Daniel and Isabel Save Classical Music
Classical musician-turned-stand up comedian Isabel Hagen and classical pianist Daniel Anastasio explore their favorite classical pieces while discussing the creative life. Listen along for live musical excerpts paired with banter between two best friends. New episodes every Tuesday.
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Daniel and Isabel Save Classical Music
Couperin and Memory
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Daniel and Isabel dive into François Couperin's Les Barricades Mystérieuses, memory, and more.
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Alright. Hi. Another episode with me at the piano, Daniel Anastasio, and my buddy Isabel Hagen, who is kind of a violist and definitely a comedian.
SPEAKER_03I feel like a lot of people would say the opposite. She's definitely a violist and kind of a comedian.
SPEAKER_00Who? I think of you as a comedian first now.
SPEAKER_03I feel like that's because you res you just want to like be respectful of my like desire.
SPEAKER_00Well, because I know you and I know that's what you're you're I don't want to say true passion, because it's not like you're not passionate about music. No, I'm not very passionate about well, dude. Part of this podcast I do feel is me trying to trying to remind you how to be more passionate about music.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Well, every time we do an episode, not really, I don't think we've done it on camera, but off camera, I'll like cry a little because I'll be like, I forgot how much I loved that piece.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. It's just doing it and going through school and just the field kind of squeezed it out of you, all the passion.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I I think it's as simple as burnout. I think I just I personally burnt out a little bit and got so into comedy at the same time. So it kind of just like went like this. And then now it's kind of meeting again.
SPEAKER_00I'm kind of in a way, I feel like I'm going through a similar type of thing.
SPEAKER_03You are, because you uh were living a very traditional musician's life, right? You were teaching at a university, performing concerts, but you really wanted to sort of do more in this sort of like educational slash entertainment sp what would you call it? Space.
SPEAKER_00Uh what would I call what I'm doing now? Um it's kind of music appreciation, just not in the way that it's normally thought of at the moment, I guess. But I'm kind of trying to bring I'm trying to bring people into the spirit and the feeling of the music that I love. That it's the same feeling I felt when I was seven. You know, when I was sitting down at the piano and feeling some kind of connection with a measure in Chopin that I felt and I couldn't explain why. And then, you know, school happens, life happens, you're trying to uh get better at a craft, you're trying to get technically better at something, and by necessity you you lose some of that um simple, naive connection that got you to the dance in the first place because you're trying to you're just trying to learn, you're trying to take in for uh take in information and therefore you're trying. And like the act of trying is not the act of connecting. Like in other words, if I'm trying to be good at something, to learn something, to perfect something for my teacher, um, and kind of sculpt something and then hold it up to them and say, Hey, how's this? Is this good? Um, did I do good? Did did I learn how to play Brahms correctly or Schubert correctly? It is impossible to simultaneously feel a totally personal, to me, genuine connection with the music. You are a student in that process, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's just how do we then escape that process, integrate it all, and return to something much more pure?
SPEAKER_03Well, it starts so early on. If you're taking lessons, music becomes an assignment. Even if you really love it, you're preparing for your teacher, and every week you're checking in and you're trying not to mess up, and then you're doing competitions and you're trying not to mess up, and then you're playing just concerts and you're just trying to play as well as you can. And sure, there are countless artists who would say that in their concerts they're just completely transcended and connected with the music, and that's great. But I think the field itself really lends itself to not that, and instead, kind of a what I was experiencing, I think, was just just like a bummer relationship to the music and a a disconnect uh from it, and then also the audience will then feel it in that way rather than I mean, you know, there's some purists who would say like you shouldn't have to contextualize the music, you shouldn't talk over it, you should just let the music speak for itself. But I mean I just completely based on the success of like the videos you post alone, it just shows that there's so many people hungry for sort of an expert, which you are, to like invite them in and contextualize it a little for them. Because that's what you're doing, you're offering some context.
SPEAKER_00Well, like one of the way I like to think of it is okay, the music speaking for itself implies a language that it's speaking, right? If I don't understand that language, then it's not speaking to me.
SPEAKER_03Right. It's like showing someone a foreign film in a language they don't understand and saying, well, it's speaking for itself. We don't need subtitles, just and you're like, but I literally don't know French. So Right.
SPEAKER_00Like, well, French speaks for itself. Okay, well, I don't know French. Yeah. So I believe you that it speaks for itself, but it's not speaking to me right now. So like I I mean, it it just seems like a very it always has seemed like a cop-out to me to say the music speaks for itself because um and and and it and it also does. Like in other words, a late Beethoven quartet would probably be a great example of oh, the music speaks for itself. Someone would say that as in like it needs no further context because it's just a spiritual divine thing, and like yes, and right, like like yes, it can stand on its own um in some context, but in 2026, if I'm playing for a bunch of people in my town in San Antonio, Texas, um why would I not want them to um hear what I'm doing? It it's like I could speak German to them and be like, by the way, this is profound. Hope you uh enjoy it, and they can just take my word for it and clap, or I could say, Let me translate some of this for you. Um, it is what it is. Maybe Beethoven would c rise from the grave and say, Don't translate my music. Okay, well, um you dead. And also, like and also, of course, you wouldn't care because you'd be probably be appalled that we're playing your music and not some new brand new stuff. You'd be like, What happened? Do you have music? Right. Like, why do you have to dig up mine?
