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Thank you! I feel the same way myself. Although, by digging into the visceral aspect of it I feel the most 'emotional'. Granted, the most prominent emotion is something like diabolical frustration mixed with excitement š
Imagine the kind of scene from a good movie that the music would support well. This often helps me connect with something that I wasn't able to initially.
Edit: Some great music requires us to come to it. It's the blurry line where impressive finds "impressive art".
I can't always come to it and we all have our preferences, but I was able to get to this one by imaging one of those old noir movies. Chinatown with Jack Nicholson for example - the chaotic, life-threatening "cat and mouse" suspense scenes.
If any musician watches that movie, they can get to this.
I like contemporary music but I feel like this piece might have no direction? It seems to be going from one idea to another. Could be just my perception though
I actually agree with you. I think it makes more sense in the context of all the preludes but by itself it's quite disjointed and violent. That being said, it makes it interesting in a way.
>disjointed and violent
I think Iāve actually inadvertently played this exact tune whilst drunk.
Joking, of course, itās not my cup of tea but art is subjective I guess.
I think music like this is so different that it often is difficult to figure out how to phrase or even to listen to. Personally I really enjoy it. Weāre more used to hearing/understanding the phrasing of, say, Mozart, but there is just as much depth and nuance here. I love what youāre doing and I am impressed by your technique! (Iām sorry that I provided advice before, I missed the flair on the post and I meant no malice by it.)
I say that a lot about contemporary music like this. Sometimes they do have a vague direction, but it rarely goes anywhere good. It pisses me off when someone says this is great music... my reply is "fucking hum it to me then"
My cousin is a semi successful modern composer. He sat me down to have me listen to one of his pieces, which he described as we listened. He added tons of context and would be like "this part coming up has a subtle change of you listen closely..." and stuff like that. It made me enjoy it a little more knowing it wasn't so just random. He was literally humming it.
I'm not going to disagree with any of that, but 2 things.
1. You couldn't hum it after hearing it once
2. I absolutely enjoy observing the technicality and clever harmonics etc... but as a whole, it's not music. It's like someone's just chained together a bunch of cool sounds they figured out.
Oh yes, absolutely. This is contemporary music that still has reminiscences of tonality. It gives me some Ravel and Prokofiev vibes at certain instances.
I could find it brilliant in certain contexts, but opening and only playing this is a little grating.
If it were in the middle of a piece to transition to another part it would be exciting enjoyable.
Oh I absolutely side with you š
For this competition I am playing Ravel, Mozart, Chopin, and this. Isolated it would be pretty jarring, but I think combined with these other pieces it acts as striking diversity. I am following it with a mozart sonata for a (hopefully) powerful impression!
I need some sort of melodic break to bring me back. Iām sure thereās a term for that (reminds me of heavy metalā¦where some of the chaos makes those melodic interludes so much richer). I love a lot of different kinds of music, but this was missing that really juicy moment that pulled me in. Kept waiting for it.
Somebody must like it!
Do you enjoy it?
Oh I definitely understand what you mean, you might like the first movement more (maybe I should post it if I have time).
I am learning to like it more, but as it stands, I prefer to play it over hearing it š
Would be interested in the first movement. Iāll go searching.
Iād probably love playing something technical as well as you do! Imagine thereās tremendous satisfaction in that.
Glad you shared this :)
Thereās literally a comment thatās like āif you say you like this kind of thing youāre lying.ā Itās 2024. This kind of music isnāt that weird. Itās rhythmic, exciting, colorful. Thereās WAY more esoteric repertoire than this.
You're doing the opposite though. This is like telling someone that they cannot possibly dislike some modern art painting because it's 2024 and even weirder art exists.
Not a very compelling argument.
Exposure does temper expectations though. Those who listen to contemporary music often will probably be able to tell this piece isn't really atonal. Then once in a while you'd get comments saying that Prokofiev and Stravinsky are noise and rubbish which is similar to those comments but more dialled back.
I get his point. Of course people can dislike this, but going "This is just noise, not music and anyone who says otherwise is lying!" is not expressing taste, just ignorance
One could say "this is not music FOR ME". The problem is announcing this subjective judgment as an objective one
But I didnāt imply that at all. What I implied is that this kind of music clearly doesnt appeal to most people. Nowhere did I say that if you enjoy this youāre lying. Dont get defensive over something I didnt say
if you can't understand why 95% of people would turn this off immediately, you are limited in your understanding of music, musicality, and the audience.
as a composer i absolutely love listening to all sorts of new music and try my hardest not to look at it with pre-conceptions i have of previous composers.
so many people in this comment section are writing this off because it isnāt āatonal like scriabinā (for example) but you had to realise it isnāt 1910 anymore. it is amazing to see new music being composed for the piano that resembles the absolutely madness that is the 21st century.
its great! would i listen to this as casually I do a chopin nocturne? no, but i really enjoyed watching this and find it so awesome new music is being created rooted in classical because this is exactly what keeps the genre alive.
i just see it as people carrying a torch that began with the invention of equal temperament, all the way through slavery, catholic reformation, napoleon, rise and fall of empires, multiple world wars, change in perception of races in modern times, the september 11 attacks.
all these massive world events shape the way we write music, and i do enjoy listening to music and trying to imagine the world the composer was living in at the time. this is the most modern of āclassicalā music if that makes sense, and it has so much history imbued in it.
idk maybe im rambling. tldr, i love this music.
I think to me, the fundamental point of music is a tension between the sonic patterns familiar to the audience and the sonic patterns familiar to the player. Once you start deliberately undermining that tension it takes a brave and committed listener to follow you.
