Gonzo Classical for the Musically Inept

     I feel like I should change the name of this blog to the above title. I really am not an academic listener when it comes to this music. I can barely tell an Etude from a Concerto. I just play these discs, listen and react emotionally. In other words – hopeless. Yet, I do listen and I do respond – however unsophisticated-like (apologies to Thomas Dolby - he is way more sophisticated than the above picture might imply - I just happen to get a kick out of his expression here!). 

     Here's what I mean: I don't know what it is, but I really know when I want to hear the Complete Schubert Symphonies. And its not a matter of, say, just listening to Schubert's 5^th and being satisfied. Nope – I pull out the whole kaboodle and spin 'em back to front, first to last in order. Like it's one, big Symphonic Suite. I got in that mood today. I really just needed to feel the vibrations of all those works in order so I pulled my (most likely uncouth and disapproved-of) LP box set of the Complete Schubert Symphonies conducted by Von Karajan with the Berlin Philharmonic. 

       I would bet dollars to donuts there is some online critique of this box set that does not merely border on scathing, but takes scathing to new and exciting horizons of expression. In fact, the only positive thing I've ever read about Karajan relates to his Beethoven Symphony cycle from the early 60s on D. Gramaphone.

I have that CD box set and it is quite good. I also have a complete Schubert Symphony CD set with Nikolaus Harnoncourt conducting which folks in the know consider pretty much the “bees knees”. 

       Yet, handling physical records is like “doing something” for me. One LP side per symphony in this set (more or less) - it's like a physical interaction with the creative element. Ritualistic. OCD-prone. Tough shit if you don't like Karajan's Schubert cycle for some reason – I need to crank these vibrations and flip records to feel better. That's how it is sometimes. The music still sounds good to me. In fact, Schubert's Symphonic cycle speaks to a certain level of.... some kind of bizarre cross between Teutonic angst and heartache that makes the music resonate for me.

      Why Schubert? I don't know. I mean, I like Beethoven too. Yet, Beethoven is too damned triumphant for me sometimes. Schubert knew what its like to suffer in a different way. Sure, Beethoven suffered – especially with the loss of his hearing. But Schubert was cut down really early in his life. What a totally unfair fate! Schubert's music is imbued with a “can you believe what a dirty trick life is” kind of aesthetic. Every nook and cranny betrays a sentiment reminding us how shitty it is to be young, brilliant and DOOMED. Not that my circumstances are even remotely similar. I just relate to it (maybe I just invented this shit in my own mind – who can tell?).

      In this way, it kind of reminds me of (here it comes......) MAHLER. Where Mahler put all his emotions out in front (ecstatic joy to bleak despair – often in the same symphony), Schubert hides his true feelings behind flowery, consonant passages. Yet, its when the music gets serious in between the flowery stuff that a wicked contrast emerges. Makes the serious stuff sound all the more tortured. And why tortured? Because Schubert was a totally un-realized human being in spite of writing a bunch of great music. He died at the age of 31 – some say from typhoid fever, others say from complications due to syphilis (at a time when ingesting mercury was considered a “cure”). It really boggles the imagination how such complex and sophisticated music was composed at a time when science and medicine had barely gotten out of the starting gate. I guess humanity's willingness to think critically and creatively about the natural world was not sufficiently compelling against the (perhaps all too) pervasive forces of death. It really is astonishing how many composers of the European tradition in this era would succumb to syphilis. Add Schumann and Delius to the list as well. Probably more.

       Anyway – I also happen to like some of Schubert's lieder – particularly the Winterreise collection. Do I bother to read through the translation of the lyrics as it plays? Hell, no. I just let it rip along in the German language that I don't understand and try to catch the feeling. That's what I'm doing now. Eventually I'll sit down with the words, but I figure it doesn't matter unless I like the music first. Which I do, but I'm not to the point where I have the flow of the pieces down. Unlike the symphonies, oddly enough. I really didn't expect to like Schubert as much as I do considering how I first heard about him.

