NTT: It sure sounds like a Haydn Mass, though I don't know the nicknames of those well enough to be able to be any more specific. I’ll throw Spohr in might bucket as well for good measure.
The same day that I read this I also saw shared elsewhere a passage from Jon Berger that - while not exactly expressing the same sentiment - served as a nice complement:
“How do the living lie with the dead? Until the dehumanization of society by capitalism, all the living awaited the experience of the dead. It was their ultimate future. By themselves the living were incomplete. Thus living and dead were interdependent. Always. Only a uniquely modern form of egotism has broken this interdependence. With disastrous results for the living, who now think of the dead as eliminated.”
That all might be directed more at the humanities as a whole, but I think in any discussion of the classical orchestra’s place in society we shouldn’t hesitate to highlight its ability to connect us to voices from the past in addition to its benefit as a communal effort.
In regards to the question of a composer’s good life vs. afterlife: short of a change in economic relations that allows anyone who wants to compose a good life regardless, I’ll still lean toward wishing them success in this life - the dead will be what the dead will be.
Lastly, you must have a stronger stomach than me to get through even one Hurwitz video - it’s never been my cup of tea.
One of my all-time favorite movies about music, “Tous les matins du monde” makes an explicit theme of the idea that the purpose of music is to talk to the dead: https://youtu.be/_hzMOHZPskg?si=NqE-zj3zkQ4whz2C
The good life/legacy question is one of the fundamental questions of philosophy and religion dating back to the beginning of recorded history, so I'm not going hazard into that debate in the comment section other than to say that Borges believed that the greatest accomplishment for a writer (and presumably any artist) is to have their name forgotten but their stories live on.
Re: orchestras, I like this Teddy Abrams. My hope is that as digital art gets less human, there's increasing interest in live performance, which is hard (at least for now) to fake. People like people, and the raw humanness of orchestral music is hard to match.
Will and Joey, congratulations on the 150th edition of Tone Prose!!! Thank you for keeping us informed, entertained, and on our toes trying to guess the NTT's each week. And thank you for the kind words about my NTT entry last week!
This week I'm jumping on the bandwagon with everyone else whose 1st thought was Haydn. Well . . . actually, my very 1st thought was that this snippet reminded me somewhat of Welcome Christmas from How the Grinch Stole Christmas 🤣😂🤣. (I can't understand the words to that, either.) To keep Haydn company in my basket, I'll "get the band back together" and throw in Mozart, Dittersdorf, and Vanal.
So, Will - does a regular dose of David Hurwitz contribute to your good life - or to your good legacy? (And may you have both . . . )
NTT: This screams Haydn at me, but I can't think of any masses that would match the clue (there is the Nelson Mass, of course, whose name references war, which would point at brass rather than woodwinds--but I don't think it's that one anyway). I'll add Mozart to my basket although I get decidedly more Haydn-ish vibes (and also, this probably has too many trumpets for Mozart's liking).
- The Teddy Abrams quote is excellent. We're lucky to have such an articulate, thoughtful, and young person in the ranks of popular conductors, willing to 'make the case' as you put it for classical music today.
- It's probably better for the composer to have a good life, and better for everyone else if they have a good afterlife! 😂
- You're wasting your life by watching every Dave Hurwitz video on the day it is released, and you should be doing something else with my life / legacy. (Only about 50% joking)
NTT: It sure sounds like a Haydn Mass, though I don't know the nicknames of those well enough to be able to be any more specific. I’ll throw Spohr in might bucket as well for good measure.
The same day that I read this I also saw shared elsewhere a passage from Jon Berger that - while not exactly expressing the same sentiment - served as a nice complement:
“How do the living lie with the dead? Until the dehumanization of society by capitalism, all the living awaited the experience of the dead. It was their ultimate future. By themselves the living were incomplete. Thus living and dead were interdependent. Always. Only a uniquely modern form of egotism has broken this interdependence. With disastrous results for the living, who now think of the dead as eliminated.”
That all might be directed more at the humanities as a whole, but I think in any discussion of the classical orchestra’s place in society we shouldn’t hesitate to highlight its ability to connect us to voices from the past in addition to its benefit as a communal effort.
In regards to the question of a composer’s good life vs. afterlife: short of a change in economic relations that allows anyone who wants to compose a good life regardless, I’ll still lean toward wishing them success in this life - the dead will be what the dead will be.
Lastly, you must have a stronger stomach than me to get through even one Hurwitz video - it’s never been my cup of tea.
One of my all-time favorite movies about music, “Tous les matins du monde” makes an explicit theme of the idea that the purpose of music is to talk to the dead: https://youtu.be/_hzMOHZPskg?si=NqE-zj3zkQ4whz2C
The good life/legacy question is one of the fundamental questions of philosophy and religion dating back to the beginning of recorded history, so I'm not going hazard into that debate in the comment section other than to say that Borges believed that the greatest accomplishment for a writer (and presumably any artist) is to have their name forgotten but their stories live on.
Re: orchestras, I like this Teddy Abrams. My hope is that as digital art gets less human, there's increasing interest in live performance, which is hard (at least for now) to fake. People like people, and the raw humanness of orchestral music is hard to match.
Will and Joey, congratulations on the 150th edition of Tone Prose!!! Thank you for keeping us informed, entertained, and on our toes trying to guess the NTT's each week. And thank you for the kind words about my NTT entry last week!
This week I'm jumping on the bandwagon with everyone else whose 1st thought was Haydn. Well . . . actually, my very 1st thought was that this snippet reminded me somewhat of Welcome Christmas from How the Grinch Stole Christmas 🤣😂🤣. (I can't understand the words to that, either.) To keep Haydn company in my basket, I'll "get the band back together" and throw in Mozart, Dittersdorf, and Vanal.
So, Will - does a regular dose of David Hurwitz contribute to your good life - or to your good legacy? (And may you have both . . . )
NTT: This screams Haydn at me, but I can't think of any masses that would match the clue (there is the Nelson Mass, of course, whose name references war, which would point at brass rather than woodwinds--but I don't think it's that one anyway). I'll add Mozart to my basket although I get decidedly more Haydn-ish vibes (and also, this probably has too many trumpets for Mozart's liking).
- The Teddy Abrams quote is excellent. We're lucky to have such an articulate, thoughtful, and young person in the ranks of popular conductors, willing to 'make the case' as you put it for classical music today.
- It's probably better for the composer to have a good life, and better for everyone else if they have a good afterlife! 😂
- You're wasting your life by watching every Dave Hurwitz video on the day it is released, and you should be doing something else with my life / legacy. (Only about 50% joking)
NTT: that was an immediate recognition for me (esp w/ the clue) so I'll await with curiosity to see the other guesses.