Begriffs

Some good songs

2014-04-14

I’ll list only those songs I really like but add a (★) to the those that have especially stuck with me.

Find a cozy chair, turn up the volume and let’s begin.

Aaron Copland

A man of musical contradictions. He has distinct styles, from forbidding angular melodies, to gentle populist songs (for instance commercial background music for a puppet show). He’s all-American, like a musical Frank Lloyd Wright.

Virgil Thomson

His compositions have an interesting disinterestedness. It’s as if he indicates his musical exhibits with a pointer, murmuring, “now observe this melody.” Spend some time with his music and enjoy its curious aloofness.

Erik Satie

Satie lived by his own secret rules. He created an elaborate religion, posted space for let ads in the paper for imaginary castles, developed refined gothic penmanship, wore identical velvet suits every day. He was “born very young in a very old world.” If you get the chance look at his musical scores because they have hidden messages for the performer. I find his first works best and most authentic. Later his music got more compromised to pay the bills. You can listen to his cabaret songs to appreciate how he suffered in life, being often broke and at once point evicted from his cramped Montmartre studio and forced to move to Arcueil.

Imagine him on his long walks (he walked everywhere) under lamplight watching the world and judging it by his internal rules. The works are often built in threes, and are designed to view the same musical material from three angles. Many of the song titles are absurd. Satie took refuge in irony and did not like to reveal his real emotions.

The music does reveal them, however, in a precise, odd, inspired, absolutely unique voice. His compositions might seem infantile to virtuosic performers and people with conventional minds, and Satie even took pains later in life to learn traditional composition at the Schola Cantorum. It simply didn’t suit him. He played what he played and wrote what he wrote, and thankfully kept true to himself.

Federico Mompou

Listening to Mompou is like discovering a secret attic you never thought existed. It’s full of mysterious shapes covered in fabric and dusty pictures in tasteful frames. The attic stairs behind you seem to stretch far away now, down into that impossible world of modern times. Or have you been up here all along and have yet to explore the world outside?

Claude Debussy

Debussy, the impressionist’s impressionist, master of lush webs of sound and of subtle orchestration. His music loses itself in a scintillating haze of colors and associations. It ushered in a freedom of composition and nuance lacking in the Germanic romanticism preceding it. As Satie remarked, “I explained to Debussy that a Frenchman had to free himself from the Wagnerian adventure, which wasn’t the answer to our national aspirations. I also pointed out that I was in no way anti-Wagnerian, but that we should have a music of our own – if possible, without any Sauerkraut.”

Here’s a funny video that explains more about this musical transition.

Toru Takemitsu

Takemitsu started out writing film scores and making experimental electronic music. As he became better known he combined traditional eastern sounds and melodies with the western avant garde. The result is rich orchestral haiku. He ranges from jazzy pop tunes to eerie alien soundscapes with plenty of good stuff in between.

Bohuslav Martinů

Martinů is the shephard tone of composers. Listening to his stuff feels like climbing a mountain, it gets increasingly hectic and then makes a sudden “switch” to expose a broad vista at the top. Then it starts climbing again and you realize you haven’t reached the real peak.

That said, he does use a certain musical gesture compulsively. I’m fond of it but once you listen to a few songs you’ll know what I mean. Enough talking, get ready to be dazzled by an inventive and overlooked composer.

Francis Poulenc

Aptly described as “half monk, half rascal,” Poulenc wrote music that is genial, suave, and funny. He kept his style melodic and accessible at a time when music was being vigorously “advanced.” While some people of the era thought it frivolous, you and I can smile and enjoy a good song when we hear it.

Igor Stravinsky

I first heard his Rite of Spring and was eager to hear the rest of his works. I imagined more wild and savage ear battles, but I was surprised to learn that the Rite is unique. His other songs form a neat little garden of neoclassical topiary, often with saucy instrumental combinations and some fiery piano arrangements thrown in for good measure.

Emmanuel Chabrier

Much of his early piano music is jaunty, almost ragtime sounding. He surpassed that old-timey style however and created some original and beautiful works. They have a repetitive lilt, like turning a page in a book and finding something brilliant on the other side.

Alfredo Casella

Casella sought to move Italian music beyond its operatic rut and onto the international scene. He studied in Paris and wrote brisk neoclassical music that often sounds to me like it’s encircling or twining around a theme.

To be continued…

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Written by Joe "begriffs" Nelson