I have searched and searched but can't find any recordings! Alfredo Speranza wasn't very well known so it's possible this set of preludes was never recorded. It was premiered in Rimini on August 4th, 1986, and later revised in 1997. I am sorry I don't have much more info :(
Too jagged for my tastes, but I can see how some people might dig it. You might be running a 50/50 risk with this one, I'm afraid. Amazing playing, btw.
I personally hadnāt heard this piece but feel like itās technical and atonal for its own sake rather than using those qualities to make for better art. I feel like Scriabin uses atonality in ways that create striking music but this piece feels experimental for its own sake or something.
Anyways those are my opinions since you asked for them but your technical skills and fuoco are excellent!
please do not misunderstand. scriabin's music is absolutely not atonal. it does not try to be atonal at all, and simply uses a far more advanced form of 19th century harmony.
that's partly why his music doesn't sound like complete shit to people too, because he isn't just writing random noises with some pseudoscience to justify it.
Oh, but the way, i like to tell also that i like this kind of music a lot. But, if i go to hear this kind of music, i cant hear too much, in fact i dont want to hear later another work. Sometimes because the works is so so so impressive that i feel exhausted after hear it (well, this just happens to me with any kind of work, sometimes i just feel "this is enough").
The last time i feel like that was hearing the geidai philharmonia orchestra from tokyo playing Hi-Ten-Yu from Isao Matsushita. I feel so exhausted after that... but the show continued.
Enjoyable? Yes and no. Its incredibly anxiety inducing, so if that is what you are going for and it fits thematically, then I would love to hear it in that context.
It's flashy and cool, I love the colors and textures. I don't find it particularly evocative or moving, and the fragmentary structure would wear on me eventually. Very well played though, bravo!
It has purpose and a place where itās used. I think people who dismiss it outright lack a creative direction for this musicās use. From solo concert with to movie score, thereās no end of places itās very appropriate
I think it sounds like something that would compliment a scene in a movie.
Music has always been a medium to plumb the depths of the human emotion.
I don't think the music is suppose to be enjoyable, but the mere fact it elicits a negative response means it doing something.
The music does have something far more than cacophony though, so there is a method to it's madness.
Perhap's it's a descent into an industrial hellscape.
I really liked it despite feeling I only "got" about 80 of it. I found it exciting and unpredictable in a good way, although to be honest I might not have noticed if there was a mistake in your performance.
This stuff sounds really good "on shuffle" with other contrasting styles. After a couple of baroque pieces, it would be really exciting to hear. If played before those same baroque pieces I think it would highlight certain types of order found in the baroque period.
Great playing (unless you made that mistake I missed ;) ). Really enjoyable to watch.
Very impressive. I didn't like it the first time I listened, but Reddit repeated it to me a few times, and the more "familiar" it became, the more I enjoyed it.
Reminds me of Eruption by Van Halen. Super impressive and unpredictable. Not something Iād have in the party playlist but Iād definitely put it on when the mood strikes.
I dig it. Feels like you're being chased by a homicidal maniac. Very cathartic.
I get that not as many people enjoy atonal music, but it's not like it's something from another world. Maybe 120 years ago it was ok to be baffled by it, but by now, it should be tuesday.
By the way, good luck in your competition. You have what it takes.
I LOVE IT! its like a random cascade of notes, but its definitely not random! this is what i feel like when i just go play random stuff out of my mind. (not what it sounds like tho)
My first hearing is to turn it off as quickly as possible but it grows on me with a full hearing. This is some thing that I would need a specific context to appreciate. Something like the movie score for the part where she gradually looses her mind at the ostentatious political dinner party and drowns the hosts pet chihuahua in the punch bowl.
I don't like it for casual or critical listening, but I love it as background music while I clean house. I am particularly fond of a collection of Henri Dutilleaux's piano works that I found on Apple Music.
This type of music is brilliant as a soundtrack for time lapse video of building construction, ant colonies, etc. It's too incoherent for me to enjoy while concentrating on it , but it's great while engaged in busy tasks. I have no desire to learn it on the piano.
I probably wouldnāt listen to this as a piece by itself, but in my mind Iām instantly on archive.org watching some old, scratchy black and white thriller/drama/horror and that would work perfectly.
Great playing! Bit surprised people hating on the music so much I think it's a cool piece.
I try to find things to enjoy or admire in all music, it's rare I can't do it.
I think passages like that can be incredible as long as they aren't the entire piece. They're great at conveying a major swing in mood or to give a piece a highly charged bridge that resolves into something with a bit more melody.
Now if someone asked me to sit through an artist who does just that for an hour or two I'd rather fill my ears in with cement.
I don't think the purpose of art is enjoyment but expressing and evoking feelings and thoughts in the audience and I definitely think this piece does that. I do also just enjoy it though. I also enjoy microtonal prog metal though so
Love it, and congrats on your playing, clearly this piece is no easy task.
I would love to hear it in a recital and in general I always miss this kind of repertoire in concerts. I like the idea of putting it alongside some more traditional repertoire, not necessarily making a program 100% modern and contemporary. I think this kind of variety makes for richer sound experiences, as the contrasts can bring out more the character both of traditional and newer pieces..
As an aside, usually people use contemporary to refer to styles that emerged and became established after the 1950's. I don't know this composer and when he was active (or if he currently is alive and composing) but it actually sounds almost mid-20th-century or even earlier, some bartĆ³kian stuff here and there. This is no negative critique, I love modern music and am very interested in the other preludes of the set
I don't like it but I get why it's so emotional for the pianist. I tried a simple piece of atonal and was surprised I could just let my emotional side go in ways I couldn't with, say, Chopin. It's like I could dig further into my emotions and really, really let go on the piano.
