| CADreaming |
10-21-2009 09:20 PM |
Quote:
Originally Posted by David
(Post 849100)
Yes! They haven't demonstrated the evolution that we saw in Shakespeare or Michelangelo. Or consider the advances Beethoven himself made in his final five years. Practically no major composer of the next 100 years escaped the profound influence of his final symphony, his final mass, his final piano sonatas, or his final string quartets. For Mendelssohn, the grandeur of the Ninth Symphony gave rise to the Hymn of Praise in his own Second Symphony. For Wagner, the addition of voices in the finale of the Ninth confirmed his view of the supremacy of vocal music. For Brahms, Bruckner, & others, Beethoven's final works were a model of pure instrumental music at its apogee, while Mahler took the cosmic breadth of the Ninth & the Missa Solemnis as a starting point for his own symphonies. Schumann actually quoted a theme from Beethoven's An die ferne Geliebte in his C major Fantasy. Webern was attracted to the compression & concentration of the late bagatelles.
Beethoven was the titan who effected a revolution in music every bit as fundamental as the French Revolution in politics. He was in some senses very much a man of his age, expanding the forms & genres he inherited & infusing them with personal vision & the spirit of the age, but he is also a man for every age. His music influences the course of composition to this day. Its enormous intellectual strength & ingenuity are almost unfathomable, as scholars examining his manuscripts have recently shown. Beethoven embodies every human state of emotion: from triumph to despair, from joy to darkness.
Fleetwood Mac has not lived up to the Beethovenian model, the Beethovenian ideal.
What are your thoughts?
Oh, I wish strand were still here!
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Well, I'm fascinated by your view. I also think it ironic, because of LB's comment in Destiny Rules - about "teaching these young punks how to play".
In some ways, I think his playing has evolved and for the better. Really, in many ways I think that. When I listened to his "introduction" piece on the Out of the Cradle album compared with any of his acoustic work today, I definitely think LB's playing has been refined through the years. And, I was impressed with the band as a whole, overall, at my first two Mac shows this summer. However, to adequtely compare we would have to hear just Mick, John, and Lindsey - without the "extras" thown in the mix.
Now, when you are comparing are you only listening for the music nuances or do you also critique the vocals? And, do you think it's fair to make vocal comparisons? |
