Celibidache Music and Truth

thallo wrote:

To Celibidache: you wrote what you wanted to write, you were free to do so in the excessive and arrogant terms that I do not like, and I made my opinion on your judgment understood. As I have written elsewhere, I showed respect for your freedom of opinion but not for your opinion, which I consider needlessly contemptuous.

To Luca: small chamber groups do not use a conductor, also because the "direction" of their music is given by the result of the interaction. Therefore, it is the interaction that is developed. The same thing happens in many choral groups and ensembles specializing in early repertoire. Sharpen your hearing by trying to understand and do what is right for everyone. I played for years in a marching band and, like many other pop, rock, and folk formations, bands have a very important rhythm section that resolves the problems of rhythmic stability and leaves the rest to soloistic or sectional dynamics. Identifying a single person responsible for a group's musical interpretation is typical of a certain repertoire, a certain period, a certain geographical area, or a certain aesthetic need.

To Thallo: I have the feeling that you disagree with Celibidache (the user) regardless, whether we are talking about Celibidache (the conductor) or any other topic.

Am I wrong?

Celibidache wrote:

We must close all philosophy faculties and burn their productions: they are uselessly contemptuous, arrogant, and undeserving of respect.

my cleaning lady will collect the ashes while listening to Muti with your tea. Who knows if among them there will be pieces of Hanslick's essay on musical beauty.

Anyway, let it be clear, I do not deny the value of the conductor; I link it to a repertoire and to the aesthetic requirements of that repertoire, which is precisely what I have written. Likewise, I am not saying that the figure of the conductor cannot also be useful in these other repertoires; there are even madrigal groups that have a conductor. But alternatives are possible, alternatives that are not diminutive but different. Many of these alternatives are, in reality, the main lesson of performance practice, namely they are the performance method that the history of music itself has handed down to us for certain repertoires. Other alternatives are legitimate experiments, sometimes for educational purposes, sometimes for simple final results: personally, I find interesting differences when listening to choral groups without a conductor. No absolutism, just the openness to other possibilities.

Viola wrote:

A Thallo: I have the feeling that you disagree with Celibidache (the user) regardless, whether we are talking about Celibidache (the conductor) or any other topic.

Am I wrong?

Viola, shall we talk about it at dinner?

Viola wrote:

A Thallo: I have the feeling that you disagree with Celibidache (the user) regardless, whether we are talking about Celibidache (the conductor) or any other topic.

Am I wrong?

I think so, I think you are mistaken, but when one has these personal reactions, one's own opinion is potentially flawed. That is, if you ask me, it is obvious that I will tell you that it is not so :-) I try to be honest and balanced, if I can, and what I feel like telling you is that I have interacted with Celibidache only in this conversation and in that other one about the Italian twentieth century. In both situations, I took it very personally due to Celibidache's tone, for his destructive and aggressive attitude. Since a user's attitude and style are often constant things that do not change regardless of the topic being discussed, it is possible that I continue to be annoyed by his comments, which does not mean that I cannot agree with him. I mentioned something in the other topic, namely that I do not like Brahms. I add that I have read Hanslick and I do not even like him; I do not share many of the things he says, although I am referring mainly to the essay on musical beauty. But this has never been the subject of my interventions; I cannot be sympathetic toward those who use aggressive tones on this forum.

With you it is different. You post music links and, seized by an insane fury, you exaggerate your judgments. This is, at least, my impression. And it is probable that upon arrival of the right link, I might even write something loving towards you.

But this is off-topic and it is right not to go any further

A person, in the way they do one thing, through that same way, does all others.

If one "makes a mistake" in forming an opinion about a person and is completely persuaded by it, then all other judgments regarding them are also "mistaken."

Insane fury... that is PASSION.

There is only something to be learned from those judgments.

Because of this continuous and persistent prosopopoeia regarding non-existent aggressiveness and destructive attitudes, Socrates was sentenced to death, Jesus of Nazareth was nailed to the cross, and Giordano Bruno was burned alive in the square. Just to give three clear examples.

You are continuously calling not for kindness, courtesy, or politeness, but to be less intellectually brilliant, less emotionally sensitive, and less like adult men.

I am sorry, but I stopped playing games and acting like a child many years ago.

thallo wrote:

Anyway, let it be clear, I do not deny the value of the conductor; I link it to a repertoire and to the aesthetic requirements of that repertoire, which is precisely what I have written. Likewise, I am not saying that the figure of the conductor cannot also be useful in these other repertoires; there are even madrigal groups that have a conductor. But alternatives are possible, alternatives that are not diminutive but different. Many of these alternatives are, in reality, the main lesson of performance practice, meaning they are the performance method that the history of music itself has handed down to us for certain repertoires. Other alternatives are legitimate experiments, sometimes for educational purposes, sometimes for simple final results: personally, I find interesting differences when listening to choral groups without a conductor. No absolutism, just the openness to other possibilities.

But of course. Absolutely. Emblematically, it is the wonder of dialogue expressed by the string quartet (not only that one, obviously).

Viola wrote:

I would add a WONDERFUL quote.

OT . . . not 'tiny-tremendous' but t r e m e n d o u s

Celibidache wrote:

Viola, shall we talk about it at dinner?

Gladly.

Viola wrote:

Gladly.

I like them tremendous... (Chords in pvt...)

To cool down tempers,

a strictly OT dedication,

with unchanged insane fury.

