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.
For video episodes: http://www.youtube.com/@saveclassicalpod
Follow the show on social media at linktr.ee/saveclassicalpod
Follow Daniel on Instagram @daniel_anastasio_piano
Follow Isabel at https://linktr.ee/isabelhagen
Daniel and Isabel Save Classical Music
Dr. Gradus
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Daniel and Isabel dive into Claude Debussy’s Dr. Gradus ad Parnassum and the first movement of Leoš Janáček’s In The Mists.
- YouTube for full video episodes
- Follow Isabel HERE.
- Follow Daniel HERE
- Follow the podcast everywhere at @saveclassicalpod
Alright, Isabel, do you want to hear Debuty or Yanichek?
SPEAKER_00I'm trying to guess which one you're guessing I will.
SPEAKER_02I am like right now i it's right in the middle.
SPEAKER_00Like I Let's start with Debussy.
SPEAKER_02Debut Chao. Hello Debut C the wonderful French impressionist. Wrote this set of pieces for his daughter.
SPEAKER_00And the first one was her to play or just like inspired, like I love you so much. She was like three, she can't play this.
SPEAKER_02You know, I don't I don't know what kind of relationship they had really, except that he loved her very much and he thought she was adorable and friendly and charming and wonderful. And he wrote this set of pieces for her called Children's Corner. Um, and it starts like this. So this is actually it's WC being a little humorous because um it it's really meant to be like satirizing a technical exercise. It's called Dr. Gratis ad Parnassum. So this composer, Muzio Clementi, an Italian composer, um he made this set of technical exercises called Gratis ad Parnassum, which is like trying to get basically trying to reach Parnassus, trying to reach the mountaintop of technique.
SPEAKER_00He wrote a hundred exercises each one gradually the mountain.
SPEAKER_02Gradually toward up the mountain, toward Parnassus, the ancient Greek, you know, mythical mountain, I guess. And the idea is like with each exercise, you get better and better at playing the piano. And these are really hard. I mean, the one he's maybe trying to kind of reference is number two. So it has this kind of tongue-twister-y stuff in the right hand. Um, it's a bit like, I don't know, if you're young and playing the piano, you might learn Hannon exercises. Which that's kind of the simplest one, that's number one. But then we get and all kind of different versions of um the goal is to establish finger independence so that your fingers become little brains, each one knows what it's doing, and it has the freedom to operate in an independent way. So it's not reliant on anything, you can do anything with your fingers, and you have ultimate technique. I happen to think that like I mean, finger independence is probably really important for a basic um up to a certain point, you know, to get to gain kind of confidence in your fingers and strength in your fingers to do those exercises. But at some point you gotta rely on your bigger muscles. Uh-huh. Like at some point you have to realize that the fingers are actually um just an extension of the pal the hand, which is uh from the r looseness of the wrist, which is from the forearm, which is from the shoulder, which is from the back.
SPEAKER_00It's the same for all instruments. I mean, as a string player, like if you're just thinking it's all your fingers, you're gonna get injured and also not play very well. Like it's from like the back, which is also from your core, which is like I mean, you could be sitting or standing, but either way, like it's like all encompassing, like you're an athlete.
SPEAKER_02Right. It's like you're this tree and the branches and the leaves, and the I don't know what I'm going with.
SPEAKER_00But the finger independence is like that's your brain. Like that's learning how to do like you know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, or like maybe it's building muscle memory, whatever that now I'm like scared to say that because people have been like, muscle memory isn't a thing. What? Yeah. We were when we were growing up, it was all muscle memory, muscle memory, muscle memory.
SPEAKER_00It is all muscle memory. I I could I can play box suites that I haven't played in ten years all of a sudden, and it's must it has to be muscle memory.
SPEAKER_02What I mean is like I think it's a misnomer or something. I don't know. I don't think I got the memo on like there's probably updated language on because your your muscles aren't remembering anything. I don't I don't remember.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And I'm genuinely asking this. Is our brain a muscle? And then and in that case, would our memory be a muscle? So then wouldn't it all be muscle memory?
SPEAKER_02Uh we gotta build our memory organ, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So it's not a muscle. But I don't know why I imagine the brain like is a muscle, like contracting and like it's like this gooey, like we work out our brains. And all right, we tire them out.