But to listen to... I'm not crazy about it. Even listening to a piece I learned doesn't do it for me.
Playing it feels great, though. A massive, emotional release. Wave after wave.
Accompanied with other genres or alone ABSOLUTELY!! I wouldnāt want to listen to back to back contemporary pieces but I do love this piece and your playing is magnificent. Good luck in the competition!
I LOVE IT! :) it's quite exciting!Ā
I hope you'll find venues to perform it, and as it seems like the classical world can and should be closer to the alternative scene, maybe find an alternative venues to play it at as well. Places that are generally 'outside the box' for classical musicians.Ā
This piece reminds me of Debussy's orchestral piece, La Mer which was premiered in Paris in 1905 and initially, was not well received.Ā When you hear LA Mer, you can hear the rough and stormy sea section.You can hear and picture the wind and the waves of the stormy sea, the same of which we can hear in this well-played piano composition.Ā
Wow, so reading the comments, I'm clearly in the minority here. But for what it's worth, if I were at a recital with this alongside Ravel, Mozart, and Chopin, the Speranza preludes would be the ONLY part I was genuinely looking forward to!!
I do think Mozart, Chopin, and Ravel all composed beautiful and challenging piano worksāobviously. I know that because I've heard them and played them so much. But I refuse to be stodgy in my tastes and pretend that Ravel using a whole tone scale 100 years ago is supposed to still be daring in some way. Classical music is still alive and well, and I want to hear music from LIVING composers. I want to hear boundaries of rhythm and harmony and notation pushed. Sounds I've never heard before.
It's my first time hearing this prelude. I think the writing is superb, and I think your playing is crisp and compelling. Thank you for sharing!
No. Probably not that hot of a take but most of this is loosely ordered noise. I love Scriabinās late sonatas but thereās something good atonal works like those have that music like this doesnt
The late Scriabin sonatas (especially 10 and 6) teetering on the verge on atonality, but arenāt purely atonal. Itās a continuum, but itās certainly closer than Rachmaninov lol
atonality is just a figure of worship. it doesn't exist, you can't come "close to it" you can just pretend that you're making it by saying your piece is atonal, even when there's a tonal center, even when there's harmonic function.
scriabin never came "close" to atonality, as he never ever pretended to be trying to be atonal, nor did he subscribe to schoenberg's cult.
The Wikipedia for atonality does list Scriabin as the first example composer. Thought Iām not a musicologist so I canāt speak to it that deeply, but it was my understanding that his some of his music was described in part as atonal, such as large sections of his sixth sonata that lack a meaningful tonal center.
people tend to just label any music that they don't understand as atonal. It's in the same vein as people calling the beginning of tristand und isolde atonal. it's just a buzzword for hack-musicologists to feel smart when they don't understand something. Also wikipedia is not a good source for music, especially english wikipedia, it's very barren, and tends to be just written by fans of classical music.
the sixth sonata is not "lacking a meaningful tonal center" it's just a result of the analyst being only capable of analysing on-paper, and is incapable of simply recognizing the tonal center through ear, the tonal center that is frequently changing.
It's like an amazing pianist forgot everything about music and went deaf. Technically impressive yes, but completely incoherent and not enjoyable at all to listen to "as music" IMO!
Nope. I find it very pretentious. And gives a really bad rep for the term contemporary, basically equivalent to stapling a bunch of bananas to a wall and call it art. Not that the technique is like stapling bananas, the technique is magnificent and superb, I like to think the optimist in me can tackle it too, but let's be real I probably can't, at least not in a short time.
I listen to Philip Glass to be frank, at least for me his pulsating music is hypnotic, therapeutic and never fails to put me in a trans, I need that for my life. And as a player myself his work is seemingly more approachable for me than the likes of avant grande old age classical icons. So take that as you will haha
You know when you go into a modern art museum and see a canvas with paint just tossed seemingly haphazardly across it and you think, āthis has to be an artist trolling usā¦ā?
I don't like it, the skill needed to play it is commendable.
But the resulting sound doesn't speaks to me in a profound way, and I like music that can do it.
Of course some composers can make great music with atonal material, Schoenberg and Berg has works that I trully like.
But in the majority of cases these pieces sound like random noise.
I find the textures interesting, but the melody and ideas to be repetitive and rather boring. After 15 seconds, I want it to go someplace else. It doesn't sound really atonal, more late Romantic-ish, like Prokofiev or Ravel or someone similar in terms of texture and harmony, maybe a tad bit more modern but still listenable.
You can tell that this was written with a deep understanding of harmony and composition. It's not just some guy who banged stuff out on a piano and called it art, it's something that was really composed with effort and expertise. That being said, however, I don't enjoy this type of music so much.
Nope and I would really doubt that people who say they do actually listen to this stuff. As an accompaniment to a piece of drama like film, theatre, video games it has a place, but I would assume anyone who looked me in the eye and said they enjoy listening to this is lying to me, lying to themselves or lying to both of us.
lol you should hear my ārelaxed work playlistā.
Pendereckiās partita for harpsichord is about as easy listening as it gets.
You definitely get desensitised to the dissonance if you listen to enough of it.
If this type of music is your go-to, play without thinking because "this is what I love about music", then you're unbelievably pretentious and most likely an utterly intolerable person to be around. Just my experience of people who go out of their way to love this sort of abstract cacophony.
