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The Romantic Manifesto and Music Preferences

Posted by $ SarahMontalbano 7 years, 11 months ago to Philosophy
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I was given The Romantic Manifesto for my birthday, and I was reading the essay "Art and Cognition." As a musician, the section on the nature of music was especially fascinating to me.

"Music is experienced as if it had the power to reach man's emotions directly (41)."

"Music communicates emotions, which one grasps, but does not actually feel; what one feels is a suggestion, a kind of distant, disassociated, depersonalized emotion- until and unless it unites with one's own sense of life (42)."

One of the ideas I was intrigued by most was her statement here:
"Until a conceptual vocabulary is discovered and defined, no objectively valid criterion of esthetic judgement is possible in the field of music (46, italics original)."

This leads me to a question and informal survey for all of you: what is your favorite piece of music (or musician), and what emotions do they inspire in you? How does this unite with your sense of life?

My favorite piece of classical music that I play routinely as a violinist is Bach's E-Major Concerto. It is triumphant, disciplined, and although it goes through some minor sections, it always returns to its wonderful, glorious theme. It makes me feel so alive.

I am expecting a wide range of answers here, since there is no "objective" criterion. (Feel free to discuss this, too - is there, isn't there, how would we define objective criterion, etc.)


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  • Posted by Herb7734 7 years, 11 months ago
    As a former musician, I have my own thoughts about music that while not contrary to Rand's, is not precisely the same. To me, the most cogent phrase is "unless it unites with one's own sense of life." When that happens, music doesn't give you the feeling of an emotion, but imbues within you, the emotion itself. As to favorites, that is a tough one because there are so many works that I could mention. The Bach E Major being one along with an entire glut of Bach's works. However, if I had to choose one classical piece it would be Beethoven's 3rd symphony. For me, it runs through every emotion capable to express, from deep sadness, to playfulness, to joy.

    Another thing that interests me is how a composer who well may be a person that you would never want to associate with, can often write such moving music that it transfixes you. But then, that may well be the case in most art.

    Then, there is the music of today. I consider much of it to be anti-music. Rap, for example is considered to be music and writing a few lines of poesy makes you a song writer. As close as it comes to music is when in some cases, you might call it a rhythmic chant. We've fallen far from Gershwin, Kerr, and Porter.
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  • Posted by straightlinelogic 7 years, 11 months ago
    Rachmaninoff's 3rd Piano Concerto,
    Edvard Grieg's First Piano Concerto
    Beethoven's Fifth and Ninth Symphonies
    Beethoven's Appasionatta Sonata (23)
    Beethoven's Fifth Piano Concerto
    Borodin, Polovtsian Dances, In The Steppes of Central Asia,
    Rimsky_Korsakov, Scheherazade
    Scubert, Piano Trio # 2 in E Flat, 8th (Unfinished) Symphony
    Dvorak Symphony for the New World
    Strauss, Overture to the operatta "Die Fledermaus"
    Prokoviev, Romeo and Juliet, Dance of the Knights
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  • Posted by Zenphamy 7 years, 11 months ago
    There are performances of various music that convey the passion of the artist and composer that instills (not strong enough description) an actual physically felt thrill, but I find those occasional performances in all genres. Objectively, there is a connectedness and appreciation combined with a respect for the esthetic art and the hours of work involved to accomplish. But it's primarily subjective to the individual.
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  • Posted by cksawyer 7 years, 11 months ago
    Not classical: several of the full-album-side pieces by Yes, especially from the double-album concept album, "Relayer" in which every side is one of those. Why? The music is powerful, diverse, complex, melodic, full-range epic triumphant-to-tragic, intricately composed, orchestal sound produced by 5 musicians, and seamless fusion of the best aspects of many genre - classical, jazz, rock, folk, etc, and added vocals.

