Music, but not for amusement

[Peter1953]

I would very much like to know your opinion of the following dramatic music, music which probably doesn't please you but almost certainly won't keep you unmoved. You will understand the resemblance, I guess.
"Quartet for the end of time" (Quatuor pour la fin du temps) by Olivier Messiaen and "Symphony No. 3" by Henryk Górecki.

[Mark Thomas]

I don't know the Messiaen. I do know the Górecki. It was quite in vogue in the UK 10-15 years ago. It's very accessible but IMHO pretty much a naive "Johnny-one-note" one-trick pony. The mood of lamentation and grief is effectively built up but, because it and the uniformly slow pace are maintained throughout the whole work, it looses its impact because there is no contrast, nothing to throw things into focus. Very much a case of "more is not always better".

[Gareth Vaughan]

The Messiaen is rather difficult. It needs work on the part of the listener - I can't say I've really given it the attention it probably deserves. People speak highly of it but I don't find it appealing.

The Gorecki Symphony is a con-trick. As I said on the old forum, it is one of the great musical emptinesses of our time. That is expressing trenchantly what Mark has written more politely.

[mbhaub]

I know both works, haven't listened to them in quite some time, and have no itch to do so. They go through the right motions, make all the right sounds, and have a sense of gavitas. But when all is said and done, is this great music? Really? Or is it pretending to be? Maybe the composers have fooled themselves and some followers, but give me a string quartet by Beethoven, Mendelssohn and a real symphony any time! The Gorecki is just boring...no other way to say it. It may be beautiful -- but for what end? The slow movement of Raff's 3rd is beautiful, too, and says so much more in much less time.
There are two other works like these: Gavin Bryars The Sinking of the Titanic and the Silvestrov 5th symphony. Slow, ponderous with no doubt very striking and interesting timbres and effects. But far from having any memorable qualities for which the great masterworks are jusitfiably known.

[Alan Howe]

The Gorecki was essentially a marketing phenomenon here in the UK: it was very successfully and almost single-handedly marketed by Classic FM. Remember, though, that this is the radio station which this morning described Beethoven's Coriolanus Overture as 'Corolliunus', or some such mispronunciation.

[Peter1953]

Emptiness, no structure, naive, but isn't that exactly what both Górecki and Messiaen had in mind? Górecki based his symphony on an 18-year-old girls inscription, scrawled on the wall of a cell of a Gestapo prison in the Polish town of Zakopane, and Messiaen was captured and put into a Nazi camp as a prisoner of war.

I like to stress that it is not my kind of stuff, and for many music lovers, including myself, it's not great music, but I'm fascinated what the composers mainsprings were for these amazing, and maybe boring sounds. Also this music has a message for the listener, I suppose.

Enough for now. Time to spin a new Rufinatscha disk.

[Alan Howe]

Hi Peter,

I'm sure we'd all to hear your thoughts on Rufinatscha in a new thread - when you have time.

[Gareth Vaughan]

Just to make it clear that Gorecki's 3rd is not naive - it is vapid. There's a big difference.
Rufinatscha's music, on the other hand is neither.

[Steven Eldredge]

The Messiaen is a masterpiece, utterly and completely. I never really appreciated its greatness until I played the piano part myself in a chamber concert ten years ago with some players from the Met Orchestra. It was awesomely difficult, but it is a work of great spiritual power. Highly recommended is the old RCA recording by Tashi, with Peter Serkin.

[Amphissa]

 
It is very fashionable these days to put down Gorecki's 3rd. I attended a live performance last year by the Atlanta Symphony with Christine Brewer singing the soprano part. A recording by Atlanta Symphony with Christine Brewer is now available. I went to hear the Brahms 3rd, which is rarely performed in concert, but was even more impressed with the performance of the Gorecki 3rd.

It was once very fashionable to diss the music of Rachmaninoff. A few still do. Gorecki's 3rd was, in classical terms, a huge hit. It was popular for good reason. Messien's quartet is just the opposite. It is appreciated more by the critics and musicians than by the classical music community as a whole.

The point is, if you like the works, enjoy them. There is no "music police" enforcing some sort of music orthodoxy that requires listening conformity. Even here on this board dedicated to celebration of the unsungs, some are celebrated more than others, and some of us are in the minority regarding our opinions of particular composers or particular works.

[Ilja]

Amphissa, I think that that 'fashion' is something of a backlash after Gorecki's 3rd got promoted into star status by ClassicFM and others (also in the Netherlands/Germany).

It's like a Dan Brown novel: lots of people buy it on the strenghth or reputation or recommendation, and then discover that they're rather disappointed. It's bound to happen.

For me, the problem with Gorecki's 3rd (and some of his other works) is the leaded seriousness of them. If you wish to really communicate any sort of meaningful emotion, you need to put things into perspective, 'lighten the load' from time to time. Gorecki never does that. I understand and appreciate his reasoning, but that doesn't necessarily make it a worthwile musical experience.

[Mark Thomas]

Although clearly I disagree with Amphissa on the merits of the Górecki, I do agree entirely with the sentiments of his third paragraph. Well said. We should all enjoy what we enjoy.

[Gareth Vaughan]

Hear, hear! I'm not saying you shouldn't like the Gorecki - just that I don't, approachable though it is, AND I don't think it is worth trying to like, whereas the Messiaen might be.

[Ilja]

Although clearly I disagree with Amphissa on the merits of the Górecki, I do agree entirely with the sentiments of his third paragraph. Well said. We should all enjoy what we enjoy.

I think that is a sine qua non for everyone here, and it ought to be. Still, we wouldn't be here if we weren't quite opinionated as well 

By the way, if you want to explore some different Gorécki, give the Requiem Für Eine Polka for Piano and 13 Instruments a whirl. Great piece, and in its own way as deep as the Third Symphony.

[Amphissa]

 
I am not going to suggest that Gorecki is one of my favorite composers. But I do not agree that the 3rd is vapid, empty or naive. It fits quite comfortably into the minimalist school that includes Arvo Pärt, Tavener, Glass, Reich, Riley, Young, Andriessen, Nyman, et al. Maybe Hovhaness fits in there too.

Repetitivism has been used quite a lot in modernist music, from Stravinsky to Prokofiev and others. There are those, of course, who would dismiss the entire minimalist approach as trivial schlock, just as a lot of people dismiss serialism and modernism. But minimalism has developed pretty deep roots in the world of music at large, from smooth jazz to drone, disco to techno, etc. And works like Ravel's Bolero, widely detested by the critics but loved by the populace, suggest that there are aspects of minimalism that resonate with listeners.

Other minimalist compositions that achieved something of a hit status were Preisner's "Requiem for a Friend" and Nyman's Piano Concerto derived from music composed for the movie "The Piano." Rather than condemn minimalist music as trivial or vapid, I prefer to accept the compositions as representative of a particular style or school.

Whether it is music that I want to listen to a lot is another matter.