Day 18 - a classical music piece that you wish you heard on the radio

Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7.  Everyone should hear that.

violadream:

Day 01 - your favourite classical music piece
Day 02 - your least favourite classical music piece
Day 03 - a classical music piece that makes you happy
Day 04 - a classical music piece that makes you sad
Day 05 - a classical music piece that reminds you of someone
Day 06 - a classical music…

Day 17 - a classical music piece that you hear often on the radio

Hmm.  Unfortunately, I don’t listen to classic music on the radio enough to have a piece I hear often.  Let’s see … I hear Mozart on the radio too much.  Yeah.  I think I’ve heard Tchaikovsky’s Capriccio Italien more than once, I think.

violadream:

Day 01 - your favourite classical music piece
Day 02 - your least favourite classical music piece
Day 03 - a classical music piece that makes you happy
Day 04 - a classical music piece that makes you sad
Day 05 - a classical music piece that reminds you of someone
Day 06 - a classical music…

A Vlog Chronicle of our impromptu trip to New York City and what we learned from the experience!

Day 16 - a classical music piece that you used to love but now hate

Gee, that’s hard.  I don’t typically end up hating pieces.  They just fall out of favor with me from time to time.

The first piece that comes to mind is thus a piece that I don’t hate now so much as I have a love-hate relationship with.  That piece is Aaron Copland’s Orchestral Variations, an orchestration of his Piano Variations.  

I love Copland’s music almost unconditionally.  Even the pieces from his early, European period - pieces which focus more on artistically exploring modernism than singing the song of America.  The Piano Variations, and thus their orchestral counterpart, come from this period of his composition.  It sounds like a total different composer from the composer of Appalachian Spring.  Somehow, these variations reach farther into depths of darkness than I have ever heard music reach before.  That is why I used to love it.  And it is why I won’t listen to it anymore.  I still really appreciate the artistry and power of it.  There are still moments in it that I really enjoy.  But it’s effect is quite devastating if you are in a certain mood.  It is not a piece for depressed people to listen to.  It is a piece that can ruin your mood if you are happy.  Thus, the best time to listen to it is if you are apathetic and don’t predict your mood will shift too far one way or the other.

When I first heard that my music theory class would be studying it this past semester, I got really excited.  It’s always fun to study a piece that you know really well for class.  But then the day came to finally listen to it in class.  I expected to enjoy it, but by the end of the piece, I was ready for it to end.  The darkness was too much.  It effectively ruined my morning and my relationship with this piece.  Though I used to gain some twisted pleasure from exploring its darkness - especially in moments when I was feeling some negative emotion - I no longer find it worthwhile.  Even for artistic pleasure, I am finding it harder and harder to justify exposing yourself to something with such negative emotion when it already is so imperative that we stay positive.  It’s simply not worth it.

violadream:

Day 01 - your favourite classical music piece
Day 02 - your least favourite classical music piece
Day 03 - a classical music piece that makes you happy
Day 04 - a classical music piece that makes you sad
Day 05 - a classical music piece that reminds you of someone
Day 06 - a classical music…

Day 15 - a classical music piece that describes you

Halfway done :’(

Okay. Here’s the question.  The question out of this challenge that I think everyone should ask themselves.

If I had to pick ONE piece that I feel describes me best - my personality, my attitudes, my feelings, my desires, my struggles, my emotions, my being, my purpose, my past, my present, my future - that piece would without a doubt be the First Movement of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 7.

It is a piece that provided the soundtrack to my freshman year at college - one of the most important and formative years of my life thus far.  When I say it was the soundtrack to my freshman year, I mean that pretty seriously.  I was listening to it when I first set out for that year, and it was a piece I listened to at the end.  At the beginning of the year, it was the music of adventure - a bright, verdant soundtrack to a new journey.  At the end of the year, it was the music of a rough victory - of a struggle that was overcome.  It was not the first piece I listened to when I left college to come home that summer.  That distinction goes to the beautiful Spiegel im Spiegel, which gave some peace I needed as Vanderbilt disappeared behind me.  But after that, I listened to the first movement of Mahler’s Seventh Symphony.  And it brought me to tears.  It is thus probably the only piece that was there for me through my whole freshman year.  And it is thus inseparably tied to that constructive time in my life and to who I have become as a person.

It is a bit moody, as much of Mahler is and as I tend to be from time to time.  Yet its shadows are still beautiful and in the spirit of progress. It is a piece that sees the light, and always tries to remember it is there.  It is an intensely optimistic piece - something I really depended on it for when I needed it.  It is triumphant, even if it is troubled.  This movement in particular far outshines the rest of the symphony, in my opinion.  And I personally feel it is one of the best pieces in Mahler’s output.  It is adventurous, it shines, and it is close to me heart.  And I cannot WAIT to hear the Nashville Symphony play it in January :)

violadream:

Day 01 - your favourite classical music piece
Day 02 - your least favourite classical music piece
Day 03 - a classical music piece that makes you happy
Day 04 - a classical music piece that makes you sad
Day 05 - a classical music piece that reminds you of someone
Day 06 - a classical music…