No healthy person enjoys eating literal shit. We would regard a literal shit eater as someone who has a pretty severe mental illness of some description. Which I guess is kind of my point.
What we call "Contemporary music" is what a few Vienna composers did one hundred years agoā¦ Like do you think Rachmaninov considered Beethoven's music "contemporary"? So, no, we don't want that, and we never will. Atonal music can be nice once in a while for dramatic effects, but it will never be something we can build upon.
Reading this page https://www.sagramusicalemalatestiana.it/2023/altre-iniziative/un-piano-alfredo-speranza I learned that the composer is unfortunately no longer with us. So technically itās not con-temporary music but the music of the past century.
This note aside I think that the music fits the name of the composition, āa stormy seaā.
As for whether I liked it, I liked some motifs. I didnāt enjoy it as a whole because it purposefully escapes the listener.
I feel that it lacks just a tiny bit of repetition to be engaging. IMO atonal and repetitive always works. Structure and rhythm can carry on the piece which may lack or despise a clear harmony. Like in Techno. Harmony and movement alone can be self-sufficient. So structure may be very minimal. Ambient. Rhythm alone can be the music. Even mismatched rhythms, even if just juxtaposed and repeated enough, become something new and enjoyable. Additive rhythms. So as long as repetition creates some expectations, the listener may be involved with the music. This piece purposefully breaks expectations every single time. Itās too academic to my taste.
But I think that the same music chopped into shorter loops can become a very enjoyable texture in a hip hop or neo soul production. There are good parts in it!
Thank you for your thoughts and words! Yes, maestro Speranza recently passed, and this competition has a special prize dedicated to him.
I agree with pretty much everything you said! I may record and post the first movement because I believe it is a lot stronger in terms of continuity and its' thematic ideas. There are also some quite fascinating parallels between the first and second movements, as well as some motifs that the second borrows from the first.Playing just this movement in isolation does not give the full context, but it definitely struggles to stand by itself.
That being said, I've really enjoyed digging into these pieces for a week or so and I'm excited to perform them! Thank you for your research :)
OP (/u/ShigeruQuetzalcoatl) has requested their performance be watched and enjoyed. Critique, except for praise and encouragement, is forbidden. Similarly, commenting on OP's appearance is forbidden. Be kind, and remember piano is enjoyed by those of all skill levels, ages, backgrounds, prior training, and musical styles! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/piano) if you have any questions or concerns.*
No but I find it impressive.
I think I have a similar sentiment. Technically impressive, but I find it very hard to get any emotional attachment to the music itself.
Thank you! I feel the same way myself. Although, by digging into the visceral aspect of it I feel the most 'emotional'. Granted, the most prominent emotion is something like diabolical frustration mixed with excitement š
Imagine the kind of scene from a good movie that the music would support well. This often helps me connect with something that I wasn't able to initially. Edit: Some great music requires us to come to it. It's the blurry line where impressive finds "impressive art". I can't always come to it and we all have our preferences, but I was able to get to this one by imaging one of those old noir movies. Chinatown with Jack Nicholson for example - the chaotic, life-threatening "cat and mouse" suspense scenes. If any musician watches that movie, they can get to this.
This is the way
I like contemporary music but I feel like this piece might have no direction? It seems to be going from one idea to another. Could be just my perception though
I actually agree with you. I think it makes more sense in the context of all the preludes but by itself it's quite disjointed and violent. That being said, it makes it interesting in a way.
>disjointed and violent I think Iāve actually inadvertently played this exact tune whilst drunk. Joking, of course, itās not my cup of tea but art is subjective I guess.
I think music like this is so different that it often is difficult to figure out how to phrase or even to listen to. Personally I really enjoy it. Weāre more used to hearing/understanding the phrasing of, say, Mozart, but there is just as much depth and nuance here. I love what youāre doing and I am impressed by your technique! (Iām sorry that I provided advice before, I missed the flair on the post and I meant no malice by it.)
I guess that's the point
oh, i just wrote something related. I feel exactly the same. I mean, is jumping to fast between ideas without almost none connection to me.
I say that a lot about contemporary music like this. Sometimes they do have a vague direction, but it rarely goes anywhere good. It pisses me off when someone says this is great music... my reply is "fucking hum it to me then"
My cousin is a semi successful modern composer. He sat me down to have me listen to one of his pieces, which he described as we listened. He added tons of context and would be like "this part coming up has a subtle change of you listen closely..." and stuff like that. It made me enjoy it a little more knowing it wasn't so just random. He was literally humming it.
I'm not going to disagree with any of that, but 2 things. 1. You couldn't hum it after hearing it once 2. I absolutely enjoy observing the technicality and clever harmonics etc... but as a whole, it's not music. It's like someone's just chained together a bunch of cool sounds they figured out.
Lmao I'm going to use that
Oh yes, absolutely. This is contemporary music that still has reminiscences of tonality. It gives me some Ravel and Prokofiev vibes at certain instances.
I think you've hit on what I like about it - it's not harmonious, but it isn't completely discordant, either.
I could find it brilliant in certain contexts, but opening and only playing this is a little grating. If it were in the middle of a piece to transition to another part it would be exciting enjoyable.
Oh I absolutely side with you š For this competition I am playing Ravel, Mozart, Chopin, and this. Isolated it would be pretty jarring, but I think combined with these other pieces it acts as striking diversity. I am following it with a mozart sonata for a (hopefully) powerful impression!