SPEAKER_02That's an expression, like, oh, it's giving my brain a workout. All right. I we're gonna invite a neuroscientist on next to solve this problem. But for now, uh back to the technique thing. And by the way, muscle memory. You know, someone will tell me, like, oh no, there's a new term for muscle memory. I swear to God, there's something we're missing here.
SPEAKER_00But is that the stupidest what?
SPEAKER_02What are you saying? No, no, no. I think it's a really um interesting topic that I would love to continue talking about.
SPEAKER_00Well, um, I just want to say, so these are the gratis odd parnasum etudes. I want to make the Sisyphus atudes, which is each etude you don't get any better. No, you just start back at the bottom of the mountain.
SPEAKER_02It's just that's really the first measure over and over again.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Actually, we could there could there probably be an etude of, I was joking about this earlier where I would go into the practice rooms when I was like at a music festival, and I would literally hear people practicing, messing up, and then slamming the piano. It infuriated me. It would be like, you know, I mean, that etude, there you go. I was just messing it up. So if they were practicing it, what it's like the worst way to practice ever.
SPEAKER_00I do that sometimes to a tune. It's almost, I mean, I do it less in private. It's more like if I'm in front of someone and I mess up like in a rehearsal, then I'll like scratch it all because I want them to know, like, I know that was bad, and like blh. Oh, that's what it is. It's like an insecurity.
SPEAKER_02Of like people are listening to me, and I need them to know that I'm frustrated by how imperfect this is. But what you are doing in lack of a better phrase, is you are building muscle memory for that. Right. You know? So, like, and I talk about this, you know, when I'm teaching, is like the best practice to me, when I feel good about my practice, when I feel happy practicing. I don't know why you're squirking, but it's because something's coming, something's coming out of you. Um, is when I literally am not am not making any mistakes. And the reason why is because I'm doing it so slowly, so carefully, in such a relaxed manner, like I am just like figuring out the fingering, figuring out the shaping, even phrasing, even though this is supposed to be fast. If you can't play it in a relaxed and confident way, in a way that where you can see what's coming and you can feel confident in what your body's doing, then you gotta play it slower and you gotta play it in a more relaxed way.
SPEAKER_00Is music the only art form or skill that we practice in slow motion? Like, do athletes can't like you don't like make like throw the balls slowly, you know, like to make the basket.
SPEAKER_02Don't don't athletes do some stuff underwater um probably not for form, but more for like resistance.
SPEAKER_00But and like dancers, maybe a few of the movements they slowed down. I guess dancers would probably slow down the combo to get the movements a little bit.
SPEAKER_02I mean that you can't slow down ice skating, can you?
SPEAKER_00No. It's just it's interesting to me because and like as a stand-up comedian, you're not practicing the joke as long as it's like.
SPEAKER_02Well, your version of that is writing one joke rather than trying to say a hundred of them in sixty minutes or something.
SPEAKER_00I know, but it isn't it just cool that musicians we can actually slow it down.
SPEAKER_02We have this cheat code that I feel like people did don't access. Whereas slow practice is a total cheat code. It is like doing it underwater. It's like, okay, let me like jellyfish this practice thing really quick. Um, I'm playing this impossible uh suite for two pianos by Rachmaninoff. And I mean, if you know anything by Rachmaninoff, it's like most of his music is incredibly difficult and requires slow practice, not sight readable, right? Right? So I'm playing like all these chords that eventually are gonna go fast, and I'm leaving notes out and stuff, but how do you think I practice that? I mean, all I'm thinking about is is my wrist loose? Is my arm weight um sinking into the piano? Am I creating a good sound? Am I playing all the notes correctly? Maybe I want a phrase to hear. Maybe I even exaggerate like the articulation in a way that like when I play it faster, all that stuff's gonna kind of blend in together. But now I actually have a chance to think of this musically rather than um in a way that is purely technical and like survival mode.
SPEAKER_00And practicing slowly also feels spiritual because, like you said, you might not retain every inflection and intention that you want when you speed it up, but when you're in the slow part, you can at least say, like, this is what I want to do. Yeah. And it's almost like telling the universe what you want in the music.
SPEAKER_02And and dude, like practicing for me is that's where my happiest place is. It's like that's the only chance that you have to have privacy with the music, true privacy. You can I mean we we pretend like we have privacy in performance, like oh, I'm letting you into my own private world, but we're human beings, like we're we're aware that there are eyeballs on us, and actually that helps give us an energy, a different kind of energy, right, than uh utter privacy. So if I'm like back to the Dr. Gratis Ad Purnassam thing, where Debusy is making fun of this uh technical idea, right?
