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
Rachmaninoff Rests
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Daniel and Isabel talk about slowing down, the balance between hard work and rest, and the power of musical rests, repetition, and rhythmic variation in Sergei Rachmaninoff's Moments Musicaux No. 3 in B Minor. Isabel brings her viola and they try an arrangement.
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Welcome to the podcast. Today we're going to talk about rests.
SPEAKER_01This is our second time starting it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, because we were I was my brain was malfunctioning. Um so we're gonna talk about rest in music and rest in life and um and wrestling. And wrestling. Yeah, something that Isabel is an expert at in her past life.
SPEAKER_01Wrestling with the need uh and struggle with taking breaks.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Allowing yourself to rest and reset.
SPEAKER_00I have a huge I have huge trouble with this, not because I mean I think partly because um I really enjoy working. I take a lot of uh I'm not gonna say pride. I just I just I believe in work. I feel like working at just I don't know what is work. Like working, it's kind of different when you're a musician, and especially if you're kind of trying to be an entrepreneur and you're doing your own thing, it's like not a nine to five. You kind of it's it's supposed to be your passion, but you know, it's also just work and you're pushing yourself to work a lot of the time. So it's just a different thing than something you have to go into to the office to do and someone's telling you to do a certain list of things. Um if you're in charge of your own motivations, then I I don't know. I I just for me it's just something that uh it's it's work is not its own th word. It's not its own thing that's separate from just what I'm doing. However, um the more I work at something that I'm trying to achieve, uh the better it is. Like I I love work. Work is just making something you care about better, at least in in my situation, in my case, in my life right now. I feel very lucky for that. So I think it's like any minute that I can add to the betterment of the thing that I love, even if it requires hard work, is in some fundamental way a joy. Even if it's not in the moment a joy, it's kind of like that feeling of uh how I imagine having a kid, where it's like you stop anyone in the middle of parenting and and you ask them even if they're they look utterly miserable, even if they're like utterly worn down, if they're bickering with their spouse, if they're like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. Hey, quiet down over there. You say, Hey, are you happy? Do you regret having kids? No, I don't regret having kids. I'm I'm of course I'm content and I'm so happy with my decision, and I love my child my child and everything. But it's like, but you look miserable.
SPEAKER_01Well, there was an article about I didn't read it because it looked kind of clickbaity, but women being like, I regret having children. So Oh really? Yeah, but whatever.
SPEAKER_00Well, maybe that's now it's a that's more of a an accepted view that it will maybe maybe more people are coming out with that opinion because it's it's more trendy and more accepted to feel like you don't have to have kids.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, my relationship with regret is like I I try to avoid it just because you really can't change the past, and you can't often change a lot of things about your current situation. So to me, it's like, well, what is the point of having regrets? Let me just do the best I can with this situation. Uh where regret feels like just an utter waste of time. Obviously, I've had regrets before, but just um trying to move away from that as much as I can. And I always said, if I don't have kids, I won't regret it because I won't know what I was missing. And if I do have kids, I won't be able to imagine life without them. So like I don't know. It's just like anyway, we don't need to c talk about that. But um yeah, I think uh you're talking about it's hard to we're we're speaking before we started recording about how it's hard to uh well it's hard to stop. I'm talking.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. You're right.
SPEAKER_01It's so hard for Daniel to stop talking. It's hard for me to stop.
SPEAKER_00It's hard for my brain to stop, it's hard for my mouth to stop.
SPEAKER_01You and I are actually pretty different because um, like when we first met, you were we were in school and you were practicing like that's like all you were doing was practicing. You were like, I practice like seven, eight hours a day. Like I just love practicing, that's all I want to do. Whereas I was like injured and like barely practicing and like starting to do stand-up a little bit. And um it's because I guess I hadn't really found like my thing, which was comedy. Uh, but I I actually don't have trouble like resting and taking breaks with myself. Like if I don't have stuff on my schedule, I'll work on my my stuff. Like I love sitting down and writing, I love going out and doing a set, but neither of those things are that taxing physically, you know? Um, but my problem has been historically just saying no to opportunities that come up. And so sometimes I get into these periods where I've said yes to like so many different things, either because I wanted the money or because I thought, well, this will be a good thing for my career like later on, or I want to make this connection. But then in the moment in practice, it's like this is this is not working. I'm I'm ill because I'm too busy. Um, whereas I feel like you uh and you can tell me if this is accurate, you're so like you you will like just practice, practice like you you will do your own thing just for for hours until you're sick.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, maybe yeah. And part some it's it's just n less so now. I think I've worked on it. Um but you've always been pretty good at I think I think what you're talking about, part of what you're talking about is just knowing you're being aware of your body.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Like you're aware that, oh no, this is not making me feel good, so I'm going to stop. I'm either not aware of that when it's happening, or I don't care and I push I'm pushing through it because there's such a drive toward um and this is not a good thing, but there's an idea of perfectionism, right? Which is you don't have that. No, you don't have that, which is good. Um, and that's not entirely I mean, that doesn't mean that has nothing to do with the quality of your work. But just an illusion that, oh my god, I have to be better. Oh no, this could be better, this could be nitpicking a thing until it feels right, really, really right to you, which you have aspects of.