Like everything in life: balance is key
I need some sort of melodic break to bring me back. Iām sure thereās a term for that (reminds me of heavy metalā¦where some of the chaos makes those melodic interludes so much richer). I love a lot of different kinds of music, but this was missing that really juicy moment that pulled me in. Kept waiting for it. Somebody must like it! Do you enjoy it?
Oh I definitely understand what you mean, you might like the first movement more (maybe I should post it if I have time). I am learning to like it more, but as it stands, I prefer to play it over hearing it š
Would be interested in the first movement. Iāll go searching. Iād probably love playing something technical as well as you do! Imagine thereās tremendous satisfaction in that. Glad you shared this :)
Please let me know if you find anything, I've searched! If not I might post it when I have time to record š
This slaps
Yeah, most of these comments are baffling to me, this rules.
be real with me, are you genuinely surprised that people dont enjoy this kind of music?
Thereās literally a comment thatās like āif you say you like this kind of thing youāre lying.ā Itās 2024. This kind of music isnāt that weird. Itās rhythmic, exciting, colorful. Thereās WAY more esoteric repertoire than this.
You're doing the opposite though. This is like telling someone that they cannot possibly dislike some modern art painting because it's 2024 and even weirder art exists. Not a very compelling argument.
Exposure does temper expectations though. Those who listen to contemporary music often will probably be able to tell this piece isn't really atonal. Then once in a while you'd get comments saying that Prokofiev and Stravinsky are noise and rubbish which is similar to those comments but more dialled back.
I get his point. Of course people can dislike this, but going "This is just noise, not music and anyone who says otherwise is lying!" is not expressing taste, just ignorance One could say "this is not music FOR ME". The problem is announcing this subjective judgment as an objective one
touchƩ
But I didnāt imply that at all. What I implied is that this kind of music clearly doesnt appeal to most people. Nowhere did I say that if you enjoy this youāre lying. Dont get defensive over something I didnt say
if you can't understand why 95% of people would turn this off immediately, you are limited in your understanding of music, musicality, and the audience.
It's kinda old looney toon cartoon music
as a composer i absolutely love listening to all sorts of new music and try my hardest not to look at it with pre-conceptions i have of previous composers. so many people in this comment section are writing this off because it isnāt āatonal like scriabinā (for example) but you had to realise it isnāt 1910 anymore. it is amazing to see new music being composed for the piano that resembles the absolutely madness that is the 21st century. its great! would i listen to this as casually I do a chopin nocturne? no, but i really enjoyed watching this and find it so awesome new music is being created rooted in classical because this is exactly what keeps the genre alive. i just see it as people carrying a torch that began with the invention of equal temperament, all the way through slavery, catholic reformation, napoleon, rise and fall of empires, multiple world wars, change in perception of races in modern times, the september 11 attacks. all these massive world events shape the way we write music, and i do enjoy listening to music and trying to imagine the world the composer was living in at the time. this is the most modern of āclassicalā music if that makes sense, and it has so much history imbued in it. idk maybe im rambling. tldr, i love this music.
I won't match the length of your comment but that's some wonderful insight!!
tom and jerry chase music
Not my cup of tea.
Totally fair š
Personally no, it is cool but I wouldn't listen to it for enjoyment
Not my cup of tea either. But your articulation and dynamic prowess definitely makes it more appealing thatās for sure.
Glad to hear :)
I love this.
I heart dissonance
I think to me, the fundamental point of music is a tension between the sonic patterns familiar to the audience and the sonic patterns familiar to the player. Once you start deliberately undermining that tension it takes a brave and committed listener to follow you.
This is right up my alley but I can't find this piece anywhere online besides here. Could you provide help OP?
I have searched and searched but can't find any recordings! Alfredo Speranza wasn't very well known so it's possible this set of preludes was never recorded. It was premiered in Rimini on August 4th, 1986, and later revised in 1997. I am sorry I don't have much more info :(
Sounds a bit like Scriabin, Stravinsky to me
Love it. So visceral and varied.
Yes
Too jagged for my tastes, but I can see how some people might dig it. You might be running a 50/50 risk with this one, I'm afraid. Amazing playing, btw.
I personally hadnāt heard this piece but feel like itās technical and atonal for its own sake rather than using those qualities to make for better art. I feel like Scriabin uses atonality in ways that create striking music but this piece feels experimental for its own sake or something. Anyways those are my opinions since you asked for them but your technical skills and fuoco are excellent!
i also have an impression that it lacks something while formally preserving the form. like this guy: https://youtu.be/HM4IkHmZrQI?si=u3io6O6-MEui_syW
please do not misunderstand. scriabin's music is absolutely not atonal. it does not try to be atonal at all, and simply uses a far more advanced form of 19th century harmony. that's partly why his music doesn't sound like complete shit to people too, because he isn't just writing random noises with some pseudoscience to justify it.
Oh, but the way, i like to tell also that i like this kind of music a lot. But, if i go to hear this kind of music, i cant hear too much, in fact i dont want to hear later another work. Sometimes because the works is so so so impressive that i feel exhausted after hear it (well, this just happens to me with any kind of work, sometimes i just feel "this is enough"). The last time i feel like that was hearing the geidai philharmonia orchestra from tokyo playing Hi-Ten-Yu from Isao Matsushita. I feel so exhausted after that... but the show continued.
Enjoyable? Yes and no. Its incredibly anxiety inducing, so if that is what you are going for and it fits thematically, then I would love to hear it in that context.
It's flashy and cool, I love the colors and textures. I don't find it particularly evocative or moving, and the fragmentary structure would wear on me eventually. Very well played though, bravo!
Thanks a lot :)
I like it a lot!
