I used to be in his class a few years ago, mr. Zagniy is one of the most educated and profound musicians that I have ever met. A brutally honest teacher, too. A rumor circulated that back in his days of study, Zagniy caused a scandal by brining a single major triad to his conservatory exam and claiming that it was actually a piece. (Don’t know if it’s a true story tho)
I’m listening to this with my partner laying next to me sleeping. He shot up and stared at me for a solid minute, said damn that was some weird shit, and went right back to sleep!
If you think about it, Sergey has made it such that the piece can be explored by the performer like an open world in a video game can be explored by the player.
I don’t know… I think it’s genius. The neo-baroque x minimalism thing going on is pretty cool. Love the never-ending sequences. Love the rhythmic processes. Love the Ligeti-esque use of triads in in the slow movements. You’ve probably gotta be a fan of minimalism to enjoy this lol, but I am such a fan. Thank you for sharing this.
@@AlbertoSegovia. agreed! Very interesting, sincere music. It’s more common for music from the last 50 years to be “difficult” to understand and/or appreciate, but this is very accessible.
People will criticize this music for being “thoughtless”. And yet, only Zagny thought it up! Perhaps the fact it illicits such a strong reaction is a sign of its humor and genius?
These pieces have character. They are uplifting in this complex-enough-world. I can rest, meditate to this. I can think to it. I especially liked the broken major triads that start on a different note each repetition. The note values stay the same, but the rhythm is felt different with each repetition. every great piece of music evokes strong feelings - and this comment section shows exactly that: confusion, disliking, genuine appreciation. It doesn’t matter which side you’re on, but it impacted you and doesn’t leave you cold. The worst reaction to a composers work is silence. Here, I don’t see silence at all.
It seems vexatiously vacillating between Glass, Feldman, Cage and Satie. Interesting that triads are used but that they don't sound very pleasing or traditional. Thanks for sharing.
Automatically intrigued by music that triggers harsh reactions about its musicality, let alone its status as music at all. This definitely is music, and it's somewhat addictive to listen to.
I am surprised at the tone of certain comments. My motto is "Don't write anything that you wouldn't dare to say in person." Having known Sergei Zagny's work for more than 30 years, I am pretty sure he knows how to write counterpoint exercises following Fux, a chorale with nice leading voices (and no parallel fifths or octaves), or a short charming piano piece in the style of Schumann. But this is the music an exquisitely trained composer would write in their maturity.
Knowing the bare minimum doesn't justify writing garbage. You need to know more than the bare minimum to actually understand music and how to compose it, a rare skill in themusic department of the cult we know as modern art.
Javier Ruiz : translation “Blah blah….BLAHHHHHHHH (desperate justification for an increasingly dementia-addled friend) blah blahhhh blahhhh….(more sad excuses for dear old Prof. …) composer would write in their *SENILITY*.” There fixed it for you.
Reminds me of Henryk Mikołaj Górecki - "holy/eastern minimalism" but not so "holy" in this case. The strength of this piece lies in the repetitions and the length. I would prefere that it was ironic about the tonal gestures, however without the irony the focus is brought to marginal nuances like little changes of melodic figures and rythm, and the harmonic resonance (like in Górecki's string quartets). It's an example of a craftsmanship exploiting a verry thin border between boredom and conventional gestures - that's what seems still fresh and hard to master. Also it must be very impactful when performed live in a good concerthall.
For sure one of my favorite piano sonatas. Everything is so well done, especially the aleatoric concept of form which fits this piece perfectly! Brilliant performance too. I generaly adore Zagny's works so much that I cannot wait for the next uploads 😄
After thinking about this one for a bit I think it's a very good piece of music. A second listen made me think a lot about the relationship between impulsive decisions and planning, getting caught up in circles that slowly change perspective, and other deeply personal experiences. I think a lot of people are getting caught up on the simplicity of the surface and missing out on the rich form and structure. Yeah each section is pretty boring and bland (like a piano exercise) on their own, but the point is they're not on their own; they juxtapose each other.