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00To some degree. Okay, I'm probably gonna get some hate for that, but you know what I mean.
SPEAKER_03So much hate. No, from our seven listeners. Everything, I everything contradicts itself for me because there's part of me that I just I love contextualizing music. I think people connect to more styles of music when it's in film, because we're obviously giving it a visual context. Like uh, take the music from Succession, the TV show, which is very like what you what would you say, like Beethoven slash Schubert inspired score by Nicholas Bertell. Really great score. Um, but if people had never seen the show and just heard that music, I bet a lot of people would just write it off as some classical stuff that they don't that's not for them or that they don't really care for. But because they associate it with the show and because it's such a great score, it's like the two things it makes non-classical music lovers love that score. Yes. Because they have a simple entry point that then allows them to say, I can enjoy this. I have a little some little visions in my head that are probably from the show, and then I'm off to the races with my own imagination. Yeah. It's like a little gateway. Um, at the same time, you know, a lot of people say music is the universal language. It needs no explanation, you know, it should just speak for itself, and it should, you know, we we must just let people, we don't want to limit people's interpretation by giving it a context. You know, both are great. Like there's different people who have different, like for me, it's probably valuable for me who are like as someone who's really familiar with the language of classical music in the broad term, classical music, broad sense of the term, who should just go and listen to concerts without context sometimes to just like exercise that part of my brain and to like let myself have my own meaning. But someone who's never been to a concert before or who doesn't have that much experience with this language could really benefit from a little gateway into it, which is what you're providing with your shows, like what you did last night.
SPEAKER_00Thanks. Yeah, I I mean, and I I don't think it's controversial. Segue. Well, yeah, fair. But um, like I don't think it's a groundbreaking thought. Like, you know, I think so many classical musician uh classical music organizations today know they have to be doing this because they're like, okay, how do we get more audiences? How do we get younger audiences? How do we mix it up? We gotta we can't do the same old thing. They just know how to do it. So, like, because we weren't trained, our generation, probably the next generation, will be better trained on this, but we weren't trained not only to not talk about music, we weren't trained, I mean, into audiences, but we weren't trained to be able to understand expressively what we're doing. I really, I really don't think we were trained, we were mostly trained to master the instrument and to master different styles of playing from a technical and a stylistic standpoint. We weren't trained to be like okay, okay, uh how would you describe that first eight-bar phrase and um how would you describe it to someone who has absolutely no idea any uh about Mozart, you know? Like to be able to articulate, to know what you're doing, know why you're doing it, and then to be able to articulate it clearly to someone is not something that's at all in our curriculum in conservatories. And to me, that is the most valuable skill. Like so many people can play good enough, so many people can play fantastically, where the average person on the street would be astounded, like would be like, oh my god, you have such a gift. Talking about the the top, the top thousands of 10,000 people who are studying music right now, they would be all on an equal playing field, in my opinion, to the average person.
SPEAKER_03It's like when I play viola in comedy clubs and I'll play just like in a way where I'm like, Yeah, this is not good playing right now. I'm not warmed up. I ooh, I missed that note. And I'm not trying to like like these are like it's just a lot of people go to comedy shows who have just never been to a classical music concert, they've never seen a live string player, and so they're just like that was amazing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And and it doesn't make me feel like, oh, I'm amazing. It makes me feel like, oh, I've been too hard on myself and taking this way too seriously when like just the facility and musicality that that will that naturally comes from so many players who are just beating themselves up is such a gift for people.
SPEAKER_00That is the reframing I think that is really the most helpful is to see it as think about how many people are missing out on this inspiring gift that you have. We just don't have that mindset that, oh my god, I I have this inspiring gift. We have the mindset of not good enough because that's what was drilled into us.
SPEAKER_03Sometimes I'll play a whole Bach prelude in my comedy shows and I'll be like, That sucked. And then I look out in the crowd and there's someone like tearing up. Yeah. And I'm like, oh, it's not about me. Like it's it's like that just was really impactful for this person. So it's actually not about how I feel now, it's how it affected them.
SPEAKER_00Right. Well, I mean, one of the joys of the past few months as I've been able to like communicate and play at the same time and take people through that in a kind of concert way, in a way, is that it it relieves some of that perfectionist mentality for me. I feel like I'm playing just with my shoulders down because it is about the totality of the impact that I'm making and a kind of learning process that people are uh joining me in rather than let's see how my performance measures up to some platonic performance, either in your head as someone who's listened to it a lot on a CD, or my or my head um as someone who has been drilling it in the practice room and has some kind of idealistic version of it that I want to convey.
SPEAKER_03Right. I mean, it is worth noting though, to to go on the flip side. You are someone who maybe still, I don't think so still, but until very recently would practice like six hours a day. Okay, but I have a caveat for that.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_03Because not that that's bad. I'm just saying you'd needed all those hours to be able to play with such like now you get to enjoy the fruits of that labor.
