This is a blog for the community of Rhetoric 108—On the Philosophy of Music: "Music to Hear"—in the Department of Rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley, Spring 2011 and Fall 2011.
I am not much of an opera fan myself (and Wagner...), but I actually particularly enjoyed listening to this piece. Maybe it's because there aren't any vocals in the prelude of Tristan und Isolde. Or maybe it's because this Wagner piece is (surprisingly) consistent in its soothing and melodic structure.
But there is something alluring about the composition, especially when the crescendos come into play. At first I was enchanted by the beginning of the piece, and I couldn't help but imagine I was meandering around through some mysterious and foreign land. Somehow I ended up in a forest (probably because in my mind, at least, enchantment and forests seem to go hand in hand when an ominous feeling is looming about...). When the YouTube video came to around 3:33 during class, all of a sudden a feeling of "chasing" someone (or something) came into my imaginative play on the music.
With every increasing crescendo rising above the one before it, I felt as though I was reaching for something, but somehow I just couldn't hold onto it or even touch it for that matter. It's like an epiphany you feel like you're about to have, but you just can't pinpoint the thought in clear and concise, concrete words. With every crescendo, I felt like I was almost there... Where, you ask? That was the beauty of this prelude. I didn't know where, but somehow I knew I was getting towards somewhere--somewhere unknown but inviting. And with every crescendo slightly imbricated and dominated by the next, higher crescendo, it felt as though there was an act of spontaneity at work. This spontaneous behavior kept adding new layers to the impossibility of grasping whatever I was chasing, much like the erratic, irrational Dionysos who is unpredictable and forever fleeting. It was then when I actually realized that this piece is very much a work of Wagner's. Though melodic as it was, it was spontaneous in a rather deceptive way. I felt like the grounded, rational Apollonian, being played and fooled by the Dionysian shadow I was chasing.
I am not much of an opera fan myself (and Wagner...), but I actually particularly enjoyed listening to this piece. Maybe it's because there aren't any vocals in the prelude of Tristan und Isolde. Or maybe it's because this Wagner piece is (surprisingly) consistent in its soothing and melodic structure.
ReplyDeleteBut there is something alluring about the composition, especially when the crescendos come into play. At first I was enchanted by the beginning of the piece, and I couldn't help but imagine I was meandering around through some mysterious and foreign land. Somehow I ended up in a forest (probably because in my mind, at least, enchantment and forests seem to go hand in hand when an ominous feeling is looming about...). When the YouTube video came to around 3:33 during class, all of a sudden a feeling of "chasing" someone (or something) came into my imaginative play on the music.
With every increasing crescendo rising above the one before it, I felt as though I was reaching for something, but somehow I just couldn't hold onto it or even touch it for that matter. It's like an epiphany you feel like you're about to have, but you just can't pinpoint the thought in clear and concise, concrete words. With every crescendo, I felt like I was almost there... Where, you ask? That was the beauty of this prelude. I didn't know where, but somehow I knew I was getting towards somewhere--somewhere unknown but inviting. And with every crescendo slightly imbricated and dominated by the next, higher crescendo, it felt as though there was an act of spontaneity at work. This spontaneous behavior kept adding new layers to the impossibility of grasping whatever I was chasing, much like the erratic, irrational Dionysos who is unpredictable and forever fleeting. It was then when I actually realized that this piece is very much a work of Wagner's. Though melodic as it was, it was spontaneous in a rather deceptive way. I felt like the grounded, rational Apollonian, being played and fooled by the Dionysian shadow I was chasing.