SPEAKER_00What makes you think it's him making fun? Sorry, I'm not gonna do that.
SPEAKER_02First of all, the title like he doesn't name it gratis at parnasum because Dr. Gratis Adparnasim is like extra pompous. Like let me teach you and all like Mr. Slow-mo like uh Dr. Beat. Um He's doing this for his kid who's like three years old, too, right? So it is a little like um in the land of like for a kid. Something like Schumann, a little bit scenes from childhood, too, where we were talking about of foreign lands and places. It's kind of like I'm speaking to a kid. So the same with like Dr. Gratis at Bernard. We're gonna have to practice our exercises. You know what I mean? All straight 16th notes, it's kind of like a little dorky, but like with most things with WC, you throw the pedal down and you play a little quicker, and all of a sudden it's like kind of like more of like a color or a shape.
SPEAKER_00Well, this is where context is everything, because if I didn't know the title of the piece or anything about it, and you just played with played it for me as you would perform it with the pedal, I would just think this is another beautiful sweeping piece by WC. I'd think nothing of oh, this is a humorous satirization of exercises.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so this here's a question. Maybe I'm interpreting it wrong. Maybe I'm overly beautiful in the way I'm interpreting it, and maybe that's because I've heard recordings of people playing it in this very debuty way. You know, maybe I need to play it, or it says moderately animated, okay, and then equal and without uh do you need to speak French? Yeah. Secheresse.
SPEAKER_00You know what else you practice slowly, I just realized languages. Yeah, like let me see that. Yeah, sure. So it says sécheresse, I think is how you say it. So it was like if you're trying to speak it like Egale eson sécheresse, egal et sans sécheresse. You know, like you you speed it up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Language is something so but language is music.
SPEAKER_02Music is universal language. Mic drop. Um do you know what sécheresse means? No. Me neither. I just know how to pronounce it. Unfortunately, no one has a phone or Google, so we'll never know.
SPEAKER_00You want me to look it up?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, can you? But uh, in the meantime, while you're looking that up, um I wonder what it would feel like to play this in the way I'm describing. So kind of like begin in a slightly dorky academic technical way, and then allow it to unfold into more of a story. Let me just try it. What how do you spell it?
SPEAKER_00Sorry.
SPEAKER_02S E with an accent agu.
SPEAKER_00C-H-E-R-H-E-R-E as- Okay, so it means drought. Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_02Equally and without drought.
SPEAKER_00It's probably one of those direct transitions.
SPEAKER_02Without without dryness, maybe? Maybe wet. So pedal. So maybe he's making me pedal it. Yeah. Equally and with pedal. Okay, but but but let's forget the pedal for a second.
SPEAKER_00Oh, song without okay. I was gonna say that would be interesting if he was saying without pedal, because then you really would be misinterpreting it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And he does have this, he does have a slur over like a giant slur from the beginning all the way through the second bar. So he probably does want it to be connected, legato. So maybe I can marry these two ideas. Let me let me meet in the middle somewhere where I can start like an exercise, but also flowing. Okay, so yeah, I mean just for what it's worth, what gives it a little shine is this tonic pedal point in the bottom. So this C, which holds, it's a bit like that Bach prelude um from book two, C major. When something is underneath a tonic pedal point, it has so much brightness and excitement. You know that promps.
SPEAKER_01Whatever it is.
SPEAKER_02Imagine that this is a trembler. And then jumps up a register and has a kind of smile to it. So that the equality of the notes gives it that A tude like feeling, but already here we're into bigger gestures. And then he pauses when he's gonna change the pattern here. And it's like a compendium of different styles and exercises because this is like a different thing. Like he's practicing here some hand crossing where this note is it ha it has to be played kind of in between my right-hands figuration. So it's a little like clumsy, you know, you would have to practice that as a kind of atune. And then okay, we're done with that. A little rib, and then change of harmony. Something different, hand crossing. Left hand has to cross over to the right. Little expression here. This part really feels like a story to me. It's kind of like in Star Wars where they're on like tattooed and looking at the moon. Oh yeah. It's like this kind of like. I wonder what's out there, Uncle Ben. You know, it has this kind of like ninth of the chord that is making it feel more open. It's the ninth of the chord. Well, so we have we have a it's a B flat major chord, but then it has this C in it.