SPEAKER_00For sure. I think it's it's shifted. The the purpose of practicing has shifted for me, where for a long time I was playing catch-up in my own mind, where I was not someone who was practicing more than an hour a day when I was young for very long, which okay, an hour a day when you're young sounds like a lot, and it is a lot, but like it's not enough to be a concert pianist. Definitely not who goes to Juilliard and you know, no, no. So when I got into Juilliard for Masters, I was like, oh my god, I have to really catch up to all these people who are blowing past me. They're playing all this incredible rep. And you know, I probably got in because people could sense that I had some kind of connection to the music, and I had a really good audition. I had a really strong audition. I played really well that day. Um, so I could play really well, but not reliably technically to like win a competition, win a big competition. So in those years, I was practicing out of sheer survival, and my shoulders went up. I use that as an example because it's just tension, right? I had a lot of tension. I was I was moving away from my own voice musically, just little by little. I needed teachers at Stony Brook University to really calm me down during my doctorate and get me back in touch with something more relaxed. That was post-Juilliard. That was post-Juilliard, yeah. So a lot of school and I needed every bit of it. But during those years of catch up, I was practicing my ass off. Now I practice not for that reason. I practice because I I genuinely enjoy the process more than I enjoy performing. I mean, it is like reading a good book for me. It's like I'm in the discovery phase at the piano. Um and and I know how to practice. And if I'm playing something technical, I'll I'll bite down on my mouthpiece and like, all right, let's do it. Let's like put in the hours with the metronome, do all that stuff. Um, and I I can do that, technical work, but for the most part, I'm just loving the process of getting lost at the piano. I mean, it's a luxury to be able to do that, to have the hours, and you know, I don't have a family, I don't have kids, like all this matters, right?
SPEAKER_03You're so alone.
SPEAKER_00I'm all alone. So this is my solace, but it's connection, it's where I'm finding the most connection. So it's filling me up spiritually to be connecting with this music for that many hours. Um yeah.
SPEAKER_03I had a similar reawakening with enjoying practicing, but that came from starting a new skill and being really bad at it. When I started comedy, I was bad because I was just a beginner. You're supposed to be a good idea.
SPEAKER_00Is there anyone in comedy who's just good right away?
SPEAKER_03I don't in stand-up, I don't think so because I mean there are people who get better quicker due to natural talent, slash they get in more reps more quickly than other people, but not really. Like just to be able to consistently do well on stage is just something that takes time and then the learning how to write a joke, not only just a joke that works structurally structurally, but your voice. Like I write, I don't really like to write jokes with other people. A lot of comics like to bounce ideas off each other and give each other tags. I don't really like to do that because anytime someone gives me a tag, I'm like, well, that would be funny if you said it.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_03But that I know it won't be funny if I say I have to now put that in my if I'm gonna take that tag, I have to like recalculate it and process it through how I would say it me. So just like finding that. I think some people get lucky and find their delivery style and voice a little quicker, but it's not just no, I mean, I don't know. I'm sure there's exceptions, but generally no. The answer to your question is no. But so I was bad, and then I started going all these open mics and getting better.
SPEAKER_00But that that is though, such a sorry to cut you off for a second, but that is such a misconception, right? The average person probably thinks, uh maybe some of the magic has been uh deconstructed over the years, but like the average person probably thinks, wow, this person is just they're just a funny person. Like they get up there and they're just hilarious. But the truth is, there's people who are funny in the room, there's people who are funny on stage and not in the room with a bunch of friends, and there's everywhere in between. And you either way, you have to put in the work.
SPEAKER_03Either way, you slice it. Yeah. Either way, you slice it. Like being funny on stage into a microphone to make a group of strangers laugh is a very specific skill. Yeah. One doesn't having that skill doesn't mean you don't have other skills, and having the skill to make your friend group laugh at a party doesn't mean you'll be able to translate that on stage. Um I forgot the point of what I was saying. I'm sorry. No, I don't I don't care. Great.
SPEAKER_00I'm off the hook.
SPEAKER_03Um sorry, I'm a little uh a little tired. I went to a wedding yesterday. Um here, you okay? I'm fine. All right. But being so I was a beginner at comedy and then getting better with these tangible results because going from sucking to not sucking is very different from what we do as musicians, which is we're already good, and then we're just sort of like refining every day and just getting that much better.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we spend so much time refining, refining, refining, refining instead of learning maybe one other skill. Right, right, complement the already 98% good that we are to like okay, I mean, in that one thing that it's like like for me, learning how to talk and play is like I mean, has done wonders for my ability uh to connect with my audience. Um, you know, it's it feels it's so relieving when I have attention from people instead of if I'm only playing the piano, I'm only gonna get a certain amount of attention for for a variety of different reasons. And I think a big reason is that it's a language that not everyone has the context for um in this day and age, in this society, for this, for many different reasons. And that's not something to roll your eyes at or throw your hands up or say, what happened to our culture? You know, it's more like, yeah, look, classical music isn't even ours. It's this Western European tradition from like hundreds of years ago that we I would love to develop a fresh relationship with for our audience, and like any way you can, anyway you can do that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Um I mean, it is I don't know if this you know the Marshall McLuhan quote, the medium is the message.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_03That's kind of speaking more towards technology, but the idea is it doesn't matter if you're reading great literature on your phone, like you're still reading it on your phone. So the medium is the phone, or I think it was a reaction to television maybe back in the day. Even if you're watching something that's like educational, it's still on TV, like the just the medium counts. And I think that's a little related to like the issue of classical music and the concerts being kind of alienating because it's it's not really the music as much as it is the whole experience that is very specific and some would say outdated. I wouldn't say I don't think there's anything wrong with something being dated. I I that kind of annoys me. Like, like get with the times. Like, like I think it's good to have all different types of experiences, but there's a lack of awareness when we are doing that tradition. And because of the lack of awareness, we abuse it to the point where like the concerts maybe it's just like way too long. Yeah. Or there's just way too many pieces like X, Y, or Z on the like there was no thought to the programming, besides like don't get me scared. You know, like they didn't no one thought about the whole exper the experience as a whole, which no matter what the experience is, you have to think about it as a whole. And these old institutions generally don't do that besides thinking, well, we need a concerto, a short modern piece, and a symphony. Like you know, and bing, bing, boom.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And and and uh I uh afterthought is what do we say? I've been to So many concerts where that I've been part of where people are thinking the morning of all right, what what do we what do you want to talk? What do you want to talk about? You want to say something about about Beethoven? Yeah, sure. Totally winging it. Yeah. And like, that's fine if you can wing it. I mean, if you're that skilled at it, but it's just another part of the show. You prepare, you prepare like how many hours on your pieces, and then what? You prepare for five minutes on what you're gonna say to the audience. It's part of the experience from the moment you step on stage. Like, how are you engaging the audience and with what information?
