Old-time musicians

While the audience was either thinking or looking forward to it, the conductor Lausanne on the stage started the "Bat" Overture.

The passionate ensemble sound instantly made the air in the symphony hall cheer.

"Professor Fanning is really a master of melody. As long as it is his work, the theme always has a flavor that has the potential to be passed down..."

"Also, these "guides" he wrote, although the language is easy to understand and the length is very short, why do they feel like they have everything?"

Several college students from music majors waved their hands leisurely to the beat. After enjoying the "Bat" Overture for more than half, they gradually realized that although those paragraphs only had two or three hundred words, the whole piece of music's form structure, musical image, rhythm changes, main orchestration, important modulation, emotional atmosphere...all kinds of analysis and explanations were included!

Many gentlemen and ladies who were sitting upright also found that although they were regulars who loved to listen to concerts, there were still many key elements that they might not notice without these "guided tours".

They are very meaningful, and the process of gradually verifying them is also very interesting!

When the four parts of the prelude of "The Bat" were reproduced one by one, and the music was lifted and closed in the passionate prelude theme, the first round of warm applause broke out from the audience.

"The most important pitch and uniformity of the string group are already eight points satisfactory. The timbre of several woodwind and brass principals is stable and the breath is long, which supports the harmony color and the passing phrase very well. The performance of the trumpet principal is particularly outstanding..."

After the first piece ended, many music critics or academic teachers began to judge and think according to professional habits.

"If we look at this orchestra alone, it is of a relatively high level among amateurs, but if we also have Miss Lausanne's solid conducting skills, accurate and passionate terminology instructions, fascinating and unique stage style, and Mr. Fanning's "famous songs" creation quality bonus... then, this already has the characteristics of a third-rate professional orchestra's performance. The VIP ticket is qualified to be set at the range of 6-8 pounds, and it can be even higher under Mr. Fanning's special halo. But now, 2 shillings? I'm afraid it's nearly a hundred times different!"

Instrumental music and vocal music have completely different logic in the rules of basic training.

Considering the background and training time of this group of young musicians, these professionals feel that the performance of the youth symphony orchestra is more surprising and admirable than that of the choir.

Professionals are doing professional thinking, but other conservative scholars and media reporters are waiting for another moment worth paying attention to.

——When these rude people clap randomly between movements, you must stare at them with mocking eyes, and then publish their crimes of destroying the integrity of music and emotions in newspapers!

The familiar "Symphony No. 15 in G Minor" by Maestro Tarakani sounded, the restless background of the woodwind group, the beautiful sentimental theme of the cello...

About 15 seconds before the end of the first movement.

A young gentleman in a suit pushed a small cart with a banner from left to right under the stage. The height was very suitable, and it basically stopped at the calves of the musicians and the conductor, without blocking the view of the stage.

And on the banner, it was written very conspicuously: No need to applaud between movements.

After the timpani ended with the last chord, there were still a few workers who were cheering loudly in their hearts, and they clapped their hands subconsciously.

There were a few scattered applause on the stage, but these people were immediately stopped by other workers around them.

"Hey, man! Even if you didn't notice the cart, it's written on the program list!"

Fortunately, with the relatively warm and cheerful ending of the first movement, these few sounds did not cause too much disharmony, because the suppressed coughs of the audience also came out at that time.

Before the end of the second movement, the little gentleman used the same trick again and pushed the cart past.

This time, the atmosphere after the end of the andante movement was relatively quiet and beautiful.

But no one raised their hands to applaud again.

"For such a small matter as applauding between movements, those people seem to be so-called 'protecting art', but in fact they are condescending and superior. You must know that in previous opera performances, the audience frequently applauded the actors in the singing state, which was still a manifestation of respect and affirmation. This convention was also slowly formed since the beginning of Romanticism..."

"Nowadays, we can slowly guide and cultivate the habits and tacit understanding of new audiences. If a concert hall or theater has been open for a while and still has the phenomenon of applauding between movements, at least 80% of the responsibility should be attributed to the management problems of the theater. This problem is not difficult to solve. Why don't they solve it? In the final analysis, it is because of the lack of ideological awareness..."