SPEAKER_00It's the same thing with the pedal gives it this the pedal gives it inherent dissonance in a lot of places. The pedal point on the bottom. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02When earlier the actual pedal, the sustained pedal. Yeah. Yes.
SPEAKER_00Because you're not adjusting for the harmony, it's it's one note under changing melody.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, if you if you didn't have pedal here, it would just be Bach.
SPEAKER_00Right. Although Bach does Bach do pedal tones?
SPEAKER_02Oh, he does pedal tones, yeah. Sure. He does. But not that sustained. Um it's like, yeah, I might as well just grab that C major prelude because not the F major one you were playing earlier.
SPEAKER_00What?
SPEAKER_02Oh the inside joke. We'll come back to that.
SPEAKER_00We were having a real good goofy time before we uh hit record. Oh my god, dude.
SPEAKER_02Uh where is this prelude? Box C major prelude. There it is. So we have the tonic pedal point of the bass.
SPEAKER_00But even that gives it dissonance, and there's a little passing dissonance.
SPEAKER_02Well, here's the difference though. It resolves, right? It resolves quote unquote, where it's like like, yeah, there's that. And then, but it resolves to that. Whereas, if we go back to our WC, WC, then this. It's just kind of floats there as a chord. Right. As in like these are these are more functioning vertically as chords rather than horizontally as voice leading. Uh uh, it's not like it's not like this voice. We don't hear this. We hear this.
SPEAKER_00Right. Well, it's it's a really feels like a direct depiction of or like a a direct musical representation of impressionistic painting.
SPEAKER_02Go say say more, as they say.
SPEAKER_00Sorry, please.
SPEAKER_02Sounds like you're gonna cry from your own rabbit.
SPEAKER_00This is I'm dumb, but what paintings, like impressionistic paintings, I feel like there's there's more uh like blended and c more colors used. It's a l less of a literal depiction of something. Yeah. And just like in earlier music than Deb UC, a lot of the times you have more uh dissonance to consonant, dissonance resolving to consonants, and like this is what this is for. The dissonance is so that we can resolve to the consonants. Yeah. But in this, the lines are all blurred, and while it doesn't always sound like it's clashing or are ugly when I say dissonance, but but the dissonance is much more like it's suspended and the lines are blurred for when it's resolved. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, they just discovered opium. Yeah, basically. So it's like yeah, the the definition and distinction of the boundaries of the objects like no longer are the subject of the painting. It's like so the the purpose of painting changed. Where I I mean, yeah, I don't know anything about this either, but really, but from my perspective, in my opinion, it's more about uh What does it feel like when you're watching a sunrise? When you're looking at a lake, when you're seeing the lily pads floating. It's not like I don't need to be hit with the definition of them. I need to like sit in my own feeling and reflection of how color and shadow and light hit all these things in a way that is actually um more like a oneness, you know, than than it is uh it's less about individuality too. Like the subject of like romantic works and German poetry and you know fiction and all this stuff is like it's so intense. You get into the individual and the soul and the character of the person, right? I feel like um this kind of music, it's like man, you and your ego and your soul, like forget all that. Like, this is just just come on, man. Just sit on the sit on the beach and watch this beautiful sunset. No, but obviously it's about the soul too. But I mean it's more about how our soul can emanate uh in this vibrant world of beautiful, natural existence and colors, and um it's like let go.
SPEAKER_00Well, it's letting go of our our human invented definitions of things. Not only not even just language obviously is a a tool we created, but even before language just sort of identifying things as individual things, like in your head, like that is a tree, that is a lake, you know, like I wonder if there was a time before language when it really we before we even started differentiating things so much.
SPEAKER_02I think so. It's gotta be the time before Kannings.
SPEAKER_00We can never know, like because our brains change with technology. Yeah. Which ever with each new technology it affects our brains. So what what was it like to exist in anyway? That's not when this was written or anything, but it harkens back By the way.
SPEAKER_02If Debbie C were here, he'd be like, dude, you guys are you guys are reaping way too much into this. I was literally like, oh, cool, let me compose this piece in C major for my three-year-old. I love so cute. So does exercises the piano. I want to do one too. And we're like, the nature of existence and our souls merging with eternity. Yeah. Like, what if he's referencing a time before language?
