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The Music Room => General Classical Music Discussion => Topic started by: karlhenning on May 22, 2007, 11:06:27 AM

Title: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 22, 2007, 11:06:27 AM
How is it determined?  How can great composers be compared?

Is it more than opinion?  Is it more than authority (received opinion)?

Can Nielsen really be as great as Bach, if I just feel that it is so?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 22, 2007, 11:07:42 AM
First of all, it's not just a matter of being prolific, otherwise Telemann would necessarily be at least as great as Bach, yes?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Guido on May 22, 2007, 11:18:24 AM
Here's something I wrote to another GMGer a few weeks ago, and I wonder if anyone has any opinions on the matter:

I have a real problem with the word masterpiece - what does it really mean? By some people's definitions, nearly everything by Beethoven, Brahms, Stravinsky, etc. would be considered a masterpiece, by others only perhaps their 20 greatest works each. Still other refer to many pieces by 'minor' composers as masterpieces. There seems to be a difference between 'a masterpiece' and 'a composer's masterpiece', if the composer is not up to the level of the 'true greats'. I am also very skeptical about holding some composers immeasurably far above others. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, seem always to be held in such high regard that people consider virtually nothing else composed as being any where near as good. I go through phases where I think this might be true (esp. Bach) but most of the time, I don't think its true that there is a clear line between a great composer and a very good one. I think great composers just had a knack of creating more great works. But then are there different grades of masterpieces? Are Brahm's masterpieces greater than Barber's masterpieces?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Scriptavolant on May 22, 2007, 11:24:18 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on May 22, 2007, 11:06:27 AM
How can great composers be compared?


On the basis of common features. So, for example, you may compare Verdi and Wagner for reasons I won't enumerate but are neat; comparing composers which belong to drastically different historical periods and aesthetics is too me a completely obscure practice, fuelled by whatever you want but not an alleged "objectivity".

QuoteIs it more than opinion? 

Finally, aren't aesthetical principles just opinions? I mean, they're conscious and documented and cultivated, but they're still the product of viewpoints, aren't they?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: bwv 1080 on May 22, 2007, 11:31:23 AM
The best way I know of is the collective judgement of musicians and informed fans - i.e. the "market".  It is very difficult to find an instance where, given a generation or so of digestion, the market has been wrong about the greatness of a composer. 
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 22, 2007, 11:36:13 AM
Quote from: Scriptavolant on May 22, 2007, 11:24:18 AM
Finally, aren't aesthetical principles just opinions? I mean, they're conscious and documented and cultivated, but they're still the product of viewpoints, aren't they?

Another great point;  though in this case "just opinion" is cultural context.  The context is not an absolute, but its meaning is better rooted than "just opinion."  OTOH, kneejerk bucking of the (admittedly non-absolute) consensus may better qualify as "just opinion."

Does not "contrarian opinion" have strength and conviction to the degree that it is equally well (or even better) grounded in the context?

(I see this is crossing with Steve's apt remark.)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: BachQ on May 22, 2007, 11:38:10 AM
We don't even have an objective definition of MUSIC, let alone MASTERPIECE (or what constitutes a "masterpiece").  For example, could a random generation of noises/sounds be considered MUSIC?  If so, can one random generation be considered "greater" than another?  Can sounds of nature be considered music?  Crickets?  Can the song of a nightingale be considered a musical masterpiece?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 22, 2007, 11:47:36 AM
Quote from: Guido on May 22, 2007, 11:18:24 AM
I have a real problem with the word masterpiece - what does it really mean? By some people's definitions, nearly everything by Beethoven, Brahms, Stravinsky, etc. would be considered a masterpiece, by others only perhaps their 20 greatest works each. Still other refer to many pieces by 'minor' composers as masterpieces. There seems to be a difference between 'a masterpiece' and 'a composer's masterpiece', if the composer is not up to the level of the 'true greats'. I am also very skeptical about holding some composers immeasurably far above others. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, seem always to be held in such high regard that people consider virtually nothing else composed as being any where near as good. I go through phases where I think this might be true (esp. Bach) but most of the time, I don't think its true that there is a clear line between a great composer and a very good one. I think great composers just had a knack of creating more great works. But then are there different grades of masterpieces? Are Brahm's masterpieces greater than Barber's masterpieces?

Part of my ongoing quibble with this is the moving target which is the term "masterpiece."

From the old artisan guilds, when one learnt one's trade as an apprentice, the "graduation piece," so to speak, the work which demonstrated mastery of the craft, the art, was the artisan's masterpiece.  Did not mean "the greatest thing he ever did";  but it was a watershed in the artist's career, and it did refer to a single piece of work.

Where phrases like "chef d'oeuvre" seem to me not to mean one work exclusively, but indicates one of probably a set of outstanding creations.

As to the distance between (say) Bach and (say) Mahler, in a sense it is immeasurable (how do we measure it?) . . . but more importantly, it isn't a horse race, so "distance" is itself something illusory, yes?

All excellent questions, Guido, and I'm not sure there are answers.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: bwv 1080 on May 22, 2007, 11:49:08 AM
Quote from: James on May 22, 2007, 11:43:17 AM
who sells the most doesn't win and isnt really a good measure of true artistic merit and quality IMO. musicians can be poor judges too, as they tend to focus a lot on the mechanics of music and miss all else, like the meaning, essence, beauty etc. the majority of listeners/consumers arent that sensative, insightful and informed either, they just go with the flow. i find that great composers (part of the culturally elite) can be good judges...but even then it can be a bit dodgy at times due to fits of jealously and insecurity. 

Yes, they all complement eachother with strengths and weaknesses.  It has nothing to do with who sells the most, just who his held in the highest esteem. 
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 22, 2007, 11:49:32 AM
Quote from: James on May 22, 2007, 11:43:17 AM
who sells the most doesn't win and isnt really a good measure of true artistic merit and quality IMO.

This is why Steve cast "market" in quotes;  he isn't speaking of sales (though those, at least, are conveniently measurable).

Does the guild of Music still have professional standards and guidelines?

I should probably cast "guild" in scare-quotes, too  8)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Don on May 22, 2007, 11:52:16 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on May 22, 2007, 11:06:27 AM
How is it determined?  How can great composers be compared?

Is it more than opinion?  Is it more than authority (received opinion)?

Can Nielsen really be as great as Bach, if I just feel that it is so?

These topics will just keep spinning around without resolution.  Since individuals listen to music, I think it's best for each person to make these decisions on his/her own.  
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 22, 2007, 11:56:56 AM
Quote from: Don on May 22, 2007, 11:52:16 AM
These topics will just keep spinning around without resolution.  Since individuals listen to music, I think it's best for each person to make these decisions on his/her own.  

So context and consensus are completely out the window, do you think, Don?

Since individuals listen to music, I think it's best for each person to make these decisions on his/her own.

I think my model allows the individual his sacrosanct preferences.

I still see practical reasons which resist letting all the meaning (opinion/greatness-determination) to the individual:  the individual listener still relies on a musical community to supply him musical product.

I find the discussion of value, even if resolution eludes us.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: bwv 1080 on May 22, 2007, 11:57:05 AM
Quote from: Don on May 22, 2007, 11:52:16 AM
These topics will just keep spinning around without resolution.  Since individuals listen to music, I think it's best for each person to make these decisions on his/her own.  

OK, so if I say that for me personally, Andrew Lloyd Weber's music is greater than Mozart's then that is a valid proposition?

You cannot separate yourself from hundreds of years of musical culture.  True the culture is always changing and challenging its own propositions, but that is what makes it interesting and able to sort the good from the bad.  ISTM one has to either recognize that they are part of a larger culture or be stuck in aesthetic solipsism
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Don on May 22, 2007, 11:59:02 AM
Quote from: bwv 1080 on May 22, 2007, 11:57:05 AM
OK, so if I say that for me personally, Andrew Lloyd Weber's music is greater than Mozart's then that is a valid proposition?


It would be valid for you, and I wouldn't be trying to change your mind.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 22, 2007, 11:59:20 AM
Quote from: D Minor on May 22, 2007, 11:38:10 AM
We don't even have an objective definition of MUSIC

And what are you going to do about it?  8)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 22, 2007, 12:01:01 PM
Quote from: Don on May 22, 2007, 11:59:02 AM
It would be valid for you, and I wouldn't be trying to change your mind.

What if the two of you were both on the board of the Wayne County Philharmonic, though, Don, and the rest of the board tended to agree with Steve that the orchestra needs to program more Lloyd Webber, and, maybe this season, no Mozart.  Would you try to change his mind?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Don on May 22, 2007, 12:01:57 PM
Quote from: karlhenning on May 22, 2007, 11:56:56 AM
I find the discussion of value, even if resolution eludes us.

Of course you do - you started the thread.   ::)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 22, 2007, 12:03:00 PM
Don't roll your emoticon eyes at me; my viewpoint is valid for me.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: bwv 1080 on May 22, 2007, 12:03:02 PM
Quote from: Don on May 22, 2007, 11:59:02 AM
It would be valid for you, and I wouldn't be trying to change your mind.

What if I was your musicology professor and I taught in my class that Vanhall, Massenet, Glazunov and ALW were the greatest composers in the Western Classical tradition?  Still valid?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Don on May 22, 2007, 12:03:35 PM
Quote from: karlhenning on May 22, 2007, 12:01:01 PM
What if the two of you were both on the board of the Wayne County Philharmonic, though, Don, and the rest of the board tended to agree with Steve that the orchestra needs to program more Lloyd Webber, and, maybe this season, no Mozart.  Would you try to change his mind?

Not about the relative merits of the music from each composer.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Don on May 22, 2007, 12:07:54 PM
Quote from: bwv 1080 on May 22, 2007, 12:03:02 PM
What if I was your musicology professor and I taught in my class that Vanhall, Massenet, Glazunov and ALW were the greatest composers in the Western Classical tradition?  Still valid?

Back to school?  That's a depressing scenario.  But let's go with it.  With you as my professor, I would want to get the best grade possible.  So I would not object to your preferences, although I would retain my own.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 22, 2007, 12:08:23 PM
Quote from: bwv 1080 on May 22, 2007, 12:03:02 PM
What if I was your musicology professor and I taught in my class that Vanhall, Massenet, Glazunov and ALW were the greatest composers in the Western Classical tradition?  Still valid?

Exactly, Steve;  in his home listening, one enjoys the luxury of "whatever anyone thinks, fine."  But before music reaches the listener, in his home, in the form of a prepackaged recording, there is still a community and an educational/training network which has to supply performers.

One of my points is, I find it hard to believe that the performance supply side of the ongoing concern of music, can function at a level of excellence, if a laissez-faire listener side is the driver.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Scriptavolant on May 22, 2007, 12:10:08 PM
Quote from: D Minor on May 22, 2007, 11:38:10 AM
For example, could a random generation of noises/sounds be considered MUSIC? 

Stretching the meaning of the term "music", as modern aesthetics does, yes, it can be considered music. There is another way to reason, that is cirscumscribing arbitrarily the term, say, to works composed between 1750 and 1850 and judging everything else on the basis of such parameter.

Quote from: James on May 22, 2007, 11:25:41 AM
not every composer in music history is of equal greatness and importance. 

Well I guess we could rate the importance as a measure of the influence on following generations of composers, for example.
So from this (common) point of view Beethoven may be considered one of the greatest, but from the same perspective I'm perplexed on how we should rate Mozart or Bach. So, the importance in term of influence on following generations is again not the only way to judge/consider the greatness of a composer.

And greatness is still the subject of this topic, isn't it tautological to answer "well, not every composer is of equal greatness" without giving a detailed technical explanation of "greatness"?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Danny on May 22, 2007, 12:19:18 PM
I would add influence and the degree in which a composer shapes all the others who come after him, but with the Wagner thread dealing with that issue I guess it might just be originality and innovation.  But not even that suffices, really, so I'm out on this one, Dr. Karl.  :(
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: 71 dB on May 22, 2007, 12:19:27 PM
It is a fuzzy and complex process to evaluate greatness in music. I end up "feeling" how great the composer behind the music is. I use many parameters:

1. Musical sophistication
This is based on fibrational fields I told about so time ago.

2. Musical experiences
This is simply about how much the music "kicks ass", blows me away. Correlates with the sophistication.

3. Figuring out the personality of the composer
Many works by a composer tell something about how the composer tought about life and art. How much did he trust his own ideas? How much did he put his ass on the line for art? In what way did he learn things from his/her teachers and How did he teach younger generation?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on May 22, 2007, 12:20:55 PM
Quote from: 71 dB on May 22, 2007, 12:19:27 PM
How much did he put his ass on the line for art?

Would you care to answer, in regards to Elgar and Diddersdorf?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 22, 2007, 12:21:11 PM
Quote from: Scriptavolant on May 22, 2007, 12:10:08 PM
Stretching the meaning of the term "music", as modern aesthetics does, yes, it can be considered music. There is another way to reason, that is cirscumscribing arbitrarily the term, say, to works composed between 1750 and 1850 and judging everything else on the basis of such parameter.

Hey! That way lies, If it ain't Common Practice, it can't be great!

QuoteWell I guess we could rate the importance as a measure of the influence on following generations of composers, for example.

That's one measure;  I think it will fail if we try to make it the only measure.

QuoteSo from this (common) point of view Beethoven may be considered one of the greatest, but from the same perspective I'm perplexed on how we should rate Mozart or Bach. So, the importance in term of influence on following generations is again not the only way to judge/consider the greatness of a composer.

Well, and that way lies the Big Web Site of Comparative Musical Influence of recent notoriety  8)

QuoteAnd greatness is still the subject of this topic, isn't it tautological to answer "well, not every composer is of equal greatness" without giving a detailed technical explanation of "greatness"?

Ah! The Emperor's New Greatness Gambit!  ;D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 22, 2007, 12:22:18 PM
Quote from: 71 dB on May 22, 2007, 12:19:27 PM
It is a fuzzy and complex process to evaluate greatness in music. I end up "feeling" how great the composer behind the music is.

So you do not distinguish between "I like the music" and "The music is great," right?

And the reason you find it fuzzy, is because your musical preferences are driving the definition of greatness, yes?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Harry on May 22, 2007, 12:23:52 PM
Really with all respect for the posters, this will go nowhere.
Greatness, is a word, and all words used by man are per definition subjective.
So Don is right, it is a endless spin.
The definition of the word has to be established, before discussion can commence.
But the wording of that definition in it self is subjective again.
:)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: 71 dB on May 22, 2007, 12:25:39 PM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on May 22, 2007, 12:20:55 PM
Would you care to answer, in regards to Elgar and Diddersdorf?

Elgar really tried to compose the best possible music and make the world a better place.

Dittersdorf must have tried hard too considering the fine music and competition from Haydn.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 22, 2007, 12:25:53 PM
Quote from: Danny on May 22, 2007, 12:19:18 PM
I would add influence and the degree in which a composer shapes all the others who come after him, but with the Wagner thread dealing with that issue I guess it might just be originality and innovation.  But not even that suffices, really, so I'm out on this one, Dr. Karl.  :(

If greatness is something recognized by cultivated consensus, then this is certainly an important consideration.  Mozart discovered "old Bach" late enough in the game that his influence lights upon a small fraction of the Salzburg Master's work, but Mozart saw the greatness of Bach.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 22, 2007, 12:26:58 PM
Quote from: Harry on May 22, 2007, 12:23:52 PM
Really with all respect for the posters, this will go nowhere.

It's the journey, not the destination, Harry.

How can you be sure we will not find interesting arrivals in all this?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Josquin des Prez on May 22, 2007, 12:28:08 PM
Greatness is determined by the level of craftsmanship and invention (regardless of idiom) and how consistent it is within the frame of a composer's output. 

I don't think it can be easily demonstrated with words (and i definitely don't have the vocabulary for it, even in my original language), but it's a tangible variable and one that can only be met with the right amount of musical intelligence (which seems as fixed as general IQ, i'm sorry to say) mixed with the right amount of knowledge and experience. This is means that when all it's said and done you have to find it for yourself.

What does greatness feels like? Have you ever listened to a piece of music which is so inventive, so brilliant that it almost doesn't seem possible a mere human brain could have though it all up? Well, there you have it.

Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: 71 dB on May 22, 2007, 12:28:35 PM
Quote from: karlhenning on May 22, 2007, 12:22:18 PM
So you do not distinguish between "I like the music" and "The music is great," right?

And the reason you find it fuzzy, is because your musical preferences are driving the definition of greatness, yes?

For long I didn't care about Mozart but I sensed his greatness. So, I do distinguish.

Fuzzy because that's the way brain works.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 22, 2007, 12:29:39 PM
Quote from: 71 dB on May 22, 2007, 12:28:35 PM
For long I didn't care about Mozart but I sensed his greatness. So, I do distinguish.

Excellent.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: bwv 1080 on May 22, 2007, 12:31:49 PM
Quote from: Harry on May 22, 2007, 12:23:52 PM
Really with all respect for the posters, this will go nowhere.
Greatness, is a word, and all words used by man are per definition subjective.
So Don is right, it is a endless spin.
The definition of the word has to be established, before discussion can commence.
But the wording of that definition in it self is subjective again.
:)

Not really, per my market definition I can define greatness as the degree of esteem which the culture as a whole holds the music.  The criteria for greatness is the collective responses to the work by the individual members of the culture.  These responses incorporate every factor by which one judges music without having to decide which factors are more important than others.  Nor is every member of the culture given an equal vote.  The great musicians and writers about music have a disproportate voice, although the aggregate of individual listeners not ignored.  Whats more, no reasonable person 100 years ago would object to the notion of a musical culture greater than the sum of its individual members (living and dead).  It is only in today's environment of self-absorbed consumerism that one one hand the notion that "my individual taste is the sole arbiter of quality" is widely accepted alongside with nihilistic contention that because notions like greatness cannot be quantified they therefore have no meaning.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 22, 2007, 12:32:05 PM
Quote from: Harry on May 22, 2007, 12:23:52 PM
The definition of the word has to be established, before discussion can commence.
But the wording of that definition in it self is subjective again.

Now, wait a second, Harry.

First, you object that there's no definition.

Then you discard the definition because it is "subjective."

So what's this definition that there isn't, but it's no good because it's subjective, hmmm?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Harry on May 22, 2007, 12:36:59 PM
Quote from: karlhenning on May 22, 2007, 12:26:58 PM
It's the journey, not the destination, Harry.

How can you be sure we will not find interesting arrivals in all this?

You crave for answers Karl, on a question that in it self cannot be answered.
Even if there is a consensus of experts that say based on technical skills, and good melodies, we proclaim Mozart greater than Haydn, what does that signify? Or that the same body of experts say Dittersdorf is minor in the light of Haydn? Greatness is a personal thing, not something that is cooked up by a intellectual cultural elite that think it to be great, that's just their collective subjective opinion.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Harry on May 22, 2007, 12:41:17 PM
Quote from: James on May 22, 2007, 12:36:40 PM
this, and stuff like it in this thread, is just lazy thinking and a cop out. would you also deny or say its merely subjective that william shakespeare or even albert einstein or isaac newton are just as great as anybody else in those fields?

I say that greatness is what the spectator thinks of it, not what a collective body of experts tell us that it is.
And accusing of lazy thinking is not helping either my friend. For my mind is very active, thank you.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Scriptavolant on May 22, 2007, 12:50:24 PM
Quote from: Josquin des Prez on May 22, 2007, 12:28:08 PM
but it's a tangible variable and one that can only be met with the right amount of musical intelligence (which seems as fixed as general IQ, i'm sorry to say)

Forniscici una stima del tuo quoziente intellettivo, e magari anche una breve bibliografia di studi che mettano in relazione il QI con l'intelligenza musicale. Sarei molto interessato, visto che è il mio settore professionale.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 22, 2007, 01:02:40 PM
Quote from: Harry on May 22, 2007, 12:36:59 PM
You crave for answers Karl, on a question that in it self cannot be answered.

And what is wrong or undesirable in that?

So prove to me that it cannot be answered, Harry, rather than simply asserting so!

Artists everywhere and for centuries have operated on the model that some art is great, some of it not great, some of it downright bad.  I am most curious, Harry: what do you know, of which the great artists of the past were in such woful ignorance?  0:)

Think for a second of an artist, Harry:  how does he do his work, if there is no such thing as some art that is not great?  What does it matter how he does his work, if all that determines greatness is, somebody, somewhere liking it?

You know, Harry, I don't care how I finish this piece for three voices and percussion.  Whatever the result is, it's going to be great.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Scriptavolant on May 22, 2007, 01:25:05 PM
Quote from: karlhenning on May 22, 2007, 01:02:40 PM

Think for a second of an artist, Harry:  how does he do his work, if there is no such thing as some art that is not great?  What does it matter how he does his work, if all that determines greatness is, somebody, somewhere liking it?


Everybody loves somebody sometimes..
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Ten thumbs on May 22, 2007, 01:34:57 PM
The road to 'greatness' usually begins in the composers lifetime. In many cases this is because the quality of the music attracts the attention of the public and it is the public at large who determine the renown in which a composer is held. In the eighteenth century there were many very gifted composers who were not allowed this attention due to the covetousness of their princely masters. Their names are little known today outside of musical circles. Bach nearly fell into this category but fortunately a dedicated campaign led by the Mendelssohns led to his reinstatement in the public perception although he was known to the musical. There are other composers who either suppressed themselves (eg Alkan) or were belittled by prejudice (Mendelssohn outside of England). In some cases the difference is merely one of P.R. e.g. Rachmaninof and Medtner. Who can split them on greatness? but one is in the dictionary, the other is not.
The reason we cannot achieve a satisfactory ranking is that there is no way of repairing the damage done in the past by often accidental factors.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Harry on May 22, 2007, 01:44:04 PM
Quote from: karlhenning on May 22, 2007, 01:02:40 PM
And what is wrong or undesirable in that?

Nothing of course, but then I did not say that right?

So prove to me that it cannot be answered, Harry, rather than simply asserting so!

The prove is in the pudding, we will see what the end result of this thread is, and if your question will be answered.
And I am not simply asserting anything, I think before I write


Artists everywhere and for centuries have operated on the model that some art is great, some of it not great, some of it downright bad.  I am most curious, Harry: what do you know, of which the great artists of the past were in such woeful ignorance?  0:)

I never said anything to reach such a conclusion Karl. I do not agree about the model, so therefore conclusions made out of such a model are of no or little value for me. I never talked about ignorance of great artist from the past, or that they were wrong in their conclusions, but simply that I do not have to agree, and I reject such labels, not their greatness, whatever that may mean!


Think for a second of an artist, Harry:  how does he do his work, if there is no such thing as some art that is not great?  What does it matter how he does his work, if all that determines greatness is, somebody, somewhere liking it?

A artist creates! What he creates is judged by individuals, and not by a body of experts, but I said that already.
If I think something is not to my liking, then it does not matter to me that a body of experts tells me that I have to like it, because they have concluded that it is great art. What if I liked a piece of music what you have written, and a so called musical experts tells me that that composition is crap, what do I care?


You know, Harry, I don't care how I finish this piece for three voices and percussion.  Whatever the result is, it's going to be great.

You simplify the question, and if you have read my reviews, you must know that I am aware of some points of quality.
If I like your piece its great for me yes! What is so wrong with that?
I repeat my self, but think Karl, why should one walk with the mass in saying that something is great or of no worth.
I be the judge of that if you please.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Josquin des Prez on May 22, 2007, 01:56:34 PM
Quote from: Scriptavolant on May 22, 2007, 12:50:24 PM
Forniscici una stima del tuo quoziente intellettivo, e magari anche una breve bibliografia di studi che mettano in relazione il QI con l'intelligenza musicale. Sarei molto interessato, visto che è il mio settore professionale.

Non fraintendere. Non esiste nessuna correlazione tra quoziente intellettivo proprio e quoziente musicale, per lo meno che io sappia. Ad ogni modo, non era mia intenzione di collegare i due fattori, ma semplicemente fare presente le similitudini (nel senso che entrambi sono variabili fisse). In questo senso, una persona dotata di un alto QI e un grand quantitativo di esperienza puo ancora fallire nella sua comprensione musicale. Il contrario e' anche possibile.

L' esempio piu palese e' Beethoven, un uomo di grande (ma non eccezionale) intelligenza ma dotato di un quoziente musicale tra i piu' alti nella storia della musica.

