Prelude in f minor (original composition)

[m19834]

Okay, I sat down and wrote something.  It is not long at all, even though the idea seemed huge and important to me when I was beginning (it doesn't seem any less important to me now, by any means, it's just a lot more succinct than I thought it would be).  Despite how short it is, it somehow says what I need it to say, so here it is.  I must apologize in advance for my out-of-tune piano ... sorry  .

[allthumbs]

I liked it. Nice playing as well.

[goldentone]

Hi Karli,

At first I thought this was the Bach, but then I saw it bears the surname of another.  This is an admirable composition, and cozy with originality.  From :45 onward I get lost and wish it wouldn't stop. Your playing, like sparkling wheat, is beautiful, as is the prelude.

[pianowolfi]

There
So clearly Karli, so clearly your voice

[furtwaengler]

"One has to realize what restraint it requires to express oneself with such brevity. You can stretch every glance into a poem, every sigh into a novel."

(The fact that this is Schoenberg's supposed quote on the music of Anton Webern matters not. I love Webern and Schoenberg, but I love K too. They speak better than me, so I steal their words. These are now my words, and I speak them about Karli.)

Succinct. At first it struck me as a blunt statement...one of those proverbs slapping the obvious..."Salvation is like walking the razor's edge, it's easy to fall off."

Succinct, yes, but picturesque, vivid. I don't know what is the picture, but I can see the breath coming out of my mouth in the cold, gray air, and I wonder if there's a light house. The E-flat - C repeating...Karli's signature, "so clearly Karli, so clearly her voice."  Unmistakable. And that's special. She has this rare gift to express silence with sound.

And think about Rilke:
https://picture-poems.com/rilke/uncollected.html#An%20die%20Musik
https://picture-poems.com/rilke/uncollected.html#To%20Music

The piano didn't bother me...more overtones.

One has to realize what restraint it requires to express oneself with such brevity. You can stretch every glance into a poem, every sigh into a novel.

[pianowolfi]

Dave this post is good, so good 

Yipp yipp

[m19834]

Okay !  Well, first of all, thanks VERY much for the replies !!  Dave, your post IS beautiful, as Wolfi mentions, and I love the poem (especially as you gave it to me in German AND English !!).  Thank you so much !

It's such a strange thing, this stuff ... I now feel like I am something like waking from some kind of deep sleep or something, from some world where this little piece came from and took me to !!  I have to tell you that this is maybe a first piece that I have written where, from the beginning it had as direct a purpose as it does.  I can say that it is a kind of response to the life that I see in another, and to the music of the soul.  Isn't there just something about our lives together, as people, that sometimes BEGS that we communicate the deep things to one another ?  I think so .  In the meantime, I guess we just go back to floating on top of the ocean, right ?  

I have to tell you a secret in that, this piece made me cry !  Perhaps that sounds utterly horrible coming from myself, but to me, to hear a music at all in my soul, it is a message whether seemingly coming from me or to me or whatever, which often I must listen to myself !  And, I suppose the content of what made me seek to find this particular message, the purpose in my having written it does wrench things a little bit for me as it is.

Okay, don't know if that makes any sense at all !  Thanks again !

[ted]

Meaningful brevity, the creation of an acutely moving miniature, is actually a very difficult feat to accomplish, at least I find it so. The idea or vision, and there is seldom time for more than one, must be striking or poignant enough such that its transiency is essential to the point of making further development superfluous. This little piece is certainly in that class and I hope to hear more such from you.

How a creator reacts to his or her own music is very personal and peculiar, and is often wildly different in manner and association from the reactions of other people. I often find mine bizarre, twee, mundane or just plain silly. Indeed, I frequently used to resort to telling people what they obviously wanted to hear about my music. I don't do that now I'm older, because I have found that they are usually so certain of what they believe my music says that whatever I say isn't going to make any difference. This phenomenon has, over the years, caused me to wonder if musical communication, in the sense of directly transmitting definite external emotions or images, exists at all. Maybe we imagine it does, and in music I am quite certain that imagination is far more important and powerful than facts anyway. I am reasonably sure we would all agree that whatever music is about it is not facts.

Well done Karli, I look forward to more.

[m19834]

Hi Ted, thank you so much for your reply, the feedback I have recieved is very helpful for me in better understanding this endeavor/experience.   It's interesting to me how you remark about people's reactions to music and how it varies from person to person. About a week ago I watched a portion of a YouTube of Vladimir Feltsman remarking on music as a language of its own; that music exists somewhere that words cease to exist, and therefore words cannot be used to describe the message of music, otherwise there would be no reason for the music. He talked about the message of music standing alone, and that if it doesn't, perhaps something needs to be evaluated as performer (or composer). I have heard similar thoughts on this before, or at least portions of it, but this somehow really struck me and I began to see it in a different way than I ever have before.  

Sometimes I have thought that people seek excuses to not have to actually put into words something deep and meaningful, and so at times (and perhaps with certain people) I have thought that perhaps people are just lazy to find the words and/or choose to rather hide behind something like music. That is funny to me, as somebody whom has struggled very greatly in the past with words, getting better in the past several years, but knowing what it feels like to have much, much to say, and genuinely not know how to utter a word.  And, even here on the forum I have chosen a musical response at times rather than words. So, in short, I am thinkin' that Mr. Feltsman may indeed be onto somethin'   ... hee hee . On the other hand, if it is true that music speaks something which words cannot, the inverse must be true as well, that words communicate something that music cannot. I suppose that's another subject though.

What I do find interesting though is that this little composition is indeed a deliberate communication, probably the most deliberate I have ever done in any medium. Considering what it is about, it is indeed something which I would like to say could not be put into words, and on some level that is entirely true. I treated its making as THEE way to communicate what I needed, and somehow something meaningful to at least me came out. I became curious about whether or not the music could truly stand alone in such a way, that the intended message could actually be or be experienced as some sort of previously "missing link" inside an individual, and upon the listener listening, s/he recognizes somehow a part of him/herself within it. Perhaps it is true in variables, depending upon the individual's soul, but I realized that, to me, it says what it says and waht it's meant to say, perhaps it will strike a person one way or another, and different people in different ways, but there is a certain satisfaction in just having gotten the message out in a way that seems the right fit.

In any event, I actually do enjoy this smaller form and could indeed see myself writing more in a similar manner. At one point I wondered how to know how long/big a particular idea would be when perhaps an initial little nugget surfaces, at least if one is not settng out from the beginning to fill in a certain form (which I am not altogether opposed to, especially as a compostional exercise) ?  Then I figured that a person would more or less just know whether the idea was complete or not, and that the music itself would communicate something of that nature during the process.  I have for a long time felt as though I have symphonies and such to write, and ideas and feelings and intuitions that seem huge, but maybe they are not quite what I think and I must better allow myself to be outside a box --or even THEE box-- for awhile to find out.

Thanks so much again to all .          

[rachfan]

Hi karli,

This prelude strikes me as a very intimate, introspective piece.  It sounds pensive and searching. For such a concise and reticent composition, it has much to say.  Good job!

[m19834]

Thank you, Rachfan .