Post Romantic

[Multi-Elis]

I just discovered Mahler, and found it so good, that I thought I'd talk about it.
Like most classical music, I need to hear the music once before I can really enjoy it. And so it was only in the second hearing that I could really appreciate Mahler's 3rd symphony.
What's so nice about this symphony is that there is a liniar-storytelling-feel about it. Each piece is pointing to the piece after it, each unit pointing forward in time. Also, as with many of the post romantisists, the uses of the instuments are often more for the sound effect than for a melody.
I'm synethetic, which means that when I hear music I "see" corresponding images. I am generally a Bach/Mendelssohn/Haendel/Ballet music fan, and generally need music that is very structured and clearly melodic, and beautiful, to really like the music, because if not the "images" I see in my head start to bore me and annoy me. But the nice thing about this symphony is that I was seeing beautiful images that I had never seen before with the music I generally like and listen to. The music is so varied and interesting, and so were the images I was seeing. If I could plug my brain into a machine that visualises what I see on to a screen, you would see what I mean

Well I just thought it would be interesting to have a thread in which we can share the particularities of the music we enjoy. And thought that the more post-romantic music would be interesting because of the different kinds of music and ways that people exerience them.

 

[mannysee]

Wow, i've never heard of that term before 'synethetic'. I tend to see patterns/images as well when in listen intently to jazz/classical music. Yes, Mahler's music to me can be extremely intense at times and he certainly was a complex guy. You know, i once heard the comment that Edward Elgar's music was like, "A cow looking over a fence", which i thought was hilarious (he was English).

 

[Multi-Elis]

I have been listening to Mahler's 2nd symphony. I didn't find the first 4 parts very exceptional, in comparison to the 3rd symphony, but the fifth part is amazing! It's about people rising from the dead. The chorus is really amazing, in the way it's arranged, it's textures, and the effect it produces.

As for Synesthetics, there are different degrees. Some people just find some telephone numbers to be in perfect color harmony, others have a very high level and find corespondances in many areas like music, mouvement, vision, touch, words, textures, etc. Also synesthesia is sometimes a guise for being artistic, or rather, some synesthesia is accepted artistically, if you look at all the painters who have tried to paint what music makes them "see". But the frustrating thing is tha even though it feels like amazing creativity, it doesn't replace the real artist mind. What ever, this is all subject to debate.