Riguardo il mio quoziente intellettivo, sfortunatamente lo devo ritenere relativamente basso, in particolare dopo avere sofferto per anni di depressione e ansieta', entrambi avendo considerevoli aversi effetti sulla mia psiche. Il mio quoziente musicale in confronto sembra essere piuttosto buono.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Harry on May 22, 2007, 02:01:13 PM
Ja hoor harstikke fijn, waarom niet allemaal in onze eigen taal praten, dan is de Babylonische spraak verwarring compleet. Een nare aangewoonheid van sommige posters!
Einde discussie, zou ik willen zeggen. Nou ja het ging toch geen kant op.
Grootheid, de waan van mensen die het altijd beter weten.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Harry on May 22, 2007, 02:06:13 PM
Quote from: James on May 22, 2007, 02:00:14 PM
fine but you dint seem too focused or thoughtful....didn't even really specifically address what i was asking? so following your logic every single scientist is of equal value, greatness and importance when stacked up against monumental accomplishments of Isaac Newton? or every writer to the works of William Shakespeare? or every single musician-composer to JS Bach? etc...come on, THINK!

Thinking I do, but I am handicapped by language I guess.
To compare a scientist with a musician is not valid.
In that the term great or greater qualifies.
But music is subjective, you know that!
I am focused and thoughtful, that is again a silly accusation.
I never talked about equal value.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Scriptavolant on May 22, 2007, 02:55:20 PM
Quote from: Harry on May 22, 2007, 02:01:13 PM
Ja hoor harstikke fijn, waarom niet allemaal in onze eigen taal praten, dan is de Babylonische spraak verwarring compleet. Een nare aangewoonheid van sommige posters!
Einde discussie, zou ik willen zeggen. Nou ja het ging toch geen kant op.
Grootheid, de waan van mensen die het altijd beter weten.

The parenthesis between me and Josquin was strictly off topic so there's no need to feel offended, you missed nothing related to the topic  ;)

Quote from: Josquin des Prez on May 22, 2007, 01:56:34 PM
Non fraintendere. Non esiste nessuna correlazione tra quoziente intellettivo proprio e quoziente musicale, per lo meno che io sappia. Ad ogni modo, non era mia intenzione di collegare i due fattori, ma semplicemente fare presente le similitudini (nel senso che entrambi sono variabili fisse). In questo senso, una persona dotata di un alto QI e un grand quantitativo di esperienza puo ancora fallire nella sua comprensione musicale. Il contrario e' anche possibile.

L' esempio piu palese e' Beethoven, un uomo di grande (ma non eccezionale) intelligenza ma dotato di un quoziente musicale tra i piu' alti nella storia della musica.

Riguardo il mio quoziente intellettivo, sfortunatamente lo devo ritenere relativamente basso, in particolare dopo avere sofferto per anni di depressione e ansieta', entrambi avendo considerevoli aversi effetti sulla mia psiche. Il mio quoziente musicale in confronto sembra essere piuttosto buono.


The first point is clear, by the way I didn't know Beethoven's IQ was ever measured, and I suspect that it wasn't measured when he was alive (IQ measures weren't assessed), so maybe it's a just a theoretical construct which I wouldn't rely on too seriously. The thing that he was one of the greatest musical intelligence ever I think it's undeniable, even without a precise quantification.
On the otherside, I didn't even know depression/anxiety were related to IQ, in the sense that they may influence your cognitive functions (such as reading, studying, learning, recalling) but not lower your general IQ. This sounds new to me, I'll check out.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: quintett op.57 on May 22, 2007, 03:00:37 PM
Greatness in what?

- giving pleasure? which pleasure?
emotional?
strictly auditive pleasure?

- expressing feelings?
- sending a message?
- surprising?

I'm just wondering if everyone of these propositions are related to pleasure (In fact? I think i already have my answer). There are so many different pleasures, even in hearing.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: quintett op.57 on May 22, 2007, 03:05:08 PM
music is not like basket-ball.

In basket-ball, we all expecting the guys to win the game.
In music, we all have different expectations

In basket-ball we're always happy because our team has won
In music it's not always the same thing which gives the most pleasure

Greatness in music, and in art in general, takes different forms, these forms are not stable and everyone has a different perception of these forms.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: quintett op.57 on May 22, 2007, 03:10:06 PM
As a conclusion, I wouldn't say all the composers have the same level of greatness.
But don't try to rank them.

Don't try to rank guys like Handel, Vivaldi, Bach, Haydn and Mozart, you would even ignore what you're doing.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Don on May 22, 2007, 03:33:20 PM
Quote from: bwv 1080 on May 22, 2007, 12:31:49 PM
Not really, per my market definition I can define greatness as the degree of esteem which the culture as a whole holds the music.  The criteria for greatness is the collective responses to the work by the individual members of the culture.  These responses incorporate every factor by which one judges music without having to decide which factors are more important than others.  Nor is every member of the culture given an equal vote.  The great musicians and writers about music have a disproportate voice, although the aggregate of individual listeners not ignored.  

Who will determine who are the great musicians and writers?  This strikes me as a solution that raises additional problems.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: bwv 1080 on May 22, 2007, 03:47:31 PM
Quote from: Don on May 22, 2007, 03:33:20 PM
Who will determine who are the great musicians and writers?  This strikes me as a solution that raises additional problems.

The culture as a whole
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Gurn Blanston on May 22, 2007, 04:13:01 PM
There are so many undefined terms in this discussion that it can't ever be resolved, just as Harry says. Words like "value", "greatness", and even "haarstikke"! What IS the value of music? If you can't come right out and say it in words we can understand, then it is merely a nebulous concept and can't be debated. Is music inherently valuable? Extrinsically? Value to me might be nothing to you. In the mid-18th century, J.S. Bach was not viewed as great or valuable, not only by listeners, but by musicians either. He was considered arcane and dated, and playing and/or listening to his music did not give pleasure. So where is the inherent value there? It was only later conferred on his music by a later generation with different standards. Same for Mozart, same for Beethoven. And Ditters and Vanhal were "stars", for those of you who don't know it. Were the people who deemed them such, and they were legion AND knowledgable, so totally wrong? So no, let's not just say that music is inherently valuable or not not, shall we?

Greatness. Ditto.

These are personal, subjective concepts that we are putting on music because they suit our present style. Or in the case of the nonconformists, they don't fit our present style. We like things that are simple or complicated, melodic or atonal, sound traditional or non-traditional. And whatever our personal set of standards is most attracted by, and whatever we have read in liner notes and books, then that becomes our personal "greatness", with its corollary "value".

And I'll add, those who decry judging composers, let's say 18th century composers, by 19th century standards and then turn right around and do it, are, to say the least, amusing. ::)

So, let's get some things defined. Adjectives that we are throwing around are those with too much reliance on subjectivity. And also, please don't categorically include anyone but oneself in making sweeping statements. I, for one, would sooner listen to Ditters than Mahler any day. I don't recommend that YOU do. Or even care, actually. :)

8)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 22, 2007, 04:25:24 PM
Quote from: quintett op.57 on May 22, 2007, 03:05:08 PM
Greatness in music, and in art in general, takes different forms, these forms are not stable and everyone has a different perception of these forms.

Excellent.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: JoshLilly on May 22, 2007, 04:40:24 PM
The only time I care is when some pompous windbag tries to enforce their taste as if it were some kind of fact. Which happens sickeningly often.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Josquin des Prez on May 22, 2007, 05:18:14 PM
Quote from: Scriptavolant on May 22, 2007, 02:55:20 PM
so maybe it's a just a theoretical construct which I wouldn't rely on too seriously.

Perhaps, but it seems to be the general assumption regarding Beethoven. He didn't seem to be a very good student, was only partially educated and couldn't write well (supposedly). Whether that's a good indication of his inherent IQ or not, it does seem he had to struggle when it came to certain mental related tasks. Then again, maybe he only looks bad if compared to savants like Mozart. At this level of genius, even the exceptional can look ordinary.

Quote from: Scriptavolant on May 22, 2007, 02:55:20 PM
On the otherside, I didn't even know depression/anxiety were related to IQ, in the sense that they may influence your cognitive functions (such as reading, studying, learning, recalling) but not lower your general IQ. This sounds new to me, I'll check out.

Well, i actually never tested myself, but i can definitely notice a difference as the years go buy. I did found an article that linked depression with a reduction in brain size (similar to alcohol abuse), but at the time it scared me a bit too much so i ignored it. Either way, i seriously feel my mental powers are waining. I'm in a constant state of brain fog, derealization and confusion. I can't concentrate, can't gather my thoughts, my short term memory is gone, i can't seem to either grasp things as quickly or learn new concepts, and it just keeps getting worst. I just recently started to skip words when i write sentences. I don't know what it is, but it scares the crap out of me. Worst of all, i have a chronic case of anhedonia. 

If it's doing this to me i can only assume Beethoven suffered from similar impairments, which might explain his relatively poor mental related achievements outside music.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Don on May 22, 2007, 06:53:01 PM
Quote from: bwv 1080 on May 22, 2007, 03:47:31 PM
The culture as a whole

If "as a whole", that would result in the winners being rock, rap and country stars.  
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Scriptavolant on May 22, 2007, 07:02:26 PM
Quote from: Don on May 22, 2007, 06:53:01 PM
If "as a whole", that would result in the winners being rock, rap and country stars. 

Culture as a hole, then.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Scriptavolant on May 22, 2007, 07:24:41 PM
Quote from: Josquin des Prez on May 22, 2007, 05:18:14 PM

Well, i actually never tested myself, but i can definitely notice a difference as the years go buy. I did found an article that linked depression with a reduction in brain size (similar to alcohol abuse), but at the time it scared me a bit too much so i ignored it. Either way, i seriously feel my mental powers are waining. I'm in a constant state of brain fog, derealization and confusion. I can't concentrate, can't gather my thoughts, my short term memory is gone, i can't seem to either grasp things as quickly or learn new concepts, and it just keeps getting worst. I just recently started to skip words when i write sentences. I don't know what it is, but it scares the crap out of me. Worst of all, i have a chronic case of anhedonia. 


I've PMed you to avoid being off topic.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: BachQ on May 22, 2007, 07:26:55 PM
Quote from: Scriptavolant on May 22, 2007, 07:24:41 PM
I've PMed you to avoid being off topic.

....... but your post alerting to the PM is off-topic .......
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Scriptavolant on May 22, 2007, 07:33:39 PM
Quote from: D Minor on May 22, 2007, 07:26:55 PM
....... but your post alerting to the PM is off-topic .......

So it's yours, pointing out the contradiction.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on May 22, 2007, 07:35:39 PM
Quote from: Don on May 22, 2007, 06:53:01 PM
If "as a whole", that would result in the winners being rock, rap and country stars.  

Not at all. Implied in Steve's excellent statement is that this is the culture as a whole of people interested in classical music. And experience bears him out: the large majority of people deeply concerned with classical music tend to gravitate towards the same set of composers as being the most valued. In fact, this is not a "personal" judgment at all as some here would have it, but rather a collective groundswell of opinion that relatively few depart from, and those who do are always tilting at windmills and constructing straw man arguments about "pompous windbags" and "intellectual cultural elites" and "mistakes of history" and the like. As James very eloquently puts it in the best post on this thread, greatness "has nothing to do with my personal pleasure or taste... there is also the lifelong mastery of a craft, and use and development of the language (written and heard) harnessed with such skill and insight (that not everyone has), creating monumental or even groundbreaking works of art, that carry thru time for a number of significant reasons. the greatest composers and musical geniuses in music create those works, sometimes time and time again, which often reach the utmost expressive depths."

From this perspective, attempts to define artistic greatness as either "subjective" or "objective" are both doomed to fail. Greatness is a matter of judgment, that is, neither provable fact nor personal whim, but instead the collective response of composers, performers, listeners, and scholars. This doesn't mean either that the canon of musical greatness is ossified for all time, or that composers and works may not be reevaluated up or down, or that individuals may not depart from the generally accepted canon here and there in accordance with personal taste. But by and large, the collective judgment of musically interested people is remarkably consistent, giving the lie to the notion that we all simply respond as individuals in a purely personal and subjective manner.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: sonic1 on May 22, 2007, 07:44:15 PM
I think greatness is simply greatness: whether or not there is a huge body of work. When a composer can create a work that can have a huge impact on music, its creators, and the audience in a significant way, you have greatness. Sometimes these people have had their nose to the grinding stone like Hephaestus, and sometimes they just create something new and profound that, in one blow, impacts music history. Sometimes the impact is on a smaller corner of music, and at other times the impact is felt throughout the entire art. The term is relative though, isn't it? Is it not relative to who is using the term and to what they are referring. Bach was an extremely prolific artist who, thanks to later composers way after his death, is now considered one of the greatest composers. But was not Brahms also great? Even if his effect was not as grand? Especially considering he was the son of a local folk musician, poor family, and not privledged-who didn't necessarily consider himself part of the romantic movement like Wagner or Liszt, but stayed somewhat "traditional", but made great strides within his own definitions.

Certainly any composer who is still impacting people a century or more after his or her death can be considered great to some degree. Why would people keep playing someone's music after a hundred years unless there was something pretty great about it?

Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Bogey on May 22, 2007, 07:52:13 PM
I enjoy hearing from others what they perceive as "greatness" in music and art along with their arguments (so long as they are framed in inviting terms) for their point of view....these "personal insights" from others often open doors for me into the world of music and art that I may not have known even existed (Que's passion for historical recordings or Bruce's avatars for instance).  However, I always reserve the right to decide whether to walk though these doors, or respectfully decline their invitation and move onto new ones.............with the option to return down the road. :)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Bogey on May 22, 2007, 07:53:06 PM
Quote from: D Minor on May 22, 2007, 11:38:10 AM
 Can the song of a nightingale be considered a musical masterpiece?

In my world, you bet. ;)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: max on May 22, 2007, 08:02:20 PM
Greatness in whatever form is relative to the person who hears it, sees it and consequently feels it and if not that, then at least a nasty feeling that perhaps he should know better.

Humans can be as alien to human art as Aliens can be to humans. There is always the possibility of discovery in either event!
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Scriptavolant on May 22, 2007, 08:13:07 PM
Quote from: Bogey on May 22, 2007, 07:52:13 PM
However, I always reserve the right to decide whether to walk though these doors, or respectfully decline their invitation and move onto new ones.............with the option to return down the road. :)

Yes, it's the same for me.

Finally, the feeling I get before the exposition of conscious and coherent theories and thoughts in this thread is well rendered by a Ludwig Wittgenstein's adaptation:

I feel that even if all possible musical questions upon the nature of greatness have been answered, the problems of individual music perception remain completely untouched. Of course there are then no questions left, and this itself is the answer.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: sonic1 on May 22, 2007, 08:28:10 PM
also, if we consider greatness by the taste of numbers, then all of classical music is doomed to not being considered "great", as most people in general could not give a rat's arse for it.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Dancing Divertimentian on May 22, 2007, 09:01:21 PM
I usually fill out my days with more this kind of thing:

Quote from: karlhenning on May 22, 2007, 05:23:04 AM
Hairstyles and attitudes, are they connected? . . .





Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: max on May 23, 2007, 01:05:42 AM
Quote from: D Minor on May 22, 2007, 11:38:10 AM
We don't even have an objective definition of MUSIC, let alone MASTERPIECE (or what constitutes a "masterpiece").

Definitions denote limitations. Art isn't supposed to have any. Great or Masterpiece merely imply consensus and may be meaningless or virtual garbage to anyone outside or foreign to any collective agreement of it's merit. That includes the likes of Beethoven or Bach whose works are merely catalysts to an emotional response. Their value to us emanates from that influx so there never really can be an objective definition as if music were some kind of cosmic discovery! The true mystery is one of response which presupposes the creation we're meant to respond to.

But then of course, there is Pythagoras! ::)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: quintett op.57 on May 23, 2007, 02:57:45 AM
Quote from: James on May 22, 2007, 06:52:19 PM
speaking for myself, not really, has nothing to do with my personal pleasure or taste, im being general about it...you also have to take into consideration that with music there is also the lifelong mastery of a craft, and use and development of the language (written and heard) harnessed with such skill and insight (that not everyone has), creating monumental or even groundbreaking works of art, that carry thru time for a number of significant reasons. the greatest composers and musical geniuses in music create those works, sometimes time and time again, which often reach the utmost expressive depths, but also equally as great cerebral and technical ones. thus, great significance and pure & true musical value.

vivaldi on the same level as bach ??  oh nevermind... ;)
Quote from: sonic1 on May 22, 2007, 07:44:15 PM
Certainly any composer who is still impacting people a century or more after his or her death can be considered great to some degree.
this does include Bach & Vivaldi. Whatever they say.
Vivaldi, a composer who brought so many beauties and inventions in his art and who is now neglected because he's popular.
He's not one of my favourites but I'm always angry when I see the campaign of denigration around his art.  ;)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 23, 2007, 03:42:11 AM
Some terrific posts, thank you, Gurn, James, Larry, Max & al.

Greatness is an appreciation of excellence.

The pursuit of excellence is a vital process in the actual practice of art.

The matter can be discussed, modified, refined;  but the notion of either eliminating or flat-lining greatness is inherently (and — in the case of so many neighbors who in fact are passionately for the music — ironically) anti-artistic.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 23, 2007, 04:45:33 AM
Quote from: Gurn Blanston on May 22, 2007, 04:13:01 PM
There are so many undefined terms in this discussion that it can't ever be resolved, just as Harry says. Words like "value", "greatness", and even "haarstikke"! What IS the value of music? If you can't come right out and say it in words we can understand, then it is merely a nebulous concept and can't be debated. Is music inherently valuable? Extrinsically? Value to me might be nothing to you. In the mid-18th century, J.S. Bach was not viewed as great or valuable, not only by listeners, but by musicians either. He was considered arcane and dated, and playing and/or listening to his music did not give pleasure. So where is the inherent value there? It was only later conferred on his music by a later generation with different standards. Same for Mozart, same for Beethoven. And Ditters and Vanhal were "stars", for those of you who don't know it. Were the people who deemed them such, and they were legion AND knowledgable, so totally wrong? So no, let's not just say that music is inherently valuable or not not, shall we?

To this, I think Larry's post has some address:

Quote from: Larry Rinkel on May 22, 2007, 07:35:39 PM
From this perspective, attempts to define artistic greatness as either "subjective" or "objective" are both doomed to fail. Greatness is a matter of judgment, that is, neither provable fact nor personal whim, but instead the collective response of composers, performers, listeners, and scholars. This doesn't mean either that the canon of musical greatness is ossified for all time, or that composers and works may not be reevaluated up or down, or that individuals may not depart from the generally accepted canon here and there in accordance with personal taste. But by and large, the collective judgment of musically interested people is remarkably consistent, giving the lie to the notion that we all simply respond as individuals in a purely personal and subjective manner.

Similarly:

Quote from: GurnGreatness. Ditto.

These are personal, subjective concepts that we are putting on music because they suit our present style.

There may be some here who are indeed making 'greatness' a subjective, personal concept — hence my caution against thinking of music in terms of or nearing "greatness in music corresponds with what I like a lot" — but the answer resides more in a collective, and not simply subjective, realm.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Ten thumbs on May 23, 2007, 04:56:17 AM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on May 22, 2007, 07:35:39 PM
As James puts it, greatness "has nothing to do with my personal pleasure or taste... there is also the lifelong mastery of a craft, and use and development of the language (written and heard) harnessed with such skill and insight (that not everyone has), creating monumental or even groundbreaking works of art, that carry thru time for a number of significant reasons. the greatest composers and musical geniuses in music create those works, sometimes time and time again, which often reach the utmost expressive depths."
The big drawback in this is that there were composers who achieved all that but who are still not generally accepted as great today.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 23, 2007, 04:58:05 AM
One idea which has gotten lost over the past few pages, is The Iconoclast and the Pantheon: or, The Noble Resistance to jbuckitis  ;D

Many (most?) of us have a fairly ready reaction against such ideas as "Bach is so incredibly great, that no other composer could possibly be so great as Bach, and in fact, a huge gulf separates Bach as a composer from all those petty, merely mortal also-rans."  A reaction against Immeasurable Gulf Syndrome.

Now, a Vivaldi lover naturally bridles at this, sees an aesthetic injustice in the huge gap separating Bach the Patriarch from Vivaldi the sonic leper, and cries out, "The Gap is nothing like as wide as you imagine!"

Where do the brakes get purchase?  Is there still a gap, but smaller?  Is there no gap?  How do we address this?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 23, 2007, 05:00:31 AM
Quote from: Ten thumbs on May 23, 2007, 04:56:17 AM
The big drawback in this is that there were composers who achieved all that but who are still not generally accepted as great today.

"All that"?  Composers who "created monumental or even groundbreaking works of art," who remain unrecognized today?

Examples?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Maciek on May 23, 2007, 05:09:16 AM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on May 22, 2007, 07:35:39 PM
Greatness is a matter of judgment, that is, neither provable fact nor personal whim, but instead the collective response of composers, performers, listeners, and scholars.

Yeah, but collective response to what? (This argument isn't directed specifically at you, Larry - I'm just taking your handy quote as a specimen). The one point that everyone in this discussion seems to be missing so far is that in order to raise (or fall) in the ranks of music-makers worldwide, a composer has to be heard worldwide. Gurn touched the subject when he mentioned how these judgements change with time. But I'd like to emphasize how cultural history is connected to political history. Why is the list of "greatest" composers filled up by people coming from German and Italian-speaking countries (with a touch of French and Russian perhaps?). What would have happened to Chopin's music if he went back to Poland after the November Uprising? Well, he'd probably be just as well known as Juliusz Zarebski. (Maybe his music wouldn't be as good either because he wouldn't have access to all the best stuff happening in Europe.) Think of how Szymanowski, who was always held in the highest regard in Poland, was virtually unknown in most of the world for decades - for purely political reasons. Poland was simply cut off from the Western world. Or think about South America. How about Villa-Lobos?

Similarly, the "influence" criterion can't really be held. Here's an example of what I mean:

Quote from: sonic1 on May 22, 2007, 07:44:15 PM
When a composer can create a work that can have a huge impact on music, its creators, and the audience in a significant way, you have greatness.

Well, here we have the assumption that if a musical genius in a small village in Kyrgyzstan composes some fantastic stuff, it can't really be great because by all accounts it will never reach a wide audience, and therefore (s)he will never really be influential enough.

I'd like to go on about this and maybe make a few corrections in what I've written above but I have to attend to my daughter now... ;D

Cheers,
Maciek
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on May 23, 2007, 05:32:03 AM
Quote from: MrOsa on May 23, 2007, 05:09:16 AM
Yeah, but collective response to what? (This argument isn't directed specifically at you, Larry - I'm just taking your handy quote as a specimen). The one point that everyone in this discussion seems to be missing so far is that in order to raise (or fall) in the ranks of music-makers worldwide, a composer has to be heard worldwide.

I don't think these are insuperable objections. You answer them yourself: "Maybe Chopin's music wouldn't be as good either because he wouldn't have access to all the best stuff happening in Europe." There are and always have been centers of musical culture where the efforts of various composers and performers were mutually productive. A composer does not simply emerge without a cultural background. In Europe these centers of musical culture were rooted primarily in the Germanic speaking countries, Italy, and France; somewhat less so in Russia, Spain, and England, perhaps even less in the Scandinavian and Baltic countries. Nonetheless, the idea of a musical genius springing up in isolation in Kyrgyztan, doomed to eternal obscurity, may be possible but sounds to me far-fetched. Eventually, one way or another, however long it takes or despite whatever political or other obstacles, the cream rises to the top. And the canon may still be developing, partly by virtue of living composers. (Resistance to modern music, of course, is so fierce in many quarters that acceptance of this music within the so-called standard repertoire may be unlikely. But in this case one may speak of a specialized sub-canon of modern music for those who know and love it, just as one may speak of a specialized sub-canon of early music - another vast area that is off the radar screen for the music lover whose primary fare is the 19th century orchestral repertoire.)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 23, 2007, 05:32:57 AM
Quote from: MrOsa on May 23, 2007, 05:09:16 AM
Quote from: sonic1When a composer can create a work that can have a huge impact on music, its creators, and the audience in a significant way, you have greatness.

Well, here we have the assumption that if a musical genius in a small village in Kyrgyzstan composes some fantastic stuff, it can't really be great because by all accounts it will never reach a wide audience, and therefore (s)he will never really be influential enough.

