[161.2] REFLECTIONS IN D

In the category of 'discovered because it kindly linked to NFE' is the weblog 'Reflections in D', which is about life as much as music. Not that the two are always unrelated... Lynn Sislo has recently written a piece in response to the thoughts of A. C. Douglas on contemporary art music. Her own experience is, of course, part of the wider conversation about why people with adventurous artistic tastes in other fields struggle with 'modern' music. In Lynn's instance, Elliott Carter and Alfred Schnittke pushed some buttons. I enjoyed her comment that "I've been told that Schnittke's music is tonal, but ... I can't always tell just by listening" -- resonances of the famous "Wagner's music is better than it sounds"! She is also a good trawler. I'm currently looking at material on the ("gives me the creeps" -- LS) Institute for Music and Brain Science. And the title? "Many of my favorite musical compositions are in d minor. As all music lovers know, minor keys tend to be "dark." D minor has always seemed to me somewhat ambiguous. Is it tragic, melancholy, depressed, lonely, disturbed, anxious, somber or merely playfully dark and spooky? In various works it is all of these things. I don't intend for my "Reflections" to be generally dark but I rather like the idea of ambiguity. "