| There's a lot more to music
than meets the ear. It's true that anyone can enjoy a concert by just listening
to it, without the slightest idea of how it connects to history or any technical
or intellectual concepts. Of course, if you were just listening to Beethoven's
Ninth Symphony, you would miss the fact that it begins darkly with
a vague D minor chord and, 35 minutes later, ends triumphantly with seventeen
emphatic D major chords in a row. Or, if you were just listening to Trauermusik
by Paul Hindemith, you would miss that he wrote it overnight on the occasion
of the death of King George VI of England and performed it the next day,
playing the solo viola part himself. Or you would miss that John Cage wrote
a piece called "Cheap Imitation" when he could not get permission
from the copyright holder to arrange Socrate by Erik Satie. These details add to the richness of music and understanding them can make the experience of listening a deeper one. And, in the case of some music written in our time, details can make the difference between enjoying a performance or not. Within ICP is an archive—small but growing—of ideas about specific pieces of music. What does the performer think of the music he/she is playing? What is the context in which the piece was written? How did the composer write the piece? What is the inside story? The Internet Concert Project is a digital guide to the other side of music—the side that can't be heard, but that makes the musical experience more complete, because it contains both sound and ideas. |
ICP pages are being redesigned.
Please check back periodically to view archived programs. Quartet for the End of Time Sonatas and Interludes The Rite of Spring Pierrot Lunaire Piano Sonata No. 2 Concord, Massachusetts 1840–1860 Walk/Run/Dance Musica Exotica Tradition Begins/Tradition Ends Takemitsu and Beyond Saxophone Music from Berlin in the 1930s Remaking the Past Move Schoenberg's Verein The Faenza Codex and Beyond The Concert Hall on the Island Music + Art |
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