And of course, we don't even need to go to an exotic locale (in terms of the centers of Western tradition).  Think of Karl Amadeus Hartmann, whose career jumped off the rails as a result of political events, and who chose an "internal exile" living and working in Nazi Germany, yet in protest of the regime.

Then, when at war's end, he was again in a state of 'musical freedom', the musical world around him was largely magnetized towards Other Things.  Hartmann was in this curious, yet nobly selfless, situation in which he was organizing festivals of the new music of other composers, and hardly getting any more recognition in post-war freedom, than he could have under Nazi oppression.

A great composer, for the recognition of whose greatness circumstances were never quite right for most of his lifetime.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on May 23, 2007, 06:02:18 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on May 23, 2007, 05:00:31 AM
"All that"?  Composers who "created monumental or even groundbreaking works of art," who remain unrecognized today?

Examples?

Indeed. Name one. The mavericks (who apparently feel affronted by the concept of a generally accepted canon) are always pushing this or that dubious candidate forward. When I first started posting on music forums some ten years ago, there was a young fellow who took up the cause of Joaquin Rodrigo as the Great Unrecognized Composer, and he sent me a tape of "great" works by this unsung master - despite my skepticism that Rodrigo was nowhere near the level of Falla or even Albeniz among Spanish composers. (I grant him a genuine success with the Concierto de Aranjuez, especially its spellbinding slow movement, but nothing else I know by Rodrigo comes even close.) And so I listened to the tape, including the rather silly Piano Concerto, but the transcendent "greatness" of this composer stubbornly refused to show itself.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 23, 2007, 06:03:55 AM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on May 23, 2007, 05:32:03 AM
I don't think these are insuperable objections. You answer them yourself: "Maybe Chopin's music wouldn't be as good either because he wouldn't have access to all the best stuff happening in Europe." There are and always have been centers of musical culture where the efforts of various composers and performers were mutually productive. A composer does not simply emerge without a cultural background. . . .

Thank you, Larry, for so eloquently illustrating the community aspect of music on which I have sought to set such great store in this discussion.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: DavidW on May 23, 2007, 06:15:45 AM
Let me preface my post: point is not to debate the points raised in the thread, but to attempt to construct my own definition of greatness.  In the process, however, I will face some of the points raised and deal with them, that is however a secondary goal.

Let me start where Gurn left off.  He was the first person on the thread to correctly go back one step.

Before we can define and discuss greatness in music, we must first define and discuss the value of music.  The value of music is in how it enriches our culture.  It is art, and that is how we value art.  The immediate impact of such a definition of value is that
(a) it doesn't distinguish classical from popular,
(b) it's vague-- I don't define how something is enriching, I seemed to have simply shifted the word over to be defined,
(c) it doesn't address craftsmanship in music,
(d) there is no concept yet as to who judges how culture is enriched by music.

Clearly I need to address these points to make this definition viable and meaningful.  Let's start with (a).  I don't consider it a weakness that popular music is considered to be on the same footing as classical music.  What distinguishes them is tradition, craftsmanship and aesthetics.  But on the basis of do they enrich culture, they both contribute.  Rock bands like the Beatles has had a tremendous impact on the western world.  Composers like Boulez and Stockhausen have also played their part influencing and molding our sensibilities.  You may debate the greatness of popular music, but in this context you shouldn't debate that it does have a sense of value.

Now what do I mean when I say that music enriches culture?  I mean that valuable music improves, enhances art.  And now you're about to say aha! then the Beatles have no value.  And I say, not so fast, they do indeed enhance art because for better or worse they have shaped the way we view music, popular artists have added an extra-dimension to how we view music and art, separate from how we viewed folk music of the past.

Craftsmanship is not needed yet in the discussion, the reason that my definition of value does not include it because it is what was claimed by James as the quality that determines greatness.  So I view craftsmanship as the thing that allows you to distinguish the value of one work from another.  It is a possible metric of value.  And the same goes for (d).  The arbiters of music are also a form of imposing a measure on value.  We now need to consider these issues as we are done defining and discussing value now.

Greatness in music--

Notice that if I don't define anyway to distinguish between the value of one work or composer from another then we have a problem-- all works are treated equally.  We need candidates for how we rank value.  But let's first address the issue of hierarchy.

First of all I will note that we do not need a strict hierarchy of taste, just a concept of difference.  Let me illustrate this with an example in math-- you can define a notion of < with numbers, and it's well defined, so you can form a hierarchy of numbers with any finite set such as {1,2,7} you would have 1 < 2 < 7.  But what about pairs of numbers?  There is no well defined way to define a hierarchy to rate a set such as {(1,0),(-1,0),(2,5)}.  No matter how you will define it you will run into problems.  Yet you notice that we can easily distinguish between these pairs of numbers, right?  And clearly there is a relative separation between them that's easily defined, and you can rank those separations easily!  And we do have some vague sense that some points are further away than others.  This is conceptually the same issue that I'm identifying with ranking value in music.  This is what I mean, there are many potential factors in determining greatness, and separate some composers from others without defining a strict hierarchy.  And that is why it is not valid to equate a sense of ranking in music with a strict hierarchy.

Now we have candidates for measuring greatness--
(a) craftsmanship in music
(b) consensus from informed group (musicians, critics)

I haven't seen any other good ones so far, so I will limit myself to those two factors.  Now I will show that neither one suffices to describe greatness in music.  If (a) was the sole factor in determining greatness in music than Cage's 4'33 would not be great.  This is because the work exemplifies a mastery of the conceptual understanding of art, and how to create a dynamic work that has shaped our view of how we interact with the world as a dynamic interchange.  Clearly the value of the work is tremendous!  It has had a great impact on culture as a whole.  But it does not show any mastery of music as a craft to composer.

Thus, I must conclude that (a) can not be a sole factor in measuring greatness.  I understand why James and Opie think this way.  The composers they most esteem are absolute masters of their craft.  Beethoven, Mozart and Bach outshine all others in this respect.  But I see clearly that there is more to consider.

Karl has already argued well (by example) that consensus from informed groups is not enough, because consensus is a fluid thing changing from generation to generation passing through the hands of fickle, temperamental artists.  So I think we need both.

Notice something interesting, that the individual parts of defining value, and the two parameters of greatness are fluid and change over the time.  But taken as a whole you have something that is relatively forgiving.  Even when Bach fails in one category at some time, he succeeds in another.  So Bach can be taken to be considered great from his time, with no gaps.  Also notice that since I ended up with two parameters, from my argument above, there is no strict hierarchy, yet there is still a notion of greatness.  That blows away the concept of a dichotomy between hierarchy vs chaos.

So now I pose the following open questions:
(a) by this construction of greatness, are popular artists great?  I argued that they have value, but I have not discussed their greatness.
(b) would composers that should be considered great fail to be so by this definition?  And in that case how should the meaning of greatness be augmented?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: quintett op.57 on May 23, 2007, 06:23:27 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on May 23, 2007, 04:58:05 AM
Now, a Vivaldi lover naturally bridles at this, sees an aesthetic injustice in the huge gap separating Bach the Patriarch from Vivaldi the sonic leper, and cries out, "The Gap is nothing like as wide as you imagine!"
If you're talking about me  ;D. I'm not more a Vivaldi lover than a Bach lover.
They're not in my, say... top 25
But they've both written many pieces I love.
I try to think objectively and I see absolutely no reason, apart from all you can read about Bach's profundity and Vivaldi's supposed superficiality, to say one is greater than the other one. 
One has developped variations, counterpoint ; the other one developped orchestration and the less contrapuntal harmony that would be adopted by their successors.
Many people refuse to see Vivaldi as a great composer, but they have difficulties to justify their point of view (which was not Bach's point of view at all).
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 23, 2007, 06:26:30 AM
I didn't have any individual in mind, but you now go on record as a Vivaldi maniac  8)

Great post, David!  Will write more afterwards, but right away, posts like yours justify my temerity in setting off on this thread.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Josquin des Prez on May 23, 2007, 06:28:45 AM
Quote from: quintett op.57 on May 23, 2007, 06:23:27 AM
I try to think objectively and I see absolutely no reason, apart from all you can read about Bach's profundity and Vivaldi's supposed superficiality, to say one is greater than the other one. 

Then, quite simply, you simply don't understand Bach, or perhaps neither. Is this so unfathomable?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: quintett op.57 on May 23, 2007, 07:05:14 AM
Quote from: Josquin des Prez on May 23, 2007, 06:28:45 AM
Then, quite simply, you simply don't understand Bach, or perhaps neither. Is this so unfathomable?
Or, could I answer, you've not understand Vivaldi.  ;)
What is your objective argument to demonstrate Bach's superiority?
I don't think we're talking about Bach's greatness, I have a fabulous pleasure listening to his music.
I think we're talking about the fact you guys don't seem to get a fabulous pleasure listening to Vivaldi. So that I think there's something you didn't get. (maybe refuse to get)

Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 23, 2007, 07:23:41 AM
Quote from: quintett op.57 on May 23, 2007, 07:05:14 AM
I think we're talking about the fact you guys don't seem to get a fabulous pleasure listening to Vivaldi. So that I think there's something you didn't get. (maybe refuse to get)

Hard to say;  perhaps I don't get "fabulous pleasure" when listening to Vivaldi?  The musical pleasure in listening to him on occasion is certain;  and Vivaldi's historical significance will certainly survive my comparative non-enthusiasm for him — I am not at all, you see, arguing against Vivaldi's greatness.

I don't know if this can rate as an 'objective argument' for their comparative greatness;  but I don't find myself returning to listen to Vivaldi, nor seeking out new (to me) works in the Vivaldi catalogue, to the degree that I do in the case of Bach.  (I hasten to repeat that I do not propose my experience as normative or determinative, just bringing it into the discussion as one factor which, I suppose, must resonate with some other listeners.)

In sort of practical terms (and David will smile, I think) Boston classical radio plays Vivaldi more frequently than my ears feel they need to hear him.  When I find myself thinking similar thoughts viz. Bach, I generally qualify the thought with, "Why do they always play the same ten Bach pieces, when there's so much more that is just as good?"

Also along these lines, perhaps . . . I really enjoy the Kremerata Baltica recording, The Eight Seasons.  Of course, the Vivaldi concerti deserve their popularity;  and my ears find the balance with the four Piazzolla pieces (Las estaciones porteñas) a very good 'palate-cleanser'.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: quintett op.57 on May 23, 2007, 07:45:00 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on May 23, 2007, 07:23:41 AM
Hard to say;  perhaps I don't get "fabulous pleasure" when listening to Vivaldi?  The musical pleasure in listening to him on occasion is certain;  and Vivaldi's historical significance will certainly survive my comparative non-enthusiasm for him — I am not at all, you see, arguing against Vivaldi's greatness.
You're right, you won't necessarily get a fabulous pleasure out of his music even if you know it very well.
It doesn't change that I believe many don't listen to his music as seriously as they should.

PS : You should stop listening to radio and listen to the music you want when you want.  ;D I don't come back very often to Vivaldi either. Almost only when he's being criticized ;D. But it's always a great pleasure, especially thanks to his great use of the orchestra (I'm a huge fan of symphonies).
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Josquin des Prez on May 23, 2007, 07:46:25 AM
Quote from: quintett op.57 on May 23, 2007, 07:05:14 AM
What is your objective argument to demonstrate Bach's superiority?

Greater complexity, greater variety, greater consistency, do i really have to spell it out?

Where Vivaldi spoke one language (Italian), Bach spoke all languages (Italian, German, French), either separately or at once. While Vivaldi was merely a competent contrapuntist, Bach was the supreme master of harmony. Where Vivaldi tapped his emotional reach with works like L' Estro, The Four Seasons or the late cello sonatas, Bach kept delving deeper and deeper into the human soul. How is this not self evident?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 23, 2007, 07:49:58 AM
Quote from: quintett op.57 on May 23, 2007, 07:45:00 AM
PS : You should stop listening to radio and listen to the music you want when you want.  ;D

It's true; and while it's really a sad state of affairs, that means that we frequently abandon the only radio station in Boston which plays classical music 24/7, because of their numbskulled programming.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: quintett op.57 on May 23, 2007, 08:03:33 AM
Quote from: James on May 23, 2007, 07:20:51 AM


Generally speaking, considered, insightful judgement that the works of one composer is transparently more profound than another is not a "denigration of art" ...
I'm not talking about this. He's always criticized, disminished, as many italians. They composed many joyful pieces. Joyful pieces are often disregarded.
Quoteyou may characterise it as such. Considered judgements happen every day in life. That we are able to conclusively make these judgements by majority concensus of the literate / initiated distinguishes us from the rest of the animal kingdom (as far as I know).
This can't be your point. I know many famous artists and experts assume Bach is the best. But this is a very weak argument. I've seen economist say stupid things, I've seen crowds of scientists assume something wrong just because they hadn't opened the dictionary to check the meaning of what they were talking about. I've seen elites govern my country. I've seen many scholars say Bach was the greatest but never giving an objective argument. I'v never seen anyone assume seriously he knew perfectly a composer.
And, if you want a last argument :I think most of the literate / initiated think no one is superior to the rest, in art.
QuoteAll within the obvious conditions & parameters that listeners need to be culturally initiated / sensitised to have a chance of getting it. Yes some people will like things of a similar quality to varying degrees, there will be discussion and disagreement up to a point, but if those conditions are met we can say some fuzzy sort of absolute quality exists.  ;D
I don't think it's really absolute quality you're talking about, but at least criteria of quality every human being should admit if he were perfectly instructed. 
I think there are such criteria. I think we know some and ignore others. I think we don't know if some criteria are more important than the others. I think it depends on who's listening.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Josquin des Prez on May 23, 2007, 08:08:40 AM
Quote from: quintett op.57 on May 23, 2007, 08:03:33 AM
I'm not talking about this. He's always criticized, disminished, as many italians. They composed many joyful pieces. Joyful pieces are often disregarded.

Britney Spears composed many joyful pieces too. What's your point?

Quote from: quintett op.57 on May 23, 2007, 08:03:33 AM
I think we don't know if some criteria are more important than the others. I think it depends on who's listening.

You are wrong, of course.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: quintett op.57 on May 23, 2007, 08:11:30 AM
Quote from: Josquin des Prez on May 23, 2007, 07:46:25 AM
Greater complexity,
So what ?
I admire Bach's 3rd violin sonata for its marvellous simplicity
Quotegreater variety,
Depends on what
Quotegreater consistency,
subjective

QuoteWhere Vivaldi spoke one language (Italian), Bach spoke all languages (Italian, German, French), either separately or at once. While Vivaldi was merely a competent contrapuntist, Bach was the supreme master of harmony.
harmony? So many harmonical inventions by both and after them. This is a subjective assumption.
Counterpoint would be enough. Why is a counterpoint better than another?


QuoteWhere Vivaldi tapped his emotional reach with works like L' Estro, The Four Seasons or the late cello sonatas, Bach kept delving deeper and deeper into the human soul. How is this not self evident?
So what?
What do you mean exactly?
What is exploring the human soul in music?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Don on May 23, 2007, 08:17:01 AM
Quote from: quintett op.57 on May 23, 2007, 08:11:30 AM

So what ?
I admire Bach's 3rd violin sonata for its marvellous simplicity
Depends on whatsubjective
harmony? So many harmonical inventions by both and after them. This is a subjective assumption.
Counterpoint would be enough. Why is a counterpoint better than another?

So what?
What do you mean exactly?
What is exploring the human soul in music?


I think quintett is just being argumentative.  To me, there is no doubt that Bach covers a greater array of human emotions (and more deeply) than Vivaldi.  Does this add to the premise that Bach's music is greater than Vivaldi's?  That's up for grabs.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Josquin des Prez on May 23, 2007, 08:23:02 AM
Quote from: Don on May 23, 2007, 08:17:01 AM
Does this add to the premise that Bach's music is greater than Vivaldi's?

I'd say yes, absolutely.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Don on May 23, 2007, 08:32:16 AM
Quote from: Josquin des Prez on May 23, 2007, 08:23:02 AM
I'd say yes, absolutely.


I would also, but others might not.  My wife is an "other".  She loves Willie Nelson's music, while I find it boring architecturally and in regard to Nelson's delivery.  Is Bach greater than Nelson?  I say yes, but my wife simply states that she much prefers Nelson and scoffs at the notion that greatness can be measured or determined through consensus.  What it really comes down to is that Nelson speaks to her, but he has nothing to say to me.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: dtwilbanks on May 23, 2007, 08:36:17 AM
Quote from: Don on May 23, 2007, 08:32:16 AM
What it really comes down to is that Nelson speaks to her, but he has nothing to say to me.

Don hit it on the old head.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Josquin des Prez on May 23, 2007, 08:43:11 AM
Quote from: dtwilbanks on May 23, 2007, 08:36:17 AM
Don hit it on the old head.

I disagree. From my point of view, Don's wife simply has an inferior taste in music. It's irrelevant what speaks to her. Is there anything particularly philistine about this view?

Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: BachQ on May 23, 2007, 08:44:56 AM
Quote from: Don on May 23, 2007, 08:32:16 AM
... Willie Nelson's music  ... I find it boring architecturally ....

I find Willie Nelson's music to be architecturally fascinating ......
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Harry on May 23, 2007, 08:45:34 AM
Quote from: Don on May 23, 2007, 08:32:16 AM
I would also, but others might not.  My wife is an "other".  She loves Willie Nelson's music, while I find it boring architecturally and in regard to Nelson's delivery.  Is Bach greater than Nelson?  I say yes, but my wife simply states that she much prefers Nelson and scoffs at the notion that greatness can be measured or determined through consensus.  What it really comes down to is that Nelson speaks to her, but he has nothing to say to me.

I should have said it this way, but you have, thanks. :)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: BachQ on May 23, 2007, 08:49:18 AM
Quote from: Josquin des Prez on May 23, 2007, 08:43:11 AM
I disagree. From my point of view, Don's wife simply has an inferior taste in music. It's irrelevant what speaks to her. Is there anything particularly philistine about this view?



We should force her to appreciate Bach .......
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Josquin des Prez on May 23, 2007, 08:56:07 AM
Quote from: D Minor on May 23, 2007, 08:49:18 AM
We should force her to appreciate Bach .......

How does that follow?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Don on May 23, 2007, 08:58:19 AM
Quote from: Josquin des Prez on May 23, 2007, 08:43:11 AM
I disagree. From my point of view, Don's wife simply has an inferior taste in music. It's irrelevant what speaks to her. Is there anything particularly philistine about this view?



I disagree right back.  What counts most is what speaks to her.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: quintett op.57 on May 23, 2007, 09:00:32 AM
Quote from: Don on May 23, 2007, 08:17:01 AM
I think quintett is just being argumentative.  To me, there is no doubt that Bach covers a greater array of human emotions
This yes. It's not what I had understood
QuoteDoes this add to the premise that Bach's music is greater than Vivaldi's?
This no.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Josquin des Prez on May 23, 2007, 09:03:18 AM
Quote from: Don on May 23, 2007, 08:58:19 AM
I disagree right back.  What counts most is what speaks to her.

What counts most to her, perhaps. Why is that relevant to everybody else, let alone determining an objective value for greatness?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 23, 2007, 09:12:53 AM
Offhand, I think that is covered under the "greatness maps onto what I like best" fallacy.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Don on May 23, 2007, 09:16:22 AM
Quote from: Josquin des Prez on May 23, 2007, 09:03:18 AM
What counts most to her, perhaps. Why is that relevant to everybody else, let alone determining an objective value for greatness?

Forget objective value; it does not exist.  Of course my wife's preferences are only relevant to her, and your preferences mean nothing to her.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Josquin des Prez on May 23, 2007, 09:16:31 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on May 23, 2007, 09:12:53 AM
Offhand, I think that is covered under the "greatness maps onto what I like best" fallacy.

I think this is more a case of "what i like best maps onto greatness".
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Don on May 23, 2007, 09:18:31 AM
Quote from: Josquin des Prez on May 23, 2007, 09:16:31 AM
I think this is more a case of "what i like best maps onto greatness".

Likely more from your end than my wife's.  Unlike you, she doesn't try to equate her preferences with any notions of greatness.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 23, 2007, 09:18:47 AM
Quote from: Don on May 23, 2007, 09:16:22 AM
Forget objective value; it does not exist.

Most of us are already in agreement on that point:

Quote from: Larry Rinkel on May 22, 2007, 07:35:39 PM
From this perspective, attempts to define artistic greatness as either "subjective" or "objective" are both doomed to fail. Greatness is a matter of judgment, that is, neither provable fact nor personal whim, but instead the collective response of composers, performers, listeners, and scholars. This doesn't mean either that the canon of musical greatness is ossified for all time, or that composers and works may not be reevaluated up or down, or that individuals may not depart from the generally accepted canon here and there in accordance with personal taste. But by and large, the collective judgment of musically interested people is remarkably consistent, giving the lie to the notion that we all simply respond as individuals in a purely personal and subjective manner.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Josquin des Prez on May 23, 2007, 09:20:57 AM
Quote from: Don on May 23, 2007, 09:16:22 AM
Forget objective value; it does not exist. 

What makes you so sure?

Quote from: Don on May 23, 2007, 09:16:22 AM
Of course my wife's preferences are only relevant to her, and your preferences mean nothing to her.

Of course, but by your logic no preference is ever relevant, which is a mistake.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 23, 2007, 09:21:21 AM
Quote from: Don on May 23, 2007, 09:18:31 AM
Likely more from your end than my wife's.  Unlike you, she doesn't try to equate her preferences with any notions of greatness.

All right.  But you had written:

Quote from: Don on May 23, 2007, 08:58:19 AM
What counts most is what speaks to her.

Which, given the discussion, might have been taken as some statement touching greatness.

What counts most to your wife, and in certain cases to you yourself, is what speaks to her.  No argument there.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Don on May 23, 2007, 09:22:27 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on May 23, 2007, 09:18:47 AM
Most of us are already in agreement on that point:


What's with the "most of us"?  You are one person, that's all.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Josquin des Prez on May 23, 2007, 09:24:02 AM
Quote from: Don on May 23, 2007, 09:18:31 AM
Likely more from your end than my wife's.  Unlike you, she doesn't try to equate her preferences with any notions of greatness.

My love for Bach is NOT a preference, particularly considering how hard i had to work to fully grasp his music. That is the first fallacy in your reasoning.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Don on May 23, 2007, 09:24:28 AM
Quote from: Josquin des Prez on May 23, 2007, 09:20:57 AM
What makes you so sure?

Of course, but by your logic no preference is ever relevant, which is a mistake.

On the contrary.  I never implied that preferences are not relevant; they are the driving force behind the music that an individual chooses to listen to.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Josquin des Prez on May 23, 2007, 09:24:48 AM
Quote from: James on May 23, 2007, 09:18:17 AM
yeah, thats what i was thinking also....or perhaps there is a language barrier issue or something, because it seems quintett is not fully comprehending whats being said.

Great exists ....and shock horror - bad exists, and many shades in between.

Inferior & superior...these things are reality.

And it is important that these things are pointed out for the SURVIVAL of art ... maybe folks don't notice that the world comprises a very large majority of the uneducated & unenlightened. That is not their fault. It would be yours & my fault if we failed to ADVOCATE what we believed to be the best of our culture. And that is not so as necessarily to convert them ... it is a marking out of territory, a bargaining posture, a statement of intent, as much as anything else.

Isn't it the logical conclusion of a relativistic line of thought that it is not possible to know, or proceed upon the basis that anything is better or worse than anything else ... a premise from which - in reality, not in wordgame land - it is impossible to begin evolution or growth of any kind. Put simply, relativism is a cop out. It is the equivalent to refusing to talk about ethics or metaphysics because you're a logical positivist and you think it's all nonsense. Logical postivism generally contradicting the rationalism of the Enlightenment. Aesthetic relativism is an idle cop-out, as it inevitably leads to an end to the discussion.

And isn't that what it comes down to: in the real world we must proceed on the basis of judgements ... and those judgements are made by the informed / educated, and are further nuanced, enhanced, and developed by intuitive knowledge of the uneducated-talented (as they evolve), and that these patterns demonstrate the quality & meaning of things to us?

And it is based on INFORMED opinion, informed by intuition and maybe learning too, but intuition is always before theory. And what that means in our imperfect world is that we JUDGE things by a consensus of informed opinion - inabsolute as that may be - and that such informed opinion is all we can judge with.

