Adagio for Strings - Samuel Barber

[atiil]

I've always loved this piece of music together with Adagio in G Minor featured in Galipoli, and now when I listen to these I wonder, can there ever have been a composition that so captures the tragedy that is mankind. I now use this piece of music to untrap emotions that have build up during the day, and find it so hard not to cry if I'm doing my pipe breathing with it playing in the background. Try reading the latest SOTT Editors connecting the Dots - 7th Sept with this in the background, it makes me break down and weep at such a tragic situation created by ourselves. I think one of the most amazing things about Adagio is that to me it is a 'dualist' composition, it captures the beauty of the human race with it's soaring melodies and yet immediately takes it away cutting down our hopes and dreams into the unremitting sadness we have created. It's almost a piece of music that makes up face up to our objective reality, a reality we must individually and collectively face if we are to survive the next days/months/years. This is why for me the breathing / meditation is now such an important part of my life, it cleanses, rebuilds, renews hope I thought I'd lost, it challenges for the first time the predator within, it faces him head one and says I will fight back that we are all not beings of destruction and depravity, and if it's not my turn to move between densities when all is said and done, the very least I've done is set a foundation for the next time around. If there is one gift left is this not it? Is it not the very least we owe ourselves?

Does anyone else have a piece of music that invokes such emotion while literally describing our current situation?

 

[dant]

There are MANY composers from A-Z that illicit a lot of
emotional responses from within me, and just too
numerous to list!

My preference has always been the Classical and my
mood depends on which composer and piece I choose
to listen to, and for that moment. I almost always as a
general rule, choose soft, clear, flowing, easy listening music.

Please note, that I have been nearly deaf for most of
my life but as of the last 4 years (?) I obtained a cochlear
implant and reclaimed some of my hearing in the range
of 250-2.5KHz which is a LOT better than 100-1KHz
but of course there is nothing like "normal" hearing, whatever
that means, as it takes one to experience what they have
never experienced before, to know the difference! ;)

Anyway, here is a new piece that I have encountered,
that I have never heard before that you might like:

Liszt: Premiere Annee de Pelerinage - Suisse-Trois Morceaus Suisses v39 (Howard)

The above piece invokes in me, calmness, serenity, simplicity, and the beauty of
the composition by Liszt, a Hungarian.

FYI: Background info on Liszt:
_http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Fields/8616/composerfiles/liszt.html

Don't get me wrong, I am not an exclusive fan of Liszt, but a fan of
many genres, Classical being my favourite, and I am very selective of
certain pieces from many different instrumentals.

Imagine what it is like, being deprived of something for so long, and then
for a brief moment - is now within your grasp, a taste of things to come?
So it is, with my hearing, and it is almost insatiable, little that I have, but is
a blessing, instead of a curse.

 

[Johnno]

There was a conference some of us once had and we went for a tour of Auch Cathedral in the south of France. There was a small ensemble and a choir practising Mozart's "Requiem", I'm pretty sure it belted us all in the solar plexus. Gurdjieff described cathedrals being like amplifiers of objective music, which had the same effect on all and this came pretty darn close.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swkT07TP-mo

Adagio for strings may have worked just as well, it's a wonderful piece of composing.

 

[dant]

Oh yes, of course, Mozart! Brilliant.
I loved Requiem, very moving!

I also watched the movie: 'Amadeus', fiction
perhaps but the music, oh wow. Bit of many
things liked: The Magic Flute, an Opera (but not
Mozart's?) with the "birds" - humorous and funny,
and many other things. I loved the music/operas,
but the plot - the battle between darkness and light,
wow - the psychopath(?): Salieri.

Here is the wiki:
_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amadeus_%28film%29


The Orchestra of: "Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields"
is awesome as well and here's the Wiki:
_http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_of_St._Martin_in_the_Fields

 

[atiil]

There was a conference some of us once had and we went for a tour of Auch Cathedral in the south of France. There was a small ensemble and a choir practising Mozart's "Requiem", I'm pretty sure it belted us all in the solar plexus. Gurdjieff described cathedrals being like amplifiers of objective music, which had the same effect on all and this came pretty darn close.

I've just listened to Mozart's "Requiem" - what an amazing piece of music, I can imagine the effect it must have had on you in a setting that was an amplifier of objective music. I'm very very late to the classical music scene, it's so disturbing that most of our children are isolated from objective music. The true power and understanding of sound is indeed a wondrous thing, I would hazard a guess that there's been a concerted effort over many many centuries to make sure the human race never got to understand it's true power.

 

[anothermagyar]

[quote author=Session 22 October 2008]A: Also, what's with the depressing and mind warping music?!

Q: (A******) My music isn't depressing!

A: You should sing more. Clear melodies can change the vibration of your physical structure.

Q: (A****) That's why I sing in the bathroom.

A: Art and music are your gifts. Do not waste them.

Q: (A****) So that's why I sing because I know subconsciously...

A: You should study voice. It could be your ticket to dreamland.
[/quote]

This topic is reminding me of this, I was wondering a while about singing as a physical way to create resonance and sound wave as a "channel" for higher resonances?
Many times when I'm listening beautiful music, more likely classical, I feel I'm flying through a forest I see green trees and gorgeous landscape meanwhile I'm free!
Happened to me in a concert, Mozart Symphony was played. Unfortunate I forgot which one.
I'm an opera singer and if I'm not singing in a regular basis I get depressed. I tried not to "identify" myself:" I am a singer".
But in this lifetime I try to give pleasure to the audience with my voice and I learned to express emotions through my voice.
That is partly matter of technical knowledge, besides the musical talent. Capability to sing through a hundred member of orchestra, but also sing soft using your own body as an instrument.