Cyclone wrote:For me it's very enjoyable music mainly. I don't need background. The music works also, if one doesn't know a background. Nothing changed probably, if these releases were called Eternal Light (or somehow differently).
Where in the Jeanne d'Arc release do we recognize the french national hero or her life?
While it is true that the Atomic Series can be enjoyed simply as music, as Cyclone seems to feel, I think these releases also give us all an opportunity to go beyond merely listening to the songs.
Cyclone is correct when he suggests that if these works were titled something else, then they would generate different emotional responses in us. The titles (whether Springtime/Summer in Nagasaki or Jeanne d'Arc) give us a foundation upon which to build whatever interpretations the music generates inside our minds.
Music is an art form, and art -- truly good art -- should stimulate a response in us, whether it is simply whistling along with the tune we hear or finding some "deeper meaning." But it's all personal.
I seem to recall someone posting a response to the Springtime CD in which he wrote something along the lines of the vocal chanting heard early in the composition suggested to him a foreshadowing of the coming tragedy. I, however, chose to interpret it as the mood of wartime Japan, which by then was losing. The chanting could have been a response to that or was, perhaps, the mournful wail of a woman who had lost a son or husband in battle.
There are no wrong interpretations to something as abstract as music. What matters is how the music moves you. If one cannot conjure up an image of Joan of Arc speaking to her troops around a campfire, that does not mean that the music has failed in any way. But if you are tempted to tap your fingers or toes to the music, or to play a track over again because it is so beautiful, then it has succeeded.
My hat's off to Edgar for agreeing to composing something so bold and challenging -- and so successfully, too. I personally cannot wait for the remainder of the Atomic Series.
I am not a slow writer, I am not a fast writer, I am a half-fast writer.
-- Robert Asprin