What is the problem with this ?

I'm just having to repeat the obvious - because to me there is a group-think over reaction to the calamitous idea that - in art - some people just don't get it and some do ... that some people are better than others ... that YOU CAN SAY SO, and that is the way it has been and probably always will be. And that is all we have ... but it's good enough.

And can anyone here really say that they don't judge ... by which I mean, when you KNOW at some fundamental level that, say, a certain player or attempt at composition is awful. Don't you ever feel that ? The passion & involvement - the desire to say that standards of rigour & quality have not been met.

Strong critical judgement is a prerequisite of high quality art.
I wonder ... has an artist of quality ever existed who did not exercise this critical judgement.

I'd love to hear of an alternative model.




Lo, it seems i'm not alone in this fading civilization.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Don on May 23, 2007, 09:27:46 AM
Quote from: Josquin des Prez on May 23, 2007, 09:24:02 AM
My love for Bach is NOT a preference, particularly considering how hard i had to work to fully grasp his music. That is the first fallacy in your reasoning.

Have it your way, but I'm not buying it.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 23, 2007, 09:28:54 AM
Quote from: Don on May 23, 2007, 09:22:27 AM
What's with the "most of us"?  You are one person, that's all.

Sure;  but I am not the only person to express agreement with that point on this thread.

There are ample opportunities for one person to employ the phrase most of us.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Scriptavolant on May 23, 2007, 09:29:12 AM
Quote from: James on May 23, 2007, 09:18:17 AM
Isn't it the logical conclusion of a relativistic line of thought that it is not possible to know, or proceed upon the basis that anything is better or worse than anything else ... a premise from which - in reality, not in wordgame land - it is impossible to begin evolution or growth of any kind. Put simply, relativism is a cop out. It is the equivalent to refusing to talk about ethics or metaphysics because you're a logical positivist and you think it's all nonsense. Logical postivism generally contradicting the rationalism of the Enlightenment. Aesthetic relativism is an idle cop-out, as it inevitably leads to an end to the discussion.

Come on! I may even agree with your view as a whole, but this is just not the way to put it. Relativism doesn't state that "anything is better or worse than anything else", it simply looks for given parameters and standards to make every statement meaningful in a given context.
And logical positivism doesn't reject metaphysics on the basis of a fancy, but it provides serious logical analysis of the reasons why metaphysical statements are nothing else but pseudo-statements, not necessarily denying its historical importance or developement.

It's a very ideological practice to reject (a distorted view of) relativism only on the basis that assuming a relativist perspective then "Art would die".
Provide instead detailed analysis and proofs of the fallacies in relativistic thought and the rightousness of non-relativism. Otherwise I will assume we're just chatting and chatting and making.. pseudo-statements.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Don on May 23, 2007, 09:29:58 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on May 23, 2007, 09:21:21 AM
All right.  But you had written:

Which, given the discussion, might have been taken as some statement touching greatness.

Then you took my statement in a way not intended.  There is no correlation between "what speaks to you" and greatness.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Don on May 23, 2007, 09:31:19 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on May 23, 2007, 09:28:54 AM
Sure;  but I am not the only person to express agreement with that point on this thread.


And I am not the only person to express disagreement.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Scriptavolant on May 23, 2007, 09:43:43 AM
Furthermore, I still find the whole discussion off-topic. Someone was talking about windsmill, no?
The anti-relativism ministries seem to fight against the idea that there is no such thing as a greater composer, or against the idea that Beethoven is not a great composer, that values are absolutely relative (no, they're relatively relative) and so on; but I still wonder who ever said or even thinked that (except maybe for 71 dB  :P)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 23, 2007, 09:48:59 AM
Quote from: Scriptavolant on May 23, 2007, 09:43:43 AM
The anti-relativism ministries seem to fight against the idea that there is no such thing as a greater composer, or against the idea that Beethoven is not a great composer

Not at all; Beethoven is assuredly a great composer.

So are they all, all great composers . . . .
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 23, 2007, 09:52:29 AM
Quote from: Don on May 23, 2007, 09:31:19 AM
And I am not the only person to express disagreement.

Actually, I believed that I was agreeing with a point of yours, that (purely) objective value is not a part of this.  Gurn said something much similar.  And I cited Larry's post which partly explained why objective value is, well, irrelevant here.

That is to say, you are an element in the set "many of us."
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Scriptavolant on May 23, 2007, 09:55:18 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on May 23, 2007, 09:48:59 AM
Not at all; Beethoven is assuredly a great composer.



I don't deny this (and I was wondering who does), so why keep on underlying a cinch? I don't see the point, there are no opponents.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 23, 2007, 09:55:42 AM
If on the other hand, you wish to disagree with the point now that I have indicated that it seems something of a consensus here, that is not exactly unusual, either  8)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 23, 2007, 09:56:35 AM
Quote from: Scriptavolant on May 23, 2007, 09:55:18 AM
I don't deny this (and I was wondering who does), so why keep on underlying a cinch? I don't see the point, there are no opponents.

Well, my subsequent irony, for one thing.

If all composers are great composers, there are no great composers.  There are, simply, composers.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Don on May 23, 2007, 09:57:41 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on May 23, 2007, 09:52:29 AM
Actually, I believed that I was agreeing with a point of yours, that (purely) objective value is not a part of this.  Gurn said something much similar.  And I cited Larry's post which partly explained why objective value is, well, irrelevant here.

That is to say, you are an element in the set "many of us."

Except that I don't feel a need to add others to buttress my opinions.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: EmpNapoleon on May 23, 2007, 10:00:20 AM
This is greatness at the GMG.  The place is called "good music."  Everyone wants to know why the music listed here at the GMG is great.  Its fun listening to people who like the same good music as you and annoying sometimes when listening to others who like different bad music.
But I've said nothing.

Quote from: karlhenning on May 23, 2007, 09:56:35 AM
If all composers are great composers, there are no great composers.  There are, simply, composers.

And of composers I've learned alot here at the GMG. 
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 23, 2007, 10:05:29 AM
Quote from: Don on May 23, 2007, 09:57:41 AM
Except that I don't feel a need to add others to buttress my opinions.

That's good that you tell us your needs and non-needs, Don.

You let us know when you divine the needs that people other than yourself feel, okay?  That might be of general interest, too.

I cannot tell for certain, of course.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Maciek on May 23, 2007, 10:14:34 AM
For what's it's worth my wife's top 3 are (in alphabetical order): Bach, Lutoslawski, Vivaldi. With no inner hierarchy as far as I know... :P

And now let me get back to my part of the discussion...
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: quintett op.57 on May 23, 2007, 10:23:27 AM
Quote from: James on May 23, 2007, 09:18:17 AM
yeah, thats what i was thinking also....or perhaps there is a language barrier issue or something, because it seems quintett is not fully comprehending whats being said.

Great exists ....and shock horror - bad exists, and many shades in between.

Inferior & superior...these things are reality.
Have I said the contrary?
I don't agree with Harry on this point.
It won't make it easier if you put words in my mouth.  ;)

If the greatest music was the most complex, all composers should kneel in front of Ockeghem.
You're assuming complexity is a sign of greatness : Explain to me.
You're assuming Bach has more variety : I say not in everything, because Vivaldi's orchestration is incredibly various for his time.

On the contrary of what you're saying, I'm waiting for your arguments with insatiable hunger.
Quote
I'm just having to repeat the obvious - because to me there is a group-think over reaction to the calamitous idea that - in art - some people just don't get it and some do ... that some people are better than others ... that YOU CAN SAY SO, and that is the way it has been and probably always will be. And that is all we have ... but it's good enough.
it's allright. I've always thought this. This is not really our point of disagreement.
My point is that there are composers who made several masterpieces capable of giving an immense pleasure to the listeners, like (Membre Jesus Nostri i'm just listening to). And trying to say who's the best among them is useless. I've never read a real argument. It's always something like "it's more complex".

Why should the most complex be the best?
to this I was never given an answer.
And keep thinking the most complex is the best....at being complex. :)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: quintett op.57 on May 23, 2007, 10:25:20 AM
not even right! : at being the most complex actually.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Scriptavolant on May 23, 2007, 10:37:58 AM
Quote from: quintett op.57 on May 23, 2007, 10:23:27 AM


Why should the most complex be the best?


That's the right question. I would add why the most spiritual, joyful, tragic should be the best? Best at what? At being spiritual, joyful, tragic? And how you quantify such characteristics?
It's just a matter of taste and cultural entourage, again; for example sanctioning that Beethoven is the greatest composer for he infused spirituality in music as anybody else it's nonsense, or at least it is no objective and absolute point at all. There are plenty of composers who did not care for spirituality the way Beethoven did, and you do not expect them to infuse spirituality in their music and you cannot compare them with the Master; so implicit in a statement like this (Beethoven is the best because he infused music with spirituality) is the fact that you assume spirituality to be the most important feature in Art. But this is just a personal choice, it may be shared by the community, but it remains an arbitrary parameter.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on May 23, 2007, 10:46:31 AM
Quote from: Josquin des Prez on May 23, 2007, 08:23:02 AM
I'd say yes, absolutely.


I'd say yes, absolutely, too.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 23, 2007, 10:49:53 AM
Quote from: DavidW on May 23, 2007, 06:15:45 AM
Before we can define and discuss greatness in music, we must first define and discuss the value of music.  The value of music is in how it enriches our culture.  It is art, and that is how we value art.

At first, that almost seems tautological: the value of something is how it adds value to something broader.

But it is not quite a tautology;  though I find myself a little disconcerted that the value of music is not in the thing itself, but in what it does for something else.  But, heck, maybe that's right.

[snip]

Quote from: DavidW on May 23, 2007, 06:15:45 AM
Now what do I mean when I say that music enriches culture?  I mean that valuable music improves, enhances art.  And now you're about to say aha! then the Beatles have no value.  And I say, not so fast, they do indeed enhance art because for better or worse they have shaped the way we view music, popular artists have added an extra-dimension to how we view music and art, separate from how we viewed folk music of the past.

Shaping (to whatever degree) the way we view the larger art world is a type of enriching, good.

[snip]

Quote from: DavidW on May 23, 2007, 06:15:45 AM
First of all I will note that we do not need a strict hierarchy of taste, just a concept of difference.  Let me illustrate this with an example in math [snip, though a good example, of course] . . . This is conceptually the same issue that I'm identifying with ranking value in music.  This is what I mean, there are many potential factors in determining greatness, and separate some composers from others without defining a strict hierarchy.  And that is why it is not valid to equate a sense of ranking in music with a strict hierarchy.

Excellent.

Quote from: DavidW on May 23, 2007, 06:15:45 AM
Now we have candidates for measuring greatness--
(a) craftsmanship in music
(b) consensus from informed group (musicians, critics)

I haven't seen any other good ones so far, so I will limit myself to those two factors.  Now I will show that neither one suffices to describe greatness in music.  If (a) was the sole factor in determining greatness in music than Cage's 4'33 would not be great.  This is because the work exemplifies a mastery of the conceptual understanding of art, and how to create a dynamic work that has shaped our view of how we interact with the world as a dynamic interchange.  Clearly the value of the work is tremendous!  It has had a great impact on culture as a whole.  But it does not show any mastery of music as a craft to composer.

That last line is the key, I think.  Craftsmanship can still be an important component.  The wag in me wants to say, "So maybe 4'33 is not in fact great."  But instead I agree with your closing point, that 4'33 does not exhibit mastery of the craft of composition, but is Something Else;  it is not a musical score, but is an invitation to consider ambient sound as "music."  It is in its way important, and important to Music, yet is in itself something rather Other.

(Parenthetically, of course I am with Bill that there are times when I am more content to hear a nightingale sing than to listen to music.  Myself, I both embrace the invitation to think a bit larger of music, and yet, resist the idea that the nightingale is an artist.  Put him on American Idol, and we'll see how he fares :-)

Quote from: DavidW on May 23, 2007, 06:15:45 AM
Thus, I must conclude that (a) can not be a sole factor in measuring greatness.  I understand why James and Opie think this way.  The composers they most esteem are absolute masters of their craft.  Beethoven, Mozart and Bach outshine all others in this respect.  But I see clearly that there is more to consider.

The craft, too, alters, as the work of past greats impacts the craft.  Bach's craft is not Monteverdi's craft, nor is Stravinsky's craft Beethoven's craft.  Yet all these several crafts are disciplines of excellence.

The water flows in the river, the river today is not yesterday's river.  And yet, not all water is the river.

Quote from: DavidW on May 23, 2007, 06:15:45 AM
So now I pose the following open questions:
(a) by this construction of greatness, are popular artists great?  I argued that they have value, but I have not discussed their greatness.

I'm not the man to answer, but I like the question, and I see the following factors as having impact on the answer:

1. Popular artists are something historically and socially different from both their forebears in The Larger Culture, and the (for want of a better term) classical artists.

2. The Informed Arbiters of popular artistry, and the I.A. of le monde classique, are largely (though by no means hermetically) separate.

2a. While that argues against a gauge to establish hierarchy &c. the classical artists enjoy a longer tradition as a tradition (as opposed to a popular artist sort of feeling in tune with centuries of folk artists — with whom many classical artists have also been in tune over the centuries, natch).  There is a practical "age difference" which is part of the difficulty of finding a common currency of evaluation.

3. One of the few general differences to have actual traction, in discussion "popular VS. classical" is, long-term artistry.  Time and time again, pop groups "play themselves out," pop writers "write themselves out."  There are exceptions, but (it seems to me) comparatively rare;  I don't pretend to understand why it's the case, but it does seem amply demonstrated.  On the contrary, in classical music, it is much the exception rather than the rule, when a composer's mastery does not wax greater and greater the more he writes.

Quote from: DavidW on May 23, 2007, 06:15:45 AM
(b) would composers that should be considered great fail to be so by this definition?  And in that case how should the meaning of greatness be augmented?

We should need to settle on what composers should be considered great :-)

Terrific post, David!
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on May 23, 2007, 10:50:48 AM
Quote from: Don on May 23, 2007, 09:18:31 AM
Likely more from your end than my wife's.  Unlike you, she doesn't try to equate her preferences with any notions of greatness.

Neither do I. My preferences are utterly irrelevant to what the musical culture has deemed most valuable. As it happens, in most cases they agree.

To quote an anecdote about Pierre Monteux: after a concert, an admirer came up to Monteux and said, "Maestro, I must admit, I really don't like the Brahms 3rd Symphony." Monteux: "Yes, yes, I know. But it does not matter."
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on May 23, 2007, 10:55:09 AM
Quote from: quintett op.57 on May 23, 2007, 10:23:27 AM
Why should the most complex be the best?
to this I was never given an answer.
And keep thinking the most complex is the best....at being complex. :)

Who said it was? if so, the "best" composer would be Brian Ferneyhough (whose rhythms are so complicated you can spend 15 minutes trying to count one of his measures).
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Maciek on May 23, 2007, 11:00:49 AM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on May 23, 2007, 05:32:03 AM
I don't think these are insuperable objections. You answer them yourself: "Maybe Chopin's music wouldn't be as good either because he wouldn't have access to all the best stuff happening in Europe."

You've entirely missed my point in more ways than one. :'(

First of all, note the "maybe"! It's there for a reason. I was trying to say something absurd and thus provocative. Would you for one minute believe that Chopin would have been a worse composer if he wasn't living in Paris? Why? Do you sincerely believe that he had access to anything in Paris that he wouldn't have had access to if he lived in Warsaw? And what exactly would that have been - especially considering the fact that most musicians in those times did travel from time to time... ???

QuoteThere are and always have been centers of musical culture where the efforts of various composers and performers were mutually productive. A composer does not simply emerge without a cultural background.

Completely disagree here again. It's all a matter of education. You don't have to be born in Germany to have a good musical education.

QuoteIn Europe these centers of musical culture were rooted primarily in the Germanic speaking countries, Italy, and France; somewhat less so in Russia, Spain, and England, perhaps even less in the Scandinavian and Baltic countries.

I believe that's completely false - you're simply listing the countries which were politically strongest for the last 200 years. But how do you know their musical culture was actually better developed than that of others? Well, you don't, because the culture of those countries which lose wars etc. is quickly forgotten, no matter how exquisite it was.

How many Polish Renaissance or Baroque composers do you know? I'm guessing none. Why? Because they were inferior to their Western colleagues? From what I've heard of Mikolaj Zielenski, Marcin Mielczewski or Stanislaw Sylwester Szarzynski and the like, I rather don't think so. The reason you don't know them is that Poland was absent from the European map from the end of the 18th century till the beginning of the 20th century, and then wasn't all that present later either. These are all extra-musical circumstances. If Poland hadn't finally reemerged as a fully independent state at the end of the 20th century there'd have been no hope for Polish Baroque or Renaissance composers. They'd have been completely forgotten - like, I suppose, many from less fortunate nations have been. And this would have nothing to do with quality!

And how about South American Baroque? From what I've heard I have no doubt it is great music - but somehow we're not flooded with recordings. I wonder why?

It is always people who decide what reaches a wider audience (what is recorded and what isn't) and people have their limits - they grow up in a specific culture, and have good knowledge of specific composers, and usually they will assume they know almost everything. An absolutely irrational belief... ::)

Quote
Nonetheless, the idea of a musical genius springing up in isolation in Kyrgyztan, doomed to eternal obscurity, may be possible but sounds to me far-fetched. Eventually, one way or another, however long it takes or despite whatever political or other obstacles, the cream rises to the top.

I don't believe that story. How exactly, pray tell, do you imagine the cream from Kyrgyztan would rise to the top of the Western world? A vacationing famous conductor would discover him accidentally? Accidentally - how? And what the hell would the conductor be doing vacationing in Kyrgyztan?? I know a rather disturbing story of a great composer discovered and promptly forgotten by the Polish conductor Henryk Czyz. While vacationing in the country he heard someone play some exquisite, modern mazurkas. He walked over to the window and asked the person at the piano what he was playing. It turned out the guy was playing his own compositions. The conductor walked away bewildered without finding out anything more. Needless to say, he was sorry about that for the rest of his life (he couldn't remember the exact place etc.).

All this does not mean that most of the established "greats" are not great. It just means that the canon has enormous holes in it, some of which will never be filled. Or at least that's not likely. So all of this is probably a bit off topic. But I've spent a moment writing it, so now I'm going to post it anyhow! :P
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Maciek on May 23, 2007, 11:01:16 AM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on May 23, 2007, 10:55:09 AM
Who said it was? if so, the "best" composer would be Brian Ferneyhough

Well, isn't he? ;)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 23, 2007, 11:04:45 AM
Quote from: MrOsa on May 23, 2007, 11:00:49 AM
Completely disagree here again. It's all a matter of education.

I don't know that your disagreement is complete here, Maciek; the musical centers are a source of musical education.  Even Haydn, who blossomed in isolation, went down to Esterhaza from Vienna.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Maciek on May 23, 2007, 11:07:01 AM
OK, I disagree partly. ;D I think you can get a decent education outside those centers - through books, through people who studied there etc. Or even a decent education that would be completely independent of those centers! Wow! :o ;)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 23, 2007, 11:17:12 AM
Quote from: MrOsa on May 23, 2007, 11:07:01 AM
OK, I disagree partly. ;D I think you can get a decent education outside those centers - through books, through people who studied there etc. Or even a decent education that would be completely independent of those centers! Wow! :o ;)

I think it possible, but exceptional.  Again, a matter of music's communal nature.  One can be self-taught to only such a degree.

OTOH, I think your mention of the South American Baroque very well taken. Though even by that label, it sounds an American cadet branch of the European style of the epoch. The point that especially lights up, I think, is how that is overlooked in the publishing industry . . . and the importance of publication.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Maciek on May 23, 2007, 11:22:16 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on May 23, 2007, 11:17:12 AM
The point that especially lights up, I think, is how that is overlooked in the publishing industry . . . and the importance of publication.

Yes, definitely! I think I mentioned Zarebski's name earlier in this thread. Well, he was one of Liszt's favorite students and a fantastically talented composer but unfortunately died young. Many of his works were never published, and then World War II came, Warsaw was burned in 1944, and countless manuscripts were lost, including (for example) his Piano Concerto. Had any of these manuscripts been published earlier, the music would have still been with us. :'(
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 23, 2007, 11:25:34 AM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on May 23, 2007, 10:50:48 AM
To quote an anecdote about Pierre Monteux: after a concert, an admirer came up to Monteux and said, "Maestro, I must admit, I really don't like the Brahms 3rd Symphony." Monteux: "Yes, yes, I know. But it does not matter."

:-)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 23, 2007, 11:26:21 AM
War is terrible, Maciek.  There are problems enough in the realm of culture, without the wasting barbarity.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 23, 2007, 11:28:41 AM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on May 23, 2007, 10:55:09 AM
Who said it was? if so, the "best" composer would be Brian Ferneyhough (whose rhythms are so complicated you can spend 15 minutes trying to count one of his measures).

Curiously, I once met a Canadian composer who had studied (some) with Ferneyhough.

This is pure fiction, but I imagine him saying, "Brian says there's no hurry.  Take half an hour to count it . . . ."
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Maciek on May 23, 2007, 11:29:31 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on May 23, 2007, 11:28:41 AM
"Brian says there's no hurry.  Take half an hour to count it . . . ."

LOL! :) :) :) 8)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on May 23, 2007, 11:30:56 AM
Quote from: MrOsa on May 23, 2007, 11:22:16 AM
Yes, definitely! I think I mentioned Zarebski's name earlier in this thread. Well, he was one of Liszt's favorite students and a fantastically talented composer but unfortunately died young. Many of his works were never published, and then World War II came, Warsaw was burned in 1944, and countless manuscripts were lost, including (for example) his Piano Concerto. Had any of these manuscripts been published earlier, the music would have still been with us. :'(

As to Zarebski and any other of the Polish composers you mention, I know nothing of them other than your word. And that's simply not enough for me. Musical merit is not necessarily distributed among all cultures and at all times. If you are going to propose new candidates for inclusion in the canon, the burden is on you, not on the people skeptical of you.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Don on May 23, 2007, 12:22:09 PM
I just wanted to make it clear that my personal views on greatness in music are pretty much in line with Karl's and a few others.  But I do feel protective of all the other folks, the bulk of whom have zero interest in classical music.  From a cultural point of view, their opinions also matter.

ONE PERSON - ONE VOTE.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Maciek on May 23, 2007, 01:24:31 PM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on May 23, 2007, 11:30:56 AM
As to Zarebski and any other of the Polish composers you mention, I know nothing of them other than your word. And that's simply not enough for me. Musical merit is not necessarily distributed among all cultures and at all times. If you are going to propose new candidates for inclusion in the canon, the burden is on you, not on the people skeptical of you.

You're aware of the fact that you're only proving my point? What sort of argument is that: "I've never heard of that composer so he can't be good - prove his value to me!" That's exactly the kind of arrogant "imperialist" attitude I was talking about. I'm not surprised that you haven't heard anything by Zarebski - AFAIK, Luke is the only other person on this forum who knows and likes his Piano Quintet. But I don't see how a new name can ever be included into the canon if you say "the burden is on you". Well, it's no burden for me, because his name is already included into my canon - and also into the canon of every single music student in Poland. The only question is this: who are the ignorant - the ones who know this music and give it credit, or the ones who refuse to even consider listening to it simply because they've never heard of it or because it wasn't included into their curriculum?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Scriptavolant on May 23, 2007, 01:33:35 PM
Quote from: MrOsa on May 23, 2007, 01:24:31 PM
What sort of argument is that: "I've never heard of that composer so he can't be good - prove his value to me!"

It is the same sort of argument Larry exposed here:

Quotebut rather a collective groundswell of opinion that relatively few depart from, and those who do are always tilting at windmills and constructing straw man arguments about "pompous windbags" and "intellectual cultural elites" and "mistakes of history" and the like.

You can depart from the majority, only by paying the price of constructing straw man. IN other words, the majority is aaaalways right. Ergo, if the majority does not know your main man, he's not worth being known at all.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Maciek on May 23, 2007, 01:40:18 PM
But I am speaking for the majority! And I mean vast majority! So why should the English-speaking majority be more important than the Polish-speaking majority? Or the Chinese-speaking majority? Or the Lithuanian-speaking majority?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: sonic1 on May 23, 2007, 02:17:27 PM
Quote from: MrOsa on May 23, 2007, 01:40:18 PM
But I am speaking for the majority! And I mean vast majority! So why should the English-speaking majority be more important than the Polish-speaking majority? Or the Chinese-speaking majority? Or the Lithuanian-speaking majority?

