{"id":1354,"date":"2009-07-01T22:48:42","date_gmt":"2009-07-02T03:48:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/?p=1354"},"modified":"2009-07-01T22:48:42","modified_gmt":"2009-07-02T03:48:42","slug":"hymns-in-strange-places","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/?p=1354","title":{"rendered":"Hymns in strange places"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href='http:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/nocturne-hymn-1.jpg' title='nocturne-hymn-1.jpg'><img src='http:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/nocturne-hymn-1.jpg' alt='nocturne-hymn-1.jpg' \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href='http:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/nocturne-hymn-2.jpg' title='nocturne-hymn-2.jpg'><img src='http:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/nocturne-hymn-2.jpg' alt='nocturne-hymn-2.jpg' \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Chopin, nocturne in G minor, Opus 37, No. 11<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Some years ago, a friend who is a professional pianist (and not a very nice person), hearing what I was playing at the piano, made the rude comment, &#8220;Hymns are the lowest form of music, you know.&#8221; Instantly angry, I threw an insult back at him: &#8220;No. Jazz is the lowest form of music.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I was listening to the Chopin nocturnes tonight, partly because, at last, I can. The speakers and stereo amplifier are in a more or less permanent place in the newly painted radio room, and the iMac (and therefore iTunes) is now connected to the sound system.<\/p>\n<p>Again and again in the nocturnes, Chopin gently slips away from the wild rubato rhythm and falls into a strictly timed four-part hymn, or anthem. The four measures above are just one example. If you&#8217;d like to find and listen to this example, the hymn starts about three minutes into Claudio Arrau&#8217;s seven-minute recording of this nocturne. Adjust the times for whatever recording you may have.<\/p>\n<p>Anyone who thinks hymns are the lowest form of music knows nothing about human voices singing in chorus in four-part harmony. In the nocturnes, I would say that these hymn-like sections were a form of musical contrast for Chopin, a way of anchoring and grounding the wildness of the nocturnes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Chopin, nocturne in G minor, Opus 37, No. 11 Some years ago, a friend who is a professional pianist (and not a very nice person), hearing what I was playing at the piano, made the rude comment, &#8220;Hymns are the lowest form of music, you know.&#8221; Instantly angry, I threw an insult back at &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/?p=1354\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Hymns in strange places&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1354\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}