SPEAKER_00Well, that's not what I was saying. No, I know, I know. I I I wasn't speaking, but yeah. I wasn't speaking with his about his intentions. I was speaking more in a way about how it just makes me f think about maybe the way the music is affecting you might happen to be uh connecting to a part of us that would have been more alive when we didn't have these like definitions. But yeah, sure.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean I think it's I think nature plays a huge role in these impressionistic works. Yeah. And and if you look at Ravel, it's like, I mean, half his pieces and WC too, it's like reflections of the water and you know, Jadot, water games, Ravel, and uh I mean, it kind of goes on, but it's like maybe a lot of them is just about water. Now that I think about it, there's a whole lot of water. And and but also in the Impressionistic paintings, they're fascinated by the ocean and lakes and kind of the horizon that the sky meeting uh the ocean.
SPEAKER_00You know, I love the idea of Debbie C walking it and just being like, God, this is Yeah, be like, oh my god.
SPEAKER_02Be like, did you s have by the way? Have you seen I wrote a piece later called Gollywog's Cakewalk? It's not just about whoa nature. I'm just trying to mess around here. This is like a ridiculous set of child pieces. Let me keep playing. So we have this, which is by the way, I mean, that is the figure from the opening. It's just slowed down and it's now in B flat major. A little minor inflection gives a little kind of bittersweet nostalgia. Here we go. Okay, what do you notice is different? This should be the return, right? It's a different pedal, right? Yes, the different left hand is not a C, it's a G. Which is Oh, which is the it resolves to C. Right. So this is a classic case of how dominant pedal points, which is this, feel different than tonic pedal points. Right. This has anticipation and excitement and brightness and like wonder and like, oh man, I can't wait to go on this journey. And this is like, oh boy. How are we gonna get back? Right? It's kind of building tension toward a return of something rather than start your engine to we're about to get going on at the beginning of our journey. So here's a dominant pedal point on G. And then it resolves. So it's nothing too dramatic. I mean, this is a kid's piece, after all. But this coat of the hair is pretty awesome. So it really, it really like just takes flight at the end. You know, it's kind of like, well, you know, ad ornasum. I mean, I guess it's just kind of like soaring. It's just this idea of like rising, rising higher and higher until you're kind of like, you're up on this, you get up on this cliff. Maybe you have a little paraglider. But you can see from the mountaintop. I I love these little minor fours. Uh and what that is is like instead of uh which would be This is a Well, this is suspended, whatever, but to add this uh A flat. Ugh. Oh yeah. It's just a minor.
SPEAKER_00So play it again without that and then sure.
SPEAKER_02And now with it.
SPEAKER_00That's one of those things where you don't realize why like why does it have that extra little like nostalgic oomph to it?
SPEAKER_02Uh just a little poignancy. And it's I said minor four because that's uh that A flat exists in the four chord of C major. So normally it would have a but here with minor four. I mean, Brahms does it all the time, you know, Schubert sometimes, Beethoven occasionally, but it's a very romantic sentiment. Um these beautiful suspensions, dissonances that resolve. By the way, it's like it sounds virtuosic, but it's really not. He's only he could have really dressed this up if he wanted to, but it's uh each hand just has two notes at a time. You know? So he keeps it simple, he keeps it childlike. You know, he's not he's not doing like, you know, I don't know. You know. He's not he's not filling it out with kind of all five fingers, kind of creating a big, large texture. He's not like you know, he's not filling out the whole piano. It's just it I think that simplicity he made that he maintains gives it that childlike quality, you know. Uh it's just beautiful. I love it when composers reveal a part of themselves that is childlike. You know, that is like it's almost like he this is an excuse for him to be a a kid a little bit or to get inside the mind of a kid to kind of just yeah. It just wonder is what a kid is feeling so much of the time, at least I I think curiosity.
SPEAKER_00Numinous is that the word?
SPEAKER_02I don't know. I don't I don't know that word. I think you're probably right. You have a bigger vocabulary than I do.
SPEAKER_00No. You went to Ivy League. Sorry, no, I'm I want to know what this word means.
SPEAKER_02Numinous.
SPEAKER_00Um I also like that Arousing spiritual or religious emotion, yeah. Mysterious or awe-inspiring.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Okay. Sounds a little deep for a kid. Okay, sure. But yeah. Um so he has this beautiful kind of it it's a abandon, a feeling of abandon at the end of this piece. But then he brings us back to reality. Well, when it's kind of like we're tumbling down. It's like, okay, we've had our fun, we've risen to the mountaintop, now we're gonna come back down.