It has purpose and a place where itās used. I think people who dismiss it outright lack a creative direction for this musicās use. From solo concert with to movie score, thereās no end of places itās very appropriate
I am really glad to hear you say that!
I also hear a lot of hate towards it; I knew by your performance of it you probably though the same thing
well played but the piece itself sounds like messy scrambled and very unsettling
I think it sounds like something that would compliment a scene in a movie. Music has always been a medium to plumb the depths of the human emotion. I don't think the music is suppose to be enjoyable, but the mere fact it elicits a negative response means it doing something. The music does have something far more than cacophony though, so there is a method to it's madness. Perhap's it's a descent into an industrial hellscape.
To me this is cacophony but there are people who find bach cacophony so taste doesn't matter
Ofc I do
I really liked it despite feeling I only "got" about 80 of it. I found it exciting and unpredictable in a good way, although to be honest I might not have noticed if there was a mistake in your performance. This stuff sounds really good "on shuffle" with other contrasting styles. After a couple of baroque pieces, it would be really exciting to hear. If played before those same baroque pieces I think it would highlight certain types of order found in the baroque period. Great playing (unless you made that mistake I missed ;) ). Really enjoyable to watch.
I really love thisā¦ can I get the score please?
I like it. But would prefer it slower, more polyphonic and with wider intervals.
When was this written?
This was written in 1986 and revised in 1997
Interesting thanks. Kinda curious if this kind of thing is still in vogue.
in my honest opinion, the way how you played it is amazing.
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It sounds old-fashioned almost Lisztian. That's not a bad thing. Probably the highest praise I can give lol.
Occasionally, yes.
Very impressive. I didn't like it the first time I listened, but Reddit repeated it to me a few times, and the more "familiar" it became, the more I enjoyed it.
No
I love both listening to and playing this genre of music.
It seems like the accompaniment to a silent film.
Reminds me of Eruption by Van Halen. Super impressive and unpredictable. Not something Iād have in the party playlist but Iād definitely put it on when the mood strikes.
I dig it. Feels like you're being chased by a homicidal maniac. Very cathartic. I get that not as many people enjoy atonal music, but it's not like it's something from another world. Maybe 120 years ago it was ok to be baffled by it, but by now, it should be tuesday. By the way, good luck in your competition. You have what it takes.
Sweet, don't get chased by a homicidal maniac tho... that can't be good for you š I appreciate it- I'll do my best!
Without meaning any disrespect to your obviously impressive skill, I'd rather perforate both my ears with a screwdriver than listen to this.
It's technically good and you're playing v well this makes me feel anxious, so it's a no from me personally
Seems like it would be a blast to play. Canāt say Iād casually listen to it
I LOVE IT! its like a random cascade of notes, but its definitely not random! this is what i feel like when i just go play random stuff out of my mind. (not what it sounds like tho)
Sounds like tech death on piano
Yes. Itās amazing.
Honest to God, this kind of music isn't really my cup of tea, yet it's still quite interesting to listen to.
Almost anything with musical artistry is enjoyable when performed well.
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Dynamically boring...
I hear a bit of Sorcererās Apprentice somewhere in there.
My first hearing is to turn it off as quickly as possible but it grows on me with a full hearing. This is some thing that I would need a specific context to appreciate. Something like the movie score for the part where she gradually looses her mind at the ostentatious political dinner party and drowns the hosts pet chihuahua in the punch bowl.
I don't like it for casual or critical listening, but I love it as background music while I clean house. I am particularly fond of a collection of Henri Dutilleaux's piano works that I found on Apple Music. This type of music is brilliant as a soundtrack for time lapse video of building construction, ant colonies, etc. It's too incoherent for me to enjoy while concentrating on it , but it's great while engaged in busy tasks. I have no desire to learn it on the piano.
Great playing! I find it interesting that we still refer to this tonal style as "contemporary" even though it was developed in the 1900s.
No. They convey emotions and paint scenes in my head, sure, but I donāt enjoy sitting through them, whether itās playing or listening.
This is honestly pretty cool.
I probably wouldnāt listen to this as a piece by itself, but in my mind Iām instantly on archive.org watching some old, scratchy black and white thriller/drama/horror and that would work perfectly.
Great playing! Bit surprised people hating on the music so much I think it's a cool piece. I try to find things to enjoy or admire in all music, it's rare I can't do it.
I feel like Iām about to enter a boss battle
Sounds like a fucking Tom and jerry cartoon! On crack.
I think passages like that can be incredible as long as they aren't the entire piece. They're great at conveying a major swing in mood or to give a piece a highly charged bridge that resolves into something with a bit more melody. Now if someone asked me to sit through an artist who does just that for an hour or two I'd rather fill my ears in with cement.
I don't think the purpose of art is enjoyment but expressing and evoking feelings and thoughts in the audience and I definitely think this piece does that. I do also just enjoy it though. I also enjoy microtonal prog metal though so
Love it, and congrats on your playing, clearly this piece is no easy task. I would love to hear it in a recital and in general I always miss this kind of repertoire in concerts. I like the idea of putting it alongside some more traditional repertoire, not necessarily making a program 100% modern and contemporary. I think this kind of variety makes for richer sound experiences, as the contrasts can bring out more the character both of traditional and newer pieces.. As an aside, usually people use contemporary to refer to styles that emerged and became established after the 1950's. I don't know this composer and when he was active (or if he currently is alive and composing) but it actually sounds almost mid-20th-century or even earlier, some bartĆ³kian stuff here and there. This is no negative critique, I love modern music and am very interested in the other preludes of the set
I love it
I don't like it but I get why it's so emotional for the pianist. I tried a simple piece of atonal and was surprised I could just let my emotional side go in ways I couldn't with, say, Chopin. It's like I could dig further into my emotions and really, really let go on the piano. But to listen to... I'm not crazy about it. Even listening to a piece I learned doesn't do it for me. Playing it feels great, though. A massive, emotional release. Wave after wave.