SPEAKER_01I have selective perfectionism. Like yeah, if I am making something, I'm going to make sure that it's as good as I can make it before I put it out in its final form. You know, but I also can throw caution to the wind and go out and try a bunch of jokes that are half baked because I want to try them and make them better, and that's kind of how stand-up works. And and when I'm his own work. That's his own thing. Like, but with music, I just like I don't know. I just who am I to think I should be perfect? Like to me, perfectionism is I'm so not interested in someone's, no offense, like someone's struggle with perfectionism. Because I'm just like none of us deserve to be perfect. Like, just do keep working, like work hard, but like I don't burden other people with your perfectionism.
SPEAKER_00Well, that's why I have a so it sounds like you're saying, well, you said like your need to be perfect. Like, to me, that isn't it at all. I have it has nothing to do with me being perfect. I don't care, I don't feel like I'm perfect at all. I'm not trying to be perfect. I'm trying to make the work shine for people as brightly as possible. And that takes as long as it takes. I don't care if I can't sleep, I don't care if I need to, you know, oh no, I have to cancel this, I have to cancel that because the thing that I'm working on that I want to affect people with, like, it's not like it is perfect in its own way or I need to be perfect so I have validation. Literally nothing to do with that. It's literally I want this to be as effective as possible for people. And I think for me personally in my own process, hard work, like working on it is the solution to that because it's not just hammering away to think mindlessly, although I used to do that, but I've learned how to work intelligently or work in a way that's efficient so that I'm I'm working on it and then it inspires me with another idea. And I'm working on it and inspires me with another idea. And what's hard for me is to just to put the tool down and say, that's all I can do today because I need to take care of my body. Like I have an utter lack of respect for my own body and mental health when it comes to that.
SPEAKER_01It's just um uh sorry, I'm almost a little out of it, but it's just the way you're reaching it. Like to me, I I just know when I've reached a point where like today nothing more good is gonna happen. Doesn't mean I'm gonna I'm gonna pick it back up tomorrow. Like, yeah, I want the same thing. I want I I would never like write try to make a movie of a script that I wrote that I thought was like not a good script. Like it will be the best script I can write before I would even endeavor to make it, but that'll take as long as it needs to take. And I I actually it's imp for me, it is like physically impossible to push myself to make good work quicker than than I can. Because I can't just be like, oh no, I I need to just stay up all night and come up with a good idea. Like we were talking about ideas last episode, like they they come when they come, and like, yeah, sitting down and being a receiver, the more you can sit down and do that, maybe a little quicker they'll come, but you can't really manufacture it.
SPEAKER_00Um but although I mean yes, I think what keeps me going back sometimes to working overworking is that I'll be in situations where I'm delirious and I'm like overworked and I um don't feel good and I come up with my best frickin' idea. And it's like that um occasionally that pulls me back into that arena of like just like i it it's a it's an addiction to some degree. It's an addiction to wanting to um yeah, be a receiver too often. Where it's like sometimes it's like I I think it's this thing of of taking care of yourself that that is um you are a you are one person and one body and one mind, and it's short-sighted, it's myopic to think I'm gonna come up with all the ideas right away as fast as I can. I'm gonna lose them, I'm gonna lose them, right? Um instead of putting yourself in more in a better position long term to be someone who receives more um and is able to give more because you're healthy, because you're you're stable and healthy and in a position to uh create long term, you know?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I mean, I've certainly had like a good idea while I was delirious and tired, but I think I'm just too tired for that anymore. Like I I think I've just reached my personal burnout point where like I don't know, I feel like I kind of worked endlessly for like eight years. Um, and then I was like, all right, I gotta put the brakes on a little bit and reset. And I don't even know for what if it's gonna be to benefit the work or if it's just to benefit myself or what. And it I've like started caring a little less, but in kind of a liberating way. And it doesn't make me feel like I'm gonna stop putting out work or doing good work, it's just maybe gonna take a little longer. Yeah. But and I just I don't think you're like this at all, I'm not even talking about you. And I wasn't even talking about you with the perfectionism per se, because you also like do you put stuff out, like you're constantly putting stuff out, and like that to me, I always respect that. Because if it's like people who just like they're just well, I could never because I'm just too much of a perfectionist. I'm like, all right, well then why don't you just stop talk like don't I don't even need to so so cool.
