Monday, December 16, 2013

Mozart, K. 31, Galimathias Musicum, 1. Molto Allegro - peppy, 2. Andante - that wavering and the crawling upwards and those pauses! - bizarre, 3.Allegro - the version I heard had an odd sliding down maneuver on the violin that sounded strange (Ars Antiqua), 4. Pastorella - wow, supposing that I heard that on the radio, I would not have thought that was a Mozart piece, wonderful, wonderful, 5. Allegro - melody is so odd, and then wierdest of all, it underwent some chord change near the end of the segment, sounded like the awkwardest thing in the world, 6. Allegretto - piece was fairly typical, except for (so much wierd stuff in this collection!) some sort up tonic seventh two-tone mixture played softly in the background near the end, what is going on with these!, 7. Allegro - alright, 8. Coro (Molto Adagio) Eitelkeit! - a choral piece - and there's a fucking organ in this one! relatively pretty too, 9. Allegro - well, this is a definitely a fragment, melody goes into some sort of odd polyphony and then just breaks off - but they play it - sounds very strange, 10. Adagio- falling theme, a bit polyphonic, 11.Molto Allegro - wierd, very repetitive, 12. Andante - again identical themes falling on top of one another, 13. Allegro - harpsichord bit, 14.Menuet - has an odd pulsating, 1-2 rhythym with plodding harpsichord accompaniment below, violin and horn play off against one another well, 15. Adagio - same sort of thing as before, climbing identical themes falling on top of one another, turning into some sort chimbing theme, then odd pulling again 16. Presto - on a page of music, somehow I imagine the notes looking like a wave that if compressed would look like a circle, 17. Fuga - these kinds of pieces exhaust me so quickly that at some point, if I am listening at all for structure, I'm listening for overall arrangement, and the entrance of the main theme

Mozart K.33, Kyrie - structure was difficult to pick out in this - sadly, that's about all I got

Whew!  I don't know if the enjoyment came from the concentration and focus spent on attempting to understand the structure of the piece or if it was just this set of pieces, but much, much more pleasant experience than a while ago.

As a means of clarification and contrast, I will now listen to an old favorite: Radiohead's Scatterbrain - wow, listening to mozart attentively definitely changed my experience listening to this song.  I now realize that I have stopped listening to music this way.  Back when I first started listening to the Beatles, I devoted much concentration and energy to listening for the song's form and, because non-classical music tends to have less complex forms than classical, I found myself becoming intimately aware of the slightest discrepancies or surprises in the expected outcome.  Overtime, I became more and more relaxed and listened for the feel of the song instead.  Before I listened to the song today, I would have said the peculiarity and worth of this song was its falling memorable melody.  Listening to it today, I see that I am aware of the melody, but the concentration spent listening to all the other elements of the piece while listening to the piece as a piece in happening (listening for structure) brought many more elements of the song into relief (like its jittery drum texture).

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