When my daughters were born (even before they were born) I had the habit of playing classical music at home, exposing them to works by Monteverdi, Bach, Mozart, Fauré and many others. On one occasion, while my wife was breastfeeeding our daughter, the older of the two, I put on Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht. It was too intense and she asked me to switch off the CD palyer. My wife felt uncomfortable and so did our daughter. It's almost as if she had eaten asparragus and the taste has seeped into her milk. Schoenberg is obviously not the best music for breastfeeding. Maybe his Gurrelieder might be okay but generally it would be wiser to stick to Monteverdi and co.
Michel Angstadt What an interesting piece of information from your life Michel! Your daughters are of course female, a young boy like me who my father once tried to shut up by giving me a piece of stilton at about 2 years old and who delighted in the maturity, exquisiteness and profundity of its taste and who for his 3rd birthday wanted a pylon and who then didn't stop fusing about pylons till my father built me one out of McCanno, may have took up with characteristic young laddish intrigue and interest the mature and challenging style of Schoenberg's 'Verklarte Nacht'. I liked the 26 minute piece when I used to have it on a double CD along with 'Pelleas et Melisande' by Schoenberg and the version by Sibelius. I love 'Ligeti' but also now I realise how much I adore William Lloyd Webber's music, whose work I think is as deeply sensual, rich and melodic as the '3rd Movement' of Mahler's '4th Symphony' but whose music of course would never appear on a series of programmes like this about music pioneers as he did not change music just write beautiful music in a more traditional style than so many composers of his day, himself being born 2 years after John cage and a year after Benjamin Britten. William Lloyd Webber's music proves that modern composers could and can find a beautiful melody if they wished to! A lovely story you've mentioned, Michel. I hope your daughters enjoy the music you like and find happiness like you I'm sure have through music! Cheers - Mike
It's a bit of a leap to go from Schoenberg's Five Pieces for Orchestra to Webern's Five Pieces, don't you think? I can grasp the Schoenberg, but the Webern is terribly dense. I have yet to come to terms with it. I know Rattle is going in roughly chronological order, but something transitional seems to be skipped here, maybe due to time constraints? I look forward to the rest of this series. Thanks for uploading.
