MUSIC
08.02.09
MUSIC, Classical Music, Medieval Era, Renaissance Era, Baroque Music, Classical Era, Romantic Music, 20th-Century Music, Minimalist Music, Impressionistic Music, Experimental Music, Dark Ambient, Electro-Acoustic, Electronica, Ambient, Trip-Hop, Jazz, quiet
This month in Classical and Experimental Music (as well as related genres and subgenres), I would like to focus on “quiet music.” William Cosgreve wrote the oft-misquoted line “music has charms to soothe the savage breast,” and many people have taken this to mean that the aim of music is solely to soothe. Classical music in particular is plagued by this notion, despite the fact that many of the most popular pieces in the repertoire are anything but soothing. I would defy anyone to relax to Beethoven’s Ninth or Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, for example. To me, it is also hard to believe that emotionally-charged works such as Barber’s Adagio for Strings find their way onto compilation discs such as Classical