Thank you for this thought provoking read. Very good point about Satie, whose music I love not just for its apparent simplicity and directness, but also for the studied effect of simplicity that can only come from a great amount of musical knowledge. As a contrast, I feel intellectually bad that I cannot enjoy music such as Schönberg's, for example. I do appreciate the mastery of the music, the difficulties and great skill required to perform it - I just don't enjoy it. At the same time, without being a classical music buff, I enjoy Shostakovich, whose music can be anything but light, but resonates differently than the former's, for unfathomable reasons. I find bang on your description of The Candidate as a film made intentionally difficult. Redford is superb as its wannabe hero.
(Sorry it's taken me so long to reply - my mail client is doing a weird stacking thing with Substack interactions, effectively hiding any comments...) Thank you for this. You are definitely more of a buff than I am - but yes, some of this is genuinely unfathomable. I think I responded to the light versus heavy paradigm because I remember really hating a Rachmaninov prelude that my teacher had me playing at the same time I found the Satie piece - a great, crashing, galumphing thing. I like some Rachmaninov, but this one weighed about thirteen musical tons.
"anything valuable about culture springs from enjoyment". Sounds like enjoyment came first. I would disagree, it's a chicken and egg thing. To enjoy something you need to formalise it, to aprehend it. You need to be able to talk about it, like you did about Satie. Having said "I like this" you have said nothing. There is more to it, and you know it, feel it. At least that's how it works for me. I cannot like something without imediately (no not "imediately" but "at the same time") asking myself why? And that's when the fun starts.
I love the Satie museum. So playful.
It's brilliant isn't it?
Thank you for this thought provoking read. Very good point about Satie, whose music I love not just for its apparent simplicity and directness, but also for the studied effect of simplicity that can only come from a great amount of musical knowledge. As a contrast, I feel intellectually bad that I cannot enjoy music such as Schönberg's, for example. I do appreciate the mastery of the music, the difficulties and great skill required to perform it - I just don't enjoy it. At the same time, without being a classical music buff, I enjoy Shostakovich, whose music can be anything but light, but resonates differently than the former's, for unfathomable reasons. I find bang on your description of The Candidate as a film made intentionally difficult. Redford is superb as its wannabe hero.
(Sorry it's taken me so long to reply - my mail client is doing a weird stacking thing with Substack interactions, effectively hiding any comments...) Thank you for this. You are definitely more of a buff than I am - but yes, some of this is genuinely unfathomable. I think I responded to the light versus heavy paradigm because I remember really hating a Rachmaninov prelude that my teacher had me playing at the same time I found the Satie piece - a great, crashing, galumphing thing. I like some Rachmaninov, but this one weighed about thirteen musical tons.
"anything valuable about culture springs from enjoyment". Sounds like enjoyment came first. I would disagree, it's a chicken and egg thing. To enjoy something you need to formalise it, to aprehend it. You need to be able to talk about it, like you did about Satie. Having said "I like this" you have said nothing. There is more to it, and you know it, feel it. At least that's how it works for me. I cannot like something without imediately (no not "imediately" but "at the same time") asking myself why? And that's when the fun starts.