Saariaho: "...a la fumee" 1/3

Kaija Saariaho: "...a la fumee" (1990) for alto flute, cello, and orchestra

Category:

Music

Tags:

• new
• music
• atonal
• twentieth
• century
• modern

[bferguso23]

There's nothing more threatening than a brilliant woman. Who cares if the music sounds feminine or masculine? You either like it or you don't . Commenting and speculating on whether or not a woman wrote it is irrelevant and suspect. Clearly she's a genius that has earned the right to compose whatever she feels.

[lazatarra]

Welcome to youtube; here you find both extremes: the best and the worst; the most intelligent and the most stupid people in the world.

[RADIOKLOW]

This is one of the most beautiful musics of this very great composer I love. Her work is pure poetry of sounds waking our feeling of this world's splendid mystery. To my ears she is one of the major composers of this time. Thanks to her and to NewmusicXX who posted here this piece in three parts.

[TinAnchor]

@sonicpsychiatry Saariaho is a spectral (or post-spectral) and Ferneyhough is a new complexity composer, the difference isn't gender. Also, Saariaho and Ferneyhough are both composers who have literally changed the face of contemporary music so saying they're not 'legend quality' just makes you sound uneducated. If you're trying to refer to sensibilities of more feminine vs masculine, do so, but usually its deemed french vs german 'schools' of music and not really referring to actual gender.

[TinAnchor]

@sonicpsychiatry the "a good piece" followed by "but" makes it sound as if the fact that the composers gender is female is a negative thing. I agree that usually you can tell, if you've the ear for it, if something was written by a man or women, a straight or gay composer, and even ethnicities. Just try watching your wording if you're not intending to offend or belittle a gender...

[MegaJanza]

Well I love her music,the fact that she is a woman doesn't make any difference.I mean come on people,it's not 1960's anymore you know.

[sonicpsychiatry]

Well, perhaps it was written by a very effeminate man. What do you want me to say? And I disagree, the ovaries play a significant role in dictating the compositional process - just as much as the testes.

[wbarco]

I think definitely Saariaho's music is very feminine... but I don't think you can easily draw from that that it was OBVIOUSLY written by a woman.

[wbarco]

Of course there are qualities that people read as "feminine". That doesn't mean it's necessarily written by a woman. Frankly, I disagree that there are some essential aesthetic impulses, urges or whatever tied into your gender. I'm not saying that you can notice some difference but the similarities don't just pop out from their ovaries or something. There are plenty of female composers that don't write music that is easily noticeable as "feminine".