SPEAKER_00But it's only been in the past year and a half that I've been putting things out regularly, like for example, on social media. So I think that was a big hurdle. That really helped me a lot. The classical music mindset like super doesn't help with this.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. But I just like I never this whole worship of like you know, mad the mad genius.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01Oh, they're they're like they're so uh messed up in the head and there's but they're worried. No, no, that's I just don't care. Like I I don't think you need to be like mentally unwell to be a good artist. No. Maybe you have like some some brushes with it or some experience or uh, you know, get working through something, but I don't think I think there's this idea still. I think we're moving away from it a little that you need to be this like depressed, sick person.
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah, no, definitely. Um when I was uh sick uh when I'm sick, actually, uh I I appreciate those forced stoppages in my life because it's it's always go, go, go, go, go. And you know, no one can tell me you know, they people try to tell me take a break. Why don't you take a vacation? Hey, take it, you know, hey, just take some time just for yourself. And I'm sitting there thinking, like, no, I want to work because I love it. Like, I I enjoy it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I will say sometimes people are like, you need to take a break. And I'm like, no, I don't. Like in this moment, I'm actually fine, and you don't know how I feel right now. And there is this like prescribed, like, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00Are they reading some anxiety in you or some restlessness? Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And I'm like, no, no, no, like I'm just in the middle of something. Like, leave me alone.
SPEAKER_00Like, I'm yeah, like working passionately on what you love is intense, and you can it takes a lot of energy and it can maybe seem to some people like, well, this dude needs to chill out, right?
SPEAKER_01You know, it's like, actually, no, like I've if you if you don't feel like you're suffering, then you're just like experiencing some stuff.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, there's also this idea that like when you're in your highest energy and you're just like connected and just doing, doing, it's limitless. I feel like that kind of energy feels like you could just do it all day. Um, and especially if it's not physically taxing, like it's actually energy that's just giving you more energy, you know, and so yeah, like in moments where people are like, hey, you maybe you should take a break, it's like I am literally in a flow state right now and I could go forever. So like let me enjoy this. Um but when I was sick, like I don't know, three weeks ago, I took some antibiotics um because I had to do like a little surgery uh, you know, procedure thing. And I got so sick from the antibiotics that I was taking the night before. It was like a dental thing. Um I felt completely nauseous, I didn't sleep at all, I had to like postpone the whole thing.
SPEAKER_01Um postponing what?
SPEAKER_00My dental procedure. And the next day when I felt better, I never felt happier in my life. And that's how I feel when I get sick and then I get better. It's like I have complete appreciation for life. I've I mean it helps that then I had a couple days off to do nothing because I didn't have a procedure done. Um, but it was like a wave of I don't know, it was just dopamine. I don't know what it is, but I I felt I felt unbelievably present and unbelievably grateful. And I tend to feel that way right after I get sick, and I wish I could just hang on to that feeling.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but you know, people are like, well, you know, it's so s it's so uh unfortunate that we have to be sick in order to really like appreciate what we have. And but it's like, well, yeah, like of course. What what do you like? You can't I'm sorry, but I'm not gonna just have that level of euphoria all the time. It it's not sustainable, first of all. And second of all, like that's that is just how life works, and it I feel like in a lot of more modern like wellness talk, there's almost this trying to avoid the like high highs and low lows because you know it's it's not as healthy or or I don't know, but and of course if we're talking like drug use, like that's a whole other thing. But if we're just talking about like what it is like to be a person in the world who sometimes gets sick, who sometimes has something horrible happen to them, and sometimes has great things happen, like why not just enjoy this like wild ride and not kind of be like, oh, but that's not the real, that's not real happiness. You were just sick and now you're just grateful not to be sick. It's like, no, that's real. Yeah, perspective.
