Cygnus Ensemble

Anderson:

We really need Dr. Oliver Sacks to help us unravel brain functions in Pre-Raphaelite as opposed to other music. Perhaps contextual music would involve emotional responses to short-term memory.  Normal music, and the Pre-Raphaelite strategy engages long term memory as well. (!)  And yet some of us get sentimental about hearing that old high modernist 20th music.....

Brickle:

Remember, also, that composers use different parts of their brains than their listeners.

A seismic event for me was hearing how Harold Budd was turning to the pursuit of music that was "mindlessly pretty." I love his music and didn't give a damn that it was mindless, or so he claimed. The music had to be diabolically clever and profoundly thought-through to seem so effortlessly lovely without being offensively stupid.

Also, about the bluesy Gershwin -- it's that, but as in Heifetz playing his transcriptions of Porgy and Bess -- a kind of genuine funkiness but truly antithetical to the blues roots. Ramsey Lewis covering "Day Tripper" and "Hang On Sloopy."

Anderson:

Yes--I understand the Heifetz filter. Who's Ramsey Lewis? I'll have to google him.

Anderson:

This is very helpful to me, and I hope it will be clear to others. This discussion also helps explain why I decided on a Pre-Raphaelite theme for the program on which The Creation is featured.  

Next, there's an Advanced Tour of the Creation 

--William Anderson