'cause you ain't 'merican foo!

Speak english or die!!















(yes I'm joking)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on May 23, 2007, 02:39:38 PM
Quote from: Scriptavolant on May 23, 2007, 01:33:35 PM
You can depart from the majority, only by paying the price of constructing straw man. IN other words, the majority is aaaalways right. Ergo, if the majority does not know your main man, he's not worth being known at all.

And what part of my previous statement did you miss?

QuoteGreatness is a matter of judgment, that is, neither provable fact nor personal whim, but instead the collective response of composers, performers, listeners, and scholars. This doesn't mean either that the canon of musical greatness is ossified for all time, or that composers and works may not be reevaluated up or down, or that individuals may not depart from the generally accepted canon here and there in accordance with personal taste.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on May 23, 2007, 02:44:32 PM
Quote from: MrOsa on May 23, 2007, 01:24:31 PM
You're aware of the fact that you're only proving my point? What sort of argument is that: "I've never heard of that composer so he can't be good - prove his value to me!" That's exactly the kind of arrogant "imperialist" attitude I was talking about. I'm not surprised that you haven't heard anything by Zarebski - AFAIK, Luke is the only other person on this forum who knows and likes his Piano Quintet. But I don't see how a new name can ever be included into the canon if you say "the burden is on you". Well, it's no burden for me, because his name is already included into my canon - and also into the canon of every single music student in Poland. The only question is this: who are the ignorant - the ones who know this music and give it credit, or the ones who refuse to even consider listening to it simply because they've never heard of it or because it wasn't included into their curriculum?

Oh, simmer down. For a moderator you're extremely immoderate. I reiterate: my personal feelings have nothing to do with the matter any more than yours do. If indeed "his name is already included into the canon of every single music student in Poland," then it's my point you are proving, not yours.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: PerfectWagnerite on May 23, 2007, 02:45:55 PM
It's simple: Beethoven and Bach and Mozart are great, Dittersorf and Elgar are not.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Maciek on May 23, 2007, 03:18:33 PM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on May 23, 2007, 02:44:32 PM
Oh, simmer down. For a moderator you're extremely immoderate.

How extremely kind of you to point that out. Where exactly did I offend you personally? I'm willing to edit out anything of that kind and publicly apologize.

Quote from: Larry Rinkel on May 23, 2007, 02:44:32 PM
If indeed "his name is already included into the canon of every single music student in Poland," then it's my point you are proving, not yours.

Apparently I don't understand what your point is. Mine is that if there is to be such a thing as a "general" canon, then it should indeed be general, i.e. include great works produced by composers from even those nations who were unfortunate enough to have been slaughtered to the last man. Since I don't know much about those nations, I've chosen a more moderate example - that of Poland. Now, as it happens, the canon taught at Polish music schools does not include a single piece of South American baroque music. In fact, I don't think it even contains a single piece of music by a British composer (? - maybe Britten, I'm not sure) but perhaps it does contain one or two by American ones. So that's not my notion of a true, "general" canon. OTOH, I don't think what is considered the canon in Poland is included in the canon in other countries. At least not that I've heard of. So my point is that so far all canons are local, both temporally (Gurn's point and mine in a smaller part) and spatially (my point). Until your last post I understood your point to be that there is a "general" canon, developed over the ages by collective consensus which includes every (or almost every) "great" piece of classical music ever written (with the obvious exceptions of works lost etc.). But now I have no idea what your point is anymore... ???
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: quintett op.57 on May 23, 2007, 03:26:14 PM
Quote from: MrOsa on May 23, 2007, 01:24:31 PM
You're aware of the fact that you're only proving my point? What sort of argument is that: "I've never heard of that composer so he can't be good - prove his value to me!"
Maciek, you're overreacting, he's not said that.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Scriptavolant on May 23, 2007, 03:27:32 PM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on May 23, 2007, 02:39:38 PM
And what part of my previous statement did you miss?


Actually I didn't miss it, I've read your post about 3-4 times, but could not see any definitive straight conclusion in your arguments. Furthermore, if you say that greatness is:

"a matter of judgment, that is, neither provable fact nor personal whim, but instead the collective response of composers, performers, listeners, and scholars"

you may also admit that these judgements are doomed (to use your expression) to change sooner or later. A thing that you seem to sustain later, when you say:

"This doesn't mean either that the canon of musical greatness is ossified for all time, or that composers and works may not be reevaluated up or down, or that individuals may not depart from the generally accepted canon here and there in accordance with personal taste"

A statement that personally I couldn't reconcile with the idea by which departing from the majority implies the assumption of straw man. No, departing from the majority may imply the non-ossification and variability of judgements and frameworks throughout history. But you labeled the evidence of "mistakes of history" again as a straw man.
So probably we're talking about different things, not having achieved an agreement on the meaning of the terms we're using.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Maciek on May 23, 2007, 03:36:00 PM
Quote from: quintett op.57 on May 23, 2007, 03:26:14 PM
Maciek, you're overreacting, he's not said that.

Well what is this supposed to mean then (especially the parts in bold):
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on May 23, 2007, 11:30:56 AM
As to Zarebski and any other of the Polish composers you mention, I know nothing of them other than your word. And that's simply not enough for me. Musical merit is not necessarily distributed among all cultures and at all times. If you are going to propose new candidates for inclusion in the canon, the burden is on you, not on the people skeptical of you.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: dtwilbanks on May 23, 2007, 03:37:25 PM
Cute baby.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Gurn Blanston on May 23, 2007, 03:54:50 PM
Quote
QuoteQuote from: quintett op.57 on Today at 06:26:14 PM
Maciek, you're overreacting, he's not said that.
Well what is this supposed to mean then (especially the parts in bold):
QuoteQuote from: Larry Rinkel on Today at 02:30:56 PM
As to Zarebski and any other of the Polish composers you mention, I know nothing of them other than your word. And that's simply not enough for me. Musical merit is not necessarily distributed among all cultures and at all times. If you are going to propose new candidates for inclusion in the canon, the burden is on you, not on the people skeptical of you

Hmmm, not entirely sure what else it could mean... :-\

8)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Maciek on May 23, 2007, 03:55:28 PM
Quote from: dtwilbanks on May 23, 2007, 03:37:25 PM
Cute baby.

Thanks, Dave. ;D 8)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Gurn Blanston on May 23, 2007, 04:09:31 PM
Quote from: DavidW on May 23, 2007, 06:15:45 AM

Greatness in music--

Notice that if I don't define anyway to distinguish between the value of one work or composer from another then we have a problem-- all works are treated equally.  We need candidates for how we rank value.  But let's first address the issue of hierarchy.

First of all I will note that we do not need a strict hierarchy of taste, just a concept of difference.  Let me illustrate this with an example in math-- you can define a notion of < with numbers, and it's well defined, so you can form a hierarchy of numbers with any finite set such as {1,2,7} you would have 1 < 2 < 7.  But what about pairs of numbers?  There is no well defined way to define a hierarchy to rate a set such as {(1,0),(-1,0),(2,5)}.  No matter how you will define it you will run into problems.  Yet you notice that we can easily distinguish between these pairs of numbers, right?  And clearly there is a relative separation between them that's easily defined, and you can rank those separations easily!  And we do have some vague sense that some points are further away than others.  This is conceptually the same issue that I'm identifying with ranking value in music.  This is what I mean, there are many potential factors in determining greatness, and separate some composers from others without defining a strict hierarchy.  And that is why it is not valid to equate a sense of ranking in music with a strict hierarchy.

Well, the crux arrives! Great post, BTW, David. But that last sentence, after the big SNIP, sums up well, not only everything you wrote before, but my own feeling on the subject. And effectively kneecaps the argument that people who enjoy the gamut of classical composers are somehow unable to differentiate between "quality" of different composers' music, or that they can't recognize "greatness". What bullcrap! Just because I can tell Mozart from Vanhal, doesn't mean I can't enjoy Vanhal, and strictly on his own terms. What, is this some feat of intellectual accomplishment that eludes the connoisseur? Hardly, it is a feat only insofar as one allows oneself to block out extramusical associations and simply listen to the music, hopefully placing it in a context that is suitable for its time. I don't even think of it as Elgarian freethinking, rather it is disassociating yourself from the comparison/contest paradigm that we seem obsessed with.

QuoteSo now I pose the following open questions:
(a) by this construction of greatness, are popular artists great?  I argued that they have value, but I have not discussed their greatness.
(b) would composers that should be considered great fail to be so by this definition?  And in that case how should the meaning of greatness be augmented?

Valid questions both, and demanding of such replies as I can't give them now, without further thought on it. I'll be back. :)

8)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: sonic1 on May 23, 2007, 04:26:09 PM
Gurn, well put!

I believe it is true that the more narrow one's listening, the more likely one is to cannonize. There are great names in music, for sure. But besides the few most agree on (Bach, Beethoven, Mozart) you will get into territorial issues and prejudice of taste. Some will want to add Mahler, others not. Some will want to add Schoenberg, others not. Some will want to add Brahms, others not. Some will want to add Wagner, others not, etc. etc. Many will want to speak of greatness within each subgenre, others not. It all gets too annoying, and makes me just want to hang out in the "what are you listening to" thread which at a great many times is the best source of information in the forum when opinions get a little thick.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Maciek on May 23, 2007, 04:32:37 PM
And remember we have at least one forum member who wouldn't even include Mozart in the canon! ;D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Gurn Blanston on May 23, 2007, 04:35:16 PM
Quote from: sonic1 on May 23, 2007, 04:26:09 PM
Gurn, well put!

I believe it is true that the more narrow one's listening, the more likely one is to cannonize. There are great names in music, for sure. But besides the few most agree on (Bach, Beethoven, Mozart) you will get into territorial issues and prejudice of taste. Some will want to add Mahler, others not. Some will want to add Schoenberg, others not. Some will want to add Brahms, others not. Some will want to add Wagner, others not, etc. etc. Many will want to speak of greatness within each subgenre, others not. It all gets too annoying, and makes me just want to hang out in the "what are you listening to" thread which at a great many times is the best source of information in the forum when opinions get a little thick.

Thanks, sonic. Oh yes, I completely agree with that. Even if we are completely willing to go along with the consensus and say that there are 3 or 4 composers that rise above all others, so what? Is that all we will listen to then? And if we listen to others, is it just an exercise to see how badly they fare in comparison with the anointed few? If it is (which I believe) that, then how can anyone else possibly come off well, as opposed to being approached with an open mind?  :-\

8)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: quintett op.57 on May 23, 2007, 04:38:37 PM
Quote from: MrOsa on May 23, 2007, 03:36:00 PM
Well what is this supposed to mean then (especially the parts in bold):
that he's skeptical, nothing more
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Guido on May 23, 2007, 04:48:12 PM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on May 23, 2007, 06:02:18 AM
Indeed. Name one. The mavericks (who apparently feel affronted by the concept of a generally accepted canon) are always pushing this or that dubious candidate forward.

Charles Ives was not known for many years. If we were having this discussion in 1945, you might have said the same thing as you did above, and this would have been a prime example. Just because its unlikely, Dosn't mean its impossible. Mahler also took a long time to be truly acknowledge for his compositional greatness - only the 50s or 60s really (or even later?)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: sonic1 on May 23, 2007, 05:30:07 PM
Quote from: Guido on May 23, 2007, 04:48:12 PM
Charles Ives was not known for many years. If we were having this discussion in 1945, you might have said the same thing as you did above, and this would have been a prime example. Just because its unlikely, Dosn't mean its impossible. Mahler also took a long time to be truly acknowledge for his compositional greatness - only the 50s or 60s really (or even later?)

and e-hem! Bach for christ's sake, considered a nobody until much much later.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Josquin des Prez on May 23, 2007, 05:38:44 PM
Quote from: sonic1 on May 23, 2007, 05:30:07 PM
Bach for christ's sake, considered a nobody until much much later.

Incorrect. Bach was highly esteemed in his time and was well known among musicians and connoisseurs alike. His 'revival' merely popularized his name among the general audience, nothing more.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on May 23, 2007, 05:41:39 PM
Quote from: sonic1 on May 23, 2007, 05:30:07 PM
and e-hem! Bach for christ's sake, considered a nobody until much much later.

And e-hem!, you have your music history wrong. He was admired, but not widely performed. Only 20 years after his death Mozart was delighted by his discovery of the motets of Bach; only 30-40 years after his demise the young Beethoven's primary course of piano study was the WTC.

QuoteIn his later years and after his death, Bach's reputation as a composer declined: his work was regarded as old-fashioned compared to the emerging classical style. He was far from forgotten, however: he was remembered as a player and teacher (as well, of course, as composer), and as father of his children (most notably C. P. E. Bach). His best-appreciated compositions in this period were his keyboard works, in which field other composers continued to acknowledge his mastery. Mozart and Beethoven were among his most prominent admirers. On a visit to the Thomasschule in Leipzig, Mozart heard a performance of one of the motets (BWV 225) and exclaimed, 'Now, here is something one can learn from!'; on being given the parts of the motets, 'Mozart sat down, the parts all around him, held in both hands, on his knees, on the nearest chairs. Forgetting everything else, he did not stand up again until he had looked through all the music of Sebastian Bach'. Beethoven was also a devotee, learning the Well-Tempered Clavier as a child and later calling Bach 'Urvater der Harmonie' ('original father of harmony') and 'nicht Bach, sondern Meer' ('not a stream but a sea', punning on the literal meaning of the composer's name).
http://www.8notes.com/biographies/bach.asp#Legacy
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 23, 2007, 05:43:56 PM
Quote from: PerfectWagnerite on May 23, 2007, 02:45:55 PM
It's simple: Beethoven and Bach and Mozart are great, Dittersorf and Elgar are not.

It's not that simple.

I won't hear that Elgar is anywhere as plain-toast as Dittersdwarf!  ;D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 23, 2007, 05:46:35 PM
Quote from: Gurn Blanston on May 23, 2007, 04:09:31 PM
What bullcrap! Just because I can tell Mozart from Vanhal, doesn't mean I can't enjoy Vanhal, and strictly on his own terms.

I agree!  Although I have little direct experience with cattle . . . .
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: sonic1 on May 23, 2007, 05:46:41 PM
Yes, but Bach was not in the GREAT category in discussion here until later, much later, which is my point. Gosh we are getting a little snippity here.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on May 23, 2007, 05:46:49 PM
Quote from: Scriptavolant on May 23, 2007, 03:27:32 PM
you may also admit that these judgements are doomed (to use your expression) to change sooner or later. A thing that you seem to sustain later, when you say:

Not what I said. I said what is doomed are attempts to "prove" the value of a musical composition objectively, or to go to the opposite extreme and and say that it's all subjective or personal.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 23, 2007, 05:47:33 PM
Quote from: sonic1 on May 23, 2007, 04:26:09 PM
I believe it is true that the more narrow one's listening, the more likely one is to cannonize.

That's an interesting remark.  Not sure it will hold up, but its interest is undeniable.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: sonic1 on May 23, 2007, 05:50:48 PM
Quote from: karlhenning on May 23, 2007, 05:47:33 PM
That's an interesting remark.  Not sure it will hold up, but its interest is undeniable.

It seems to me that the more narrow one's listening, the more likely one is to consider "greatness" within their own listening repertoire. The music more in what is THEIR fringe will never be considered "great". People who are more open in their listening palette are more likely to accept greatness in a broader sense, or even find the practice of assigning greatness a bit silly.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on May 23, 2007, 05:50:55 PM
Quote from: Guido on May 23, 2007, 04:48:12 PM
Charles Ives was not known for many years. If we were having this discussion in 1945, you might have said the same thing as you did above, and this would have been a prime example. Just because its unlikely, Dosn't mean its impossible. Mahler also took a long time to be truly acknowledge for his compositional greatness - only the 50s or 60s really (or even later?)

Ives is a special case, the American genius (like Emily Dickinson) working in virtually complete isolation during his lifetime. But he has been discovered and given his fair due. None of that contradicts anything I ever said. The discovery of Ives resulted from the efforts of influential performers like Kirkpatrick and Bernstein, not from private individuals eager to thumb their noses at the canon to push forward the claims of their dubious candidates.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: bwv 1080 on May 23, 2007, 05:53:07 PM
Quote from: Guido on May 23, 2007, 04:48:12 PM
Charles Ives was not known for many years. If we were having this discussion in 1945, you might have said the same thing as you did above, and this would have been a prime example. Just because its unlikely, Dosn't mean its impossible. Mahler also took a long time to be truly acknowledge for his compositional greatness - only the 50s or 60s really (or even later?)

How did Ives greatness come to be recognized?  Schoenberg, Carter, Nicolas Slonimsky, Leonard Bernstein and other composers and conductors promoted his music to the classical music audience as a whole, who accepted him.   It should not surprise anyone that it sometimes takes a generation or two for the culture to digest and recognize the importance of a particular composer.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Scriptavolant on May 23, 2007, 05:53:36 PM
For what we are concerned, even if Sonic1 statement is a bit drastical, this abstract make the point:

QuoteIn his later years and after his death, Bach's reputation as a composer declined: his work was regarded as old-fashioned compared to the emerging classical style. He was far from forgotten, however: he was remembered as a player and teacher (as well, of course, as composer)

Oh! As well, of course, as a composer!

There is no way to compare Bach greatness as we know it today (plenty of studies, recordings, literature, "collective groundswell of opinions") and his greatness in 1751.
He was admired, ok, by a narrow minority.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on May 23, 2007, 05:54:35 PM
Quote from: quintett op.57 on May 23, 2007, 04:38:37 PM
that he's skeptical, nothing more

I'm glad someone's listening.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Josquin des Prez on May 23, 2007, 05:56:30 PM
Quote from: sonic1 on May 23, 2007, 05:46:41 PM
Yes, but Bach was not in the GREAT category in discussion here until later, much later, which is my point. Gosh we are getting a little snippity here.

Not as late as you think:

(http://www.secm.org/misc/sun/bigsun.jpg)

http://www.secm.org/misc/sun/sun.html#sun

;D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Scriptavolant on May 23, 2007, 05:58:24 PM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on May 23, 2007, 05:46:49 PM
Not what I said. I said what is doomed are attempts to "prove" the value of a musical composition objectively, or to go to the opposite extreme and and say that it's all subjective or personal.

I was refering to this part:

"This doesn't mean either that the canon of musical greatness is ossified for all time [...]"

Isn't implicit in that proposition that the canon of musical greaness will change somehow, someway?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: sonic1 on May 23, 2007, 06:04:42 PM
Quote from: Josquin des Prez on May 23, 2007, 05:56:30 PM
Not as late as you think:

(http://www.secm.org/misc/sun/bigsun.jpg)

http://www.secm.org/misc/sun/sun.html#sun

;D

Alright alright I stand corrected on the Bach comment.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: JoshLilly on May 23, 2007, 06:08:09 PM
Bach? Great? Do you mean Johann Sebastian in that? Why? I for one don't think so, and never have. What's so great about him? I don't normally talk about or think about what I don't like, and avoid posting to threads that are devoted to pieces or composers I don't care for. But I'm just asking a question: why do I have to acknowledge something as great when it isn't? Here: Bach isn't great. And I mean that with absolute sincerity. His music has always sounded to me like something that an ancient steam automaton would write, devoid of imagination, spirit, emotion. Even when he tried to write something beautiful, it still sounds soul-lessly mechanical. If Heron of Alexandria had constructed a steam robot that would, based on gears and levers, punch holes into paper to create music based on some unthinking mechanical pattern, we'd have had J.S. Bach 1700 years before his time. And it's not the time period, because Zelenka wrote stuff that can make me happy. J.S. Bach's music makes me think: inhuman machine.

By the way, this is payback to the constant mocking of Dittersdorf  ;D   And another by the way, I do consider Dittersdorf (with 100% honesty) to have been a great composer. The great thing is, I'm not wrong, and can't be wrong. Then again, I'm not right and can't be right. It's all vibrations in the air, that's all it is, nothing more. The only facts involved would be to identify what note is what, at what frequencies they operate, what volume, so on. These things can be defined. But that's it. It's still vibrations in the air. There are no facts with this beyond identifying the specifics that make up the sound waves that bounce into your ear. I've never understood why people get so worked up over vibrations in the air, when someone says that they don't like one particular grouping, or someone likes another grouping that they don't. Wow. Woohoo. You know what? I didn't care for the movie The Godfather either.

The only thing I care about, is the arrogance - and that's what it is - of those who insist that one particular favouritism must be enforced on others. It doesn't matter how widely accepted a preference is, it's still just a preference. Even if the whole world's population agreed down to the last individual, it's still not a fact.


Oh yeah, one last thing: Elgar sucks!     ....... maybe I better run now.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Josquin des Prez on May 23, 2007, 06:13:40 PM
I see the relativists keep coming out of the wood work. There must be a den somewhere that keeps producing those anti-establishment revolutionary wannabes...
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: JoshLilly on May 23, 2007, 06:19:22 PM
Ha, insult away, but I'm still not wrong. Vibrations in the air will always just be vibrations in the air, no matter how strongly anyone wants their taste to be "Right".
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Gurn Blanston on May 23, 2007, 06:21:19 PM
Quote from: JoshLilly on May 23, 2007, 06:19:22 PM
Ha, insult away, but I'm still not wrong. Vibrations in the air will always just be vibrations in the air, no matter how strongly anyone wants their taste to be "Right".

I'm happy to be a relativist if it means that I don't have to consult the stone tablets every time I want to listen to a new piece of music... ::)

8)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: dtwilbanks on May 23, 2007, 06:21:27 PM
Quote from: JoshLilly on May 23, 2007, 06:19:22 PM
Ha, insult away, but I'm still not wrong. Vibrations in the air will always just be vibrations in the air, no matter how strongly anyone wants their taste to be "Right".

Vibrations in the air. All we are is vibrations in the air...

;)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Scriptavolant on May 23, 2007, 06:23:25 PM
Quote from: Gurn Blanston on May 23, 2007, 06:21:19 PM
I'm happy to be a relativist if it means that I don't have to consult the stone tablets every time I want to listen to a new piece of music... ::)

8)

(http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/Themes/GMG/images/post/thumbup.gif)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Josquin des Prez on May 23, 2007, 06:27:20 PM
Quote from: Gurn Blanston on May 23, 2007, 06:21:19 PM
I'm happy to be a relativist if it means that I don't have to consult the stone tablets every time I want to listen to a new piece of music... ::)

8)

The first fallacy in your attitude is to assume Bach's reputation as a composer isn't something he earned for himself, but something that was ascribed to him by the carvers of those so called 'stone tablets' (who ever they may be).

Thus, the argument goes full circle.  We should merge the 9th thread with this one. ;D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on May 23, 2007, 06:40:27 PM
Quote from: Scriptavolant on May 23, 2007, 05:58:24 PM
I was refering to this part:

"This doesn't mean either that the canon of musical greatness is ossified for all time [...]"

Isn't implicit in that proposition that the canon of musical greaness will change somehow, someway?

It may, subtly and over time. We don't know what music will be valued by the culture of 100 years from now, and it's always possible that some reputations will undergo a striking change. But I tend to think the currently accepted roster is a pretty good one.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on May 23, 2007, 06:42:59 PM
Quote from: Gurn Blanston on May 23, 2007, 06:21:19 PM
I'm happy to be a relativist if it means that I don't have to consult the stone tablets every time I want to listen to a new piece of music... ::)

8)

There are no stone tablets. Straw man argument again. There is only the overwhelming, collected enthusiasm and devotion of generations of composers, performers, teachers, listeners, and scholars.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: JoshLilly on May 23, 2007, 06:44:54 PM
Collected opinion is not collected fact.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on May 23, 2007, 06:46:05 PM
Quote from: sonic1 on May 23, 2007, 04:26:09 PM
Gurn, well put!

I believe it is true that the more narrow one's listening, the more likely one is to cannonize. There are great names in music, for sure. But besides the few most agree on (Bach, Beethoven, Mozart) you will get into territorial issues and prejudice of taste. Some will want to add Mahler, others not. Some will want to add Schoenberg, others not. Some will want to add Brahms, others not. Some will want to add Wagner, others not, etc. etc. Many will want to speak of greatness within each subgenre, others not. It all gets too annoying, and makes me just want to hang out in the "what are you listening to" thread which at a great many times is the best source of information in the forum when opinions get a little thick.