@@Whatismusic123We have already got over that noise-music boundry in 60s and the society paved the way for modernism fortunately. You cannot just say that this is just some bunch of noise by only referancing to academic techniques and how they were handled. The pieces he composed still will be recieved by other people, it will be liked and disliked anyway. Rather than an analysis or an aesthetic approach, one should be set in stone to understand what the piece actually means. This happens in Dave Brubeck's pieces as well as they are quite basic in technique yet play significant roles to get one learned some theoric content, or at least facilitate the process on going. This is probably what happens here as well, we are living in a time where music is not only made for listening.
@@Whatismusic123 You do not seem to have enough acknowledgement on music apparently as you're insisting on its musicality rather than speaking with facts whatsoever.
@@onionlipadua you pride yourself into the fact that you enjoy noise that anyone of the right mind wouldn't. I gain nothing from arguing with you. Just knownthat you're wrong and that this is just random noise puzzled together using pseudo-scientific principles.
There are some cool notations, but I feel like there are so many cracks in the unity of the piece. Plenty of moments where a long rest is followed by something entirely different from before, which makes it feel like this is not 1 piece but a bunch of random miniatures grouped together. Feels unfinished
I feel like that's the point, all the sections are derived from the same material even though they often sound very different; the juxtapositions make the changes in perspective of how that material develops the main element of narrative in the piece. The jumps are almost more important than the sections themselves
@@meruscalesNot even sure the composer would agree with your analysis. There are at least 6 distinct materials. 1: beginning tremolo 2: long chords 3: broken chords (which sound ornamentated) 4: chords in quarter notes (more jazzy articulation) 5: 6ths turning into 10ths 6: lone scales. Too much mental gymnastics to say those things are alike. Their notations, techniques, moods... are different.
@@Ricardo7250 yeah the material is sufficiently transformed to be distinct, but underlying all of it is an event built on the interplay of voice leading and functional harmonic consequences, along with levels of sequencing, tempo, and rhythmic emphasis. Each of these parameters exists on a spectrum, and it’s easy to see how tweaking these spectra lead to the sections you described. On top of that, the way sections are developed mirror each other, adding or subtracting vertical density or rates of change. The composer has academic writings on how to change a theme with process in very radical ways, from combinatorial design to complex variable functions, so I am not sure he’d disagree
@@Whatismusic123 god why do classical fans piss their pants when ppl like music that they don’t like. Go take a walk and listen to something you like man, be better than this
@@josephalvarez5315 why do classical fans piss their pants when ppl criticize random noise and don't join/support their cult. god forbid one has critical thought. You shouldn't like this, may aswell just use a random noise generator instead. what a waste of time.
Call it what you will. Think what you will. Believe what you will. This is still music in its absolute purest form. If you can't at least agree on that then you truly are lost.
Well in that case I'm "truly lost". (What an unpleasant and sneering thing to decide and assert of me and others who find this lacking in spice and idea.)
@@dwdei8815 See, that's the thing you don't get. This is MUSIC. And your assertion of personal tastes on something is freely created is rather unpleasant and quite demeaning. In other words, no one really cares what makes you cry at night so long as you do and I get to drink the tears.
@@Brassman388 I guess what I was pointing at was your assertion that those who do not share your taste in music are "truly lost". Gratuitous, pompous, dismissive of different opinions and perhaps not as well thought through as you imagined. It's doubly dismal to see you what have chosen to double down on is the nastiness. Is it supposed to hurt me that you comfort or justify yourself by imagining that I am crying? That says more about you than about me. Compared to Chopin Scherzos, Rachmaninov Preludes, Gershwin songs, Shostakovich Preludes, Gulda, Grieg, Prokofiev... I find this music is really quite empty. Lacking in surprise, without contrast. It's still "music" - just not a lot of it (except in duration).
@@dwdei8815 And yet you're still misquoting me. This circling is boring. Go listen to what you want and feel better about your feelings, man. Leave this music and the people who understand its importance to those of us who actually care.
Никогда не понимала современную музыку. Ни Лигети, ни Щенберга, ни Кейджа. Слушали мы их в институте как то. На любителя музыка. Кто то посчитает их гениальными , кто то бездарными. Загний мне не знаком. Может есть что то такое в его творчестве, но для меня это просто набор звуков. Запись партитуры интересная, странная для меня лично, ибо я такое не встречала. Мои мозги заточены только под Баха, Бетховена,Шопена. Вот эту музыку я понимаю, ее интересно слушать, играть.