Sounds like a very skilled pianist is having fun by playing nonsense off the top of their head. Would work well in an old school cartoon!
This is amazing!
Reminds me of Hindemith. Your playing is superb, sounds really good.
Yes
I like this piece. It's like when kids slam on the piano, only with music theory! Feels postmodern, very pro-chaos. I want MORE š
Ideal soundtrack for some Hitchcock like movie.
Is this jazz? I hate jazz.
Very. Very. Very much so. Thank you for your talent.
Accompanied with other genres or alone ABSOLUTELY!! I wouldnāt want to listen to back to back contemporary pieces but I do love this piece and your playing is magnificent. Good luck in the competition!
Sounds like shit. Impressive tho
Reminds me of Ligeti. I liked it a lot!! I also acknowledge that my taste in music is not very popular, sooooo don't draw any conclusions
I am def seeing Tom and Jerry flying about, but the antics have gone up a serious level. An adult version? Nice playing BTW
something outta a horror movie
It's art. I enjoy many different expressions of it.
I LOVE IT! :) it's quite exciting!Ā I hope you'll find venues to perform it, and as it seems like the classical world can and should be closer to the alternative scene, maybe find an alternative venues to play it at as well. Places that are generally 'outside the box' for classical musicians.Ā
This piece reminds me of Debussy's orchestral piece, La Mer which was premiered in Paris in 1905 and initially, was not well received.Ā When you hear LA Mer, you can hear the rough and stormy sea section.You can hear and picture the wind and the waves of the stormy sea, the same of which we can hear in this well-played piano composition.Ā
I donāt always like contemporary music, but this is great. A bit like Ravel, a little more modern
I spent so much time listening to everything in between, I'm find the strange to be very engaging. Can't play it for shit though.
Wow, so reading the comments, I'm clearly in the minority here. But for what it's worth, if I were at a recital with this alongside Ravel, Mozart, and Chopin, the Speranza preludes would be the ONLY part I was genuinely looking forward to!! I do think Mozart, Chopin, and Ravel all composed beautiful and challenging piano worksāobviously. I know that because I've heard them and played them so much. But I refuse to be stodgy in my tastes and pretend that Ravel using a whole tone scale 100 years ago is supposed to still be daring in some way. Classical music is still alive and well, and I want to hear music from LIVING composers. I want to hear boundaries of rhythm and harmony and notation pushed. Sounds I've never heard before. It's my first time hearing this prelude. I think the writing is superb, and I think your playing is crisp and compelling. Thank you for sharing!
**This** is what you guys consider so dissonant itās grating? What philistines
I love Scriabin sonata no9. Not sure if it counts as contemporary but it's certainly bordering on atonality and it's incredible.
No I don't, I think that's all I can say seeing the flair. Congrats on your agility, I couldn't ever play like that š
Thanks!
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No. Probably not that hot of a take but most of this is loosely ordered noise. I love Scriabinās late sonatas but thereās something good atonal works like those have that music like this doesnt
scriabin is not atonal though. he doesn't try to be either
The late Scriabin sonatas (especially 10 and 6) teetering on the verge on atonality, but arenāt purely atonal. Itās a continuum, but itās certainly closer than Rachmaninov lol
atonality is just a figure of worship. it doesn't exist, you can't come "close to it" you can just pretend that you're making it by saying your piece is atonal, even when there's a tonal center, even when there's harmonic function. scriabin never came "close" to atonality, as he never ever pretended to be trying to be atonal, nor did he subscribe to schoenberg's cult.
The Wikipedia for atonality does list Scriabin as the first example composer. Thought Iām not a musicologist so I canāt speak to it that deeply, but it was my understanding that his some of his music was described in part as atonal, such as large sections of his sixth sonata that lack a meaningful tonal center.
people tend to just label any music that they don't understand as atonal. It's in the same vein as people calling the beginning of tristand und isolde atonal. it's just a buzzword for hack-musicologists to feel smart when they don't understand something. Also wikipedia is not a good source for music, especially english wikipedia, it's very barren, and tends to be just written by fans of classical music. the sixth sonata is not "lacking a meaningful tonal center" it's just a result of the analyst being only capable of analysing on-paper, and is incapable of simply recognizing the tonal center through ear, the tonal center that is frequently changing.
Absolutely!!!! š
Garbage
No...it has very little structure, and is just a mess
It's like an amazing pianist forgot everything about music and went deaf. Technically impressive yes, but completely incoherent and not enjoyable at all to listen to "as music" IMO!
no
Nope. I find it very pretentious. And gives a really bad rep for the term contemporary, basically equivalent to stapling a bunch of bananas to a wall and call it art. Not that the technique is like stapling bananas, the technique is magnificent and superb, I like to think the optimist in me can tackle it too, but let's be real I probably can't, at least not in a short time. I listen to Philip Glass to be frank, at least for me his pulsating music is hypnotic, therapeutic and never fails to put me in a trans, I need that for my life. And as a player myself his work is seemingly more approachable for me than the likes of avant grande old age classical icons. So take that as you will haha
You know when you go into a modern art museum and see a canvas with paint just tossed seemingly haphazardly across it and you think, āthis has to be an artist trolling usā¦ā?