SPEAKER_03Right. And, you know, not to knock like different concert experiences, but there's been a lot of efforts in our world to reinvent the concert experience in this really drastic way. Like, oh, we're gonna do like a symphony, but it's in a bar, and like that's all fun and fine. But sometimes the like reinvention or like the fix to whatever the issue is can be as simple as maybe it's a conductor if it's an orchestra that just is like kind of more of a show person or like has more charisma, or maybe again, like thinking about the lengths of all the pieces you're like just one added thought into the whole experience, not like reimagine, because I think we want I want to preserve the symphony going experience or the concert going experience. That's something that should always exist. Absolutely, but just think about it as an as an audience member for like a minute. Yeah, I know like make sure you're not offering someone kind of an awful experience. It's a low bar. It's a really low bar really.
SPEAKER_00And so that's where I swoop in with my with my shtick. Um, well, you you mentioned concert length and last night uh at my show, my which I couldn't be at because I hate you.
SPEAKER_03Well, you hate me on the you have a best friend who was getting married. Yeah, my friend's wedding.
SPEAKER_00Um, but yeah, I was really excited as my first real show doing this, doing what I've been doing the past few months on Instagram. What have you been doing the past few months on Instagram? Well, just you know, this thing I'm doing of of kind of taking people through works um and demonstrating the connections uh either between them or the connections that the composers are making um with musical materials that illustrate some kind of story. Um and it doesn't need to be any story beyond the music itself, but just to just guide people's attention with a little more clarity so that they can listen actively instead of passively. In other words, not just to think, wow, this music's so pretty, I can't wait to like listen to this while I'm going to bed, which is a million percent fine, or I just have a feeling like classical music is a good thing to listen to because it's I don't know, listened to by seemingly intelligent people or something that society has taught us, but instead to really just rip open the materials and say, all right, forget all that for a second. Listen to how this thing evolves into that thing and goes on a journey away and then returns. And that is a story of patterning, it's a story of memory, how composers use our memory to um inflect like nostalgia and different feelings and different colors in the music that unlock some kind of unconscious memory in us as we're listening. It's something organic, it's something fundamental, it's where structure and theory and form actually have a purpose beyond just the textbook. Because music, after all, is like temporal. I mean, it's unfolding in time. So in order for us to feel the expressive impact, a composer needs to use our memory. Right? They that's why repeats happen.
SPEAKER_03What do you go tell me a little more about how they use the memory, not just with repeats, but but maybe also with little motives that are recalled. Not like if it's a newer piece, like like a not a strict sonatiform piece, there might not be a repeat. Okay, sure. But some sort of recall.
SPEAKER_00I okay, I'll give you a a great example, a very clear example. Uh Francois Cooperin wrote this piece, The Mysterious Barricade. Okay. Don't ask me about the title, because it's kind of enigmatic, but I think it has to do with masking at a at a ball, or maybe it has to do with people have speculated about different, I don't know, eyelashes or something that eyelashes? What did I just say? Don't ask me. Okay. I'm just saying nonsense at you for a second. You're just gonna take it and then I'm gonna go on. So now moving on. Okay. Um you can look it up yourself. The the Les Barricades Mysterious or the Mysterious Barricade. And the point is, I mean, metaphor aside, it's it's about a kind of ambiguity, you know, or like a a secretive maybe like um um a tension between something seen and something that is um there's a layer, there's a veil going on, okay? And it and the piece lives in this kind of ambiguity of harmony and of how the voices interact together. So I'll just play like the first part of it, and then I'll I promise I'll get back to how it relates to memory. Okay, beautiful, right? Just really simple.
SPEAKER_03What year was that written?
SPEAKER_00Great question. I think it's right there. Um well, Cooperan was born in 1668, but okay, so roughly it's a long time ago. Roughly like 1700 or something. Sure, sure.
