David Stewart wrote:

>I have always wondered how someone with no musical knowledge or
>'education' can listen to a large structure of say the first movement
>of Brahms first piano concerto (24 minutes or something?) or the first
>movement of Mahler 3 without getting completely lost.

Actually, I think that a listener who doesn't know a thing about "sonata
form," etc., can get a lot of pleasure from such movements just by
"following the flow," and I tend to do that myself, as often as not, in
something like the Brahms concerto, rather than consciously trying to tick
off the sections: "first theme, second theme, closing theme, first section
of development, ..." Perhaps one goes through a series of stages: (1) no
knowledge of musical form, (2) learning forms and earnestly trying to fit
what one is hearing to the forms one has learned, and (3) having the
freedom to listen to the form or not, as one wishes.  If the work is a very
well composed one, the form will have its effect on the listener whether
the latter is consciously aware of it or not.

As you no doubt know, these famous forms are largely theoretical anyway.
For all of the, often rather hack, first movements that have their formal
"ribs" sticking out so that they can be easily discerned, there are many
more that conceal them, or play around with the expectations that the
classical forms set up, or transmute them into somewhat different
variations of themselves.  (And then there are the many 20th-century
works that reject that whole game altogether.)

Naturally, the further one goes in learning the skill of recognizing these
games that the composers are playing, the more complex one's appreciation
becomes, but I think that "going with the flow" is a perfectly valid way to
experience a piece, if it gives a listener satisfaction.  I do not agree at
all with the view that formal analysis is the only "correct" way to listen,
or that listeners who can't, or prefer not to, listen that way are in any
way second-class listeners.

It is especially pernicious, I think, to give newcomers to CM the idea that
they have to develop a skill in this intellectualist approach before they
can "really" listen to the music.  Classical music, like any other kind of
music, has to move the listener in some way in order to mean anything to
her or him.  If you don't have the sensuous, feeling kind of contact to
begin with, I don't think you will have enough interest in the music to
stick with it (at least this is probably the case with all but the most
intellectual people).

>My education has also taught me to listen to things better.  Some people
>have the ability to hear a piece of 4 part harmony and just write it down
>but just being able to hear a bass line was difficult enough for me.  I
>think I solved that by listening to the LH of the Goldberg Variations a
>couple of times.  Only experience can really teach you to 'appreciate'
>though.  Hours upon hours of listening to things that you don't understand
>until it clicks - I don't think I really get the nuances of ANY CM piece
>until I have listened to it 3 or so times.

I think you have a point here, and this is the dialectical opposite which
completes the partial truth of what I said above.  Without eventually
getting some theory under one's belt, one's listening can easily become
lazy and hazy.  This is especially true of listeners who are not performers
on some instrument or singers.  To have a real personal relationship to any
music, you have to participate in it, and since CM is so much more complex
than most popular music, most listeners cannot participate in it by playing
it, and just humming and tapping your toes only scratches the surface.  So
if learning form leads you to listen more actively and precisely, that's
great.

Jon Johanning // [log in to unmask]