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Musical Quiisine

3.3K views 21 replies 11 participants last post by  Sid James  
#1 ·
Pop Music = Fast Food . Classical Music= Slow Food . What do you think of this comparison ?

I don't want to sound snobbish in this comparison . I don't mind eating fast food at all once in a while,
just not too often, because it's not very good for you . I prefer Burger King to McDonalds .
But listening to Beethoven, Wagner, Bruckner, Mahler, Sibelius, Nielsen, Prokofiev, Shostakovich etc,
is more like dining in style at a world-class gourmet restaurant .
 
#9 · (Edited)
I'd say Ligeti tastes like candy with razors in it, and Cage tastes like rubbing charged batteries against your tongue.

@science: By the way, Eurythmics is supposed to be listened to while drinking 8 oz. vodka, 8 oz. honey, and 10 oz. beefeater gin (according to drinkify). Strange coincidence, right?
 
#7 ·
A lot of people listen to classical music in order to cultivate a certain image. What is the food that those people would eat to cultivate a similar image? In the US, perhaps sushi, tofu, caviar, European wine and not American beer. Or, as the OP suggested, an expensive French restaurant.
 
#18 · (Edited)
Wagner is like a 20 course meal, waaaaaay too much. Would rather have a hamburger than that for sure, no matter how fine it is. Reminds me of that scene with the guy blowing up in that Monty Python film (warning, this is will turn you off your dinner). It's overkill inviting indigestion and bloating.

Similar with Bruckner's and Mahler's gigantic edifices, I like them way more but I take them seldomly.

Some dieticians say that, apart from eating healthy food, you should eat maybe 5 or 6 meals a day, but small ones (not the traditional 3 big meals). So with that in mind, we can think of our own musical equivalents. I have been listening to some piano miniatures and short songs lately, which kind of fit this bill.

Anyway, Australian composer Elena Kats-Chernin did an album to chef Kylie Kwong's recipes, called Slow Food. Not heard or read it, but I like this composer in general. There, the description of slow food is likened to slow music (not necessarily classical, and indeed, Kats-Chernin's music includes many influences beyond classical strictly, from ragtime to rock, jazz and cabaret).
 
#22 · (Edited)
Funny thing is, many of the great composers, or a fair number of them, would not have had gourmet food, but their era's equivalent of cheap and cheerful food. As is known, Beethoven didn't care for anything much than music, his diet would have consisted of whatever he could get his hands on in between composing his latest symphony or sonata. Brahms came from a poor background, the habits stuck, even in his older years he ate things like tinned fish. Shostakovich as a student was starving, fed in good part by his teacher, Glazunov. His poor diet continued in his life and undermined his health. Satie was also similar, not rich at all, playing piano in cafes-cabarets of Paris.

So I think this connection is snobbery or something like it. For this and other reasons. Peter Sculthorpe, Aussie composer, even wrote a symphonic rock song in the 1970's. He said he admired how non-classical musicians were unfettered by the various conventions of classical tradition, which many post 1945 composers like him were trying to un-learn to get beyond the stale cliches.

But whatever. Many classical listeners today don't come from poverty like Brahms did (he was not typical in that way, but very down to earth, composing waltzes - the pop music of his day - & admiring those of J. Strauss II). Anyway, for relatively well off listeners today, they maybe do not know the feeling of not knowing where your next meal comes from (starvation), and to be happy for anything filling your stomach.