SPEAKER_00Is so like Broadway, you know? It's almost like he was like, I gotta end this shit. I don't know. That's why like at the beginning, he apologizes to his daughter. He's like, sorry for what follows, which is kind of ridiculous because it's a gorgeous, really well done piece. Except you can see at the end, maybe he kind of was like, uh Yeah, I'm gonna end it.
SPEAKER_02It's a really goofy way to add the piece.
SPEAKER_00I think I don't always respond to the idea of you know composers showing their childlike sides in music. Like I feel like you're always talking about like this is very childlike.
SPEAKER_02Should have Yeah, I should probably use a different word.
SPEAKER_00No, no, no, no. All I no. Okay. No. But what I mean. But for me, I think childlike, like it all it's all childlike in a way, because anything that feels like a raw emotion to me reminds me of childhood. Alright.
SPEAKER_02I want to hear something that's not childlike.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, challenge that with something not child childlike.
SPEAKER_02Well, okay, so I d well I mean moving to Yanichek for a second. Because Leos Yanacek? Yanachek, I don't know. Yeah, I think that's how you pronounce it, but um He's a composer who he experienced a lot of loss. Like he actually lost a child um and his music is lives in a space that is very complex. Like to me there's nothing straightforward about it. Um and yet it's very raw. So he was really interested in speech rather than let's say singing. Um so he recorded thousands of uh uh recorded as in like wrote down these speech melodies. So he would uh walk around to different parts of like cities or or streets and just listen to the intonation of people as they were speaking. And rather than being obsessed with like what they're saying, he was more interested in how they're saying it.
SPEAKER_00There was no he didn't actually record it. There was no recording.
SPEAKER_02That's a melody right there. But no, he would write down the pitches that he would hear. That he would hear.
SPEAKER_00So he was uh just recording it by the way.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, by hand. I haven't done this practice myself, but my understanding is is he was and you can hear it in his music, like it's not these flowing, beautiful eight bar phrases, you know, that you might get from um romantic era composers. They're small fragments that kind of hit you quick and then go somewhere else, or the story they're telling is um it just feels more immediate rather than couched in a song. I don't know, there's something something about the song that can be a little distancing. It's the same reason that like recently I I did something with Caroline Shaw and her the way she sings to me um is very immediate. Like it's not like she doesn't add a ton of vibrato. She's not trying to I mean obviously it's like it's not quite classical, you know, and yet uh it it is in the classical genre and she's uh what she does is very inspired by classical music, but she's not disrupting the meaning of what she's saying with any technique per se. The technique, if there's any technique in her voice, is just uh in order to strip away distraction from the immediacy of her words. And I think great uh pop artists do that, great folk singers do that, you know, where it's like I need you to feel what I'm feeling, and the fastest way to the fastest way is to actually like sushi, just give me the food, don't dress it up, don't dip it in soy sauce.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, like uh modern like Gracie Abrams and Olivia Rodrigo are like they do like I always jokingly call it like Shbrek Shimmer. But it's a but it's like you know, like you said forever. No, I I drive alone past your right, right. Suddenly they're just like whoa, are you just like talking to me right now?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And they like sort of go back and forth between like very sweet singing and like speaking. Yeah. And it's cool. Like I I like it. I like Sprex to that.
SPEAKER_02Which by the way, in case you guys don't know, that is what's a term for like in Arnold Sherberg's music.
SPEAKER_00And I'm from it's like really creepy.
SPEAKER_02Oh, that's beautiful. It's like the the intonation is uh really I I don't know how do you describe it? What is what stimma translate to? It's like singing. Yeah. So like it's half speaking, half singing.
SPEAKER_00Which is what Olivia Rodrigo and Gracie Avery bringing back stimulus.
SPEAKER_02Oh my god, that's so hilarious. Um, with with all of that to say, Janicek is um his music is just very simple and yet very profound. Um and it's uh to me there's not much childlike about it. But you be the judge. Let's take a look. So this is uh some of the first movement of his piece called In the Mists, um, which already is like very ambiguous. Um and it's in a key with five flats, sort of maybe D flat major, maybe B flat minor, we'll see. Um sorry, I had a weird bass note. Um let me let you just react to that for a second. Just just what do you feel about the music? What do you think the story of the music is? And um should I not ask it?
SPEAKER_00No. What I I got distracted because you were you were asking, does this sound childlike to you? Okay, we can start with that. I mean, there's a tenderness to it and a sadness. Yes. Maybe that's just my own personal issues that I need to work through in therapy, but anything kind of tender and sad, I just it I'm like, oh, it's all it's all childlike, I guess.