    Classical:
    Rachmaninov 2nd Piano Concerto
    Dvorak New World Symphony
    Why? Both pieces speak for themselves in this audience
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    • Posted by ohiocrossroads 7 years, 11 months ago
      I hate to nitpick, but the double concept-album by Yes that you are thinking about is Tales From Topographic Oceans. Relayer was a single album, but it did have the side-long concept piece "The Gates of Delirium". I think the single best piece from Yes is "Close to the Edge", and their best album Fragile. The opening four notes to "Yours is No Disgrace" is simple, elegant, instantly recognizable, and portends much clarity in the music to come.
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      • Posted by cksawyer 7 years, 11 months ago
        Please nit-pik away. I am always happy to have my knowledge corrected. I have been listening to all that music on ipod for so long now, I had forgotten... I am thinking of Gates of Delerium, also Awaken on Going for the One (right?) was a wonderful surprise for there later work.
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  • Posted by rtpetrick 7 years, 11 months ago
    I'm surprised that nobody mention the genius of Wolfgang Mozart. HIs music defines the Classical Period.
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    • Posted by $ 7 years, 11 months ago
      I enjoy Mozart but as a musician I dread some of the more difficult passages. The nature of Mozart's works (especially the two concertos #5 in A and the #4 in D I'm working on currently) leaves no room for error; every note has to be exactly perfect. From an Objectivist standpoint, it's fantastic, but as a musician it can be torture to work on the same two bars for a week. :)
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    • Posted by lone_objectivist 7 years, 11 months ago
      Good point. Except for the last movement of Symphony no. 40, and the Fantasy in F Minor for organ, I personally find his music pleasant but not emotionally compelling. Some scenes from Don Giovanni are incredible, though...
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  • Posted by $ johnrobert2 7 years, 11 months ago
    Let's see:
    Beethoven 3, 6, 9; most of his overtures
    Hallelujah Chorus from "Messiah"
    1812 Overture
    Theme from "Starman", esp end music
    Much of Herb Ernst
    piano boogie woogie in the vein of Jerry Lee Lewis
    Glenn Miller big band sound
    Frank Sinatra et al
    I guess you could say I'm eclectic.
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  • Posted by $ allosaur 7 years, 11 months ago
    I'm no classical connoisseur but half Swedish old dino loves The Hall of the Mountain King by Grieg. The ending makes me want thrash around in a way only an allosaur can.
    Runners up are the Ride of the Valkyries and the Main Theme of Swan Lake. The music stirs my emotions.
    Just to bring it, two of the best soundtracks I've ever heard are Blade Runner and the original Conan the Barbarian of the early 80s.
    Now I'm thinking of other worthy contenders. Same goes for other classical pieces I'm beginning to recall from way on back. Yike! I could be here all day.
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  • Posted by conscious1978 7 years, 11 months ago
    Rachmaninoff's Symphony No. 1—purposeful, playful and heroic. I enjoy his other works, too.

    Also, almost anything by Hans Zimmer.

    These are my top favorite composers.
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  • Posted by $ puzzlelady 7 years, 11 months ago
    Thank you, Sarah, for introducing this wonderful topic. I'm a bit late as usual, but here are some of my favorites, a strange mix. My Hungarian father was a classical concert pianist, so my childhood was filled with hearing all that great music. Later I came across other genres but have a woeful void in pop, rock, and other contemporary styles whose names I don't even know. So here goes my eclectic range:
    Anything by Franz Liszt, especially his 2nd Hungarian Rhapsody. This may be the best version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FT36z...
    Anything by Rachmaninoff, especially his 3rd Piano Concerto (my father knew him personally)
    Anything by Beethoven, Chopin, Tchaikovsky
    Harlem Nocturne
    Puttin' on the Ritz (Taco Okerse version)
    Latin American dance music, esp. Tango
    Hans Zimmer and John Williams film themes
    Anything by Tim Minchin, Australian comedian/satirist/virtuoso pianist/songwriter/poet/atheist. See, for example, "Thank you, God", https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZeWP...

    * My latest discovery and instant addiction, the Meistersinger Patric Hale that no one here may ever have heard of. He has a classically trained voice and sang in Europe for 27 years, 12 genres in 7 languages, including tenor and baritone arias. His work is not on YouTube but you can hear samples of his legendary genius here:
    http://www.gamepuzzles.com/O18NessunD... -- "Nessun Dorma"
    http://www.gamepuzzles.com/EP01BlueSu... -- "Blue Suede Shoes" (Tribute to Elvis)
    http://www.gamepuzzles.com/BJ14WeDidn... -- "We Didn't Start the Fire"
    http://www.gamepuzzles.com/BW15Garden... -- "Garden at Gethsemane" from Jesus Christ Superstar
    and see his catalog of 400 tracks of songs here: http://www.gamepuzzles.com/caranza.pdf
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  • Posted by $ CBJ 7 years, 11 months ago
    One of my favorite recent songs is "Let It Go" from Disney's Frozen. From tragedy to triumph in less than four minutes:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moSFl...
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    • Posted by $ 7 years, 11 months ago
      I hated the movie with a passion, but I would have to agree with your song choice.
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      • Posted by $ CBJ 7 years, 11 months ago
        For many viewers this song seems to be the main takeaway from the movie. Its official YouTube videos (with lyrics and without) have been seen over 1.2 billion times, or 7x the number of any of the film’s other songs. Hopefully it will encourage many of today’s and tomorrrow’s adults to become less concerned about the opinions of others, and more confident of their own values and their own worth.
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  • Posted by johnpe1 7 years, 11 months ago
    Sarah, as someone -- like you -- afflicted with perfect
    pitch, music has always been spookily important to me.
    the "right stuff" can grab you in ways which defy the
    ordinary analysis of a rational mind. . try this one:::

    http://my.mail.ru/mail/tatyana4710/vi...

