 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: wjk
Date: 2004-02-01 16:39
I have found certain pieces by Berg and Webern so intensely emotional that I am reduced to tears. Now, this is really not like me. Even though I deal with intensely emotional issues professionally every day, I am not crying all day either. Do I respond to Webern and Berg by crying because the pieces are so inherently emotional, or are there other factors at play?
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Author: theclarinetist
Date: 2004-02-01 16:55
Probably other factors are responsible. Sometimes a piece will make me get "teary", other times that same song has no effect on me. For me it usually depends on my mood at the particular moment. I doubt you could get everybody to agree that any piece is "inherently" emotional. Some people think this is true. Others (like me) believe that music cannot be inherently emotional, and that the emotion we connect with music is a product of our own mindset and socialization. I doubt either of us is entirely correct, but good things to think about. Do these pieces make you cry every single time, or do you have to be in the right mindset? Have they always made you cry, or did it start recently? Do you have periods alternating between crying and not-crying? Good questions to think about.
DH
theclarinetist@yahoo.com
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Author: JMcAulay
Date: 2004-02-01 17:30
Some professions (yours included, of course) do not allow the expression of your genuine emotions while you are "doing your thing." Otherwise, your ability to perform would be severely reduced.
Music can stimulate the emotional release you might otherwise be lacking. This, as you well know, is helpful to you in many ways.
So enjoy the music, appreciate the opportunity for your emotionality to be exercised, and go forth in a better frame of mind.
My primary reason to cry about any music is when I get into my car and discover my wife has left the radio tuned to a country music station.
Regards,
John
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2004-02-01 19:34
Quote:
My primary reason to cry about any music is when I get into my car and discover my wife has left the radio tuned to a country music station. THanks John. Now I'm crying FOR you!
But seriously, I am one of those people who have a hard time showing and letting out emotion (due to upbringing) and haven't yet had music stir me up enough to do so, however I have heard music that can stir me up enough to feel strong emotions (although I still can't seem to show them).
I'm thinking that it could be the piece alone stirring them up. And as you hear it more and more the effect will deaden since you're more used to it than the first time you heard it and it overwhelmed you. I also think that part of it could be what you're feeling subconsciounsly. For instance, if you've had a couple hard experiences lately, while you may think you're over them, perhaps they're lingering in your subconscious mind and these pieces of music seem to (pardon the pun) strike a chord with them. Of course that's not a proven theory, just another possible reason that I'm presenting.
Also don't forget that you obviously have a strong connection with music. Many people can watch a movie and be strongly moved, others can look at a painting and feel guilt and despair, others can relate to cars, or even architecture. You have a connection with music and so while maybe you just feel a more powerful impact from a certain work of music while someone else would feel a stronger impact from the sun gleaming through the stained glass windows of a church.
I guess Webern and Berg just have a style in their music that seems to connect more to your mind than anything else.
Retired, playing more sax than clarinet, but still playing clarinet and still loving it!
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Author: David Peacham
Date: 2004-02-01 21:54
I think it was Noel Coward who commented how "cheap music" could have a strong emotional effect.
Whoever said it, was right. I don't own a recording of "Don't cry for me, Argentina", and I wouldn't regard it as an outstanding piece of music. But it still makes me cry - and not, I think, because of the words.
I don't know much of Berg's music, and what I do know doesn't make me cry. But I can't see the dedication of his violin concerto, Dem Andenken eines Engels, without going a bit misty-eyed.
I don't think there's any rhyme or reason to it. Some things just connect with us for reasons we can't, or maybe won't, explain.
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If there are so many people on this board unwilling or unable to have a civil and balanced discussion about important issues, then I shan't bother to post here any more.
To the great relief of many of you, no doubt.
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Author: thomas.b
Date: 2004-02-01 22:48
I am very rational and analytical person. But when I hear some symphonies of Beethoven, Bruckner and Mahler, my reactions are very emotional.
Last year I heared (for the first time) the 10 th symphonie of Shostakovitch. The first movement really made me cry. ( and does it every time if I here a recording of it)...
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Author: Bob A
Date: 2004-02-01 23:21
Most everything I play makes me cry, thinkin of what I was versus what I am now as a clarinetist.
Bob A
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2004-02-02 00:23
Wjk,
Does it count if every time I play my dog cries? I think it's because my playing really moves her![[wink]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smilie3.gif) .
Alexi
Retired, playing more sax than clarinet, but still playing clarinet and still loving it!
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2004-02-02 00:59
Great comments! Back to emotion, I often tear-up when I hear "Dont Cry for me Argentina" and "Love's Death" [Liebestod] from Tristan & Isolde, having seen/heard both tragic stories/operas. Other tunes bring up other memories. Don
Thanx, Mark, Don
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Author: clarinetmajr
Date: 2004-02-02 03:04
Awww... this thread is so sweet! I remember when I went to Spain in highschool for three weeks. I lived with a spanish family outside of Seville, and they were the nicest people. I was a little homesick and one night I was just in my room writing a letter when I heard music! They knew I liked classical and the mother went out and bought a cd. The first track the played was the Mozart Adagio from the Concerto. It was so unexpected and so beautiful that at first I couldn't even remember what it was. I went from teary to just sobbing and the stupid letter was soaked by the end. ( :
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Author: ned
Date: 2004-02-02 10:52
Whilst I'm not exactly reduced to tears by my favourite piece (I'm not the tearful type you know) it is very moving.
