If you're using a spreadsheet to calculate these scores, you might want to check a formula or something, because this number is wrong.
Don't underestimate how impressive I consider the 7.3-7.7's, which should be included in a "Greatest" list (as they are for my Rock, Jazz, Film, Paintings lists), and will eventually be here too... It's new placement really just further illustrates how amazing the 7.8+ entries are -- not a matter of Moonlight "becoming worse". This is common phenomena as I polish up a "Greatest" list from its earlier-to-intermediate stages of development ... realizing certain 8s are actually 7.5, etc... theyre all so amazing that it can be challenging to distinguish their incremental differences so precisely ... Just giving them all "10" would be much simpler (and the normal course of action for many). Also so many people give pretty much everything but Nickelback and Milli Vanilli "7.5 at least" which can make such a rating lose its lustre ("The band/artist played songs with verses and choruses so it's a 7.5" ) _________________ Best Classical Best Films Best Paintings
Even on the albums we disagree on (like, say, Mingus) there is an element of taste to it. (Mine being good, of course. ) I 100% respect that; if we all enjoyed the exact same things nothing would ever improve.
But your rankings are trying to get at a deeper sense of music, like you say more than just "band played; has catchy chorus: 7.5." Beethoven's sonata No. 14 is immediately evocative, and has significant cultural impact. _________________ Some New Ordeal (Spotify/iTunes/Deezer)
Even on the albums we disagree on (like, say, Mingus) there is an element of taste to it. (Mine being good, of course. ) I 100% respect that; if we all enjoyed the exact same things nothing would ever improve.
But your rankings are trying to get at a deeper sense of music, like you say more than just "band played; has catchy chorus: 7.5."
For sure, thank you
Re: "Beethoven's sonata No. 14 is immediately evocative, and has significant cultural impact." Yes, I agree (all the 7.5s are ... though I don't really consider "cultural impact" important as a stand alone factor, as this can be too reliant upon "culture" to catch up to the art when the expression from the artist was there from the beginning of its creation, and should be observed and assimilated as such) ... All 7.5s tend to be very evocative, emotional, in very thorough alignment to my criteria. All the ratings mean (in very simple terms) is that works rated higher are even more so, more powerfully, profoundly, creatively, more expressed conviction and so forth... If one compares Moonlight to the higher rated solo piano works (probably easiest to do with Beethoven's own) the difference in these factors should become evident (provided one has assimilated them well enough). For instance, it should prove true that his Appassionata is (roughly) almost 2 times as impactful/profound when comparing the expressiveness and experience of the two overall to each other. _________________ Best Classical Best Films Best Paintings
I've been immersing myself in the world of Bach. His music is frequently on my radar anyway and any foray into Classical tends to include revisits of works of his. However, at least once per year for a week or so, I can't help myself but dive in extra insatiably and attempt to assimilate the endless emotional and spiritual depth of Bach's unbelievable genius. His supreme compositional mastery, astonishing harmonic and melodic brilliance, creativity and integrity is of such a miraculous order that it always surpasses understanding even while wholly welcoming it. For the next week or two, maybe even forever, I will probably feel Bach is the greatest composer and artist whoever lived. It is a conclusion I've drawn at least once per year since 1996, but more seriously and with a more considered and experienced view, since about 2005.
Andras Schiff on Bach (Use the subtitles for English)
"The prerequisite of contrapuntal art, more conspicuous in the work of Bach than in that of any other composer, is an ability to conceive a priori of melodic identities which when transposed, inverted, made retrograde, or transformed rhythmically will yet exhibit, in conjunction with the original subject matter, some entirely new but completely harmonious profile."
Glenn Gould Wikipedia: Glenn Gould
— Glenn Gould Reader, “So You Want to Write a Fugue”, p. 240
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Of J.S. Bach:
"The most stupendous miracle in all music!"
Richard Wagner
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"Although love for music does not necessarily mean love for the composers of all the times, the true love for music, however, cannot exist without the love for Bach."
Dimitrij Kobalewski
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"Creativity is more than just being different. Anybody can play weird; that’s easy. What’s hard is to be as simple as Bach. Making the simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity."
Charles Mingus
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"Why waste money on psychotherapy when you can listen to the B Minor Mass?"
Michael Torke
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"Bach opens a vista to the universe. After experiencing him, people feel there is meaning to life after all."
After being so moved and overwhelmed by Bach's Mass in B Minor last night that it just can't be properly articulated...
... ... ...
And so... a continuing ode to Bach, perhaps the greatest artist and composer who ever lived, and in this post his supreme masterwork, the Mass In B Minor, perhaps mankind's most flawless and profound peak of Art.
"Beethoven tells you what it’s like to be Beethoven and Mozart tells you what it’s like to be human. Bach tells you what it’s like to be the universe."
