Fazil Say - Paganini Variations

[presto agitato]

work

A wonderful work IMO

This guy is very talented.

[allthumbs]

The guy obviously has great techninique, 'but that don't impress me much' (to quote Shania Twain).

It's like listening to Liszt. Lots of fury but little emotional content. Frankly, it bores me. I want to be moved by a performance as I've heard lots of these types of performances before.

Seen it once, can appreciate the technique, won't revisit it.

allthumbs

[john11inc]

It's like listening to Liszt. Lots of fury but little emotional content.

Definition of fury:

an emotional state of intense anger; "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned"; "his face turned red with rage"

Emotional state.

[allthumbs]

Definition of fury:

an emotional state of intense anger; "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned"; "his face turned red with rage"

Emotional state.

To finish the definition from the Web you quoted;

Definitions of fury on the Web:

a feeling of intense anger; "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned"; "his face turned red with rage"

craze: state of violent mental agitation
 
ferocity: the property of being wild or turbulent; "the storm's violence"

(classical mythology) the hideous snake-haired monsters (usually three in number) who pursued unpunished criminals

My usage referred to the underlined and hence little emotional content as I stated correctly.

[john11inc]

To finish the definition from the Web you quoted;

Definitions of fury on the Web:

a feeling of intense anger; "hell hath no fury like a woman scorned"; "his face turned red with rage"

craze: state of violent mental agitation
 
ferocity: the property of being wild or turbulent; "the storm's violence"

(classical mythology) the hideous snake-haired monsters (usually three in number) who pursued unpunished criminals

My usage referred to the underlined and hence little emotional content as I stated correctly.

Oh, so "fury" has no correlation to emotion.

I see.


Let's see what else has no correlation to emotion according to uncontextualized quotes from google definitions:

Note: a notation representing the pitch and duration of a musical sound; "the singer held the note too long"

Melody: tune: a succession of notes forming a distinctive sequence; "she was humming an air from Beethoven"

Harmony: the structure of music with respect to the composition and progression of chords

Counterpoint: a musical form involving the simultaneous sound of two or more melodies

Chopin: French composer (born in Poland) and pianist of the romantic school (1810-1849)

It's completely stupid to say "fury" has no correlation to emotion.  Maybe you meant to say "virtuosity" instead of "fury"?

[lostinidlewonder]

I am sure he means "fury" in the https://www.dasdc.net/ sense, da Dizciplez of FURY!!!!

[john11inc]

I am sure he means "fury" in the https://www.dasdc.net/ sense, da Dizciplez of FURY!!!!

I know what he means.  It's just a stupid thing to say, considering all of the pieces Liszt has written that are completely placid or lacking in virtuosity.

[allthumbs]

I know what he means.  It's just a stupid thing to say, considering all of the pieces Liszt has written that are completely placid or lacking in virtuosity.

If you knew what I meant, why bother commenting or do you have nothing better to do?

My Liszt comment was in referrence to the video piece. Perhaps I should have said "It's like listening to some Liszt." if that fills your boots.

BTW, I do like some of his works.

[ahinton]

If you knew what I meant, why bother commenting or do you have nothing better to do?

My Liszt comment was in referrence to the video piece. Perhaps I should have said "It's like listening to some Liszt." if that fills your boots.

BTW, I do like some of his works.

I happen to believe that john11inch had good reaason to "bother commenting"; irrespective of whether you meant to refer to some rather than all of Liszt's works, you nevertheless wrote of "lots of fury but little emotional content", which simply does not stand up to scrutiny on a number of levels.

Firstly, your suggestion appears to be that "fury" is somehow synonymous with "empty virtuosity", whatever that may mean, so your terminology is at best either flawed or misleading or both. "Furioso" is, of course, a well-known performance direction and we likewise all know what is signified by "con bravura"; john11inch appears to haver sought to help you out here by bringing the term "virtuosity" into the arena although, in so doing, he was clearly referring only to the kinds of virtuosity that one customarily associates with bravura playing - rapid-fire passage-work, octaves, volleys of chords, wide leaps, and so on - there are other kinds of mental virtuosity as well, such as may be found in abundance, for example, in some of the Chopin/Godowsky Studies where the requirements for hand-eye co-ordination and the judicious balancing of lines represent an extreme kind of virtuosity that is often a good deal less obvious to the untrained listener than the kinds of physical virtuosity to be found among Liszt's Transcendental Studies, Hungarian Rhapsodies, operatic parphrases, etc.

Secondly, even the former kinds of virtuosity do not always signify or call for "furioso" treatment (a sense of control is, after all, mandatory in the successful presentation of such virtuosity, whereas john11inch's definition of "fury" is rightly suggestive of such control being undermined).

Thirdly - and this is where I seek to address what seems to be the principal problem with your statement - your suggestion that "fury" and, by implication, physical virtuosity (i.e. a certain kind of advanced mécanique rather than the much broader "technique" per se), are invariably synonymous with a paucity or utter lack of "emotional content", which is nonsense; of course any composer with sufficient technical knowledge of piano writing can string together empty, vapid "virtuoso" passages that might be devoid of any worthwhile content, emotional or otherwise, but then Liszt, Alkan and others could and did write music requiring the same pianistic faculties but imbued with real substance. Your statement therefore suggests a severely blinkered, monochromatic, dogmatic viewpoint; whether or not it may have been fuelled wholly or in part by reason of the fact that you are not especially fond of much of Liszt's work is neither here nor there, since that is your personal view, whereas your statement about "little or no emotional content" purports to be factual (which, as I hope to have demonstrated, it is not).

Best,

Alistair

[birba]

Why do I get the feeling that none of you listened to the performance in question.  It's not Liszt.  How did HE get involved in this?  In effect, it IS an empty furioso performance.  I've already seen it.  And though it's impressive,  I get much more out of genuine rythmic jazz.

[allthumbs]

Why do I get the feeling that none of you listened to the performance in question.  It's not Liszt.  How did HE get involved in this? 

Perhaps my reference here was off the mark, although I think he did some transcriptions of Paganini's works which is why his name came to mind.

In effect, it IS an empty furioso performance.  I've already seen it.  And though it's impressive,  I get much more out of genuine rythmic jazz.

That's all I meant to say.

[pianisten1989]

The last note is probably wrong though