-Fanning said this to the staff of Turner Art Hall when arranging this work before.

Nowadays, this ritual-like temporary ending allows many people to experience the wonderful tacit understanding and touching.

It was not until seven or eight seconds later that the afterglow of emotions was basically released, and the suppressed coughing began to sound in the symphony hall.

The third movement...the fourth movement...and finally the warm cheers.

Frontline media, music critics and scholars were surprised, while Macaulay, the editor-in-chief of "The Noise", the mustache reporter of "The Incident" and other critics were very disappointed.

It is true that biased negative reports can attract attention, but you can't just say it's heavy rain or make something up out of nothing, right?

The concert went on smoothly in a warm and orderly manner.

At the end of the show, the moustachioed reporter from "The Event" finally started his interview.

"Sir, may I ask which piece you like best?" He caught a middle-aged man wearing a gray-brown coarse cotton coat with a rough face and dark skin.

This was a farmer from the suburbs who had set out two hours in advance and came back. It still took two hours to get back, which made him a little rushed. But suddenly he heard someone asking, and he instinctively stopped.

"Polka, I like all the songs called polka."

"Then do you think you understand these symphonies?" the reporter with a mustache asked.

"I am a farmer, why can't I understand?" The middle-aged man rubbed the back of his head, showing a simple but confused expression.

"'Lightning and Thunder Polka' is about a heavy rainstorm when we were dancing to celebrate the harvest, and 'Quick Chat Polka' is about the wife, daughter and aunties chatting about family matters in the courtyard, and there's another song..." He looked down at the track list, "Oh, "Peasant Polka", the one where the musicians sang "Come, come, come" during the performance... Sir, why don't I go home in a hurry, I am a farmer, so there is no need to explain this... "

"..." Seeing the farmer excuse himself with some embarrassment, the mustachioed reporter from "Event News" felt like he was choking on his saliva.

There must be something wrong somewhere. Am I asking the question in the wrong way?

The audience members passed by him one after another, and suddenly, Mustache's eyes lit up.

“What an opportunity, what a coincidence!!”

He walked quickly toward an exit in the next area.

Two pretty young girls wearing high-collared dark cloaks and leather boots entered his field of vision.

Although the two women only wore moderate makeup and were dressed relatively modestly today, with his sharp eyes, he could still recognize them immediately. They were the women who were photographed in the long ticket queue that day and were suspected of being dressed up as sluts. !

"Two... ladies." After a few breaths, Mustache jumped up to them, followed closely by the two assistants carrying equipment.

"We are a newspaper that has a column about audience appreciation. Could you please interview the two of us and tell us what you heard in Master Tarakani's "Symphony No. 15 in G Minor"?"

This question can be said to be based on lessons learned from past mistakes, and is not at all "open-ended".

Moreover, he avoided all the premieres of Fanning's new works with titles, and directly chose the only masterpiece! This early and mid-term work of Authenticism has almost no title at all.

The assistants stood ready.

The two girls looked at each other.

"Classic and balanced beauty." The girl in the black cloak on the left smiled politely.

The mustachioed reporter was stunned for a moment.

"Can you expand a little bit? Our entertainment column requires a little... space for each collection of experiences! Yes, a little longer!"

The girl paused for a few seconds, as if she was organizing or recalling something, and then quickly started speaking again. Her words were a little stuck and convoluted, but the meaning was basically clear.

"For example, the first movement begins with a woodwind accompaniment, um, a minor-key background, a bit sad and uneasy, but very restrained. Then the cello plays a melancholy theme, and the horn and oboe exchange warm subtopics. They have different tones. There is a Contrast and conflict... The middle section is very complicated, with colors, tones, and intensity all changing many times, like a very tangled struggle... Later the theme and subtitles reappear, and their tones are unified together, as if the conflict has been resolved, this is Very harmonious, very balanced and rigorous, well, very classically beautiful..."

Mustache and the two assistants next to him were stunned.

