Sometimes a composer comes up with a brilliant opening:
That's one of the best. Or this:
Of course, that was a bit of a miscalculation, because if you start with something that dramatic, it is hard to follow. Better to start with something ambiguous and there are few beginnings more ambiguous than this one:
Sometimes it is best to just jump right in:
What about pop musicians? True, they are working within simpler forms, but on the other hand, they are in most danger of the listener switching off. Here is an interesting pop intro:
Unfortunately, like the Richard Strauss, the song doesn't quite live up to the intro. Here is a famously good song beginning:
In fact, the Beatles were masters of how to begin a song (sometimes with a little help from their friends, especially George Martin). He suggested starting this one with the chorus:
Lately a lot of the pop songs I have heard have all fallen into the rut of having four or eight bars of treading water before much actually happens:
Sure, you can start with just eight bars of the accompaniment, but it's not exactly creative now is it? Here's another one:
I think that there should be something either intriguing or attention-getting up front. Like this:
Or you could just start with something magnificent:
Or riveting:
Well, that really wasn't fair, was it?
4 comments:
Koopman is fine (especially as an organist) but I prefer Herreweghe. Let it be said for the record of this fine blog that we're talking here about the finest 10 minutes of music ever written by any human.
You know, I don't think I have heard the Herreweghe performance. I will look for it. There are some pretty strong competitors for the title "finest 10 minutes of music ever written", but many of them are also by Bach! The Dona nobis pacem from the B minor mass?
True enough. But the monumental contrapuntal construction in the last 3rd has, I believe, no match anywhere in both complexity and utter perfection.
Except maybe in the Art of Fugue?
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