    as an amateur piano tuner, the Steinway (we had a
    Cable baby grand) has always been the most majestic
    pre-tuned instrument short of the pipe organ ... for me.
    then came Keith Emerson and Rick Wakeman and
    the synthesizer. . but the essence is the arrangement
    of notes -- pitch, rhythm, syncopation. . and the spectrum
    of composers, performers, arrangers goes from Rachmaninoff
    to the Raspberries, from Saint-Saëns to Mancini.

    try this one:::

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgQJV...

    when I heard, as a kid, that Rand liked that Saint-Saëns
    concerto, I searched for it. . I found a rendition which
    was not well-produced;;; somehow, the orchestra
    was a tiny bit flat (no kidding) in comparison with the
    piano. . but the pianist was first-rate (Grigory Sokolov)
    and it gave me a sense of her appreciation of the
    idea of Richard Halley. . pensive, precise, triumphant,
    grounded in a minor-key foundation (G minor) -- very fine!

    I just wish that we had recordings of Paganini. . reputed
    to have played like "a man possessed" ... at least,
    we have his compositions. . try this:::

    http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=p...

    the emotions, the sense of life, the exaltation of
    excellence -- they are all there in music. . it's yours;
    it's here; it's now and it's exactly unique ... your "yes"
    is all that it takes! -- john
    .
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  • Posted by Steven-Wells 7 years, 11 months ago
    This question brought to my mind Bach’s Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor, BWV 582 as recorded on the Telarc CD, The Great Organ at Methuen (or the later reissue that includes a couple extra tracks, Telarc CD 80637.) My home system has the JL Audio subwoofers to support the CD at high volume. Toward the end of the Passacaglia, the piece quiets to little birdie tweets, then suddenly builds until Bach, the organ, my listening chair, and my whole living room have a thunderous orgasm.
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  • Posted by coaldigger 7 years, 11 months ago
    When it comes to music, like most subjects, when I examine my knowledge base, I am appalled by my ignorance and the means by which I arrived at this state. As a child I was forced to take piano lessons twice a week for over 5 years. A consequence of my rebellion against this was to avow a hatred for classical music and to develop a taste for Howling Wolf, Bobby Bluejohn, Ray Charles and Chuck Berry. As I mellowed in middle age I followed my appreciation for the mind and capacity of artists to create music and along with an affection for beautiful and talented women, developed a taste for opera. I am amazed at the ability of a soprano like Angela Gheorghiu, Renee Fleming or Maria Callas to make sounds with their voices that I had never imagined. I would have to say Costa Diva is my favorite aria but there are many that I could sit and listen to for hours.
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    • Posted by Lucky 7 years, 11 months ago
      When Maria Callas performs Casta Diva, it tears out your heart.
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      • Posted by coaldigger 7 years, 11 months ago
        I agree. I did not know anything about her when she was performing on the world stage and "discovered " her on CD's and YouTube. I had dismissed her because I didn't know anything about opera and because she was from America ( I didn't know she was Greek). When I first heard her I realized that she was not just great but special. Like I said above my ignorance knows no bounds outside of things that I dealt with day to day in business. Retirement and the internet is leading me to a broader education.
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  • Posted by ycandrea 7 years, 11 months ago
    There are way too many to name just one, but here are a few of my all time favs: Johann Pachelbel's Canon, Enya's Shepherd Moons, James Horner's Theme from Titanic. These songs invoke in me my grounded belief in man's mind and spirit and my ability to rise above any trials and be the best I can be. I also Love Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen.
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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 7 years, 11 months ago
    Classical Classical
    Baroque Classical
    but Sibelius Finlandia is still in the top ten.

    Good Jazz, Blues, Folkloric and a plethora of world music Flamenco and Fado come to mind rapidly.

    Some country and I have a complete collection of rock'n'roll long with R&B. But that's pretty much died out since MTV killed music.

    And I'm now learning to love a lot of Latino music.

    There is a lot more but for me it's generational so I pick and choose the best

    All of Bob Dylan and no rap. If it needs the F world to survive it's garbage

    and finally we get to X+Y=Zero Millennial whatever loser crooners which I call Clone Music. Heard one song you heard them all.