Brahms, Schoenberg, Mahler, and Wagner are all unquestionably part of the musical canon as it is presently understood. That this one or that one doesn't care for their music is irrelevant to that fact.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Gurn Blanston on May 23, 2007, 06:46:32 PM
Quote from: Josquin des Prez on May 23, 2007, 06:27:20 PM
The first fallacy in your attitude is to assume Bach's reputation as a composer isn't something he earned for himself, but something that was ascribed to him by the carvers of those so called 'stone tablets' (who ever they made be).

Thus, the argument goes full circle.  We should merge the 9th thread with this one. ;D

But I'm not denigrating Bach in any way when I say that I am pleased to listen to other composers too. In what way does it harm Bach if I happen to delight in Vivaldi, for example? Or does it harm Mozart if i happen to really enjoy Ditters' "Symphonies after Ovid's Metamorphoses"?  It doesn't, and the reason it doesn't is because I am not comparing Vivaldi to Bach, nor Ditters to Mozart. I am simply enjoying their legacy. By the way, the Corrette gamba sonata I'm listening too is virtually great. :D

8)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on May 23, 2007, 06:46:48 PM
Quote from: JoshLilly on May 23, 2007, 06:44:54 PM
Collected opinion is not collected fact.

You love tilting at windmills, don't you, Josh?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Josquin des Prez on May 23, 2007, 06:49:26 PM
Quote from: Gurn Blanston on May 23, 2007, 06:46:32 PM
But I'm not denigrating Bach in any way when I say that I am pleased to listen to other composers too.

Another straw man. Recognizing the greatness or superiority of a composer doesn't preclude enjoyment from lesser figures. We have already went over those points in the other thread. 

There are ways to denigrate Bach, of course. For instance, what if his reputation is the result of brainwashing?  ;D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: JoshLilly on May 23, 2007, 06:50:43 PM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on May 23, 2007, 06:46:48 PM
You love tilting at windmills, don't you, Josh?


Someone apparently does.
None of this is tilting at windmills. None of these are strawman arguments. Just saying such dismissive things does not make them true. People are insisting that some composers are "factually" superior to others. They're doing it on this very thread, even. I am arguing against it, directly. That precludes the possibility of it being a strawman argument, as I have not invented any target against which to argue.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on May 23, 2007, 06:55:41 PM
Quote from: Gurn Blanston on May 23, 2007, 06:46:32 PM
But I'm not denigrating Bach in any way when I say that I am pleased to listen to other composers too. In what way does it harm Bach if I happen to delight in Vivaldi, for example? Or does it harm Mozart if i happen to really enjoy Ditters' "Symphonies after Ovid's Metamorphoses"?  It doesn't, and the reason it doesn't is because I am not comparing Vivaldi to Bach, nor Ditters to Mozart. I am simply enjoying their legacy. By the way, the Corrette gamba sonata I'm listening too is virtually great. :D

8)

Straw man again. Nobody says you can't enjoy whatever you want. In fact, to my mind, the greatest works are not always the most "enjoyable." I need to put myself in a frame of special concentration to experience works like the St. Matthew Passion and the late Beethoven quartets. They inspire not only the most intense engagement, but a sense of awe that makes me even fear listening to them in case they annihilate me, or that I cannot devote to them the single-minded concentration they deserve. Vanhal and Vivaldi do not require so much. What I'm talking about, in literary terms, was what Keats wrote in his sonnet on reading King Lear:

QuoteOn Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once Again

O golden-tongued Romance with serene lute!
    Fair plumed Syren! Queen of far away!
    Leave melodizing on this wintry day,
Shut up thine olden pages, and be mute:
Adieu! for once again the fierce dispute,
    Betwixt damnation and impassion'd clay
    Must I burn through; once more humbly assay
The bitter-sweet of this Shakespearian fruit.
Chief Poet! and ye clouds of Albion,
    Begetters of our deep eternal theme,
When through the old oak forest I am gone,
    Let me not wander in a barren dream,
But when I am consumed in the fire,
Give me new Phoenix wings to fly at my desire.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Scriptavolant on May 23, 2007, 06:59:47 PM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on May 23, 2007, 06:40:27 PM
We don't know what music will be valued by the culture of 100 years from now

So our knowledge, good and reasonable, is still relative to our time and culture.

Quote from: Josquin des Prez on May 23, 2007, 06:49:26 PM
Another straw man. Recognizing the greatness or superiority of a composer doesn't preclude enjoyment from lesser figures. We have already went over those points in the other thread. 

That raises the question of what bearing the acknowledgement of greatness has on our everyday lives, or in the enjoyment of music. I suspect very little.


Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Josquin des Prez on May 23, 2007, 07:01:01 PM
Quote from: JoshLilly on May 23, 2007, 06:50:43 PM
People are insisting that some composers are "factually" superior to others.

They are. It's insanity to even suggest either wise.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on May 23, 2007, 07:01:25 PM
Quote from: JoshLilly on May 23, 2007, 06:08:09 PM
Bach? Great? Do you mean Johann Sebastian in that? Why? I for one don't think so, and never have. What's so great about him? I don't normally talk about or think about what I don't like, and avoid posting to threads that are devoted to pieces or composers I don't care for. But I'm just asking a question: why do I have to acknowledge something as great when it isn't? Here: Bach isn't great.

Who's insisting that some composers are "factually" superior (or in this case inferior) to others now?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on May 23, 2007, 07:02:43 PM
Quote from: Scriptavolant on May 23, 2007, 06:59:47 PM
So our knowledge, good and reasonable, is still relative to our time and culture.

Yeah. So what?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: JoshLilly on May 23, 2007, 07:04:14 PM
I'm not telling anyone else that J.S. Bach's music is not great for them. That's the difference. I'm not saying that there is some proof or indeniability to my taste.


"They are. It's insanity to even suggest either wise."

Prove. It.
Facts are facts. There are none to be had here. My challenge to prove it is unanswerable, because there is no such proof, not within all the bounds of physical reality, not within all the cosmos, or within the bounds of time immemorial from beginning to end, or beyond. There is no such proof because it is not a statement of fact. Good or bad, great and poor, none of these things are facts, none can ever be proven. To insist that non-facts are factual is what is insanity.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Josquin des Prez on May 23, 2007, 07:09:08 PM
Quote from: Scriptavolant on May 23, 2007, 06:59:47 PM
That raises the question of what bearing the acknowledgement of greatness has on our everyday lives, or in the enjoyment of music.

Are you questioning why the acknowledgment of truth and it's defense is relevant to our lives? Where would human achievement as a whole be without it?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on May 23, 2007, 07:12:27 PM
Quote from: JoshLilly on May 23, 2007, 06:44:54 PM
Collected opinion is not collected fact.

Who said it was? You seem to be so stuck in a logical positivist way of thinking that you can't conceive of an alternative. We're not dealing with mathematical proofs here. We're dealing with the culture of classical music, and the enthusiasm and devotion shown to a body of work that for many lovers of classical music is transcendent by virtue of its imagination, power, beauty, technique, and originality. You can choose to hear it or not, but if you don't the only person who loses out is you.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Josquin des Prez on May 23, 2007, 07:14:18 PM
Quote from: JoshLilly on May 23, 2007, 07:04:14 PM
Prove. It.

No such thing. Go see for yourself...
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on May 23, 2007, 07:18:49 PM
Quote from: Scriptavolant on May 23, 2007, 06:59:47 PM
That raises the question of what bearing the acknowledgement of greatness has on our everyday lives, or in the enjoyment of music. I suspect very little.

Enormous value, in my life. Not being a believer, the existence of staggering works of the imagination like Hamlet, the Divine Comedy, the C# minor quartet, the Mass in B minor, the Ring, etc., is the closest I can come to religious experience.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: JoshLilly on May 23, 2007, 07:21:13 PM
If it can't ever be proven, then it's not a truth.


And how am I losing out? I listen to whatever I want, whenever I want, and without anyone telling me what's great or what isn't. My music collection is gargantuan, I constantly seek out and listen to things I've never heard before, eat foods I've never tasted before, visit places I've never visited before. I want to experience as much as I can, and learn as much as I can, before I die. Just what am I missing out on by this approach? Cultures are fine and dandy, I have no problem with them... just when a culture says that its set of beliefs is "right" universally, and everyone else's taste is wrong... well, I'm sure people can finish that thought.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Scriptavolant on May 23, 2007, 07:25:49 PM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on May 23, 2007, 07:18:49 PM
Enormous value, in my life. Not being a believer, the existence of staggering works of the imagination like Hamlet, the Divine Comedy, the C# minor quartet, the Mass in B minor, the Ring, etc., is the closest I can come to religious experience.

The thing you seem to be concerned with is the effect those magnificent art works have on your individuality and or spirituality; which I think is something that maintains great importance even without the consent of the moltitude and the approval of a groundswell of opinions.

Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Josquin des Prez on May 23, 2007, 07:31:57 PM
Quote from: JoshLilly on May 23, 2007, 07:21:13 PM
If it can't ever be proven, then it's not a truth.

Says who?

Quote from: JoshLilly on May 23, 2007, 07:21:13 PM
And how am I losing out? I listen to whatever I want, whenever I want, and without anyone telling me what's great or what isn't.

I'm not so sure about that. You original reply was a textbook example of the usual 'anti-conformism' that lurks around this forum. Not only you dismissed Bach completely (total negation of the status quo, no repeal), but you also felt the need to tell us about your love for an 'obscure' (always) alternative, in this case Zelenka. I've seen this behavior so many times now i have an hard time believing it came out of your own free will. I can't help but smell a bias, perhaps even an unconscious one, but a bias still. Sorry.

Quote from: JoshLilly on May 23, 2007, 07:21:13 PM
My music collection is gargantuan

But strangely enough, it contains no Bach.

Quote from: JoshLilly on May 23, 2007, 07:21:13 PM
I constantly seek out and listen to things I've never heard before

You are not as unique as you think in this. We all do it, but some of us have enough sense to keep everything under the correct perspective.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on May 23, 2007, 07:34:58 PM
Quote from: Scriptavolant on May 23, 2007, 07:25:49 PM
The thing you seem to be concerned with is the effect those magnificent art works have on your individuality and or spirituality; which I think is something that maintains great importance even without the consent of the moltitude and the approval of a groundswell of opinions.



Not at all. I wouldn't have gravitated toward those works had they not already been monuments of the culture.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: JoshLilly on May 23, 2007, 08:04:50 PM
"But strangely enough, it contains no Bach. "

Well that's completely false, I have a myriad of CDs by multiple composers named "Bach", including Johann Sebastian. My second-to-most recent CD purchase was of J.S. Bach cantatas, of all things. Nancy Argenta singing. I like a few of the movements fairly well. Lesson: don't assume.


"I've seen this behavior so many times now i have an hard time believing it came out of your own free will."

You don't know how I got into listening to music in the first place. I had never heard anything by Beethoven, Mozart, &c. until my early teens. I'm sure I heard a hacked-up Liszt 2nd Hungarian Rhapsody on a Buggs Bunny Cartoon, but never heard any titles or names. Things like that, were my only exposure to any music other than the stuff from the 1960s that my parents liked, and a Boots Randolph record my grandfather liked (there were no CDs). That made me like the saxophone, and when I went into school, I went into band and wanted to play that. So I did. And round about, 7th grade comes along. I think by this one lifechanging concert I'd passed my 13th birthday. We were going to play a "Beethoven Medley". It included a few slices from the first movement of his 5th symphony, 2nd movement of the 7th, and 4th movement of the 9th. Get this: I'd never heard any of these before. Yes, even the 5th, though nobody believes me when I say that. I lived in a very rural, backward area, and such music just was not around anywhere. It wowed me, I heard it in my head walking around the hall in the school, I even remember whistle-breathing it all the time. I obsessed. I talked to everybody about it, I couldn't stop thinking about it. I'd never heard music like it before, and I never really cared for music before that at all, except when I was very little, the Boots Randolph record. Well, Summer comes along, school's out, and we take our yearly visit to my aunt and uncle's house on the coast. It turns out, my uncle has "classical music records". I didn't know what that meant, it's just what my folks told me. I should ask him if he'd let me listen. And he did. And I sat there on the floor of my cousin's bedroom (grown and moved out) with that record player and never wanted to get up. My uncle, well... he's not social. He doesn't talk to people much, or show affection, even toward his own wife or children, and never did talk to me about the records at all. And he didn't like children, and that definitely included me. Too much to tell about him, but yes, the family was really damaged. Literally not a single word, as far as I know, my aunt (who never listened to them once) got them out for me when I got there. Nobody told me what was great, good, bad, or anything. I had no idea. I just listened to every album he had over and over, everything.

I ended up being homeschooled the next school year, so I never went back for band. But doing homeschooling, I got to have the radio on during the day, because somehow - and I don't remember how - I had gotten told about the local NPR station. They played "classical" music most of the day. I got to have that playing during the day. And I did, always. But still, nobody told me what was good, bad, great, anything. The station played random stuff from various centuries, announcing the composer, and the piece, and usually who was performing or conducting. That was my whole knowledge base. I got a cassette tape recorder+radio and started to record everything that came on. If I didn't like it, I'd rewind and tape over it. I didn't have even the vaguest notions of who the "great" composers were, and that's being completely truthful. These names were not known to me. I would write down on the tapes the name and piece, trying to spell things as best I could. I threw them out years ago but was laughing at things like "Paizziello Piano Concerto 8" (Paisiello). Hey, I didn't know, I'd never read or been told anything, it was just me and the music coming on the radio. I thought Paisiello, based off that one piece, was just the bee's knees. I heard the "La Chasse" Symphony by Carl Stamitz and that became a serious obsession for a long while; when they played something else of his months later that I taped, and I just knew he was the ultimate based on those two things. Oddly, without realising it, I never kept one 20th century piece, not one. I don't know that I kept any late 19th century music, either. My tape collection was extremely huddled in the late 18th century. Was this bias? Yes, but I didn't know why. When I first started taping, and first gravitated toward those pieces, I didn't even know what century they came from.

Of course, eventually I read things, and learned things. Eventually the Internet was getting into homes, and I finally got my first job with a fledgling Internet Service Provider. It was there that I discovered a "Classical Music" website, complete with forum. Without knowing any better, based off my isolated reading, I had the idea that it was only about music from the "Classical Period". Well, I learned a lot from that site, but part of that was based off non-stop insults, when I was gushing excitedly about this or that piece by this or that obscure composer. I didn't know any better, but I was snobbed at something heavy.

Bias? Yes. My taste formed very naturally, with no guidance from any book or other human being other than the radio announcer (they purposely try to keep their opinions out of the lead-ins and followups, too). But my real bias formed against the people that slammed me just for liking what I liked. In the end, I think this is maybe the luckiest thing in my life, the way I fell into listening to music, all on my own. Now you know my life story. All this to say one thing: I claim to be about as non-propagandized as you can get. I was not spoonfed revolutionary theories by any stretch of the imagination. I wasn't around anybody that knew jack about it to be able to spoonfeed it to me. I had no book on the subject. I had no Internet. It was me and the radio. My preferences are my own, wholly my own, as are my ideas on greatness.


"but some of us have enough sense to keep everything under the correct perspective."

Having to get insulting says about all that needs to be said about your position, or lack thereof.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: sonic1 on May 23, 2007, 08:27:10 PM
Quote from: JoshLilly on May 23, 2007, 06:08:09 PM
Bach? Great? Do you mean Johann Sebastian in that? Why? I for one don't think so, and never have. What's so great about him? I don't normally talk about or think about what I don't like, and avoid posting to threads that are devoted to pieces or composers I don't care for. But I'm just asking a question: why do I have to acknowledge something as great when it isn't? Here: Bach isn't great. And I mean that with absolute sincerity. His music has always sounded to me like something that an ancient steam automaton would write, devoid of imagination, spirit, emotion. Even when he tried to write something beautiful, it still sounds soul-lessly mechanical. If Heron of Alexandria had constructed a steam robot that would, based on gears and levers, punch holes into paper to create music based on some unthinking mechanical pattern, we'd have had J.S. Bach 1700 years before his time. And it's not the time period, because Zelenka wrote stuff that can make me happy. J.S. Bach's music makes me think: inhuman machine.

By the way, this is payback to the constant mocking of Dittersdorf  ;D   And another by the way, I do consider Dittersdorf (with 100% honesty) to have been a great composer. The great thing is, I'm not wrong, and can't be wrong. Then again, I'm not right and can't be right. It's all vibrations in the air, that's all it is, nothing more. The only facts involved would be to identify what note is what, at what frequencies they operate, what volume, so on. These things can be defined. But that's it. It's still vibrations in the air. There are no facts with this beyond identifying the specifics that make up the sound waves that bounce into your ear. I've never understood why people get so worked up over vibrations in the air, when someone says that they don't like one particular grouping, or someone likes another grouping that they don't. Wow. Woohoo. You know what? I didn't care for the movie The Godfather either.

The only thing I care about, is the arrogance - and that's what it is - of those who insist that one particular favouritism must be enforced on others. It doesn't matter how widely accepted a preference is, it's still just a preference. Even if the whole world's population agreed down to the last individual, it's still not a fact.


Oh yeah, one last thing: Elgar sucks!     ....... maybe I better run now.

I am a huge fan of Bach, but I find your post hilarious and refreshingly honest.

I do like Bach though; however I understand where you are coming from. I just happen to like the mechanical-ness of Bach. I would argue that his music does emote. But not in comparison with those damned romantics.  ;)

Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: quintett op.57 on May 24, 2007, 02:35:24 AM
Sonic, With all you can hear about Bach's superiority, I have great respect for a guy who is a huge fan of Bach but admits he's not the best at everything.

There's not such a problem with Beethoven's fans (I'm one of them). It's very interesting. People could find so many things to argue about Beethoven's superiority over the rest, at least as many as Bach's fans.
But they don't do it. It's weird but maybe the difference comes from the fact almost everyone agree about Beethoven's greatness, there's no ideological confrontation.


Regarding Bach, it's different, He does not sell more CDs than his contemporaneous Vivaldi and there's a real ideological confrontation regarding them. It started during the XVIIIth century when the Austrian/German authorities tried to show german superiority (especially over italians, who represent the perfect opposite to german culture). Complexity, profundity... The same arguments have been used for centuries. As a result, we have forgotten that it's different from quality.
The influence of italians on the evolution of music in the XVIIIth century is often neglected, unless it's obvious. Just hear them and you understand if you really want to. 

Vivaldi is a victim of the confrontation between the non-classical fans, who love his music (not understanding anything because they're not serious listeners) and a part of the classical fans who need to show they're different from the crowd. They're often scornful : "please! Not Vivaldi!, no, I had enough when I was a beginner"
What the crowd love, they can't. It's only easy music!
All those who claim Bach's superiority are not like that, we can't generalize, but this idea comes from this and he's kept alive because of this.

Beethoven has composed both kinds of works : melodically pleasant and understandable by anyone and very complex and serious. Both kinds of works being often great. This is the point, he has no opposite.

Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 03:59:45 AM
Quote from: sonic1 on May 23, 2007, 05:50:48 PM
It seems to me that the more narrow one's listening, the more likely one is to consider "greatness" within their own listening repertoire. The music more in what is THEIR fringe will never be considered "great". People who are more open in their listening palette are more likely to accept greatness in a broader sense, or even find the practice of assigning greatness a bit silly.

And yet, the experience of practically all of us is broader range of listening over time, the ear embraces more and more.  If we apply your theorem, doesn't it seem that the rule ought to be, the broader one's listening, the less apt to conceive of a canon?

Now, of course, there are many listeners to exemplify that;  but I don't see it as at all a rule.  So acknowledge that there's something to your idea here, Jared, but I'm not sure just where it fits firmly in the puzzle.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 04:03:03 AM
Quote from: JoshLilly on May 23, 2007, 06:08:09 PM
By the way, this is payback to the constant mocking of Dittersdorf  ;D   And another by the way, I do consider Dittersdorf (with 100% honesty) to have been a great composer.

I like it!

For the record, I wish to make the distinction between mocking Dittersdwarf, and mocking Dittersdorfmania.  It is the poor fellow's cross to bear, that he may seem to be the object of derision from those who wonder at attempts to rate him The Equal of the Canonized Haydn.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 04:13:31 AM
Quote from: JoshLilly on May 23, 2007, 06:19:22 PM
Ha, insult away, but I'm still not wrong. Vibrations in the air will always just be vibrations in the air, no matter how strongly anyone wants their taste to be "Right".

Alas! Right there, you're wrong!  :)

There will always be methods of discriminating among vibrations in the air.  (Hint:  discrimination is a matter of judgement, and not automatically The Great Satan.)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 04:14:38 AM
Quote from: Gurn Blanston on May 23, 2007, 06:21:19 PM
I'm happy to be a relativist if it means that I don't have to consult the stone tablets every time I want to listen to a new piece of music... ::)

8)

May no one burden your shoulders with stone tablets (or jade lozenges, for that matter), Gurn!

There is a variety of ways to be a Non-Absolutist . . . .
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 04:15:40 AM
Quote from: JoshLilly on May 23, 2007, 06:44:54 PM
Collected opinion is not collected fact.

Neither is collected opinion completely divorced from collected fact.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 04:19:22 AM
Quote from: Gurn Blanston on May 23, 2007, 06:46:32 PM
But I'm not denigrating Bach in any way when I say that I am pleased to listen to other composers too. In what way does it harm Bach if I happen to delight in Vivaldi, for example? Or does it harm Mozart if i happen to really enjoy Ditters' "Symphonies after Ovid's Metamorphoses"?  It doesn't, and the reason it doesn't is because I am not comparing Vivaldi to Bach, nor Ditters to Mozart. I am simply enjoying their legacy. By the way, the Corrette gamba sonata I'm listening too is virtually great. :D

8)

So nearly perfect a post, Gurn!  8)

Of course, taking pleasure in the music of the B-Team does not denigreat the Grates.  And we can both (for instance) enjoy the music of the Flying Fescas, and compare them to The Gold Standard, and we can forebear to despise Silver and Copper, simply because they are not Gold.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 04:20:52 AM
Quote from: JoshLilly on May 23, 2007, 06:50:43 PM
People are insisting that some composers are "factually" superior to others. They're doing it on this very thread, even.

Where?  Leave us address that, without endorsing your errors!  ;)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 04:22:37 AM
Quote from: JoshLilly on May 23, 2007, 07:21:13 PM
If it can't ever be proven, then it's not a truth.

Truly, a tiny thought.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 04:25:25 AM
Quote from: quintett op.57 on May 24, 2007, 02:35:24 AM
Vivaldi is a victim of the confrontation between the non-classical fans, who love his music (not understanding anything because they're not serious listeners) and a part of the classical fans who need to show they're different from the crowd.

That's a valid and interesting social observation;  I don't find it a "driver" here, though.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on May 24, 2007, 05:01:33 AM
Quote from: JoshLilly on May 23, 2007, 07:21:13 PM
If it can't ever be proven, then it's not a truth.

You're really stuck in logical positivism, aren't you?  :D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Josquin des Prez on May 24, 2007, 05:06:56 AM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on May 23, 2007, 07:18:49 PM
Enormous value, in my life. Not being a believer, the existence of staggering works of the imagination like Hamlet, the Divine Comedy, the C# minor quartet, the Mass in B minor, the Ring, etc., is the closest I can come to religious experience.

This is all nonsense. Your perception of those works is the result of brainwashing by an elitist establishment. Only a true free thinker is able to see through this hideous plot and realize there's nothing of value in any of those.

BTW, JoshLilly, before posting your life story, you might want to know i'm being partially facetious here.  ;)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 05:11:18 AM
Quote from: Gurn Blanston on May 23, 2007, 04:35:16 PMThanks, sonic. Oh yes, I completely agree with that. Even if we are completely willing to go along with the consensus and say that there are 3 or 4 composers that rise above all others, so what? Is that all we will listen to then? And if we listen to others, is it just an exercise to see how badly they fare in comparison with the anointed few?

Put thus, as exaggeration, of course . . . .

