Renewer have to do with the thread topic...

Stop carping on about fish. I hake this thread. In fact I've haddock enough of this plaice!

I admit to nicking these fishy quotes.

[Pulcinella]

Stop carping on about fish. I hake this thread. In fact I've haddock enough of this plaice!

I admit to nicking these fishy quotes.

Are you angling for any more?

[ahinton]

Are you angling for any more?

doversoul might respond to this...

[Braunschlag]

For some full fat kitsch I found this little gem today, mindless YouTubing threw it up -

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RAyw2CfS1Gg

[MrGongGong]

Latest on Pluto........(not a simple astronomical concept, ongoing...)

https://www.newscientist.com/article-topic/pluto/

What does it mean to say "Colin Matthews is no Holst"? Or The Planets "entire of itself"? Is the ever-changing, multidimensional Universe "entire of itself"?
Artworks change through time as we experience & perceive them.

Matthews is a significant orchestral & chamber composer who has written several wonderful, striking and memorable works... (too little played, but many available, should you wish to take the trouble to actually listen, on NMC).

I've been taping or latterly buying the recordings/concerts since at least the 1990s.....

As for the Pluto movement itself.... don't ask why, ask why not?
Holst was a very adventurous & imaginative composer with wide-ranging interests....

I think he would have liked the idea of updating his own take on The Planets....
He might have enjoyed the idea of another composer writing something on "Voyager" or "Voyager 2"..........

Neither Holst or Colin Matthews wrote EARTH (which IS a planet)
but don't worry.... we did it a few years ago with some young composers in Cambridge for the Music Festival
where we not only had Pluto but Earth as well

BINGO

[Serial_Apologist]

What on earth for?

[Richard Barrett]

Neither Holst or Colin Matthews wrote EARTH (which IS a planet)
but don't worry.... we did it a few years ago

oh really

[MrGongGong]

oh really

SNAP (ours was in 2006)

And, of course, this

https://southernlord.com/band/earth/