Brewtlegs, 2017
Compare these! -
The second one way weaker, less abandon
STOP SIGHT READING, I know he just has it there for security but it’s better to have a smaller rep than to sacrifice performance quality
Idk man, I haff insane respect fo penists wiz large… rep
Even if quality is a bit so so
Absolutely I have respect for it but if I’m paying to see a concert I want a performer going balls out, not a shriveled sack
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da zepp only lyk:
da ROM ZON zhitzo mvmt da DOC played in da zupahvirt
which hilariouzly cummah aftah da DOC claim diz mofoz workz dun make an imprezzion on firzt hearin. diz mvmt iz da ONE ZHEEYAT from da MED datz 100% accezzible on firzt hearin
da rezt of da zheeyatz da zepp heard haff a ROCK-ZCRIB random combo not-zhor-wut-it-iz vibe 
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Randomly having listened to his entire output, that movement is indeed one of the very few that could be considered an SD classic
That perf especially noteworthy considering the typical tempo it’s played at :
Compared to da DOC juz,…
It is really strange stuff. It bugs me a little that of all composers it’s not Lyachubshosnovetsky b1910 which keeps giving me problems, but something as seemingly close to home as Nikolai Medtner (and Sorabji, but I’m not sure there is anything there).
If I could describe his music with a single picture this is about how it feels. Green, remote and relating to legend/tale.
ahahahaha TRU da DOC haff tym to give a full blown ozcah acceptance zpeech n ztill beat da TOZAH by half a min
n diz zong iz da kind of da zheeyat da ROCK wud lykd to haff written himzelf, but zumhow did not
bazically a bettah mo tickly verzion of da ROCKET 39/4
How do you fair with composers like Szymanowsky in his second sonata, Boulez in his, and Messiaen in veneral (but more Cat d’oiseaux than 20 regards)?
No problem with Szymanowsky or Messian - the former I’m even really fond of - but Boulez goes beyond what I’d call music. Even that is actually more understandable to me than Medtner however, in the sense that while it’s just complete junk I can detect some sort of plan or line through it. Passage B feels like a logical consequence of passage A, as it were. With Medtner’s sonatas I have no clue why he takes me where he does (…but it sure sounds one hell of a lot better than Boulez).
Personally I love Boulez, especially the total serialist works. If you can make sense of Szymanowski, then I’m not sure what it is exactly about Medtner compositional technique that is problematic. For me the second sonata is as hard to come to terms with as anything in Medtner’s output. To return to movies briefly, have you ever seen Kubrick’s 2001 a space odyssey? If so could you make sense of the ending?
It’s not in that way… the difference Mozart->Chopin->Szymanowski->Boulez is that you have an increasingly complex/dissonant/spicy musical language they express themselves in, but whether in Mozart’s language or Szymanowsky’s I can still detect meaning, plan, narrative, direction etc in the music. It’s clearly written by an intelligent human who has something to say, and does so in a structured, logical manner. Medtner’s language isn’t particularly difficult to digest, but - in the sonatas, specifically - I don’t get what he’s trying to say with that language. Another attempt at an analogy then is that a Medtner sonata is like having a stoned person come up to you on the street and speak completely intelligible English words, but what he’s saying just doesn’t make any sense. I can hear that he’s angry now, and here he sounds calm and now he really wants me answer him with something etc, but despite that I understand the words I don’t understand at all why he’s stopped me or what it is he actually wants. In Boulez on the other hand it’s someone speaking an entirely different language altogether. The person is probably completely sober, but I can draw zero meaning from the words - all I can do is draw conclusions from dynamics, intensity, etc. Not the best analogy perhaps, but maybe it helps inching it a bit closer…
Incidentally, I’m not a Boulez fan, but for what it’s worth the word I was looking for above wasn’t junk but gibberish. I was just too lazy to google the English term. I won’t call his music junk hence, I can respect it for making some kind of point in what we’re talking about right now - that you can use complete gibberish and yet organize it in to something resembling music - but it doesn’t do anything for me and it doesn’t fall within what I’m prepared to call either art or music. Organised sound perhaps or something like that. But there’s clearly a lot of brain power which has gone in to it.
I think we should leave the Boulez debate for another time, since it’s just detracting from the Medtner question. I don’t generally like working in analogies, especially the language/music one, since they tend to confuse the issue, and music for me expresses what language can’t. However, this part caught my attention since I don’t understand it. If you understand the “words”, i.e. the material and harmonic language, then the sticky wicket must be either the “syntax” or how the “sentences” fit together to express ideas, i.e. the structure. Is the problem thus one of not understanding how Medtner develops his material? Or how it all fits together in the context of the work? Because he was really not innovative structurally (or harmonically). You can look at the F minor sonata first movement , for example, and see very clearly: exposition, development, recapitulation, using a couple of subjects as the building blocks. If the structure isn’t the problem, and neither are the “words” then I don’t know how to help you make sense of it, apart from listening to it ad nauseum and examining the score.
Not that either. 
I can clearly tell it’s sonata form, it’s the meaning of his music which escapes me. I can appreciate it as impressionism, in that the harmonies creates certain colors and moods and hence listen to it essentially as background music. But if I look at the actual content the turns the music takes appears to me to be completely random, and the musical material bar by bar doesn’t express anything I can relate to - it just seems to make time move forward. This is why I asked Comme above if the works “spoke” to him, since I wanted to know if there perhaps simply isn’t anything there to look for and what I should do is just to see it as a diffuse abstract painting where it’s the colors, shapes etc themselves which is the art - they don’t actually mean to portray anything, or illustrate any event.
Analogies are always imperfect, but talking about music is so incredibly difficult that I often find no way around them. When I can’t express what I mean directly it’s helpful to either see music as communication and draw analogies to language and conversation, or to see it as expression and draw parallells to painting, architecture and the visual arts. Not always ideal, but it at least makes things possible.
Now it’s def time for my 4.5 hours of sleep however. 
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Okay, I don’t understand what the problem is. But I hope you work it out. I’m gonna be functioning on 0-3 hours sleep today.
ahahahah bazically da xmofo tryin to zay:
when he meet a foreign mofo zpeakin an unknown lingo
he cud tell if diz mofo iz wikid/cultured/intelligent juz by liztenin to da intonation n dynamicz of hiz zpeech patternz
diz claim
a bit cuntroverzial
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It’s an interest idea actually. For example, I posted the qobuz interview with Debargue a couple of days ago, and for me his intensity, intelligence and passion were indeed clear from the way he talked. But I could also understand what he was saying. So I dunno.
The problem with Medtner’s music is that it often contains too many ideas, the composing is perhaps too concise without having the genius melodic gift of Rachmaninoff.
BUT in his best works he succeeds, and the result is then that its musical value is at least on a par with the best Rachmaninoff piano pieces IMO.
One example is the Reminiscenza. This is by far my prefered recording of it, and it was also my introduction to Medtner, many years ago:
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Eh, no.
What I said was that I can tell if a person is agitated, calm, angry, jovial, if he wants to tell me something, if he wants to ask me something etc, without understanding the language. Not that I can say whether he’s intelligent, cultured, has humor, or if he’s a good father back home.
But whatever. 
I’ve clearly failed to put my finger on this regardless.
Oh, I get it… No the part about whether Mozart or Szymanowsky I can tell it’s written by an intelligent human, I meant as opposed to an “unintelligent” computer or neural net which just randomizes or imitates music, without any plan, meaning or intent behind it.