SPEAKER_02I see. Okay.
SPEAKER_00Like, sure.
SPEAKER_02So for you, like vulnerability is childlike.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and and almost all all music has a vulnerability to it, even if it's aggressive.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um but I also was thinking how this this kind of feels more like like film music to me. The the simple voicing and the spec when it goes to da when it goes down to the when it really gets to the wait, does it do that?
SPEAKER_02Oh I don't know. Maybe later.
SPEAKER_00That's that's basically what it does, and then it's a stupid observation, but I was thinking about the speech, also, the speech patterns.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00The accompaniment in the left hand is almost those speech patterns, too. Yeah. Obviously, the melody you could hear as someone speaking slowly or or someone singing.
SPEAKER_02This actually sounds like singing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02But what's interesting too is phrasing, like he doesn't phrase off beautifully. Right. Like there, for example. He like almost in a Beethoven way, he's like pushing to the very end, and then it's kind of like what makes it Beethovinian?
SPEAKER_00Also, I like just wait till you get to the level where someone can be like, oh, it's almost like Anastasioinian.
SPEAKER_02Anastasovinian. Anastasinian. Um yeah, that was a that was I'm just curious. The reason was Beethoven often has dynamics toward the end of phrases or the end of measures that commit to the very end in a way that didn't really happen before so much. So like in Mozart and Haydn, like they would end normally. I mean you'd have sudden shifts and everything. But for the most part, when they're getting heated, for example, especially when they're getting heated, the music's getting heated, they would often phrase off. Like the end of a slur means come back. And that is connected to speech. Like let's go there. Like see how my voice went or like like you would never let's go there. Like it's like toward the end of a sentence. Why don't we go over there? You you tend to you tend to come down, you know? Um and maybe this is different with other languages. I'm just using English, but well I mean God.
SPEAKER_00We don't think about Chinese where there's actual like prescribed tones for words. Yeah. I mean it's a whole other thing.
SPEAKER_02That is. You want to demonstrate a little bit? No. Okay. Um so but Beethoven would go against that by having you commit, commit all the way to the end. So it's like it's getting louder and it's getting louder and it's getting louder. And then you suddenly shift from there rather than it's getting louder, it's getting louder, and now we're gonna go somewhere else. And you know, somehow like phrasing for audiences before that tended to be more like we don't want to shock we don't want to actually disturb our audience. We want them to feel like we're telling them a story that makes sense and is rational. And this is my argument for the way you should feel about it. And Beethoven is like, how about those feelings that don't stop conveniently just because you want to um you know, treat your audience well? What about those feelings of anger and depression and violence that like you know even if you want them to go away, they're gonna be there.
SPEAKER_00Don't you have an example of a Beethovenian ending in Beethoven?
SPEAKER_02Well, I mean, how about his very first sonata? Um, if I can pull it up. Opus Opus 2 number one. I'm sure that even his very first sonata has these kinds of extremes. Let's see. Nope. Oh, and I messed that up. No, that's a bad example because he does phrase off there, but oh here we go. Here's kind of an example, so it's like rather than right, right, he he doubles down. Doubles down, triples down literally, so he has uh one two three. Right.
SPEAKER_00Right, it's it's the richness of it builds, right? Yeah, that is very like I wouldn't I've never thought of that before, but that is so vape too. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Where it's like, instead of saying, how about I say one thing and then another that's Mozart. That's Mozart, yeah. And then he might be like, oh, how about a third thing? And so the middle is where it it was its maximum. Yeah. Instead, Beethoven's like, I have an idea. I'm gonna just repeat that. Actually, I'm kind of obsessed with it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's like brashed, yeah, it's kind of obnoxious. Yeah. Uh and it it also reminds me like those those octaves, just it's not really the same thing, but just again, his later quartets, the like extreme voicing, like the spacing between the voices. Like he just he plays so much with the voicing in ways that uh other composers before him and and at his time weren't doing.
SPEAKER_02He's not he's not hiding anything. In fact, he's seeing those parts of his consciousness that you may not want to look at, and he's like, that's the thing I want to really look at. Right. That's what makes like a great artist, I think.
SPEAKER_00Is finding those he was such a good artist. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Beethoven was such a good artist.
SPEAKER_00Beethoven was also talented.