    I'd rather listen to Sesame Street or Lawrence Welk than Clone Music.
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  • Posted by Lucky 7 years, 11 months ago
    The works of JS Bach achieve beauty by following rules for composition. Each sequence links to the previous and the next inside a structure. Each note relates to any simultaneous note by rules of polyphony.
    I'd say that admiration of Bach is truly Objective by using recall and intellect to place phrases in a designed structure in contrast to music derived only from experience that appeals to sensual stroking or stimulation.
    Another contrast is with improvisation. Now I am a fan of the Modern Jazz Quartet, yes going back a few years! but much of their work had a plan. Bach relates more to architecture than to the Romantic school (Wagner...) that came after him.

    Now this may contradict that quote 'no objectively valid...'. But consider that there may be good evidence for such existence even tho' an objectively valid criterion has not yet been proven/accepted.
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    • Posted by $ 7 years, 11 months ago
      I took a jazz workshop a few years back and I loved it because there was, in fact, patterns I hadn't noticed before.
      Rand goes on to elaborate later her hypothesis of music and how one would go about defining an objectively valid criterion for music appreciation. She meant that there wasn't one yet, and I apologize if I was unclear in that regard.
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      • Posted by ewv 7 years, 11 months ago
        SarahMontalbano: "I took a jazz workshop a few years back and I loved it because there was, in fact, patterns I hadn't noticed before."

        There are patterns in all kinds of music, many more subtle than casual listeners are aware of. But finding patterns in music doesn't establish objective criteria for music appreciation, especially for the kind of sense of life Ayn Rand referred to. There is much more to jazz in particular and the kinds of emotions it evokes than patterns of notes with mechanical rhythms (though it can sound like that the way some play it).

        For the evolution of the sounds of jazz in its various aspects from its beginning in late 19th century America watch the Ken Burns documentary Jazz (which is far better than most of his work, which is increasingly politically propagandistic).

        The greatest of the pioneers was Louis Armstrong. Most people don't know much about the nature of jazz or its history, or about Louie in particular, who invented and established at the age of 30 the standard for the jazz solo for a century with his majestic West End Blues in 1928 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W232O... This is where it started. It was his "romantic manifesto". No one had done anything like it before -- and no one has since been able to duplicate what he played in that recording in terms of phrasing, rhythm and tonality projecting his sense of life. It isn't just patterns.

        To hear how much Louie added, compare that version of West End Blues with the original composed and recorded by his friend and colleague Joe "King" Oliver a few months before https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOVdw...

        Armstrong grew up in poverty on the streets of New Orleans, learned to play the cornet in a waif's home, and became through his own inventiveness, dedication and effort an international star making a music that had previously been undreamed of. Many who have heard of him know him mostly for his unfortunate showmanship 'mugging' later in his career, and not for his pioneering accomplishments in the 1920s and 30s. His career is a part of American history not to be missed, especially if you wan to understand the roots of American jazz.

        When he recorded West End Blues in 1928 electric recording was only a few years old and lacked the fidelity attained even in the next few years, let alone today, but his sound still shines through. A few years before, those players had been recording into big acoustic horns to transfer the sound pressure waves directly onto a record master with an even muddier sound than the earliest electrics -- with Louie in the back of the room to not overwhelm the balance. Not many years before that it was done with wax cylinders.

        This is the 1929 Armstrong recording of St. Louis Blues, supposedly the most recorded blues of all time, but not like this, even by W.C. Handy himself. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6j_Az... "Playing the blues" didn't mean "feeling blue".

        Here is an early video capturing both the sound and visual effect of Armstrong's drive in his playing and singing Dinah in Copenhagen in 1933 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhVdL... Watch at the end the way the audience is dressed, as if to emphasize how far back this goes in history.

        All of this is a part of American history not to be missed. The jazz and swing of the early 20th century which swept Europe and beyond in another American "shot heard 'round the world" displayed a sense of life that you don't often find in today's music (let alone in its bottom of the rap pit). There is still a lot of talent, and often more instrumental "technique" and theoretical musical knowledge, but not serving the same purpose.
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    • Posted by ewv 7 years, 11 months ago
      Having a "plan" and "recall and intellect" do not make music Objectivist. They have nothing to do with the sense of life Ayn Rand referred to in The Romantic Manifesto.
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  • Posted by Owlsrayne 7 years, 11 months ago
    Here is a short list of mine:
    Fanfare for the Common Man - Aaron Copeland
    Ride of the Vallkyries-Wagner
    Ritual Fire Dance - DeFalla
    Slaughter on 10 Ave.- Richard Rogers
    Movies:
    Titanic
    Gladiator
    TV:
    Twin Peaks
    Rock:
    Beck's Bolero - Jeff Beck

    All these are emotionally charged for me. Beck's Bolero I can play over and over again.
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