The initial conceptual ideas behind the composition are modestly interesting (not particularly well developed, but interesting nonetheless). The manifestation of the concepts as a musical composition is a bit obvious and ham-fisted, and becomes increasingly moreso the longer the composition goes on. It's not a terribly lively listening experience, more of a chore once the basic ideas are stated...
Having just listened to the whole piece and not being particularly impressed by its entirety, todd's comment is as spot-on from an artistic & theoretic standpoint as I've read on this thread. Zagny's sonata is something of a failed experiment. Is the piece a commentary/satire on the minimalist style of the mid 20th c.? Is it a sincere effort to produce a minimalist piano sonata based on tenets of keyboard exercises? Is it something else altogether? All I can hear is that it starts out in the manner of a Czerny parody, ala Debussy's 1st etude, then devolves into predictable & boring sequences based on scalar movement. There are a few moments of surprise and intrigue, but these fall by the wayside through overt repetition. Most likely this is due to a misunderstanding or misinterpretation of what makes 20th c. minimalism a powerful artistic force.
(n°1) It is the charm of harmonic intervals that affects creativity... (this composer must be a teenager or young man). It happens to students, listening to the chord progressions typical of certain tonal music (Corelli, Vivaldi...) and playing them on the piano several times to try to understand where this... invincible Beauty comes from. This work is endearing. But it's not art.
Can I ask you to expand on that last statement? (also, just for background/context he was 30 when this was written and was completing postgraduate studies at the Tchaikovsky State Conservatory, so not exactly a novice) Edit: I've just reread that comment, I didn't mean for it to come across so brusque 😂
@@herbertsherbert7378 🙂Don't worry. You weren't abrupt./... It's complicated for me to communicate here, with precision. (I'm Italian, I'm translating every post I read from English and it takes a long time to respond...🙄 It's a lot of work! Sorry)
@@gabriel77196 It's my opinion. Art can be defined as a particular intellectual development that resists over time. It is not only effectism, linked to the contingencies of a discipline: for example to what is unusual or surprising or to excessive self-referentialism. Mistaking the planning, the elegant graphics, the form for the essence of an art is not correct: these are just incidental aspects. You can be a good composer but not an artist. /But that's just my thought.
pretty strongly disagree with this; it's the ordering of the movements that makes this interesting music to me; on its own each section is hardly an exercise, but in reference to each other something interesting happens
Music Writer. He knows what he likes, he discovers and steals sound combinations and passages from others, extracting them from various composers. He is very interested in graphics. He wants to enchant without going into the organization, even minimal, of a tangible musical phrase or form. In reality he never dares. He dares not do anything... Only effect. A Catalog Of Effects that can only intrigue those who are not musicians.
maybe taken on their own each section is just an exercise, but I think there's a very pleasant formal logic to how the sections are juxtaposed and developed relative to each other. There's multiple narratives in this piece at multiple timescales that only manifest if you consider how they are ordered to fit together. Definitely not a masterpiece, but I think there's a lot more to it than just a catalogue.
14:21 The numbers and boxes makes this look like Linear Algebra homework for practicing Gaussian Elimination 💀 When I get to making my own music, I'm gonna put Calculus symbols into the sheet music to make the player have to think on how to do a piano interpretation of a Riemann sum 😇
Фамилия композитора очень соответствует произведённому им "продукту".Это загнивание мозгов,а не музыка.И это говорит не какой- нибудь невежда,а человек,любящий музыку Веберна,Штокгаузена,Лигети,Крамба итд.
Beginners exercises masquerading as a pretentious Sonata…pretty clever, not. This fails the Harrison test:”would you ever text the link to a music-loving friend and excitedly say “you have to check this out!” NO. Sorry prof. Take a clue from Kapustin, Medtner, Yorke Bowen, Rachmaninoff, Lyapunov, Liszt, Alkan ..etc and have your music GO SOMEWHERE.