But I think it's only a fringe which would preserve Supreme Greatest Status to only 3 or 4 composers (though even so, it would be interesting to hear the arguments why only those 3 or 4 are the Chosen Few . . . as long as the discussion was actually musical, and not "Well, it's obvious, everybody knows why . . . .")

Myself, I think there's a larger population of "those that rise above the others."

Nor, myself, do I imagine that the recognition of such outstanding excellence renders the listening to The Others as futility, or as an exercise in snobbish contempt.

Your remark here, Gurn, has its characteristic anecdotal charm, but it strikes me not so much as an argument against the method, as fright at applying its results.  As if, in education, we were to argue against giving some students A's, because we're worried what will happen to the B- and C-students (euthanasia? Gosh, let's hope not!)

Many (by no means all) of the caveats raised in the course of this thread about the means of comparison are well taken, but it still puzzles me how one can entertain the idea (and if this be a strawman, please, someone set me aright) that comparison itself should be anathema, that there is no such thing as greatness/excellence, but only (ONLY, mind you) what Jane, John, Vanna or Ivan likes to listen to.

Let's regard the matter in the light of a separate, but related, illustration.

Hardly any of us (even if we did not select the Opus 21 as one of our Top Three) would take the greatness of the Beethoven Ninth Symphony as meaning that listening to the First is a waste of time.

Do we agree that it would be absurd to consider the First Symphony "equally great" to the Ninth?  The composer himself, without at all disowning the earlier work, would feel slighted by the idea that in years of composing music, he had not achieved greater mastery of his craft over time and through experience.  The recent thread not far distant notwithstanding, few of us contest the greatness of the Ninth (though acknowledging its greatness does not mean either that we enjoy it, or, if we do enjoy it, that we want to hear it all the time);  there might, though, be interesting discussion on whether (and how) the First Symphony is a "great" piece — evaluating the excellence of the First, if you like.

(Of course, for some of us who, say, find the presence of sopranos objectionable, the First will be preferable to listen to in comparison to the Ninth;  but it is proving, in this thread, nearly as difficult to distinguish between, and to discern the true relation between [the greatness of artwork] and [our enjoyment of artwork], as it is to determine how and in what ways composers and their work may be compared.)

In this field of inquiry, then, (a) there are questions of how we address comparison and "inequality", and (b) it were absurd to simply call all the elements "equal" in all ways.

I venture to imagine that we will find both differences, and similarities, in that field of inquiry touching upon comparing composers.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 05:26:24 AM
I suppose, even if we do all come to some agreement (even substantial rather than complete) on, say, a roster of A composers and B composers, that there may be some listeners who take this as rationalizing for "I'm going to listen to every last composition by the A Team before I condescend to listen to anything by those unwashed also-rans."

But of course that behavior is itself, and is not an argument against the existence of a distinction between A and B . . . .
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 05:27:58 AM
BTW, I do not see the "purpose" of this thread as encompassing the drawing up of any such definitive roster.  Not that the thread is bound to any conception I may or may not have as to its purpose.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: JoshLilly on May 24, 2007, 05:51:51 AM
"Myself, I think there's a larger population of "those that rise above the others."


The problem I, and others, have with this, is the idea that there is such a population that's universal for everyone.  A forced pantheon, if you will.  I have composers I listen to more than others, which I suppose would make them my "greats". But it would appear to me that many of those I consider Zeus or Hera of my Pantheon, might only be Nike or Heracles in yours. It's not so much the idea of a Lineup of Greats that I'm against, it's the idea that you (anyone) gets to tell me who's on that lineup. As I say, one man's Amon-Rê is another man's Ra-Herakhty.

And by the way, I don't have to acknowledge Beethoven's 9th Symphony as superior to the 1st. I think I do. Kinda. But I don't have to. I'm honestly not sure which one I prefer more, if either. Part of the reason is the 3rd movement of the 9th, which is maybe my least favourite movement in all Beethoven's symphonies. Not that I don't like it! "Least favourite" is very relative here, I just rate that movement a 9.5 and most of the other movements in his symphonies 9.6 to 10. Something like that. I'm not much into "grading" music, even internally. But suffice it to say, whether he became more practiced in composition or not does not have anything to do with how one strikes my ears over the other. One thing I will say, is F.J. Haydn's Le Matin symphony has always been the greatest as far as I'm concerned, I think it's the best he ever wrote, and it came right near the beginning of his long list of symphonies.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 06:04:50 AM
Quote from: JoshLilly on May 24, 2007, 05:51:51 AM
"Myself, I think there's a larger population of "those that rise above the others."

The problem I, and others, have with this, is the idea that there is such a population that's universal for everyone.  A forced pantheon, if you will.

But, I won't  8)

The fact that most of the musical world holds JS Bach in very high regard, doesn't mean you are obliged to listen to him, not at all, not x% of the time.  Not absolutely.

Practically, in say radio programming, it may mean that there's more Bach than you personally would prefer.  That at least is culturally less disingenuous, I think, than the reverse tyranny of (say) Boston's classical station, which overweights the mediocrities (though, admittedly, for the very practical reason that it makes good sonic wallpaper in the Boston area's dentist offices).

My other immediate comment is, you're driving the method by the result you desire (universal roster of A composers is unacceptable).
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 06:09:09 AM
Quote from: JoshLilly on May 24, 2007, 05:51:51 AM
And by the way, I don't have to acknowledge Beethoven's 9th Symphony as superior to the 1st. I think I do. Kinda. But I don't have to.

Sure.  But perhaps, if Larry discussed the comparative ingenuities in the sonata design of the first movements of the First and Ninth Symphonies, you might think differently.

The culture's evaluation of various items alters over time.

Part of what feeds into that is, that the individual's understanding and perception of the music is not fixed in stone, either.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: JoshLilly on May 24, 2007, 06:13:26 AM
What if the people doing the programming for the Boston station don't consider that music mediocre at all? It's not just that I don't listen often to J.S. Bach's music, it's that I don't consider him a Great composer. Now, I don't hate him as much as my earlier message made out, I admit I was exaggerating. But people do attempt to enforce a Pantheon on all music listeners that includes him. Maybe it's not what they say ("This is my opinion, that Bach is a great composer"), it's how they say it ("Bach is a great composer for me, you, and everybody, whether they like it or not"). And please don't accuse me of making a strawman argument, because people do talk this way, all the time; it's even written that way in books that are used to teach music appreciation classes. Well I took one of those in college, and it was a big bummer; I was the only "classical" music listener in the class, and the attitude of the book, its tone, and that of the instructor, was harmful to the other students' perception of that music.



"But perhaps, if Larry discussed the comparative ingenuities in the sonata design of the first movements of the First and Ninth Symphonies, you might think differently."

I would be fascinated, but I don't know that this is the case. Someone did that once with me when I was talking about how I think I preferred W.A. Mozart's first symphony to his last. I was given great stuff on the finalé of the Jupiter, the fugue writing, all that. And yes, I hear all that. Awesome! Mozart sure did develop his craft during his lifetime. Yes, yes, to all that. But it doesn't make me as happy. The raw, unpolished, pure joy that I get from the 1st gives way to something else in the last. Note that I like both of those symphonies about equally well... but unless someone points out a specific note that I've somehow missed, or something, it won't change which I like more, no matter how much I learn about it.

For me, learning about a composer, the history of a piece, &c., has absolutely zero impact on how much I like it. I think it's very important to stay that way, too. That's why I've never been impacted to learn about R.Wagner's personality or bigotries; while I'm interested as an historian, it has zero - ZERO - to do with the way I listen to the music. Notes are notes. I either like them or I don't. But sure, pointing out something I physically missed while listening, that's a whole different story. That might change my perception. But just talking about how it was written, and trying somehow to "prove" some kind of superiority, will have zero impact on my preferences. I will love to learn about it, but it won't make it sound any different.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 06:20:51 AM
Quote from: JoshLilly on May 24, 2007, 06:13:26 AM
What if the people doing the programming for the Boston station don't consider that music mediocre at all? It's not just that I don't listen often to J.S. Bach's music, it's that I don't consider him a Great composer. Now, I don't hate him as much as my earlier message made out, I admit I was exaggerating. But people do attempt to enforce a Pantheon on all music listeners that includes him. Maybe it's not what they say ("This is my opinion, that Bach is a great composer"), it's how they say it ("Bach is a great composer for me, you, and everybody, whether they like it or not").

This is because Bach's greatness, the excellence of his work, is not simply a property of whether you like it, or how much you like to listen to it, or how often you feel you need to listen to it.

Your remark has the look of taking umbrage because someone is trying to tell you that [the greatness of artwork] and [our enjoyment of artwork] are distinct, though not necessarily mutually exclusive, categories.

The artwork is an object in the culture as a whole, it doesn't exist solely as an object for any individual's consumption.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 06:23:19 AM
Quote from: JoshLilly on May 24, 2007, 06:13:26 AM
"But perhaps, if Larry discussed the comparative ingenuities in the sonata design of the first movements of the First and Ninth Symphonies, you might think differently."

I would be fascinated, but I don't know that this is the case. Someone did that once with me . . .

Your experience today may be otherwise, mightn't it?

Quote from: JoshLillyFor me, learning about a composer, the history of a piece, &c., has absolutely zero impact on how much I like it. I think it's very important to stay that way, too.

Larry's hypothetical discussion above is a different matter entirely.  I am surprised you don't realize this.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 06:26:56 AM
BTW, Josh, it is possible that I do not listen to Bach any more frequently than you do, perhaps even less.

But I have learnt a great deal about composition from listening to, and over time better understanding, his work.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 06:28:49 AM
Quote from: JoshLilly on May 24, 2007, 06:13:26 AM
I will love to learn about it, but it won't make it sound any different.

Actually, for most listeners, this is not true at all.

The more I learn about a piece, does not change the piece itself.

But again, the listener's ears' perception of the piece, is not a constant.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on May 24, 2007, 06:36:20 AM
i'm wondering.....
is this thread trying to ask the same questions that i asked in my "Quality in Music" thread a few months ago or is it different?

hmmmm.... i was thinking about starting a thread like that again to discuss how you can technically determine whether a piece has quality or not.

the whole discussion (remember everyone?) was about whether such a thing as "quality" existed, regardless of opinion. I might not care for Beethoven much, but I can tell his music is full of quality, written by someone who knows what they're doing- compare his music to one of the many imitators on the Sibelius website, and it's obvious that there IS such a thing as quality, but it's extremely hard to define.


The thing is, in the composing process itself, when you're writing new music down, you can see the whole quality vs. taste process going on- you encounter 4 things:

1. you like it (therefore you definetely write it)
2. you like it a little, but it just doesn't sound 1st-rate (you might write and then erase this- or at least you should)
3. you dislike it, but you know it's good (if you keep writing this stuff down, you won't care for your own music much)
4. you dislike it, and it is totally 2nd-rate (you won't even bother writing this down)

#1 is most likely to be in the music of the masters, their music full of #1 (yes, full of pee). But, look at #3.

#2 is the most interesting because i think most people's music is full of material from this category- they write what they want to write, which is similar to the music they like, but just not as good- 2nd-rate. Then they acknowledge the geniuses, their favorite composers, as superiors.

#3 is unusual- great composers writing music they don't like much themselves- like Tchaikovsky when he wrote the 1812 Overture, supposedly he didn't care for it much. This is actually a pretty easy trap to fall into- I make the mistake myself sometimes, writing down stuff just because it's actually an idea- it sounds like SOMETHING.

#4 is most likely not written down in the first place. Not much to say.



But I think the only reason it's so hard to analyze quality in music is because of the amount of possibilities. If you had to go about analyzing it, I'd have no idea how to do it- any ideas, anyone?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: JoshLilly on May 24, 2007, 06:54:50 AM
"This is because Bach's greatness, the excellence of his work, is not simply a property of whether you like it"


But I'm saying, yes it is. That's what the word means. If great is defined as "Remarkable or outstanding in magnitude, degree, or extent" (American Heritage Dictionary), well, I don't hear anything by J.S. Bach that's remarkable or outstanding in magnitude or degree. He certainly doesn't sound more remarkable than Vivaldi, Zelenka or Händel (indeed, I think he's less remarkable than those). I'm looking over multiple definitions, and J.S. Bach does not match any of them. I don't find him remarkable, or above and beyond, or a pinnacle, or high in his field, or any of the other definitions.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: DavidW on May 24, 2007, 07:13:59 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on May 23, 2007, 10:49:53 AM
At first, that almost seems tautological: the value of something is how it adds value to something broader.

But it is not quite a tautology;  though I find myself a little disconcerted that the value of music is not in the thing itself, but in what it does for something else.  But, heck, maybe that's right.

Well I think that intrinsic value is far too ambiguous, if we talk about that we just end up spinning in circles about relativism, which *cough* has been happening anyway. ;D 

QuoteThe craft, too, alters, as the work of past greats impacts the craft.  Bach's craft is not Monteverdi's craft, nor is Stravinsky's craft Beethoven's craft.  Yet all these several crafts are disciplines of excellence.

The water flows in the river, the river today is not yesterday's river.  And yet, not all water is the river.

I like that, we should not judge Beethoven by how he sounds or doesn't sound like Bach.  We should judge him by his own style.  Understanding that, we have a timeless way of judging a composer.  Certainly style changes, but if we judge a composer to be great by his own style, then that judgment should not be overturned later.

I liked your answer to the pop artist question btw. :)

Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: DavidW on May 24, 2007, 07:23:46 AM
Quote from: Gurn Blanston on May 23, 2007, 04:09:31 PM
Well, the crux arrives! Great post, BTW, David. But that last sentence, after the big SNIP, sums up well, not only everything you wrote before, but my own feeling on the subject. And effectively kneecaps the argument that people who enjoy the gamut of classical composers are somehow unable to differentiate between "quality" of different composers' music, or that they can't recognize "greatness". What bullcrap! Just because I can tell Mozart from Vanhal, doesn't mean I can't enjoy Vanhal, and strictly on his own terms. What, is this some feat of intellectual accomplishment that eludes the connoisseur? Hardly, it is a feat only insofar as one allows oneself to block out extramusical associations and simply listen to the music, hopefully placing it in a context that is suitable for its time. I don't even think of it as Elgarian freethinking, rather it is disassociating yourself from the comparison/contest paradigm that we seem obsessed with.

This reminds me of what Copland said in his new music book-- there's an attitude of let's not listen to new music (especially American music) because it's not Stravinsky, Sibelius, Beethoven etc and he says we should not turn our back on new music because it's not on the short list of greatest, most profound music.

Turning a nose up to all but a short list of music is snobbery.  What Copland said about new music should also apply to lesser masters of the past.  There was something else I was going to mention, but I'm saving it for the thread I'm about to create (a connection with what you said and what I read in Rosen yesterday). :)

Clearly we shouldn't feel obligated to listen to any of these composers, but we shouldn't also feel compelled to ignore them because they are inferior (by the definition of greatness that I provided allows for gross tier like rankings, just not strict hierarchical listing of all composers) to Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Don on May 24, 2007, 07:28:28 AM
Quote from: JoshLilly on May 24, 2007, 06:13:26 AM



For me, learning about a composer, the history of a piece, &c., has absolutely zero impact on how much I like it. I think it's very important to stay that way, too.

Don't agree at all.  I feel that learning about the composer's life, environment and psychology does have impact on how I listen to and understand a piece of music.  

A good example is Schumann.  Knowing about his life, yearnings and personality traits can only add insight into understanding his musical personality.  For me, it greatly enhances my enjoyment of his music.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: DavidW on May 24, 2007, 07:29:29 AM
Quote from: Josquin des Prez on May 23, 2007, 05:38:44 PM
Incorrect. Bach was highly esteemed in his time and was well known among musicians and connoisseurs alike. His 'revival' merely popularized his name among the general audience, nothing more.

I agree with the first point that he was highly esteemed in his time, but afterwards the notion of being well known in the inner circles of music-- I can't help but wonder if that is really the case of the isolated few, such as Mozart, admiring him but not the community as a whole.  See here, I am not equating the community with the general audience.  The musical movement of the late 18th century was to reject the Baroque style, and although it's true that the holy trinity of Classicism didn't reject but were deeply inspired by Handel and Bach, is it true of the myriads of other composers and performers?

Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: DavidW on May 24, 2007, 07:30:45 AM
This is exactly what I'm talking about-- it's characterizing the attitude of a community by the most prominent minority instead of by the average.

Quote from: Larry Rinkel on May 23, 2007, 05:41:39 PM
And e-hem!, you have your music history wrong. He was admired, but not widely performed. Only 20 years after his death Mozart was delighted by his discovery of the motets of Bach; only 30-40 years after his demise the young Beethoven's primary course of piano study was the WTC.

Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: 71 dB on May 24, 2007, 07:34:27 AM
Before I came to this forum I assumed everyone seriously into classical music has J. S. Bach in their top 5 of the greatest composers. I was shocked to find out many do not care about his music!  :o

For me Bach is insanely good, so good I value him almost as high as Elgar! These two are the only composers whose musical output exceeds human capabilities in my opinion. They are Gods!
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: DavidW on May 24, 2007, 07:34:42 AM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on May 23, 2007, 05:50:55 PM
Ives is a special case, the American genius (like Emily Dickinson) working in virtually complete isolation during his lifetime.

I was going to say Faulkner-- he remained undiscovered until Sartre and Camus discovered his writing.  They both were seen as difficult to understand, and many didn't get the point of their respective styles... but would later be embraced for their styles, and the quality of their art understood once people got past the style hangup which others previously found repugnant. :)

Now if only Ives was an alcoholic... ;D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on May 24, 2007, 07:46:56 AM
Quote from: JoshLilly on May 24, 2007, 06:54:50 AM
"This is because Bach's greatness, the excellence of his work, is not simply a property of whether you like it"


But I'm saying, yes it is. That's what the word means. If great is defined as "Remarkable or outstanding in magnitude, degree, or extent" (American Heritage Dictionary), well, I don't hear anything by J.S. Bach that's remarkable or outstanding in magnitude or degree. He certainly doesn't sound more remarkable than Vivaldi, Zelenka or Händel (indeed, I think he's less remarkable than those). I'm looking over multiple definitions, and J.S. Bach does not match any of them. I don't find him remarkable, or above and beyond, or a pinnacle, or high in his field, or any of the other definitions.

All very well, but the predominance of musically educated opinion is against you. And you provide nothing to tell any of us what of Bach's enormous output you have actually heard. All I hear is someone with a chip on his shoulder.

Personally, given the predominance of musically educated opinion, I would be very hesitant to express such an attitude towards Bach as yours. Not unless I was very sure I had a very thorough awareness of his work and was able to enumerate his alleged shortcomings.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on May 24, 2007, 07:50:26 AM
Quote from: Don on May 24, 2007, 07:28:28 AM
Don't agree at all.  I feel that learning about the composer's life, environment and psychology does have impact on how I listen to and understand a piece of music.  

A good example is Schumann.  Knowing about his life, yearnings and personality traits can only add insight into understanding his musical personality.  For me, it greatly enhances my enjoyment of his music.

Absolutely. This hermetic notion of art for art's sake is at best hard to maintain. Can anyone separate their reception of Mozart and Schubert from the knowledge that they died tragically young, or their attitude towards Beethoven from the knowledge that he was a tragically isolated, deaf curmudgeon? The very fact that the "heroic" Beethoven is traditionally the most highly valued depends precisely on our knowledge of the biography.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: quintett op.57 on May 24, 2007, 07:57:05 AM
Quote from: DavidW on May 24, 2007, 07:29:29 AM
The musical movement of the late 18th century was to reject the Baroque style, and although it's true that the holy trinity of Classicism didn't reject but were deeply inspired by Handel and Bach,
And Fux.
I don't think you do but I find it important not to reduce this influence to Bach and Handel (not to Fux either).
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Scriptavolant on May 24, 2007, 08:00:12 AM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on May 23, 2007, 07:34:58 PM
Not at all. I wouldn't have gravitated toward those works had they not already been monuments of the culture.

Well, it's self-evident there's constant misunderstanding here. I would ascribe it to my modest knowledge of english, if I didn't feel it even amongst other people present.

Larry, you didn't talk of your gravitating toward the works, you were talking about your personal feeling towards the works, and I can't see any causal link between the individual emotional response and the fact that these are great monuments in culture. You feel something profound because an art work say something to you, not because it says something to someone else.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Bunny on May 24, 2007, 08:00:54 AM
This thread reminds me of what Justice Potter wrote about pornography in his concurrence with Jacobellis v. Ohio (1964), "hard-core pornography [is hard to define, but] I know it when I see it."

Well, great music is also hard to define, but I know it when I hear it. ;)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 08:07:17 AM
Quote from: Bunny on May 24, 2007, 08:00:54 AM
Well, great music is also hard to define, but I know it when I hear it. ;)

And is probably a greater contribution to culture than pornography  8)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on May 24, 2007, 08:17:13 AM
QuoteThis thread reminds me of what Justice Potter wrote about pornography in his concurrence with Jacobellis v. Ohio (1964), "hard-core pornography [is hard to define, but] I know it when I see it."

Well, great music is also hard to define, but I know it when I hear it.
this is the 3rd time i remember this being brought up- the other two in threads defining "what is classical music?"

Quote from: quintett op.57 on May 24, 2007, 07:57:05 AM
And Fux.
on a similar subject.....
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: sonic1 on May 24, 2007, 08:21:33 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 03:59:45 AM
And yet, the experience of practically all of us is broader range of listening over time, the ear embraces more and more.  If we apply your theorem, doesn't it seem that the rule ought to be, the broader one's listening, the less apt to conceive of a canon?

Now, of course, there are many listeners to exemplify that;  but I don't see it as at all a rule.  So acknowledge that there's something to your idea here, Jared, but I'm not sure just where it fits firmly in the puzzle.


Are you saying it might be more correct to push the positive rather than the negative?? I mean, of course the more one's listening opens up, the less likely they are to cannonize. I thought I said that somewhere. But maybe it is not necessarily true that the more narrow one's listening the MORE likely they feel the need to cannonize. Anyway, maybe I am misunderstanding your point, or maybe I miscommunicated mine somewhere.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 08:27:07 AM
Well, I listen more and more, and the number of composers whose work I experience widens steadily.  But I don't see myself shedding the idea of a canon.  But, it is also many years since I thought of the canon as fixed for all time (at 3:15pm Greenwich Mean Time, 14 July 1908).

The expansion of the literature I do not see as nullifying the idea of outstanding excellence.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: sonic1 on May 24, 2007, 08:32:15 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 08:27:07 AM
Well, I listen more and more, and the number of composers whose work I experience widens steadily.  But I don't see myself shedding the idea of a canon.  But, it is also many years since I thought of the canon as fixed for all time (at 3:15pm Greenwich Mean Time, 14 July 1908).

The expansion of the literature I do not see as nullifying the idea of outstanding excellence.

Oh, I see what you are saying. Well, my resistance to the idea of a cannon is that many want THEIR favorites to be at the top of the heap, and rather than argue that out, I would rather just let those guys kill each other, and sit back and enjoy...

...but I am into the idea of a personal cannon, as long as I can make up all the rules and not have to share.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: 71 dB on May 24, 2007, 08:33:50 AM
Uncannonize. Re-evaluate. Correct cumulative historical errors. That's my motto.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Bunny on May 24, 2007, 08:34:24 AM
Quote from: greg on May 24, 2007, 08:17:13 AM

this is the 3rd time i remember this being brought up- the other two in threads defining "what is classical music?"
on a similar subject.....

Yes, and that really says it all for threads like this.

The truth is that greatness in anything isn't decided by contemporaries so much as by those come long after.  That which continues to appeal despite the passage of time will be called great.  That which loses it's appeal will be forgotten. 
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 08:35:02 AM
Quote from: 71 dB on May 24, 2007, 08:33:50 AM
Uncannonize. Re-evaluate. Correct cumulative historical errors. That's my motto.

You'd do better if you started correcting errors right at home, if you know what I mean, lad  8)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 08:36:22 AM
Quote from: sonic1 on May 24, 2007, 08:32:15 AM
...but I am into the idea of a personal cannon, as long as I can make up all the rules and not have to share.

My model allows for ample personal preference, which does not slavishly replicate the canon.

I am large, I contain multitudes . . . .
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Josquin des Prez on May 24, 2007, 08:39:10 AM
Quote from: Bunny on May 24, 2007, 08:34:24 AM
Yes, and that really says it all for threads like this.