SPEAKER_03I just wanted like a a uh century. Okay, okay, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00This is this is squarely in the Baroque period. Cool, cool. Um, and but it feels kind of modern. Uh it does. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Why does it feel kind of modern? Like it kind of feels like it would be a he's a it feels like he would be a composer in like the the Max Richter, like the new classical type. Not that it sounds like Max Richter at all, but you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00Just the I think I I think it's because composers return in the modern era, composers have tended to return to this to these simple harmonies. Uh, you know, minimalism had played a really profound role with like Philip Glass and Steve Reich and everything, where it's like, okay, um after it all dissipated with like Schurnberg and atonal music and uh music kind of separated out into a lot of different ways, and uh chromaticism pushed tonality to its limits. Composers rediscovered really a lot of Baroque music to to kind of find beauty in these simple sequences.
SPEAKER_03So right there sounds like so poppy. Oh, this like pop music. It's um it's because this piece, and this is one of my favorite pieces, so I don't mean this in a bad way at all, but it's like a little, it's like a little bit cheesy. Yes, and uh like over-emotion, like like like uh schmaltzi, like I you know what I mean? Not schmaltzzy.
SPEAKER_00Well, this is a little bit the difference between German Baroque music and French Baroque music, where someone like Cooperan is not afraid to write something that's a little more not trivial, but like incidental or kind of just uh ephemeral, where it's not rooted in this profound counterpoint. It's something that everyone can understand and that anyone can be moved by. So before we get into the weeds about that though, because I could talk about that, what's really cool about this piece is it's a great example of how Baroque music is both the culmination of harmonies. Like here we just hear we feel those chords, right? But what a mu what a kind of contemporary composer may not do is make sure that there are actually four individual voices going on here. Like this is not just a churning of different harmonies and chords, right? There's a top voice. There's a voice just under that. There's the left hand has two voices. That one and then the bass. By the way, that bass a little pockabell's canony a little bit. Maybe that's partly why it's so accessible too. You know, um has that has that circle of four fifths kind of vibe where it's just we are just patterns are irresistible to us, those sequences that Mozart will tap into, that Beethoven.
SPEAKER_03Oh, that's so that is such a similar thing. Very similar. But the even the rhythm of it of the melody, but yeah, it's true. Not just the harmonicer than the but uh but.
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah, that's good point. All right.
SPEAKER_03Should I start doing this?
SPEAKER_00Cut to Isabel. Isabel just created a new video for me. Thanks, Isabel. Um so we have that. We have that like zooming into the detailed patterning of what's happening in Baroque music, which is always I mean, that's one of the things that people find so genius about Baroque composers, is like it all works out. They got the inner voices, you could listen to any one of those four voices at any time if you wanted to, or bring each one out. Or you could just give in to that churning set of harmonies. It's like a wheel that's just turning and turning and turning, where the spokes you can make them out at a slower tempo, but when they get fast, they get blurry. Right now, as per your initial uh question about memory, this is a whole I don't remember memory. Um this whole piece is in a kind of cyclical form. So not only are the harmonies cycling, but it's a rondo, which is A, B, A, C, A in form. A being that first section that I just played like 72 million times. And then the B section is a section that departs from that, not so drastically, it's the same patterning, but goes to different harmonies, it goes to different keys. The C section does the same. But in between those sections, and at the end, it returns to the same section, the very, very beginning. And so even though the music is exactly the same, we feel it differently. Why do we feel it differently? It's the same exact notes. Well, it's because we did something in the meanwhile, right? We had an experience, we had moments in life, we listened to different keys, we understand this subliminally as a kind of journey away and then return home. Um which is yeah, I mean, this language is a little bit overused when we're describing pieces like we started in B flat, the home key, and then we departed. But this rondo form is a is a really beautiful way in a simple way to illustrate that. This piece is only three minutes long, but you still get that little journey away and then return to something that is very familiar, but by the end feels more like a feeling of acceptance and knowledge and less like the opening of it, which is more maybe uh embarking on something or beginning that wheel starting to turn, or our brain are starting to to go towards something new, some new thoughts.
SPEAKER_03This piece is so uh simple in a lot of ways that makes it pretty accessible even to someone who knows nothing about music, they might hear this and go, I like that. I want to hear that again, right? They might add it to their playlist or something if it happened to come up on Spotify. So do you feel like when you explain pieces like this versus when you explain a more complex piece like uh, you know, I don't know, Brahms 118 number two. It's not that complex, but a more complex piece. Yeah. Sometimes when you're doing your talking, it's I feel like you're sort of showing someone why they should like this or why they might find it more moving than what you would hear just on one listen. But with something like this, I feel like you're almost showing me why I do like it. Which I find equally as satisfying because it's it's almost like identifying something. You're like, I knew I liked that. Why do I like it so much?
SPEAKER_00Oh, I got another example of that, but can I play this real quick? Because I think it might be cool for someone to hear I want to give someone the chance who's listening to this to feel what it feels like for me to return to that section. Uh I don't know how many times. Twice? Yeah, maybe three times. Okay, so this is the entire hold that thought because it's a really nice new thought. Um, this is the entire barricade, uh mysterious barricade, Les Barricades Mysterieux, don't speak French, by Francois Cooperin. One person clapping. Is there anything worse than just one person clapping? Because you need you need the accumulation of applause in order for it to be real applause.