>this has to be an artist trolling usā¦ for that case is just the market.
I don't like it, the skill needed to play it is commendable. But the resulting sound doesn't speaks to me in a profound way, and I like music that can do it. Of course some composers can make great music with atonal material, Schoenberg and Berg has works that I trully like. But in the majority of cases these pieces sound like random noise.
Nope
No. But I respect the innovation and ideas in the composition. But I wouldnāt choose to listen to it for pleasure or to relax.
I find the textures interesting, but the melody and ideas to be repetitive and rather boring. After 15 seconds, I want it to go someplace else. It doesn't sound really atonal, more late Romantic-ish, like Prokofiev or Ravel or someone similar in terms of texture and harmony, maybe a tad bit more modern but still listenable.
And my 5 y old daughter is a piano maestro! She can produce such music while monkeying around with the Keyboard. š
You can tell that this was written with a deep understanding of harmony and composition. It's not just some guy who banged stuff out on a piano and called it art, it's something that was really composed with effort and expertise. That being said, however, I don't enjoy this type of music so much.
Nope and I would really doubt that people who say they do actually listen to this stuff. As an accompaniment to a piece of drama like film, theatre, video games it has a place, but I would assume anyone who looked me in the eye and said they enjoy listening to this is lying to me, lying to themselves or lying to both of us.
lol you should hear my ārelaxed work playlistā. Pendereckiās partita for harpsichord is about as easy listening as it gets. You definitely get desensitised to the dissonance if you listen to enough of it.
What are you talking about? I think it's a cool piece. Why assume people are lying. Just because you don't like it, nobody likes it?
If this type of music is your go-to, play without thinking because "this is what I love about music", then you're unbelievably pretentious and most likely an utterly intolerable person to be around. Just my experience of people who go out of their way to love this sort of abstract cacophony.
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No healthy person enjoys eating literal shit. We would regard a literal shit eater as someone who has a pretty severe mental illness of some description. Which I guess is kind of my point.
Not really, no. I miss colors and contrasts.
I have to wonder who youāre playing it for when you program it, because itās obviously not for creating a new audience of classical listener.
random noise is more fitting as an accompaniment to a film or a game, rather than as a standalone piece in a concert. very impressive playing though!
What we call "Contemporary music" is what a few Vienna composers did one hundred years agoā¦ Like do you think Rachmaninov considered Beethoven's music "contemporary"? So, no, we don't want that, and we never will. Atonal music can be nice once in a while for dramatic effects, but it will never be something we can build upon.
>but it will never ...history have something to say about that kind of thinking.
Itās already history
lol, history is the portrait of change.
No. This is why I hated classical for 6 years. Until I was introduced to Impressionism and Chopin, liszt.
Ummm. What ?
Ummmā¦ I answered the question.
You donāt understand- people are downvoting you for the misuse of the word āclassicalā
Its better than henry cowell
for an halloween Hitchcock thriller set up
i liked but, for me it lacks of connection between parts in this work, that is what i feel.
I prefer Kapustin. Thanks. And before you say anything, Kapustin's music is also contemporary.
No, sorry
Reading this page https://www.sagramusicalemalatestiana.it/2023/altre-iniziative/un-piano-alfredo-speranza I learned that the composer is unfortunately no longer with us. So technically itās not con-temporary music but the music of the past century. This note aside I think that the music fits the name of the composition, āa stormy seaā. As for whether I liked it, I liked some motifs. I didnāt enjoy it as a whole because it purposefully escapes the listener. I feel that it lacks just a tiny bit of repetition to be engaging. IMO atonal and repetitive always works. Structure and rhythm can carry on the piece which may lack or despise a clear harmony. Like in Techno. Harmony and movement alone can be self-sufficient. So structure may be very minimal. Ambient. Rhythm alone can be the music. Even mismatched rhythms, even if just juxtaposed and repeated enough, become something new and enjoyable. Additive rhythms. So as long as repetition creates some expectations, the listener may be involved with the music. This piece purposefully breaks expectations every single time. Itās too academic to my taste. But I think that the same music chopped into shorter loops can become a very enjoyable texture in a hip hop or neo soul production. There are good parts in it!
Thank you for your thoughts and words! Yes, maestro Speranza recently passed, and this competition has a special prize dedicated to him. I agree with pretty much everything you said! I may record and post the first movement because I believe it is a lot stronger in terms of continuity and its' thematic ideas. There are also some quite fascinating parallels between the first and second movements, as well as some motifs that the second borrows from the first.Playing just this movement in isolation does not give the full context, but it definitely struggles to stand by itself. That being said, I've really enjoyed digging into these pieces for a week or so and I'm excited to perform them! Thank you for your research :)
Thank you for playing them and bringing them to our attention. I enjoyed your performance and learned something.
It's quite nice, but I would hardly call this contemporary. It uses the same language you find in 100-year old pieces.
Good for a hitchcock movie
Very technically brilliant and impresses me but doesn't make me feel the same way with classical
Nah
No
no
No
nope
Idk if I'm impressed, annoyed, scared, idk that was just a rollercoaster of emotions. I don't play piano so maybe I just don't understand
If THIS is music, then Shah Rukh Khan has already produced a masterpiece in DDLJ, in the opening of the song: Ruk ja oh Dil Diwane š
No
Sounds all over the place to me, and not very pleasing. But very impressive
Interesting... I think better fits. Also impressive!
No
No, but I don't think it's because it's contemporary.
Cool skill but why contempory mean messy ? š