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I haven't been able to even start, but I'm still committed to somehow do this. Just don't push too much :horrified: ...

Can we talk about Boulez for just a minute? He's still alive. He'll be 90 next month. I've been on this Babbitt thing lately, but at least Babbitt recognizes his "composer as specialist" ideas and techniques and isn't holding his breath for the general population to stop buying Nicki Minaj and start buying Babbitt. I find that respectable and realistic. Boulez's statement that "The aim of music is not to express feelings but to express music," sounds poetic and even purist, but when it comes down to listening to him actually explain his philosophy about music and what he thinks it should be, I find it actually like, angers me. I want to say it is in this interview (or some other one of his on YouTube) where he begins to talk about how the entire history, the legacy of art of the past like, four hundred years being too sentimental, too nostalgic, too emotional and that it should all be destroyed and that 'art' should be free from emotion or sentimentality. I find that to be such a radical statement... it does call to mind the disappointment he had with Messiaen for Turangalîla for being 'too romantic.' On the other hand, one has to acknowledge that he is a musical genius. While I know very little about his works, and have only begun to warm up to one (his second piano sonata) and don't really..... care for them (or know enough about them, but more, I suspect, the above philosophy is at play), I can say some of his recordings are superb. His Mahler cycle (recently released, or soon to be released) split between Chicago, Vienna, Cleveland, and Staatskapelle Berlin (and the tenth in London) has some gems, if you're amiable to his surgical, cold, sterile conducting style (again, perhaps a product of his emotionless approach, and excellent for score study, kind of the anti-Bernstein). I just think it's an interesting dichotomy, that he's so clearly talented, but those 'talents' that others perceive he doesn't seem to value. And in contrast to Babbitt above, it's almost like he's expecting the world to jump on the Boulez Bandwagon and do away with feelings. All the feels. Thoughts?

Copy and pasting too much = minimalism, doesn't it? xD

I know how you feel Austenite! I've only managed to get a collage of yet unrelated segments onto paper and some of it into Finale. This is definitely gonna take a while. And to think I was going to set a six week deadline :blink: I'll be really surprised if I make it by then!

I was not aware that he was making such statements. I'm not exactly holding my ear to the ground listening for this stuff, so I'm largely oblivious to it all. But man! That IS a radical statement. And also one I disagree with. I mean I know I tend to think that music shouldn't rely too much on sheer emotion to appeal to people, but this is much more extreme. You know what I've been taught about people who are that extreme? That they're spiritually out of balance. He clearly needs a hug. Someone send him a box of feels with a teddy bear and good Belgian chocolate.

YouTube, mostly. And Wikipedia. I do lots of reading on Wikipedia about pieces and composers and all of that, and inevitably will come across some person or work that I'm unfamiliar with, and it may lead to a Google search, etc. Granted, lots of it may be stuff that everyone else already knows about, but via YouTube channels like Hexameron and Unsung Composers (too lazy to link) I've found some really wonderful works (either directly as a result of their page, or did a search for it and they had it). The following come to mind, that may or may not have been from those channels: Felix Weingartner's first symphony, Cyril Scott's first symphony, Hans Rott's only symphony; Julius Reubke's piano sonata, Frank Bridge's piano sonata, Leo Ornstein's fourth piano sonata, the piano works of Samuil Feinberg and Nikolai Roslavets, Ernst van Dohnanyi's piano concertos, as well as those of Catoire, Winding, Thalberg. Lots of YouTube.

Bruckner is/has been/was a challenge for me. It took me some time to get really into Mahler symphonies, but the real challenge there was just the length, I feel, just getting my head around an 80-90 minute symphony, especially as early in my 'learn about classical music' efforts as it was, but I really love his stuff now. While he certainly has an overall style, each piece is so strikingly individual, each symphony very much has its own personality and identity, for better or for worse (I love them all, but I can see how some wouldn't). I say this being far less familiar with Bruckner than I should be (far less familiar with him than Mahler for sure), but my overall impression is that he wrote the same symphony nine times (or like... 10 and 3/4 times if you count the study symphony and the retracted one, and 9 being incomplete). I say that knowing full well that they're not ​the same, but my impression is that they're much more the same than Mahler's output, which isn't to say that the latter's are better or right, but that it's why they were captivating and easy to identify and remember. It took lots and lots and lots of effort last year to really begin to 'get' his fourth, but it was suggested (along with the seventh) as a good place to start. I listened to recording after recording after recording over and over and over again to start to get it, and it only got to feel emotionally significant when I was already quite familiar with it. It's puzzling to me what doesn't 'click' with me for Bruckner. I love the scherzos of his first and third symphonies, and the first movement of no. 1 is quite captivating, at least the opening. I'm familiar-ish with the ninth, and it's enjoyable, but it is taking me a long time to warm up to him, and I have been trying really hard. That all being said, I bought a ticket last night to hear his eighth here at the end of may and am looking very forward to it.

When it's possible, I go to concerts here, but they are very scarce... I have tons of music files in my computer and many CDs. Some times I just stop everything and listen to some of them. Youtube is also a great place for me to give some breaks from my life^^ Less often, I also play music on my piano :P For me, listening to music is essential for my life!