Music you can hear

Classical music is said to be relaxing, thoughtful, but also made to be enjoyed in quiet places with much care. It has become the land of the "elites", of the ones who have "higher education" and know how to appreciate the true high quality music.

I'm tired of that shit. In my view, classical music is just music like any other music, anybody can listen in any way they want, and guess what... There is good classical music and bad classical music! And the reason why most classical music we can hear today is actually "good quality" is because it has survived the trial of times and there are still some people that see beauty, virtuosism, innovation, and many other impressive qualities on it. Although...

Today we are hit with music the very same way those people were (ok, we're bombarded with it much more frequently). And it's difficult to know what has value and you'll show your grandsons, and what is just shitty music. There are also a lot of high-value musicians that just don't have the luck or the funds to get noticed and projected!

I'm starting a series of posts about composers. I'll tell you why I enjoy their music, what do I see in it that makes me want to pass on to my children and hope they'll do the same. Then it's your call to think what you want about it! I'm starting with...

Beethoven

Yeah yeah such cliché, Beethoven and the moonlight sonata. Hell no, I'm tired of the moonlight sonata and I really don't care much about it. Beethoven would be sick of it by now as well, as he was sick of the dominant mentality of his times... Wealthy people hiring composers to teach their children and write them music to create ambiance while they eat their meals? Fuck it. I do what I want, I write what I want, if you think it has quality then follow me. I'll be making music for the masses that real people WANT to hear. So fuck you.

Look, Haydn was born before Mozart and wrote 106 symphonies. Mozart came later and wrote 41. Beethoven came afterwards and wrote 9, one of them with a choral and an absurd number of musicians with a poem by Schiller about FREEDOM. Although his first symphony was pretty much classical, he was just about to shake things up with his third symphony, messing with the rhythms so much that even the musicians complained.

Shut up and play, you damn fiddler.

_{Hear this in any way you want. Or don't even hear, I don't care. Just be sure you upvote anyway. Lol.}

Sure it was an enormous success. Everyone was sick of the damn classicist music in Vienna. They wanted emotions, big crescendos, an orchestra playing loud with huge musical themes such as the 2nd movement's Funeral March. Beethoven delivered, and you can still hear and enjoy today.

I usually tell my students that if they want to play Beethoven, they first need to ditch the notes. Nobody cares about them anyway. Just play the music they merely hint, the contrasts, strong/weak, tension/relax, Beethoven had much care placing these contrasts because that's his revolucionary mentality. He wanted music that moved the masses, as happened in the French Revolution.

_{Watch as Beethoven puts this beautiful repeating melody screaming by changing instrumentation, scaring the shit of everyone's face}

If you follow the way colours of this graphical score interact, you'll understand that Beethoven was also a very good orchestrator. Sitting at the piano, he could clearly imagine how different instruments could combine to create a texture that would work. There are some awful orchestrators (Schumann!! Omfg a bunch of musicians playing loud songs), and some great ones such as Ravel, Stravinsky, and Beethoven himself.

Oh, and there there is this crazyness part. Beethoven just became crazy and delusional and screaming with everybody, writing music with strong personal characteristics. Some amazing music no one could understand at that time, but he was so famous that people thought "that's ok, let's play this so the old man can die in peace". Almost 100 years later and BAM, everyone was writing music like Beethoven's late works. It's difficult music to hear but it's Beethoven, and it's great. Here's "The Great Fugue":

The first time this was played the audience didn't understood and they asked the musicians to play again some of the other pieces (what we call an "encore"). Beethoven freaked out insulting the public ("Cattle!", "Asses"!). Lol.

Now go hear some more Beethoven. Piano sonatas. Cello sonatas. The entire symphonic work. Or just don't, and hear something else. Or do something else. I don't care, and I'm pretty sure Beethoven doesn't also.

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