One of dad Haydn's masterpieces (eh eh eh),

dedicated to:

Celibidache

Luca

RedScharlach

Thallo

(in alphabetical order)

Open content (youtube)

RedScharlach wrote:

I was wondering: can a writer - let's say - make one of their characters think something more intelligent than they themselves would be capable of thinking? Can a character be more evil or more good than their creator could ever be?

Of course, music is something else ... but ...

Well.. Making one's own character think better than oneself seems impossible to me. More evil or more good, however, yes.

Music is something else. ok... but... I don't understand where you are going with this

Maybe after two beers, or at the end of the Oxford Symphony, I'll get there....

There is nothing like a great Bruckner in the middle of the night...

Open content (youtube)

LucaCavaliere wrote:

Well.. Making one's own character think better of oneself seems impossible to me. More evil or more good, however, yes.

Music is another thing. ok... but... I don't understand where you are going with this

Perhaps after two beers, or at the end of the Oxford Symphony, I will get there....

Until some time ago, I would have said that this is the most reasonable answer. But there is another possible interpretation. Perhaps an excess of abjection, or of greatness, is imaginable because it resides in the human sphere: and I am not referring to the human in the abstract, but to any person, no one excluded. Anyone has the possibility to rise, or to plummet. The writer (I used this example) is able to embrace this excess – even if only as imagination. Therefore, no longer more evil or more good than their creator, but rather as evil or good as they could possibly become. This is what Büchner said in the early nineteenth century, and one had to wait a century for a musician to make this message explicit, and it had to be a musician of Berg's stature. The link with music – entirely hypothetical, for now – lies precisely in this excess (which is inherent to it, regardless of Büchner and Berg): and more precisely because in it we have the possibility to find, in potentiality, an excess of abjection, of greatness, and perhaps of any phenomenon that belongs to the human sphere.

Celibidache wrote:

There is nothing like a great Bruckner in the middle of the night...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=df4kwzwFQN0

What a magnificent performance!

Thank you.

Open content (youtube)

Until some time ago, I would have said that this is the most reasonable answer. But there is another possible interpretation. Perhaps an excess of abjection, or of greatness, is imaginable because it resides in the human sphere: and I am not referring to the human in the abstract, but to any person, no one excluded. Anyone has the possibility to rise up, or to plummet. The writer (I used this example) is able to embrace this excess – even if only as imagination. Therefore, no longer more evil or more good than his creator, but rather as evil or good as he could possibly become. This is what Büchner said at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and one had to wait a century for a musician to make this message explicit, and it had to be a musician of Berg's stature. The link with music – entirely hypothetical, for now – lies precisely in this excess (which is innate to it, regardless of Büchner and Berg): and more precisely because in it we have the possibility to find, in potentiality, an excess of abjection, of greatness, and perhaps of any phenomenon that belongs to the human sphere.

https://youtu.be/dt8MhYpCsuw

Open content (youtube)

I don't understand the connection with Tannhäuser, but I am sincerely curious to read about it, if Viola has the chance to make it explicit. I admit that I can't think of any "wicked" music at this moment. Not even in Wozzeck.

thallo wrote:

I don't understand the connection with Tannhäuser, but I am sincerely curious to read about it, if Viola has the chance to elaborate. I admit that I can't think of any "mean" music at this moment. Not even in Wozzeck.

Dear Thallo, my post is the consequence of a moment of insane melancholy.

Shall we talk about it at dinner?

thallo wrote:

I admit that I cannot think of any "bad" music at this moment. Not even in Wozzeck.

Because these words are almost useless tools, nearly unserviceable, for music. But it is neither a bad nor a good thing: we can accept an approximation, and indeed we must discover all the potential of the impossibility of grasping the meaning of music through words. Augustine spoke of the iubilus – but an analogous concept was expressed wonderfully by Mendelssohn in a certain letter.

Die Leute beklagen sich gewöhnlich, die Musik sei so vieldeutig; es sei so zweifelhaft, was sie sich dabei zu denken hätten, und die Worte verstände doch ein Jeder. Mir geht es aber gerade umgekehrt. Und nicht blos mit ganzen Reden, auch mit einzelnen Worten, auch die scheinen mir so vieldeutig, so unbestimmt, so mißverständlich im Vergleich zu einer rechten Musik, die einem die Seele erfüllt mit tausend besseren Dingen als Worten. Das, was mir eine Musik ausspricht, die ich liebe, sind mir nicht zu unbestimmte Gedanken, um sie in Worte zu fassen, sondern zu bestimmte.

People often complain that music is too ambiguous, that what they should think when they hear it is so unclear, whereas everyone understands words. With me, it is exactly the opposite, and not only with regard to an entire speech but also with individual words. These, too, seem to me so ambiguous, so vague, so easily misunderstood in comparison to genuine music, which fills the soul with a thousand things better than words. The thoughts which are expressed to me by music that I love are not too indefinite to be put into words, but on the contrary, too definite.

Letter to Marc-André Souchay, October 15, 1842, cited from Briefe aus den Jahren 1830 bis 1847 (Leipzig: Hermann Mendelssohn, 1878) p. 221; translation from Felix Mendelssohn (ed. Gisella Selden-Goth) Letters (New York: Pantheon, 1945) pp. 313-14.

thallo wrote:

I admit that no "bad" music comes to mind at this moment.

Viola... perhaps we are at the right twilight? One of my very first questions to Viola, just after she joined.