SPEAKER_02This is probably the hottest take we have on this podcast that Beethoven was a good artist.
SPEAKER_00Beethoven was a good artist.
SPEAKER_02And and that WC um only wrote about water. Um we gotta wrap up. We gotta wrap up. I mean, we're getting delirious.
SPEAKER_00Should we do a Beethovenian ending to this? We gotta wrap up. So wait, just just to wrap this up.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Oh, wait, here we go.
SPEAKER_00Show me the Beethoven ending. Wait, what piece was that?
SPEAKER_02Okay, that was wait, let me do a different one. Hang on.
SPEAKER_00What piece was that from? That was the beta? That was this thing.
SPEAKER_02No, what I was saying in the Yanachek. Oh, yeah. Okay, wait, hang on. Let's go back to what that. Let's go back to Yanachek, hang on. To wrap up, I at least, I at least want to show you how the Yanachek actually actually actually does something. What?
SPEAKER_00Just imagine you being like, I mean, yeah, this piece is just great.
SPEAKER_02That's it. It's great, great stuff. Yeah, not childlike. Great stuff. Okay. Pedal point. So this is a pedal point used for an even even different reason than remember the or the building tension now with this beautiful. So after after we get the end of the first section here, we have this little kind of corral in the upper voices. Suspended over this A flat. It's like it's a moment of doubt. And then a cascade. That's not a voice, you know? That's like a fluttering of thoughts or something, and then I don't know what it is. And it's almost like that whole thing was just like a fever dream, and we're back into this world of nostalgia. Moved and um speechless at that piece. Um and yeah, I I wish I could play it better, but I'll work on it. I want to perform it at some point. Um it's one of those pieces to me in the myths and maybe other pieces by Janachek too. I've played a couple that I I really stru I do actually struggle to find words for. I tried to make like a little video about it to try to explain it. And uh as soon as you start to kind of analyze it, you're like, uh none of that is the point of this. It's living in such a in such a delicate uh world that as soon as you start ironically, because it's like a lot of his music is based on speech and speech patterns and things like this, but as soon as you start to appro apply words to describing his music, it it it is the actual cliche for me. I don't like to use this a lot, but it's like words fail. Like words are too definite, they're too defining. Um what I have loved to do and what I did recently with my friend Naomi is pair this with poetry. She wrote a very um very beautiful uh poem called Gaza Morning, which is about you know the suffering right now in Gaza and everything. And um it just captured a kind of sensitivity and love and hope that is bittersweet, you know, that just like this was the perfect pairing, and I feel like music when it's paired with poetry in the right way, can enhance the words, and the words can totally bring um a powerful meaning to uh uh the music in a way that isn't defining it. Right. I think that's what it is. As soon as I and I have to figure this out for myself, like how to describe I wish I were a poet sometimes, because like sometimes if I'm describing music, I'm killing it in my own head.
SPEAKER_00Defining everyth anything is is a slight killing of it. Yeah. That's why it's so fr I mean, we gotta end this episode, but I'm end on a big thought, which is that why it's so frustrating that everything is all about branding. All art is now a brand or the artist is a brand. Because a brand is is defining something. What's your brand? What are you you're if you're if you know your brand, you're defining yourself. But that's so antithetical to being an artist and being someone who's creating things because you should be always changing and flowing and and following the inspiration and that's why I love I love always whenever I come across like a reel of David Lynch.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02Because it's just like he's he's he's like, why when he's directing like Twin Peaks and they're saying uh we we need like hey, it's it's time it's the scene is too long. And he's like, What is what's what are we talking? We're talking about time? Like, what is time? You know what I mean? Like, like allow the creative process to unfold however long that takes. If this needs to be and the same with us, we're we're right now, we're like, well, we got an end of the episode, it's an hour. Like who cares? Who cares if one episode's an hour and a half and another one is sixty minutes, another one is forty-five minutes? Like what how long does it take for us to come to a moment of connection and truth that we feel is right? Is it exactly sixty minutes? You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00Or uh it's all like it's actually like fifty-eight is a golden ratio.
SPEAKER_02All right, we mostly have to stop because we're tired and my voice is starting to give out, but this was nice. This was nothing cathartic. We laughed, we almost cried.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we'll we'll cry later.
SPEAKER_02We figured a lot out between WC and Yanachek. Um, if you were listening to all that. Okay, guys. Bye-bye. Take care. Bye-bye.