SPEAKER_00It's meaningful, it's giving you some perspective, showing you the other side.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and sorry, you you're gonna you're gonna think, okay, I'm always gonna be grateful now when I'm not sick. No, you're not. Like, no, remember during COVID when we couldn't perform live, I was like, I will forever cherish any live performance I get to do when we all go back to doing that. And that's no, it's gone back to exactly the same feeling. Whereas sometimes I enjoy it and sometimes I don't.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, as human beings, yeah. We get used to it. Um, well, so yeah, how does this relate to Rachmaninoff? We were gonna play a piece, or I was gonna play a piece, a Momo Musico from his set of six. I think it's six, yeah. That, oh yeah, it is like a forced stoppage in a way, in the middle of this slew of like incredibly virtuosic and intense and dense pieces. Um, you know, one one of the what is it? Number four, for example. Stop there for a sec. That's the first section really of the piece. Um, so we have this duet kind of going on. It's a little bit like the Schubert. I mean, in a very in a very different way by that from that B flatson I played earlier, the second movement. And it has a similarly mournful quality. I guess there's something about this duet in thirds that composers use that in a minor key. Maybe it happens in opera too, but there's this there's a beautiful sadness about that. Maybe even sadder than singing all by yourself. There's something. I don't know what it is, but that is hovering on top of these low, deep, somber chords. And what's amazing is the monolithic like quality of this, how the texture doesn't really change, you know, how it's it's stuck in this similar style of like duet, chords, rest, next phrase, next phrase, next phrase, and it's slowly building over this entire page. Um did does it feel what does it feel like to you?
SPEAKER_01Does it feel mournful or does it feel like Yeah, and and depressed, and the repetitive rhythm of it feels like you're stuck in a pattern of despair and rumination or whatever it is.
SPEAKER_00Um stuck in patterns, like Yeah, it's to me the the rhythm of this.
SPEAKER_01movement is just as evocative as the harmony.
SPEAKER_00That's a good point. Yeah, I just we don't really think about that as like I lease sorry. I don't think about that as much. I go first a harmony. You know, just 'cause I for me that's where the expression changes and when the harmony changes most of the time. Right. But man, that's a good point that and actually now that I think about it, so the difference between the dotted rhythms and then the triplets.
SPEAKER_01Right. Even that little subtle thing in in the melody uh it's it's so expressive and again evocative like between the difference of the six dotted sixteenth and the triplet. And then not to go too far ahead in the piece, but when it goes back to the sort of the more dirgy bass the boom boom boom. Really that's sort of it's the harmonies are the pretty much the same. There's just a little different voicing but then that that rhythm says so much. Yeah. It changes so much in the in the left hand.
SPEAKER_00It does. It's like the freedom it's like we were this was is revealed to be either either it's revealed to really be a true dirge like the whole time or um there's something more personal and singing and free about this first section that isn't as tricky structured by the rhythm that later it's like the memory of that melody is now in the context of death.
SPEAKER_01It's more final it's in the beginning it's sure we're stuck in this pattern but it's like there's almost a little like not hope but like what's going on is something gonna get better and then with the left hand coming in it's like nope this is it shall be this.
SPEAKER_00Yeah yeah yeah totally another an ex another force is coming in in the fate of seal. And we were talking about the difference between these dotted rhythms one two three dun dun and with the triplets one one two three one two three those are triplets but there's also duples in other words eighth notes so we have so one two three one and two so we have that but later there's this where is it oh that's the first introduction of eighth notes actually I don't think there are eighth notes before that and so that's it's really striking that he puts that essentially in the whole emotional climax of the first page right it was this whole buildup all triplets these expressive triplets that are just flowing and then all of a sudden he like puts the breaks on it with these eighth notes that end the phrase and end the entire section I think that's that is entirely rhythmic manipulation adding to the expressive power of this opening.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00Yeah good point should I keep playing a little bit okay there's a little more hope I think in this next section and I do think it has to do with the harmony and I think it has to do with I think it has to do with what happens in the heart this heart's really gonna shock you ready what composer does this sound like all of a sudden like uh like Hans Eisler or something like a hindemyth we try that again stop there yeah man I I uh I keep wanting to get faster because my heartbeat just starts like racing during that part it kind of lends itself to that it's like it's it's swelling up it's um yeah I mean it's literally getting higher and higher and also the it there's a sequence there's a harmonic sequence going on that just ratchets things up and up and up and escalates in expression. So it's like okay now we're gonna try again now we're in E major you know there's something hopeful about that and then we're not done and now it's like we can't really go any higher and we feel like it just needs to spill over the top we have nowhere to go but down. There's this beautiful nature of about the way that phrases work and the way that music sometimes work that composers really tap into beautifully where you know what comes up must come down. There's like a gravity to the way that music naturally if it rises it needs to fall and someone like Rachmanonov is just doing that over a longer stretch. It's what makes his music feel so romantic is the stretching out of that process of like expansion and then release.
SPEAKER_01Right whereas someone like Debussy actually will do a little less of that and go into the stratosphere and then stay there.