      As is plainly obvious to anybody bothering to read this blog, I am really a rock and roll person. I just got tired of the steady diet of rock, blues, jazz that I'd been listening to forever and I wanted to hear mostly instrumental music played by orchestras, string players and the like. So, as it happens, the first I'd ever read about Schubert was on a Beatles album cover. When I was a young lad (from about the age of 6 or so), I was a Beatles fan. One of the first Beatles records I requested as a gift was the Yellow Submarine album. Maybe I just wanted that song, maybe I liked the cartoon cover art – I certainly would not have been as enthusiastic about the record if I knew there was instrumental movie music on side two. Yet, somehow I wasn't that upset since I enjoyed playing that side almost as much as the Beatles music side. Maybe this explains my interest in instrumental music now – who knows?

      What is interesting about this Beatles album is the fact that I somehow wound up with a UK import. It may have been the only copy there – I can't remember. What I do remember is how my little record player jumped on the first song since there was a bit of a warp to the record. There was no returning the thing so I lived with it. My first experience with the limitations of both record players (the more likely culprit) and vinyl. Yet, I still loved that record and played it often.

      The reason I go into all of this detail is because I eventually noticed a difference between my UK Beatles Yellow Submarine album and the one my cousins had (which was a US copy). On the back cover of the domestic release, there was a little paragraph detailing the different characters in the animated film along with the plot of the story.

      On my UK copy, a totally different essay was featured. It was an interesting review (written by filmmaker Tony Palmer) of the White Album which had only come out the previous November (Yellow Submarine was released in January of 1969). In the review, Palmer compares the Lennon / McCartney songwriting team to Schubert.

      Years later, this bit of information caused me to pick out a biography on Schubert from the library in my elementary school (one of those biographies for kids kinda deals) when we had to do a book report. I think I even managed to find a Schubert record in the library just so I could hear something he composed, but it was all way over my head then. Had I not gleaned that name off the back cover of my UK Beatles Yellow Submarine.......well, I wouldn't have chosen that book at any rate. Thus was my first exposure to Schubert – unremarkable as it was. 

 

     And, interestingly enough, I don't have all that much Schubert in my collection yet. Seems like old LPs always feature the same pieces over and over. Which is also fascinating when comparing to, say, Beethoven or Brahms. It is more common to see a variety of works by those composers in the bins. Maybe I'm just not seeing the right albums out there, but it makes me wonder why there seems to be such a limited representation of Schubert's work during the LP-era (relative to his written output).

      Now, since I've been keeping this blog I've covered all kinds of listening options – from open reel tapes to downloads. It would seem to me that having access to quality downloads opens the possibilities of hearing deeper material in any given composer's output. And I know there are companies offering high quality downloads. Yet it comes back to my preference of being able to hold and manipulate something as part of the listening process. Plus, I do like liner notes. I have been searching for a way to bridge the two worlds – the ease of downloads and the fun of physical product. So far it just isn't that compelling to use my desktop computer as the listening device. Yet, there may be other options on the horizon. I have been considering how newer technology might create more compelling and meaningful interaction with music in general - not just one genre. The option to access the deeper recesses of any given composer's works (not to mention access to more obscure music in general) is what gets my attention.

      Earlier today I was home with the family and as I was passing through the living room, a TV talkshow program was on (not sure which). As I casually noticed, a musical performance was about to happen which featured a young woman on violin, a drummer behind a kit and a keyboard player. The violinist was the focus, but perhaps not for the music since she simultaneously jumped about dancing while playing. The fact that she was playing music on a violin was not the main concern – the dancing was the focus. And I thought – this is what it comes down to: if you want a career playing an instrument, you'd better be prepared to dance around a lot if you want anyone to notice you. The music is inconsequential. Or irrelevant. Well, as ever I suppose. Even the Beatles had to “mak-shau” in Hamburg to get work.

      In some ways I have to cop to it. One reason I enjoy this non-commercial, instrumental and sometimes old music is because I want to believe in the imaginary world proposed by these composers – the world of ideals, reason, enlightenment and truth. Of course, in Schubert's own time there was no shortage of earthly misery, inequality and ignorance. So too in our own time does the news keep us up to date on the latest scandalous, treacherous and barbaric behavior of medieval-minded miscreants. It is , in fact, totally idiotic and irrelevant to think that somehow good art will transform the world. But from a rock and roll point of view, the act of making music for the sake of uplifting humanity is still – from Schubert's time to ours, a noble enough pursuit – not to mention a gigantic EEF EUU to said small-minded arseholes. So now, more than ever – turn it up and play it loud, friends …. play it loud.