The 'Identity' Element in music pieces?

[cuberdrift]

Hi all,

Haven't you ever noticed there is this "Identity" element found in piano pieces, or, for the matter, any musical piece at all?

I think this is what makes a certain piece famous, or rather, a famous piece is due to its identifiable character. Notice that a lot of the more popular piano compositions, i.e. Fur Elise, Turkish March, Liebestraume, Revolutionary Etude, Moonlight Sonata, Flight of the Bumblebee, etc. all have nicknames, most of which aren't even given by the composers.

People just won't call them "Bagatelle number so-and-so Opus number whatever". Looks like the pieces that are given nicknames are those which have that really lasting, significant impact on the listener's ear.

Notice also that most of these are from the Romantic period. This is the thing; why is it that we are so much into Romantic music, while Baroque music is for "nerds" and/or eccentrics, because it is all "intellectual", "mathematical", etc. etc., and Classical music is "boring" and "repetitive" and "formulaic". I actually somehow share these views, although I love studying and playing Baroque.

The thing is that most Baroque and Classical pieces don't seem to have much of that "identity" element - we can't really recognize a PARTICULAR character out of them. It's like they aren't really to be "enjoyed" listening to - they are to be "studied"/analysed. Don't you just hate it when while listening to a beautiful Bach fugue or Mozart sonata, someone else is commenting "Oh, that's the exposition part" or "that's very intellectual music" or stuff like that, but they swoon all over Chopin or Brahms? Why don't Bach's Preludes and Fugues have nicknames like all of Chopin's etudes? It's as if they're not "exciting" enough to warrant a title designated by listeners.

Have you ever pondered on about this? What do you think?

Sincerely,
cuberdrift

[chopinlover01]

Certainly. I have yet to encounter a Bach piece, however, that doesn't entice me just as much as Chopin etudes do, however. The thing is, it's a different sort of enticement. The people who dedicate their lives to Bach, sure, they know how to play Chopin, Mozart, all of them, and do it well, but few people can make Bach so enticing.

[outin]

I could do without the nicknames. I never cared for program music either. I like to decide myself what a piece of music is about.

[j_menz]

The nicknames were mostly made up by publishers or editors because they believes they sold better that way. That practice took off in the late classical period, and continued through the early romantic until composers worked out that if a piece was going to be lumbered with a name anyway, they might as well pick it.

Bach's P&Fs aren't named, but other works (Goldberg Variations, Brandenburg concerti, the chorales and oratorios) are.

I would also counter that Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, probably the most famous symphony ever written, has no nickname. Plenty of others, both earlier and later, do, though it seems no reflection on their popularity.

I think you're grasping at straws.

[michael_sayers]

The nicknames were mostly made up by publishers or editors because they believes they sold better that way. That practice took off in the late classical period, and continued through the early romantic until composers worked out that if a piece was going to be lumbered with a name anyway, they might as well pick it.

Liszt's compositions seem to have a close association to the titles and also, when applicable, the relevant texts.  One can go through Annees de Pelerinage and observe the associations quite readily.

[cuberdrift]

Whatever you say, there still seems to exist the general trend of the classical pieces known by the general public to have nicknames.

We are so much into romantic music, therefore it looks like we tend to give them nicknames, because their memorable sounds make us associate them to something. Classical and baroque on the other hand, are too "abstract" and "intellectual" to understand and relate to...

I know I'm being very generalising here, but that's how it seems to be.