the more you listen to a piece...

[goalevan]

for me, the more I listen to a piece, the better and better it gets. some pieces click right away but some it takes a while to really enjoy it, then it keeps getting better. then I end up listening to it over and over until it burns out. just happened with rach 3 and campanella : )

[rosie]

Yeah, when I first hear a very modern piece, it usually has to grow on me. And then I end up enjoying it alot. But I listen to Rach 3 all the time and never get board of it.

rosie

[Antnee]

Yeah this is very true. I find it usually takes up to maybe ten listens on some pieces to really hear it. Longer than that even. I've been Working on Appassionata for a few months now, and every time I hear it it sounds better because I've become more familiar with the structure and what the music really means. I don't think music can really be understood in one or two listenings. After all, the composers worked on them for months and years, why should we try to take in all the genius and ideas at once? This is also why many composer's works were looked unfairly back then by the public. The public people probably couldn't read and understand a symphony on paper and what not, so they could only judge a work by the few performances it had. Thank God for recordings...

-Tony-

[faulty_damper]

Yes.  Bernhard says that it is the "layers" in this kind of  music.  At first, your ears will focus on the dominant melody line.  As your ear accustoms to it, it can focus on the bass lines et al.  It really makes for a piece that is highly complex.

Unfortunately for me, I've been listening to a lot of Alkan's works and his works are very dense and layered.  I'd say he is the most densely layered composed ever to compose.  I can't really listen to Beethoven's sonatas anymore because it isn't dense enough!  After listening to Alkan for a while, Beethoven's sonatas sound like Mozart or Chopin.

Yeah, Beethoven sounds too "the-opposite-of-complex".

Sucks for me.  I thought he was my favourite composer.  Not anymore.  He's so old fashion.

[comme_le_vent]

it appears your the dense one faulty.

alkan's music is thickly textured, but not that densely contrapuntal(compared to godowsky for eg.).
the extra notes arent necesarrily all there as individual melody lines, they are often just added notes to add to the sonority.

now compare to godowsky, because virtually every voice in his works have their own melodic path, and i think you will understand what im talking about.
not that alkan is any lesser a composer, i just think ur gettin ur facts wrong.

and about beethoven, his richness comes in the form of form, how his pieces progress and how every note is so perfectly connected and related to eachother, thats how he builds his collosal climaxes.

[comme_le_vent]

and as for repeated listens, the most rewarding piece to me is alkan's op39/4, its virtually the only piece i can think of that i could sit though over and over, and not get bored.

the melodic material is so appealing and distinct, to me.

and the richness of everything rewards you constantly.

the sheer sound of the textures arer very pleasurable too, with those big tremelos and the huge chords.

but the most important thing about this work is the 'load-blowing' part at the end.
its so intense and emotionally overwhelming, but the amazing thing is, that if you dont listen to the rest of the piece along with it, it sounds less striking.

this i due to alkan's mastery and genius in form, he makes everything so interconnected and it all leads to the ultimate climax, which after all the preceding material means so much more...

the harmonic richnessof the whole piece becomes inverted into this pounded out theme in c minor,extremely frightening in it's starkness - not shifting to any other chord for a little bit, then riding on a tormented dominant wave, until the final chorale like chord progression, ending in c minor yet again.

the work lasts 10 minutes but it feels like a universe in itself.

the emotional and musical impact of this piece never ceases to amaze me

[donjuan]

It took me a long LONG time to get settle with Liszt's "Les Preludes".  When I first listened to it, I thought it was boring.  Increasingly, I couldn't stop listening to it.  The pattern continues to this day and now it is one of my all time favorites.  
however,...
If I learn a piece of music on the piano, I tend to stop listening to recordings of it.  Anyone else notice such a phenomenon?
donjuan

[comme_le_vent]

yeah, sometimes its associative, you associate the piece with hard work..lol

another piece i love more with every listen especially is mahler 2, especially the insane 1st mvt.

[Shagdac]

That's interesting DonJuan....I'm the opposite, the more I learn a piece on the piano, the more I listen to the recording of the same piece. Not quite sure why, but I guess I'm just continually searching for something I may have missed, or could add or do differently that I haven't already figured out. I don't think it's so I can play "exactly like the recording", but more to keep the learning process going when I'm away from the piano. Many times I have recorded whatever group of pieces I'm working on, onto 1 CD and then literally play them over and over and over when I go to work, in my car, go to sleep, etc.

It's almost like it becomes a part of me. I don't find however that I necessarily like a piece the more I listen to it....if I don't care for it the first time, I usually will never care for it. But if I enjoy it, and continue to listen to a piece then my enjoyment of the piece increases, and I hear new parts and seem to discover new things regarding the piece the more I listen.

s.

[donjuan]

I believe listening to others play a piece, then trying to mimic is redundant!  Why would anyone want to listen to you play something someone else already has?If what you are trying to do is listen to music and spit it out the exact same way, congratulations, you are a parrot that just learned a new word...

If you dont intend to add something- to tell the audience a story- in the music, really, what is the point of doing anything?

Many people try to play "like Horowitz".  I believe they are all mislead.  I would be inspired by a great recording, but think of the music with a mind like a clean slate- No one should try to play like horowitz because they aren't Horowitz...just moronic mimes.
donjuan

[Antnee]

I'm with you donjuan...

I absolutely hate listening to recordings of Chopin's heroic polonaise ever since I 've been learning it. I used to listen to it so much that I could just run it through in my head. But on another note I listened to a recording of it today and It gave me a few more Ideas that I could use or build on so I guess it works two ways.  :-/ But I would rather play it myself.

-Tony-

[Shagdac]

I couldn't agree more....trying to play exactly like someone else is ridiculous. Fortunately, I will probably never be good enough to sound like someone on an actual recording, but for me I enjoy listening to the piece over and over, not to copy, but just to keep it going within myself when I'm away from the piano. I think it would be almost impossible for 2 people to play absolutely identical anyway.

But I wonder...you always hear about someone's "interpretation" or a certain pianist "making it their own"....how far can one go trying to give their own interpretation without getting away from the intentions of the composer?

And if everyone does play a piece somewhat differently, how can we ever say..."so and so is no good, or their interpretation was wrong"? It is THEIR interpretation, we may not necessarily care for it as much as anothers, however it doesn't make it wrong. Maybe they felt as much compassion about "adding" whatever they did, as another more popular pianist decided against.

How can we know for sure if what we feel for a piece is good, or being disrespectful to the wishes of the composer?

[Tash]

yeah i agree with that. like i'll maybe vaguely like a piece at first and then listten to it more and will grow more attached to it, esp, like everyelse says, with the 20th century pieces. like last year my teacher suggested i play the 3rd movement from khachaturian's sonatine for my exam and so she played it to me and i was like 'yeah that's ok' and nearly didn't play it but then did, and it ended up being my favourite piece!

but on the other hand i can listen to some pieces and after a while they'll drive me insane.