SPEAKER_03That's interesting. Applause is only it only exists in numbers. Really. Applause is plural. Right. Technically, the word is plural. Applauding applause. But but the thing the I the idea of getting applause, you can only get that from multiple people.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So thank you for your clap. Right. I don't know how you would call it individual clapping. Um speed also matters though.
SPEAKER_03Like if I was like it'd be like, oh, she loved it, but if I'm like the illusion of multiple claps.
SPEAKER_00Anyway, sorry. It's okay. Um so any reactions to that? Did you feel like we journeyed to a different faraway land and then returned? Or did you feel like nothing? Did you feel I mean, did you not feel you know what? I don't really care how you feel.
SPEAKER_03I don't want to, I don't want to give my I don't want to ruin a listener's interpretation. But I will say just generally the way I listen to music, I as a child, I had a lot more of an expansive uh vision. Like I would listen to Dvorjak New World Symphony and I would see like a whole movie with like a field and like all these big scenes. And now music is so internal, like I just see feelings, I feel feelings and maybe a glimpse of a face or two people together or something. You know, it's it's it's come much more inward. I don't know if that's like sad because I've lost the childlike imagination or if it's fine, it just means I have more emotional stuff and working out uh right up here due to just years of so many different emotions and things happening to me in my life.
SPEAKER_00But beyond that I won't say what I I think it is beautiful, kind of like returning to a book where even the same piece can feel different when you return to it at different points in your life. And and the associations that you make with a piece might change. And that too is a play of memory where you know that is not up to the composer or the music, but that is just a beautiful dance of association between our souls and the spirit of the soul of the composer, or however you would say, or the music that the you know the composer intended, whatever wh however you want to put it. But that is a constant uh dialogue. I think that's why I really think uh music is not music until it's played presently. Like in other words, I don't think like sheet music is music.
SPEAKER_03The way Boulez would say that you know you should be able to hear the music, appreciate the music just by looking at the takes a rare mind for one thing.
SPEAKER_00Sure. Um, but also just music is sound. And I think sound only exists presently. I know, hot take, right? Um but well whatever. This goes back to a little bit like the universal language thing where it's like music is a l universal language. Okay, well, what is music? Like, I mean It's sound. It's definitely what like John Cage thought.
SPEAKER_03But Or the absence of sound, which is still sound.
SPEAKER_00Well, look, I'm not getting into the the abstract philosophical concept of music, but I just want to do that. I don't really don't want to do that and alienate all our listeners, but I do want to just bring it back to the present. I think that the beauty of music is that uh it can be revived and revitalized and uh i uh uh created at any moment by someone who's willing to bring it to life. And to me, it's only alive when it's being played or performed or or um it exists in in sound on our ears that we can interpret in some way.
SPEAKER_03Right. It's a little bit of a tree falling in the forest kind of thing, but So I mean, uh are you including listening to a recording in that?
SPEAKER_00I was thinking about that. I I'm gonna say yes. I'm gonna say yes. I'm gonna say if you listen to recording, yeah, that's a because those are sounds that are coming together to hit your ear to have an impact on you. Yeah, it doesn't need to be a live performance, of course, in order to be music.
SPEAKER_03Right, right. So hearing them do you ever hear music fully in your head?
SPEAKER_00Can you completely hear a piece like all the parts like I think I'm not someone who pretends to pretends to do eng engage with music in that way. If I want to hear something, um I I run to the piano and I play it. So again, the process is so exciting to me. Like I want to feel it. You know what I mean? This yeah. I don't want to judge I existing in my head is no, maybe I don't have that great of an imagination.
SPEAKER_03It's not imagination though. I think and I I bet our brains are are a little different in this way because I I actually and I I don't think I definitely know our brains are different.
SPEAKER_00Go ahead.
SPEAKER_03What do you mean by that? I remember when I was younger, my dad played this recording of the Ravel string quartet a lot in the house, and I never heard it before. And the first movement and second movement especially just stayed with me so much that in school I was distracted in class because in my head I was just hearing the music. Just it was it was like st basically stuck in my head, but in a very rich way, like all the parts. It was like I was playing the recording over and over again. And I think it's it's not like every piece I can do that. And I think a string quartet is easier than like a symphony where there's so many more parts. But for me, music can kind of just exist in my head. Now, when I then put on the recording or hear someone play it, it's even better. It's like, oh, we're taking it up a notch. But I for me, I don't know, for some people I do think it can exist just in our memory.
SPEAKER_00It's a beautiful addendum. Yeah, like I I totally agree with you. I like that a lot. But maybe you don't even hear me. I mean, I do I don't hear a lot of music in my head. I feel bad. Some of my friends, I have a friend, uh Mateus, who is a violinist who I play with a lot, a lot of contemporary music. And every time we're on tour, when we're you know, getting ready for a gig, he'll stop each one of us and say, What music is in your head right now? Because for him, it's just running in his head all the time. Whatever music it is, video game music, show music, classical music.
SPEAKER_03We all have songs in our head. I mean, even non-musicians get songs stuck in their head.
SPEAKER_00Sure. Yeah, absolutely. But not so much for me. Music is not thoughts are running through my head a lot. Um, a lot more than music. I wish music was running through my head so they can kind of dampen some a little bit of the thoughts.
SPEAKER_03You can stand to turn it down and not.