SPEAKER_00Like we've reached like in Clair de Loon I was thinking of a different beast but go ahead finish your thought oh that was the finish that was the end of my finish your entire thought are you telling me that you have nothing else to say about that? I've said everything there is to say you really that's entirely fleshed out. Yep. Okay. It made me think of the climax of Reflections in the water where it's this beautiful This piece is just like so still you know it's like it's such uh typical Debuty or what we think of Debuty now. He wasn't always like this but he grew into this composer who just yeah no tension just it's like no I don't want you to think about a human being I don't want you to think about a romance this is just the stillness of water. It's less tension and release and more just yeah and more just the stillness of water thank you wow that's so validating but in the climax um because there is tension that happens in the climax I mean water gets I mean water can be incredibly water can be stressed out too yeah water's got its own issues so here he's building tension with a whole tone scale on the bottom he's famous for these whole tone scales which normally like you said it's like there's not really there's tension in that but there's no release in that or it's all release or it's all tension but it's there's because every tone is a whole tone away from each other like B to C sharp C sharp to D sharp to F or E sharp whatever and there's no like there's there's not going to be any like this chord is more tense than another chord. No these are all just floating that's why we have the feeling of a dream you know this kind of harmony but he's using tonal harmony above that like a B minor or B flat minor harmony and then an augmented so we feel like we're gonna really come up with a climax right but just like you're saying once it finally gets to that climaxic state we just stay there'll never come down it eventually s spills over into man this is hard it goes to this is what's so cool about WC is his big climaxes are often just like triads because we've been in such wacky harmony before that.
SPEAKER_01And then he's just like hey remember traditional harmony this is just an E flat chord and it seems it's bright and and shocking if well that's kind of a musical depiction of your gratitude for just not feeling sick anymore. It's like the music he's writing is kind of sick. Yeah right it's like these weird whole tone scales and and dissonances but like kind of wonky dream like uh you're in like a hallucination yeah all the whole tone uh stuff you always they always use that in in like cartoons or or in I don't know other things where it's like and then I was in a dream you know yeah yeah um to the point where then you get back to just a triad and you're like oh my god I appreciate life wow or they there's like an incredible presence about just like a hard triad.
SPEAKER_00Something about it that feels bright when you've been doing everything but triadic harmonies uh you know up to that point. Poor whole tone scale like it's such a it's like when we think of a whole tone scale it's like you know major major triads are like we think happy we think joyous when we think of whole tone scale we sing sickly nausea um just not a sickly it's not a direct I mean yeah that's fine haha but I was saying more just otherworldly like hallucination tripping.
SPEAKER_01Yeah tripping.
SPEAKER_00Definitely tripping and some people like tripping I have no experience with it nor do I want but well I think probably people uh part of the enjoyment of tripping is some kids like tripping I just have no need for anything they're doing called tripping I don't know I mean I I've tripped over chords and things before but um I think part of the experience that's powerful is coming back obviously yeah and then and then feeling like whoa I I learned something from going deep into that abstract realm what can I take back with me and in WC's case it's like there's this like there's still the the whole tone is still there it's just like in a new in this context of incredible uh yeah I just think brightness with WC there's always color and light involved you know it's it's these natural topics.
SPEAKER_01But anyway back to Rachmaninoff um why wait what how was this connected I don't even remember uh you were talking about how like what comes up must come down and Rahman attention building yes so and he's ending on a kind of dominant chord here so we're left with what are we left with?
SPEAKER_00We're left with that question what are we left with and this is finally the spot where we get a single voice rather than a a duo it's like a cold truth before that funeral arch that we were talking about earlier um where it's the same theme as the opening well third down I guess because it doesn't have it doesn't have the richness of the duet on top of it. It just now we're in six it just feels darker you know he doesn't uh it doesn't add that third on top to give it a little more substance and a little more humanity let's say cooler it's just even that much more earthly in a dark way. It's more yeah exactly it's more yeah it's just like too real. Yeah it's too real and in the left hand he writes pianissimo and the right hand is mezzoforte so this right hand can sing out and this is like you you're barely making out like uh oh like the grim reaper is coming but I often I mean not just because I have small hands and it's hard and I have to break it and stuff I kinda I often wish I had like a voice like a singer or another instrumentalist on top singing that top voice.
SPEAKER_01And with that should we end this episode with me playing that last section with you I think we should try it.
SPEAKER_00I mean it may not work but I think it could especially that dark rich velvety tone of your instrument good reading that tot that totally works I think yeah yeah um Viola really lends itself to that I'll find more dark I continue to find incredibly depressing music for you to play.
SPEAKER_01Yeah but yeah this piece it um it really just makes such use of of rest and rests are so powerful in music and in our lives.
SPEAKER_00That's right listen to the silence more guys. And with that have a wonderful day.
SPEAKER_01Yeah I was about to say you too bye