Has anyone ever listened to a piece by Jelly Roll Morton entitled "Deep Creek Blues" recorded in New York in December 1928?
A great recording which I have been listening to regularly for over 35 years , I never tire of it and have just played it four times now whilst typing this note.
All of the solos are great and in particular, Russel Procopes's allotted 12 bars of soulful genius clarinet still makes the hair stand on end. Jelly's understated chorus is wonderful and his last chord at the very end of the piece is the perfect "full stop".
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Author: msloss
Date: 2004-02-02 12:33
(!)
Is this a goof? Which pieces by Berg and Webern are you talking about? I don't think I ever found myself deeply moved by dodecaphonic progressions and tetrachords. Their mature works were very spare and intellectual and could be argued completely rejected the overwrought emotionalism of late Romantic work.
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Author: jo.clarinet
Date: 2004-02-02 12:46
I find that the traditional Christmas carols - when they are well sung, and especially by childrens' choirs - bring a tear to the eye. In a flash I'm transported back via choral society Christmas services, those at my childrens' senior school, their junior school, my own senior and junior schools to my childhood Christmases and all the nostalgia that brings.
The absolute guaranteed tear-jerker for me is the solo treble first verse of 'Once in Royal David's City' (I don't know whether the melody for this carol in America, Australia etc is the same as in England).
Joanna Brown
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2004-02-02 14:16
I know the feeling -- I'm very moved by some of Berg's music, for example the Wozzeck opera score, and his Violin Concerto --- I love modern harmonies written in traditional large-orchestra romantic form, which is basically what I think Berg's orchestral music is --- I get similarly emotional over some of Mahler's music, Shostakovich's symphonies, Joseph Suk's, Carl Nielsen's symphonies ---- sometimes music like this transports me to another world, or evokes tragedy --- I can't explain it, but I feel it.
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Author: David Peacham
Date: 2004-02-02 18:13
msloss -
I am no expert on Berg. But I am very familiar with the Violin Concerto. It may not make me cry, but it is very far from my idea of "spare and intellectual". I'm not sure what you mean by a mature work, but he wrote it at the end of his life.
---
BTW, when I referred to "Don't cry for me, Argentina", I do hope nobody wondered whether I was confusing WEBERN with Andrew Lloyd WEBBER. What a horrible thought!
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If there are so many people on this board unwilling or unable to have a civil and balanced discussion about important issues, then I shan't bother to post here any more.
To the great relief of many of you, no doubt.
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Author: wjk
Date: 2004-02-02 23:06
This was a somewhat personal post; certainly not a joke. I'd like to think I'd have better things to do with my time than post an "in jest" post. Perhaps it would be useful to take a closer listen to Webern. My humble two cents is that certain of his pieces are intensely emotional, and indeed reduced me to tears. I doubt that Webern intended his life's work to be taken as a joke. In music, as in life, it is sometimes useful to open one's mind and take a fresh listen.
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2004-02-03 02:03
Written by msloss . . .Quote:
I don't think I ever found myself deeply moved by dodecaphonic progressions and tetrachords. Their mature works were very spare and intellectual and could be argued completely rejected the overwrought emotionalism of late Romantic work. Like I said in my post, different strokes for different folks. For myself, I haven't met a piece of music that moves my soul so violently that my emotions burst forth on the surface. And perhaps that's why right now I'm keeping music as a parttime enjoyment rather than pursuing it as a profession. I don't think I'm connected enough to it to be able to enjoy it 12 hours a day. And for you, Webern and Berg don't do it. However you show me certain things in life and I'll bawl like a baby. And I'm sure you have your sentimental objects that perhaps one or two of us might think a little "wierd" too!
Alexi
Retired, playing more sax than clarinet, but still playing clarinet and still loving it!
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Author: beejay
Date: 2004-02-03 12:39
Puccini does it for me -- every time. The clarinet solo in the last act of Tosca always has me in floods of tears. So does Madame Butterfly.
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Author: msloss
Date: 2004-02-03 13:26
In a million years I would not find one thing funny about Webern's work, or Berg's for that matter. WJK, you ASKED if you were moved because of the intense emotionalism of those works (which by the way you still haven't identified) or something else. Seemed more likely it was something else. If you weren't really asking for people to opine and didn't believe there was an alternative explanation, then phrase it as a statement -- "I am moved to tears by Berg and Webern. I find their work intensely emotional. Discuss."
As Alexi said, different strokes for different folks. I myself do not find that much emotion embedded in these highly intellectual works which employ systematic construction systems. They are certainly works of genius, but from a movement that sought to strip away a lot of florid romanticism and identify the essence of musical structure. Hey, you might get weepy at linear algebra too. Each person responds to stimuli in different ways.
And no, I don't have any sentimental objects. I am a robot, and this is a recording. Beep.
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2004-02-03 16:42
It seems to me that much of the "sorrow" associated-with /precipitated-by various pieces of music are related to tragic events. The several well known "Requia" , the Funeral March from the Eroica [Kennedy], Adagio for Strings [9 11], etc, and personal events/funerals etc, partic. if we had played them on such an occasion. Just thots, Don
Thanx, Mark, Don
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2004-02-03 18:53
Don,
I agree. I was going to mention up above that whenever I hear a chorus of taps it gets me going, but not the music itself, but for what the music represents. However I thought that wouldn't be fair since the original poster seems to just be moved by the music, and not by what they associate that music to in their head.
Alexi
Retired, playing more sax than clarinet, but still playing clarinet and still loving it!
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