SPEAKER_00I can stand it. Why don't we increase music about 20%? It's like thoughts down, maybe another 20.
SPEAKER_03You coming over to my house that we haven't seen each other in two months, and you're you have a concert in the city, so you're staying over, and yeah, you come over, you sit on the couch, you just launch right into some some like big trauma and you start crying. Like it's just drawing, you're like, yeah, you're yeah.
SPEAKER_00I mean that's it's like always on for you. Yeah, because I think I'm a little more of a introspective philosopher type than I am a natural musician.
SPEAKER_03But I I will say, just for anyone who's listening who might be like, oh, like the uh musician Beethoven heard it all in his head because he was deaf, and or Isabel can hear wow, it's amazing she could hear music in her head. I it's literally a a skill that does bears no meaning beyond what it is, because I just I know so many people who claim that they have they have perfect pitch and they can hear all the music in their head, and they're just kind of boring musicians. Like and but but you might not have that specific ability. However, you are like one of the most exciting, imaginative performers, and it it just doesn't like you use what you have, yeah, and it doesn't make you more or less of an artist or an or a genius to I hate the word genius. No, I yeah.
SPEAKER_00I I I think I mean I value anyone who's able to connect in their own way with the music and then share that in the most meaningful and connective way for whoever's listening. Right. Like, period. So you do that in your own way with your own skill set. I mean, you know, like s some people are bad technicians at the piano and have awkward technique by a textbook standard or by conservatory standard. Uh-huh. And like and there are people who those are people maybe who I would listen to every single minute of the day over a competition winning pianist. It really just depends. It's like, what are you bringing to the table as you? I want to hear you. I want to hear what you do with it.
SPEAKER_03And then sometimes the piece is just so good that anyone playing it somewhat proficiently is good enough. Yeah. Like like Cooper N.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Like anyone playing that piece with the right notes, I'm like getting a tear. You know, it's true. Sometimes just the piece is enough. Yeah. And as long as it's approached honestly. But and and then there are people who you know might not even be able to decipher up upon a first listen the difference between a student playing that piece and you playing that piece. Yeah. But what what's cool, I think, is inviting those people to start hearing the differences and to start hearing the human choices that are made in addition to just these beautiful harmonies that exist because Cooperan wrote them and Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I think the interpretation the interpretation is something that can only be enriched by one's own discovery of the material itself. So like uh I'll play you one more piece by Bach. Just say in the brogue period for a second.
SPEAKER_03It looks like the same, it's gonna be the same rhythm as well.
SPEAKER_00Don't ruin it. Oh, sorry. No, it's not the same rhythm. But um it is a a work that relies on patterning and patterns, you know, which is a big part of my the talk I gave last night. Where Bach is taking just a triad. Okay, just a B flat major triad as a starting point for a piece. This is his B flat major prelude from book one of the Well-Tempered Clavier. So staying in B flat, moving away, and coming back, and then reaching out. Okay? Now he's gonna take that and use a sequence to put it down a few steps to a minor key. Why don't we do it one more time? And then cadence or end the phrase basically to return. And this is all he needs to create a piece, to create a musical story, and as a prelude from the broke period, it's very improvisatory. Like he probably really did just sit down and well, I love uh this is a beautiful voicing of this beautiful B flat major triad in the same way that, like, honestly, a pop artist might, or a contemporary composer might take this triad and do that. But this is not how he feels about B flat major. I'm playing it very romantically, very beautifully, sensitively, um, like Brahms or something. He thinks of B flat with excitement, with joy, with he wants to infuse it with some activity. So, what does he do? Well, let me just break up those chords with 30-second notes.
unknownRight?
SPEAKER_00Same rhythm as the Cooperan, like I said. Alright, fine. Now, this is the Isabelle is always right podcast. Um infuse it with some activity. Did you just do the thing? Okay. Um, infuse it with a little activity. And this is also interpretation, right? Did Bach write a tempo marking for this? No, he didn't write a tempo marking for any of his preludes in this book. So we have to interpret well. It's probably gonna be fast. We want that activity to be alive. And now we have like a little journey in B flat major. So we use some scales to kind of get to different keys. Modulate or change keys. And I'll just bounce around happily in B flat for a while. And what what changes? The bass starts to chromatically walk up. Until we arrive at the dominant key of F major. Okay, so now we're in a new place. Then we started. B flap. Now we're in F major. And while we're here, he can start exploring, like we he can start improvising again.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_00Funky bass note D. Okay, this is like almost beta of vinian. This is like a suddenly dramatic overture. Okay, so these scales could take us anywhere on the keyboard, right? He's just choosing to land here on B flat. Alright, now we're back at that uh F7, the dominant of B flat, so we should expect to return to B flat now. It should be kind of maybe this. You know, something like that. But I mean, that is like some intense uh sidetracking here. We Diminish chord, way up here. There's our B flat, but it doesn't feel safe at all. It doesn't feel like our home, because there's no harmony underneath it, right? He could have or maybe I don't know, done something kind of funky, but he just isolated by itself. That's the B flat we started with, but it feels alien until okay. Now we should have B flat. But that A flat questions it one more time before we return to the kind of playful starting point of the piece. So within this improvisatory prelude, we have the start of a pattern that feels improvised, a total departure to something really dramatic and different and kind of scary, and then a return to that playfulness that we started in. So I think Bach is consciously or unconsciously creating a story in these two pages.