"Oh you men who think or say that I am malevolent, stubborn, or misanthropic, how greatly do you wrong me. You do not know the secret cause which makes me seem that way to you. From childhood on, my heart and soul have been full of the tender feeling of goodwill, and I was even inclined to accomplish great things. But, think that for six years now I have been hopelessly afflicted, made worse by senseless physicians, from year to year deceived with hopes of improvement, finally compelled to face the prospect of a lasting malady (whose cure will take years or, perhaps, be impossible). Though born with a fiery, active temperament, even susceptible to the diversions of society, I was soon compelled to isolate myself, to live life alone. If at times I tried to forget all this, oh how harshly was I flung back by the doubly sad experience of my bad hearing. Yet it was impossible for me to say to people, "Speak louder, shout, for I am deaf." Ah, how could I possibly admit an infirmity in the one sense which ought to be more perfect in me than others, a sense which I once possessed in the highest perfection, a perfection such as few in my profession enjoy or ever have enjoyed. - Oh I cannot do it; therefore forgive me when you see me draw back when I would have gladly mingled with you. My misfortune is doubly painful to me because I am bound to be misunderstood; for me there can be no relaxation with my fellow men, no refined conversations, no mutual exchange of ideas. I must live almost alone, like one who has been banished; I can mix with society only as much as true necessity demands. If I approach near to people a hot terror seizes upon me, and I fear being exposed to the danger that my condition might be noticed. Thus it has been during the last six months which I have spent in the country. By ordering me to spare my hearing as much as possible, my intelligent doctor almost fell in with my own present frame of mind, though sometimes I ran counter to it by yielding to my desire for companionship. But what a humiliation for me when someone standing next to me heard a flute in the distance and I heard nothing, or someone standing next to me heard a shepherd singing and again I heard nothing. Such incidents drove me almost to despair; a little more of that and I would have ended me life - it was only my art that held me back. Ah, it seemed to me impossible to leave the world until I had brought forth all that I felt was within me. So I endured this wretched existence - truly wretched for so susceptible a body, which can be thrown by a sudden change from the best condition to the very worst."
Ludwig van Beethoven
Heiligenstadt Testament, 1802
A letter and testament to brothers Carl and Johann Beethoven
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This is Beethoven's own words about the turning point in his life. In this letter one can extrapolate the devastating cross he will bear and that will be expressed so passionately throughout his music and in all his masterpieces. The titanic urge to be heard and felt, an apology and frustration and ferocious struggle of acceptance for not being able to be and express himself to others, left only to do so through his music.
The 9th is so many things, not the least as if all of this has been repressed and then explodes uncontrollably in an overwhelmingly vivid expressive metamorphosis of self, transfigured by God into universal understanding.
Been revisiting two towering masterpieces of Opera: Mozart's Don Giovanni and Beethoven's Fidelio.
Fidelio has gradually grown in reputation over the decades and last two centuries to become (rightfully) hailed by many as the masterpiece that it is, despite a rather trivial story (libretto).
It is its mediocre libretto that makes Fidelio almost more overwhelming than it would be otherwise, as it is continually out-expressing, breaking the chains of, this limitation. The entire opera and each of its characters and scenes can be heard as metaphors for common Man vying for freedom (versus aristocracy, versus entrapment) ... of average literacy, banal plots, ... (and altogther, Beethoven's own plight, the sudden despair of his debilitatation, the tortuous sense of imprisonment/isolation, the desperation for love) now taken to the point of the Highest Art -- the characters and choruses as odes "for all the people" -- galvanized by emotional conviction and expressive potency so unmistakable and transcendent that how moving and overwhelmingly powerful it becomes further illustrates Beethoven was of such compositional mastery that he could seemingly grow the seeds of anything into a stunning, gobsmacking, profound masterpiece. _________________ Best Classical Best Films Best Paintings
Main focus is Opera right now, revisiting and unearthing its masterpieces. I am also busy coming up with each work's best recordings. Addition to those I hope to find worthy Youtube videos w/ English subtitles (extra essential when familiarizing oneself with an Opera).
Right now I am mid going through Wagner's massive Ring Cycle -- THE epic to end all epics. Yes, roughly 13 hours (!!!) for those unfamiliar! I am about 1/2 way through the cycle on this series of listens. Ive never felt confident enough to rate The Ring in the past -- and its one of those works that maybe one can never actually be sure it isnt really an 11 out of 10 -- but I do hope to have a rating and ranking this time (Ive long thought at least 8.8+ [obviously] ... currently trying to determine if and where it stands among the works at or above 9.3...)
I also am about 1/2 way through Britten's Opera Peter Grimes, which will be a "new" one for me. Utterly amazing so far. _________________ Best Classical Best Films Best Paintings
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) I 100% respect that; if we all enjoyed the exact same things nothing would ever improve.
