Some musical counter-examples for the most tenacious clichés ever given to classical composers.
~~ EDIT ~~
It seems there are some misunderstandings about the purpose of the video and how it was made, so I'll try to clarify :
- Those are clichés, and as such I’m well aware they can’t be accurate. The point of the video is precisely to explain why we should stop pigeonholing composers and artists in general, and to show a large panel of nuances, subtlety and shades. I KNOW that what I put as “clichés” are misconceptions, otherwise I wouldn’t have tried to deconstruct them with the musical examples.
- The clichés were collected among a large amount of people, and not just “ignorant ones”. We should stop looking down on other people for they don’t have the same culture as ours, and you would be probably be surprised to learn that a lot of those clichés came from music teachers, musicologists, fellow musicians, or even historical figures and composers. It was my piano teacher who described Schubert as “Good-tempered” ; my analysis teacher or Debussy himself who said that Liszt compositions were “full of default” or “imperfect”. Furthermore the way classical music is known in popular culture is also interesting in itself.
- You can see this video as a response to sociological researches, exploring what people think about composers, music, and why of course everything is far more complex than ready-made opinions. But it was also meant to be a way to ask ourselves where those clichés come from or why some people may have them. It can be for historical or musicological reasons : for example it is Brahms that republished Schubert’s work and changed the dynamics (“fortississimos” becoming just “fortes” for instance), leading to the idea that Schubert is softer than Beethoven. Clichés can come from traditions (conservatories, families). And so on.
- I want also to remind you that I’m not a youtuber or a video maker. I’m a musician, pianist, musicologist and learning composer. English isn’t my native language. So I may have made mistakes in my video, and maybe I wasn’t always very clear : I choose the vocabulary and the adjectives that I found the most convincing or close to my native language, but perhaps it was a bit clumsy. Also I couldn’t represent all composers (I’m well aware that there are tons of clichés about Beethoven and Bach) : the video is already quite long. So please forgive me for that.
- And finally thanks to all of you, I didn’t expect such a success and such an amount of views. Keep enjoying music !
----------
00:05 – Debussy
- 00:13 – Masques
- 00:55 – Nocturnes, II : Fêtes [Pianos Transcription : Ravel]
- 01:40 – Préludes, Book I, n°7 : « Ce qu’a vu le vent d’ouest » (Literally « What the west wind saw »)
02:44 – Chopin
- 02:53 – Three Écossaises, n°1
- 03:22 – Prelude op.28 n°7
- 04:03 – Polonaise op.53
04:46 – Haydn
- 04:56 – Symphony n°45 Hob.I:45, 1st movement
- 05:36 – The Creation Hob.XXI:2, overture [Piano Transcription : Czerny]
06:58 –Liszt
- 07:10 – Années de Pèlerinage, Deuxième année : Italie, n°7 : « Après une lecture de Dante » (Literally : « After a reading of Dante »).
- 07:49 – Dante Symphony, 1st movement : « Inferno »
09:11 – Mozart
- 09:21 – Don Giovanni KV.527 – Overture [Piano Transcription : Bizet]
- 10:46 – Piano concerto n°20 KV. 466, 2nd movement : “Romanze”
- 11:08 – Requiem KV. 626, n°3 : “Dies Irae”
- 11:26 – Fantaisie K. 475
12:14 – Stravinsky
- 12:24 – Pulcinella, Suite, n°3 : “Scherzino” [Piano transcription : personal work]
- 13:12 – Violin Concerto, 1st movement [Piano Transcription : Stravinsky]
13:54 – Wagner
- 14:04 – Lohengrin, Prelude
15:33 – Schubert
- 15:44 – Symphony n°9, 2nd movement : Andante [Piano Transcription : Ulrich]
- 16:59 – Sonata D.959, 4th movement : Rondo
- 17:58 – String quartet D.810, 1st movement
18:34 – Vivaldi
- 18:44 – Cello concerto RV. 407, 1st movement
- 19:20 – Farnace RV. 711, Act III, scene 4, Aria “Scherza l’aura lusinghiera”
- 19:51 – Lauda Jerusalem RV. 609
----------
Video made for educational purpose only. No copyright infringement intended.