The point is not her answer, because the content is actually similar to the "guide" written by Fan Ning on the track list.

The main reason is that I am convinced that when this girl is talking, the track list is in her hand!

She didn't read it according to what she said! !

"You...have you memorized the information on the track list?" Mustache laughed dryly, trying to point this out.

"Yes." The other party nodded calmly, "I didn't buy the cheapest ticket. It cost me 1 shilling. I watched Mr. Fan Ning's 'guided tour' many times in advance in the past ten days. I think It’s interesting, and it’s even more interesting today after hearing the real music.”

"Can't this kind of sharing be included in your column?" The girl wearing a blue and black cloak on the right confirmed doubtfully, "We learned it from the materials, but the music majors also learned it from various materials. ?”

"Uh... I didn't say that..." Mustache's smile froze, but he began to mutter in his heart.

A pair of street prostitutes sharing the sonata-form structure of a symphony after a concert? Damn it! !

Isn't this report a slap in the face to "The Incident Daily" before?

"By the way, that subtitle, the dialogue between the French horn and the oboe, do you know where they are?" He found an angle again with some reluctance.

If this person's "guide" recited the instructions clearly and in detail, but in the end he couldn't even tell who was playing the instrument, this would be considered laughable.

"Ah, this thing is so hard to remember and so easy to get confused." The girl sighed.

"Can you tell me?"

"The French horns are in the row in front of the timpani at the end, to the left of the middle trumpet, and the oboes are in the front row of wind instruments, in the same row as the flutes, which are on the right and the flutes on the left."

When the reporter heard this, his eyes widened.

Seeing the other person's expression, the girl on the right became even more puzzled: "Mr. Fanning drew a distribution map of the instruments in the symphony orchestra on the program list. You should keep it well. When you have nothing to do, take it out and read it twice to get familiar with it..."

The reporter with a mustache: "..."

At the last moment of the concert on April 15, all the "citizen interviews" collected by the "Event News" in the early stage were completely wiped out in the live "follow-up report".

The more critical voices disappeared strangely overnight.

In the last three "Born to Love Music" concerts in late April, mid-May, and late May, the audience found that the program list not only still had the guide and the distribution map of the symphony orchestra, but also added more "small knowledge popularization"!

For example, tell the audience what the common allegro, allegretto, andante, largo and adagio are, what the tempo is, and how they are distributed in multi-movement works;

Tell the audience that the theme comes first and then the sub-theme, and then the connecting sentence and the ending sentence, which is called the presentation; the middle part is highly dramatic, with various themes transformed and modulated, which is called the development; the theme and sub-theme reappear at the end, and the tonality is unified, which is called the recapitulation. This common structure is called the sonata form.

And the timbre and character of common instruments;

The listening experience and origin time and place of common dance genres, etc.

These labor audiences have accumulated more and more common sense, and they feel that the symphony is more and more interesting, and they can analyze a few sentences when they exchange their feelings with each other.

Even authoritative media began to feel that their previous "rational analysis" articles seemed to have some problems.

This is not the feudal era, this is the industrial era, and the values ​​of the empire emphasize the inviolability of "freedom" and "private property"! As for the matter of "laborers, hawkers, prostitutes and gentlemen and ladies enjoying music at the same time", they are legally and freely buying tickets to watch the performance, so you can't blame them from this perspective.

So the propositions they discussed before were mostly about "Is it a blasphemy for people who don't understand music/don't follow etiquette to listen to serious music?"

But now, it's true that they are not very decent, but they are not rude! Previously, the issues including dress, cleanliness and applause between movements did not appear at all, and the so-called "not understanding music"...

What does it mean to understand music? What does it mean to not understand music?

It is true that the music has a lower threshold for appreciation, but it is also true that it is serious music.

He listened to it with great interest at the concert, and he could talk about it when communicating with him. Does this mean he doesn't understand music?

A basic common sense is: "Ask first if it is, then ask why"!

"Is it a blasphemy for people who don't understand music/don't follow etiquette to listen to serious music?" This topic has been discussed for so long, and it turns out that it is untenable from the beginning!