SPEAKER_03Do you think in the time that this was originally written and performed, people would improvise in those parts and take liberties? Because now, of course, every pianist who's classically trained in playing this is gonna play pretty much exactly what is on the page of this edition. Um we don't I mean, we're not looking at the original manuscript even, but probably it's same. But but I'm just saying, do you think there was any improvisatory element? And also it is some a piece like this, it's interesting to think about because I was just thinking in my head, like, why did he write that? Because like why did he do all those boo-doo like crazy scales? Like, what does that mean to him? And then I thought, oh, it's for the pianist to show off or the for the keyboardist to show off, and which was something they considered back then. It was it was a I I feel like we've kind of lost this in a way, maybe except in some concertos, but we're not writing for the player to show off as much as you know, writing to just for the to write great music, you know, but but we can't these were the stars of that time, I think.
SPEAKER_00It's true. With with Bach, I mean, I would hesitate to say that he's trying to show off because so much of his music was written either for God or for the church, or as like an instructional uh kind of thing for students or e either for composition or for performing.
SPEAKER_03Not for him to show up, but for the performer.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it you know it absolutely was mostly playing his own keyboard music. No, no, you're you're right. It absolutely could be. I think scales are also virtuosic scales are also a way to um maybe in a dazzling way, like in a perhaps a showing-offing way, um, of getting from point A to point B. It's like fill by filling in sound, right? Now, nowadays we have these big pianos that can hold the sound, like you can play a chord here and then you know, you can like do stuff up here, and that sound down there is still resonating. This was written for a harpsichord where the sound is dying really, really quickly. So you need like activity, basically, like like in order to just keep making sound, keep the harmony going. Hey, what harmony are we? Oh, we're in B flat. Or when I just played E flat. No, I played B flat. Um it's the only way to just keep the sound going. So I think it's a little more subtle than just like ah, there's a virtuosic showy offie part. I think they're also um there's also a practical purpose to scales, both as a transitional material, um, harmonically, and to like express the harmony and just keep the sound going.
SPEAKER_03And allowing for virtuosity is another practical thing in a in a way.
SPEAKER_00It it inspires a feeling in the listener.
SPEAKER_03Like it's just interesting to look at these old pieces and identify what parts were maybe more just practical or or practices of that time, and what do we feel was something that's transcendent of the time and really just directly from the composer's soul.
SPEAKER_00That's beautifully put. We'll tackle we'll tackle that more next time.
SPEAKER_03Are we uh close to the end of the episode?
SPEAKER_00I think so.
SPEAKER_03Then an answer the question about or memory. Not memory, but the idea of telling someone why they like something or why they should like something. Did we ever did we finish that?
SPEAKER_00Oh, oh, like something familiar.
SPEAKER_03And that you're doing both, depending on the piece.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I mean I do I love I really do love both. I love playing famous pieces uh like Claire Delune or or that that Cooperan maybe or the first Bach prelude that you know there is um i it's immediately accessible to so many different people, and there's something fun there seems something fundamental about the music that is uh connective for people and I mean just accessible. And for me to try to unlock why um is basically an express uh is me trying to communicate how form and expression meet. In other words, why I mean why this C major prelude, for example, is so simple and so effective in part has to do with its form and structure that uh we feel subconsciously. In other words, like those aren't random improvised harmonies that he's traveling to, it is a conscious structure that descends, you know, eventually in octave toward you know a lower version of C major that is richer and warmer, and then how he deceives us by going to uh instead of ending the way he should, he takes us to like harmonies we don't expect. And that makes us feel on some conscious, subsubconscious level, that we're experiencing kind of a reflection of our own lives, that there are surprises, that you know, things don't work out the way they should all the time, um and that this story that he's telling is woven by a thread that we are familiar with and can understand. So not only is it like in a key we can we can access, like a C major, you know, um but it's such a simple patterning, these arpeggiated figures that if the material is uncomplicated, then it almost frees him up to tell a more profound story because then it's just the story of harmony. It's not the story of an arpeggio that is, oh wow, these five notes. Like, what is he gonna do with five? Is he ever gonna go to six? Like, no, it's about how you know these harmonies gently unfold and kind of like through a thread of attention, right? The the ongoing perpetual motion of this harmony is the thing that is grabbing our attention. That is like every note we know to expect. That part's a given. We don't have to worry about is he gonna go to six notes instead of five in this measure. We can just give in to the um story of the harmony, which he will through structure and form, which is something I just honestly I probably lead people more through uh structure and form than anything in my videos. Um, just without saying, here's the structure and here's the form. I'm kind of like slipping in music theory um without people knowing. That's my goal. Yeah, or just cooking it with garlic, dude. It tastes so good.
SPEAKER_02You're cooking with garlic.
SPEAKER_00I'm cooking with garlic. High quality olive oil. Just oil it up. Um Yeah, I don't know.
SPEAKER_02I don't know if that made sense, but yeah, I think that's good to stop at.
SPEAKER_00You're like, I please shut up. Great. Why did I ask you? In conclusion. Um anyway, thanks. This was a fun one.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it was.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Thanks everyone. Bye. Thank you for listening. Later.
