An opinion from a singer-only perspective

[kitchen_kink]

Musicians in my friends list...

It seems to me that in the late Romantic and especially 20th century is where you can start to hear musicians taking almost orchestrated "breaths" in non-vocal music.

Discuss.

Comments

[fanw.livejournal.com]

Interesting point, and now I wish I had music theory or history so I could debate it!

But a few thoughts from my undereducated brain. The rise of musical caesurae correlates to a number of other changes in music at the time. Tempos became more fluid, slowing and quickening so that a piece could sound more like a living beast than in the methodical rhythms of classical and baroque. In addition, there was a big change in the orchestration of works, including far more wind instruments, particularly brass, than ever before. Perhaps part of this change was an accomodation of the half of the orchestra that does have to breath?

[much-ado.livejournal.com]

erm... given that i'm studying the era of Romanticism in literature (approx. 1780-1830, according to the cover of the anthology text :), for which there are a deplorable lack of recordings, how are you defining Romantic in music? and what would you recommend listening to to get a sense of what you're mentioning? (just musicians pausing in the play, rather than sustaining a note or phrase?)

[fanw.livejournal.com]

The Romantic period in music is generally considered to be from about 1820-1910. (This is if you follow the typical split into four period: baroque, classical, romantic, modern.) For Romantic think Brahms, Tschaikovsky, Dvorak -- anything with sweeping melodic music of a wide range of dynamics. Try Scheherezade by Rimsky-Korsakov. A lot of the big operas fall in there too (anything by Puccini or Bizet) such as La Boheme and Carmen.

[much-ado.livejournal.com]

splendid! thank you for the references, i have something new to listen to (always a good thing, and while i don't really know much about clasical music, i don't mind listening to it).

[dietrich.livejournal.com]

I actually had this thought while listening to some late Beethoven piano stuff, so it wasn't so much about the instrumentalists actually breathing as this point you made about the music sounding like a living thing rather than a machine. If you listen to Beethoven's Bagatelle, Op. 126 No. 4, there are even places where the music seems to hiccup! I think you got it on the money with the comment about the music being more organic in the Romantic period.

[wavyarms.livejournal.com]

A lot of the Baroque instrumentalists I've worked with actually write in the words of the singer so that they can use similar articulation and phrasing.

Also, don't forget that singers aren't the only ones who breathe! Half the orchestra breathes too!

But I think I may be missing the point. Do you mean that the whole orchestra breathes at the same time? Example?

[dietrich.livejournal.com]

That's what I get for making LJ posts while drunk. ;) I put "breaths" in quotation marks because I meant it more as a poetic suggestion than literal breathing; as I said to fanw above, I thought of this while listening to late Beethoven piano pieces. She got what I was getting at: the feeling that the music becomes more of a living thing in the Romantic period, where both the Baroque and Classical periods tended more toward almost mechanistic precision. Beethoven, I think, heralded that change, and some of his piano pieces sound like the piano is human, rather than just played by one. If that makes any sense.

[wavyarms.livejournal.com]

Well, people don't think of Baroque this way currently, but at the time Baroque music was considered very dramatic, jarring, breaking away from the structures of the past...some of the same philosophy that we associate with Romanticism nowadays. Much of the early Baroque was the very opposite of mechanistic precision - check out Monteverdi's opera The Coronation of Poppea (you should also check it out b/c it's incredibly sexy music! Very hot seduction scene.)

It's possible that what you're hearing is actually the change in how instruments were made. It was during Beethoven's lifetime that the pianoforte was invented, after all - before that all keyboard music was on the harpsichord, and things like legato are much more challenging on a harpsichord. And many other instruments went through dramatic changes that allowed them to be both louder and more flexible (brass got valves around this time, for example, meaning they didn't have to play just in an overtone series.) Greater control on individual instruments led to composers composing music of greater suppleness.

[thoroughbass.livejournal.com]

I admit when I first saw this post, I thought you'd gone off the deep end, but on reconsidering, I've got a theory!

Breathing together's a pretty basic musical skill -- I can't think of any repertoire I've played or sung where it simply doesn't happen at all. But it may appear more prominent in post-1820 repertoire because of the increased importance of the winds, the brass in particular. Brass players need to breathe like mofos. Four trombones, four horns and a passle of trumpets all breathing together will make itself heard over the wszha wszha of the strings any day.

Also, much of Renaissance and Baroque music is more contrapuntal, which means the lines overlap and so no more than one or two people are ending a phrase and beginning a new one at the same time -- but in homophonic sections of earlier music you should hear people breathing together.

I hear a lot more breathing in chamber music, of course, but that's because of how it's generally miked. I love when I can hear lutenists or clavichordists breathe in recordings. In one of my favorite recordings of Dowland lute music, you can also hear a nightingale.

[thoroughbass.livejournal.com]

D'oh. I have a habit of reading LJ, thinking about things, and posting my comment without reading anybody else's. fanw was right on top of this. Still, I got to say "wszha wszha."

[dietrich.livejournal.com]

And I have a habit of posting such things when I'm drunk and not thinking about them enough!

What I really meant to say was more what I said to fanw above - about the *music* seeming to breathe, not the musician. I thought of this while listening to the piano, and I was thinking of how the music seemed like a living person. Now that I'm not drunk-LJing, I realize that part of what I meant is that a pianist - or other non-vocal musician - often will use his/her breath to propel the music, and to interpret the dynamics and tempi of pieces, and that this seems to happen more explicitly in Romantic/later music than in the more mechanical Classical and Baroque periods.