The truth is that greatness in anything isn't decided by contemporaries so much as by those come long after.  That which continues to appeal despite the passage of time will be called great.  That which loses it's appeal will be forgotten. 

Greatness isn't 'decided' at all. It just is. Whether it is ever recognized, or when, it's a different matter.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on May 24, 2007, 08:42:00 AM
Quote from: Josquin des Prez on May 24, 2007, 08:39:10 AM
Greatness isn't 'decided' at all, ever. It just is. Whether it is ever recognized, or when, it's a different matter.
well, that comes down to my question- how do you define quality?
can't musicologists take samples of works that are great, compare them to amateurs with a similar style, and make conclusions? why don't they?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Josquin des Prez on May 24, 2007, 08:42:51 AM
Quote from: quintett op.57 on May 24, 2007, 07:57:05 AM
And Fux.
I don't think you do but I find it important not to reduce this influence to Bach and Handel (not Fux either).

Fux's music had no influence on anybody. He was known as a theorist, not a composer.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: sonic1 on May 24, 2007, 08:44:59 AM
Quote from: Josquin des Prez on May 24, 2007, 08:39:10 AM
Greatness isn't 'decided' at all. It just is. Whether it is ever recognized, or when, it's a different matter.

I disagree. Greatness has parameters, whether they are intuited or thought out in detail.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 08:45:32 AM
I have not been convinced to shed the impression, that so much of the Loyal Opposition's objection is answered by considering [what I like best] and [what is great] different but communicating categories.

I have no difficulty owning the greatness of Bach, Haydn and Beethoven (to name three), and yet confessing that it is not often that I seek them out to listen to.

Not that I expect everyone on the planet to approach things the same way I do . . . .
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 08:45:51 AM
Quote from: sonic1 on May 24, 2007, 08:44:59 AM
I disagree. Greatness has parameters, whether they are intuited or thought out in detail.

Excellent, Jared!
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 08:46:40 AM
Quote from: Josquin des Prez on May 24, 2007, 08:42:51 AM
Fux's music had no influence on anybody. He was known as a theorist, not a composer.

Quite; the influence of theorists is another tale.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: EmpNapoleon on May 24, 2007, 08:46:52 AM
Ask not what you can do for composers; ask what composers can do for you.  Two vain thoughts: knowing a piece of music is better than another and knowing that each peice is equal such that it is music.

A: Beethoven is the greatest.
B: Bach is better.
C: Ok, but who is better between the both of you.

Much, much vanity lies is claiming to know greatness.  Sure, the music sounds great.  So, go ahead and assert its superiority, you chosen ones. 

I always wonder what it's like for a music critic at a concert.  No listening.  "I not only know what the music sounds like to me, but to everyone else who listens as well as I and for those lower leveled listeners." 

Many of you speak like authors of music journals and textbooks.  Nothing new.  But I learn, so won't complain. 
It's undeniable that when one calls something great, one thinks oneself great at the moment. 
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on May 24, 2007, 08:47:34 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 08:45:32 AM

I have no difficulty owning the greatness of Bach, Haydn and Beethoven (to name three), and yet confessing that it is not often that I seek them out to listen to.

but is that when you listen to the music and think, "i don't care much for it, but i know it's great" or do you just acknowledge their greatness because they're popular?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 08:47:54 AM
Quote from: EmpNapoleon on May 24, 2007, 08:46:52 AM
Much, much vanity lies is claiming to know greatness.

Speak for yourself, Narcissus!  8)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 08:49:16 AM
Quote from: greg on May 24, 2007, 08:47:34 AM
but is that when you listen to the music and think, "i don't care much for it, but i know it's great" or do you just acknowledge their greatness because they're popular?

I appreciate their greatness, because of what I know I have learnt from their work.

My music does not sound much like that of Bach, Haydn or Beethoven, but close study (and enjoyment) of their work has been of great value to me in mine.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 08:50:18 AM
Quote from: EmpNapoleon on May 24, 2007, 08:46:52 AM
It's undeniable that when one calls something great, one thinks oneself great at the moment. 

Shallow, shallow.

And when I call that remark shallow, I know that I myself am not shallow  ;)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Josquin des Prez on May 24, 2007, 08:57:49 AM
Quote from: sonic1 on May 24, 2007, 08:44:59 AM
I disagree. Greatness has parameters, whether they are intuited or thought out in detail.

The point is that those parameters aren't arbitrarily agreed upon and then shoved down our collective throats by the establishment.

Like Schopenhauer said, truth as a way of surviving all criticism until it becomes self evident.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 09:02:27 AM
Quote from: Josquin des Prez on May 24, 2007, 08:57:49 AM
The point is that those parameters aren't arbitrarily agreed upon and then shoved down our collective throats by the establishment.

Right, though your quarrel here (meseems) is more with 71 dB (e.g.) than with Jared.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 09:10:58 AM
I'd like to try an experiment.

I have really enjoyed the ongoing exchange here, and while spirits have sometimes warmed, the tone has largely kept civil  8)

I don't see the thread's usefulness as at all done, but I am thinking of temporarily closing the thread down for the (US) holiday weekend, about this time tomorrow (Friday).  I would reopen it for 'business' Tuesday morning (Chowder time).

Good thought is sometimes improved with fermentation time  0:)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: quintett op.57 on May 24, 2007, 09:16:16 AM
please, people who know what greatness in music is, tell us !
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 09:20:06 AM
Haydn knew:

Quote from: PapaScarcely any man can brook comparison with the great Mozart.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: sonic1 on May 24, 2007, 09:41:16 AM
Quote from: James on May 24, 2007, 09:14:13 AM
addressing the whole idea or notion of "i think it is important not to define music in an absolute sense in terms of good and bad, but more in terms of what is good and bad for you"...

I'm curious with that line of lazy thinking, which is often encountered in discussions such as these, and we've read tinges of already here, how can you define something if there is nothing as given by which to make a meaningful comparison .... and I don't mean meaningful in the sense given by irrelevant philosophical wordgames!

At it's core judging the quality of music is really intuitive. But there are aspects of music we can talk about, discuss.

Relativism just reminds me of a Christian person who I was arguing with last week who continued to scream: 'JUST LET ME HAVE MY OPINION! IT IS MY OPINION AND I'M ENTITLED TO IT!' ... etc. She took my attacks on her religion (and religion in general) as something personal.

I feel it is the same with music. People should at least give aspects of the music that sounds good to them, and gives them a particular feeling.

Obviously (aesthetic) relativism is an cop-out.

re: words objective & subjective...

To me, subjective is an almost meaningless word, and objective is meaningless ... or I should say, merely hypothetical. This is true of so many words: they do not describe anything meaningful.

Just because a word, e.g. subjective has been created to try and refer to what is perceived as an interior frame of mind (autonomy), then a hypothetical opposite concept of objective has been framed. But this is confusion ... words creating other words ... not meaning.

allowing words to define meaning, rather than meaning to define words i.e. words are arranged in such a way that they have meaning only in so far as they self-refer. Thus words slip their moorings, and their illustrative function is corrupted.


About Bach...

Bach's acheivement was in assimilating & consolidating those ideals & aspirations - of polyphonic counterpoint - into subsequent stylistic & formal developments ... all in an organic, intellectual flowering. Why is Bach is so revered? He used the same nuts & bolts as others ... but made music transcendant & mystical in it's power: he was a genius.

He was in part the great consolidator and summation of that age, and of that great art of horizontal / vertical conception. But ... his real musical "invention" was the depth of his inventiveness : his never-since equaled talent to transcend & unify the intellect / emotion dichotomy in music, by sheer integration of thought, and miraculously appear - in a sort of state of grace - fully fused with natural lyrical musicality. This is what makes Bach the "father of music".

With JS Bach we're talking about a level of harmonic insight & profundity which would render anything "wild" as a fairly tame experience thereafter ... it is the gateway of the most radical experience possible in all music - spiritual ecstasy and some sort of "communion" with oneself or truth. Words fail me and I have to resort to religious terms even though I do not follow a faith !

In the fragmented torrent of ideas this world has become since Bach's time - where certain methods were able to grow and be honed to perfection by him - it is much harder to speak in the unified, integrated voice of a totally consolidated musical form.
Those wonderful musical means were then all used up, and cannot be redeemed by new composers. They have to find a fresh way ... note that I say FRESH ... not new !


It is just not that simple. Personally, I am not arguing that greatness is necessarily personal (though there is an importance for me to like what I like no matter what anyone here wants me to like). Greatness is largely undefined here: great at what? The aims of composers are all different. I always go back to intent here. Bach didn't intend to sound like Vivaldi, yet both are great. We cannot measure them the same way, because they both had different aims. Shostakovich was great, so was Bach: how can we attempt to measure these two by the same parameters.

The problem here is that we are talking about several very different genres of music (though we call it all "classical"). And as we have, time and again, seen here even on this forum, there are always die-hards for each genre. The baroquies always duking it out with the romantics, the moderns always fending off the romantics, yada yada....

...for me, and probably a few others here whose taste seem to span over a multitude of genres, it seems a difficult task to measure greatness, especially in some sort of hierarchy. For example, I consider Bartok to be quite great. But measuring him against Beethoven would be ridiculous.

Now, if we get into a more extra-musical measure of greatness: greatness of mind and ability-then a few stand out over the others. When I think of Bach and how he churned out his music, while running everything he ran, and having like a billion children, I think the man great.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Scriptavolant on May 24, 2007, 09:45:52 AM
Quote from: Josquin des Prez on May 24, 2007, 08:57:49 AM
The point is that those parameters aren't arbitrarily agreed upon and then shoved down our collective throats by the establishment.

What strikes me is that the fixed parameters argument has been deepened and illustrated very well so far, for example in DavidW contribution. It leans on solid arguments.
You keep talking about the truth, but didn't give a straight definition of it so far. You call it the "self evident", "the undeniable", "what you feel and cannot be taught", but I'm still unable to grasp what you mean by saying "truth". Would you explain?

Quote
Like Schopenhauer said, truth as a way of surviving all criticism until it becomes self evident.

The truth about what? And being fussy: Schopenhauer was one of the greatest example of counterculture in its time and climate; a convinced dissident fighting against the idealist hegelian hegemony in XIX Century Germany. A philosopher never recognized for his contributions untill the last years of his life. Perhaps not your man at all.

Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: quintett op.57 on May 24, 2007, 09:47:01 AM
Quote from: James on May 24, 2007, 09:14:13 AM
To me, subjective is an almost meaningless word
The word "objective" is hypothetical?
Quote, and objective is meaningless ... or I should say, merely hypothetical. This is true of so many words: they do not describe anything meaningful.
Sorry, I don't get what you mean

All this is very meaningful to me.


About Bach...
Quote
but made music transcendant
regarding transcendance, he's not the one and only.
Quote& mystical in it's power: he was a genius.
Mystical in its power? What does it mean.

Quotehis never-since equaled talent to transcend & unify the intellect / emotion dichotomy in music, by sheer integration of thought, and miraculously appear - in a sort of state of grace - fully fused with natural lyrical musicality. This is what makes Bach the "father of music".
slow-motion please. Or a mor complete demonstration at least.

Quote
With JS Bach we're talking about a level of harmonic insight & profundity which would render anything "wild" as a fairly tame experience thereafter ... it is the gateway of the most radical experience possible in all music - spiritual ecstasy and some sort of "communion" with oneself or truth. Words fail me and I have to resort to religious terms even though I do not follow a faith !
I guess the precedent paragraph is supposed to justify this thought.

QuoteIn the fragmented torrent of ideas this world has become since Bach's time - where certain methods were able to grow and be honed to perfection by him - it is much harder to speak in the unified, integrated voice of a totally consolidated musical form.
perfection in music, do we need another thread to define what it means?

Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: quintett op.57 on May 24, 2007, 09:50:44 AM
Quote from: sonic1 on May 24, 2007, 09:41:16 AM
The problem here is that we are talking about several very different genres of music (though we call it all "classical").
Oh yes.
Between Vivaldi and Bach' styles, there's a big gap.

Vivaldi probably suffers from being judged as if he aimed the same than Bach. It's because they lived at the same time.
But, in Italy, it was already almost classical era.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 09:52:38 AM
Quote from: quintett op.57 on May 24, 2007, 09:50:44 AM
Oh yes.
Between Vivaldi and Bach' styles, there's a big gap.

Not such a big gap as between Vivaldi and Schumann, of course.

From temporal distance, a lot of stylistic nuance which loomed large Back In The Day, seems comparatively insignificant.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: quintett op.57 on May 24, 2007, 09:58:38 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 09:52:38 AM
Not such a big gap as between Vivaldi and Schumann, of course.

From temporal distance, a lot of stylistic nuance which loomed large Back In The Day, seems comparatively insignificant.
insignificant?
not between italian music and german music at the beginning of the XVIIIth, please!
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 10:01:54 AM
Quote from: quintett op.57 on May 24, 2007, 09:58:38 AM
insignificant?
not between italian music and german music at the beginning of the XVIIIth, please!

My dear fellow, note the adverb comparatively.  Compared to the differences between Vivaldi and Schumann, the stylistic differences between a Vivaldi concerto grosso and a Bach concerto grosso are slight.

If you find the differences enormous, that reflects a specialist interest on your part, not an absolute fault in my statement.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: sonic1 on May 24, 2007, 10:05:38 AM
Wait here: do people actually think Vivaldi NOT GREAT? While I am sort of sick of certain music, that would not render it NOT GREAT. Quite the contrary: for a man to still have his work performed hundreds of years later, and quite a lot, is quite a feat. Vivaldi has touched a lot of people with his music. He has communicated his art successfully over several centuries. I think that is pretty friggin' great. And most of you know I don't necessarily judge music by its popularity. But his aim was not the same as Bach, who aimed at more structural complexities. I find no conflict in assigning them both greatness, for much different reasons. Comparing the two in hierarchy however would seem like a child's name (my composer can beat up  your composer). Who cares about all that? As displayed over and over and over again here on this forum, nobody agrees (even to a close degree) on the order of hierarchy. It serves no real purpose except to get us arguing.

But a general glob organizing system of greatness is ok with me-Who was great at WHAT? Why was Mahler great? I think we could attempt at saying why each great composer was great. Measuring them against each other however is child's game.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: quintett op.57 on May 24, 2007, 10:08:59 AM
QuoteWait here: do people actually think Vivaldi NOT GREAT?





Quote from: quintett op.57 on May 22, 2007, 03:10:06 PM
As a conclusion, I wouldn't say all the composers have the same level of greatness.
But don't try to rank them.

Don't try to rank guys like Handel, Vivaldi, Bach, Haydn and Mozart, you would even ignore what you're doing.

Quotevivaldi on the same level as bach ??  oh nevermind... Wink
this is where the discussion started.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: sonic1 on May 24, 2007, 10:13:20 AM
So does everyone here agree that a hierarchal cannon is silly? A cannon maybe fine, if it doesn't attempt at ranking composers against one another.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: BachQ on May 24, 2007, 10:15:22 AM
Quote from: sonic1 on May 24, 2007, 10:13:20 AM
So does everyone here agree that a hierarchal cannon is silly?

Rankings serve a legitimate, if circumscribed, purpose .........

Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 10:24:23 AM
Last things first:

Quote from: sonic1 on May 24, 2007, 10:05:38 AM
But a general glob organizing system of greatness is ok with me-Who was great at WHAT? Why was Mahler great? I think we could attempt at saying why each great composer was great. Measuring them against each other however is child's game.

Agreed on that last (how do we compare Schumann and Vivaldi? -- I wasn't, of course, I was pointing out that there is a great stylistic gap . . . which of itself is part of the problematic nature of comparing them).

I am too mixed in my read of Mahler to answer, there.  But you have giants of 20th century music as various as Schoenberg, Shostakovich and Bernstein vouching for his greatness, by word and (in musical emulation, to some degree) deed.

Quote from: sonic1Wait here: do people actually think Vivaldi NOT GREAT? While I am sort of sick of certain music, that would not render it NOT GREAT.

Agree with the latter;  couldn't speak to the former.

Stravinsky went on record as having little interest in Vivaldi;  but then, Igor Fyodorovich was always colorful in his musical scorn  8)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: sonic1 on May 24, 2007, 10:25:06 AM
Well, this is why I go back to the personal cannon: There is no way even a limited group like our own could agree on a hierarchal cannon, let alone the classical scene at large.

If we are talking about a general cannon, and an agreed-upon cannon (which in itself is a major challenge), I suggest leaving out a hierarchal order, unless you never want to accomplish anything.

However, for what the music means to you personally, or what you think as more great than another, there can be a hierarchy. But I myself would even find arguments even if just dealing with my own self (inner arguments never to end). Personally I don't see a purpose in ranking.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 10:30:58 AM
Quote from: sonic1 on May 24, 2007, 10:25:06 AM
. . . Personally I don't see a purpose in ranking.

No, indeed.  Though that goes straight back to DavidW's fine post (http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,1031.msg24919.html#msg24919) . . . trying to make a horserace of it is pointless (Bach, then Mozart and Prokofiev neck and neck, some track separates them from Haydn, Sibelius pulls up the rear).

I don't see a canon as that sort of strict linear "ranking."  And again, I think a canon as something which is Other than, simply, my listening preferences still has value.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 10:33:18 AM
Quote from: quintett op.57 on May 24, 2007, 10:08:59 AM
this is where the discussion started.

No, that was Nielsen (http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,1031.0.html)  ;)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: sonic1 on May 24, 2007, 10:35:42 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 10:30:58 AM
No, indeed.  Though that goes straight back to DavidW's fine post (http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,1031.msg24919.html#msg24919) . . . trying to make a horserace of it is pointless (Bach, then Mozart and Prokofiev neck and neck, some track separates them from Haydn, Sibelius pulls up the rear).

I don't see a canon as that sort of strict linear "ranking."  And again, I think a canon as something which is Other than, simply, my listening preferences still has value.

This I agree with. For example, I am not the biggest Mozart fan. I finally kind of get it, but I don't ever really crave Mozart like I do Bach or Shostakovich or even that rare Vivaldi mood. That would not stop me from assigning him into greatness; for obviously, my tastes aside, he has impacted many many lives with his music.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 10:38:27 AM
Jared, do you know this 'un?--

(http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/414XyQv69dL._AA240_.jpg)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: sonic1 on May 24, 2007, 10:43:55 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 10:38:27 AM
Jared, do you know this 'un?--

(http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/414XyQv69dL._AA240_.jpg)

That looks pretty interesting. I will have to check it out. I have been digging on that neo-pseudo-tango stuff lately.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: quintett op.57 on May 24, 2007, 10:44:41 AM
Quote from: James on May 24, 2007, 10:07:09 AM
quintett, you just want to argue for for the sake of it, you just pick out bits and pose questions without carefully reading and absorbing whats being said, or contributing anything to this discussion....please....take some time to reflect and think it through before posting in a knee-jerk fashion.
allright. I start again without picking out bits.

Quote from: James on May 24, 2007, 09:14:13 AM
About Bach...
Quote
Bach's acheivement was in assimilating & consolidating those ideals & aspirations - of polyphonic counterpoint - into subsequent stylistic & formal developments ... all in an organic, intellectual flowering. Why is Bach is so revered? He used the same nuts & bolts as others ... but made music transcendant & mystical in it's power: he was a genius.
I really don't know what it means : making music mystical in its power.
Quote
He was in part the great consolidator and summation of that age, and of that great art of horizontal / vertical conception.
he was a consolidator, but he didn't consolidate everything, we agree about that, don't we?
QuoteBut ... his real musical "invention" was the depth of his inventiveness : his never-since equaled talent to transcend & unify the intellect / emotion dichotomy in music, by sheer integration of thought, and miraculously appear - in a sort of state of grace - fully fused with natural lyrical musicality. This is what makes Bach the "father of music".
Still in need of an explanation about this. I don't agree with the fact that he had a never-since aqualed talent for what you've said. This is what you have to explain.
When you've done this effort, things will be clearer to us.

QuoteWith JS Bach we're talking about a level of harmonic insight & profundity which would render anything "wild" as a fairly tame experience thereafter ... it is the gateway of the most radical experience possible in all music - spiritual ecstasy and some sort of "communion" with oneself or truth. Words fail me and I have to resort to religious terms even though I do not follow a faith !
!!! hum
I don't have to comment this, only compliments, you agree?

QuoteIn the fragmented torrent of ideas this world has become since Bach's time - where certain methods were able to grow and be honed to perfection by him - it is much harder to speak in the unified, integrated voice of a totally consolidated musical form.
perfection? what is perfection in music? deserves a new thread, doesn't it?
QuoteThose wonderful musical means were then all used up, and cannot be redeemed by new composers. They have to find a fresh way ... note that I say FRESH ... not new !
You're assuming he's consolidated everything and lifted the level of music up to perfection?
wow!
Now you just have to give arguments.

Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: 71 dB on May 24, 2007, 10:49:54 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 08:35:02 AM
You'd do better if you started correcting errors right at home, if you know what I mean, lad  8)

Sorry, I don't know what you mean.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: sonic1 on May 24, 2007, 10:58:09 AM
We already had a perfection in music thread. It was another typical GMG brawl. If you want to ensure the arrival of Pink Harp, be my guest, and start another.

It is a silly notion to me, unless just using the word "perfect" in a more personal sense.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: quintett op.57 on May 24, 2007, 11:03:02 AM
James, the difference you suggest between fresh and new is not clear to me.

here is the first definition of fresh in the free-online dic :

1.  New to one's experience; not encountered before.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: jochanaan on May 24, 2007, 11:10:00 AM
Coming late to this thread, I'm not sure what to say.  But I'll try to say something anyway. :-\

First, here's a proposed definition of music:  "Organized sound."  This discounts randomly generated noises--unless somebody deliberately exploits aspects of the randomness, in other words, organizes it; much like Stockhausen and his Music for Four Helicopters (or however many it was).

Now to the even more problematic concept of greatness.  When I say that a composer, or a certain piece of music, is great, I usually mean that it has two things: Power, and perfection.  "Power" means that it moves me--to wonder, joy, fear, or some other emotion.  "Perfection" means that all the musical elements--notes, dynamics, phrasings, motivic developments, and so on--are in good relation to each other and form a satisfying whole.  Perfection without power is "academic" music; power without perfection never moves me for long.

Size and complexity play a role, but a small one.  A Bach organ fugue, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, or a Wagner opera are good examples of big, complex great pieces; but a late Schubert song can have equal power and perfection compacted into a small size and musical simplicity.  (I'm thinking of Der Doppelgänger.)

Of course, since music only truly lives when it's performed, we have to consider performance too.  A great performance is simply one that portrays and transmits the music's greatness.  And one measure of music's greatness might be the quality of performances it draws from musicians.  If, say, the London Symphony, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic and other world-class orchestras tend to give consistently weak performances of a certain piece, that might point to a lack in the music itself; but if the music consistently draws the best playing from the musicians, there's probably something there.

I think I said somewhere on the old forum that a good "objective" measure of greatness is simply the number of qualified listeners--that is, listeners who have experience and sensitivity--who think a composer or a composition is great.

Quote from: sonic1 on May 24, 2007, 10:13:20 AM
So does everyone here agree that a hierarchal cannon is silly?
Unless they're ranked by caliber and muzzle velocity. ;D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 11:10:44 AM
Here's an offshoot of this thread, if you like (http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,299.msg4713.html#msg4713)  8)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 11:12:32 AM
Quote from: jochanaan on May 24, 2007, 11:10:00 AM
First, here's a proposed definition of music:  "Organized sound."  This discounts randomly generated noises . . . .

Does it also discount our friend the nightingale? — since we cannot speak to his organization, I mean  ;)

Fine addition to the thread, your post, jochanaan, thank you!
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: sonic1 on May 24, 2007, 11:13:11 AM
James, you make some pretty strong statements, and you expect clarification from others. It is only fair if you take the time to communicate yourself too. I agree with you about Bach being great. But you need to communicate this without saying he has no equal, and all the other floral adjectives. Bach was an inventive arranger of harmony and melody, and his music emotive through the complexities. That is what I would say. His music has stood the test of time (and at least in one period, survived neglect). His output was mind-boggling, especially considering all his other responsibilities. He also wrote for entirely new instruments with new tonality-something most composers never have to deal with. Instead of being intimidated, he was excited and wrote stuff for every key.

Yes, in that German way, he has a mechanistic tendency, but also in that German way it is laced with intense emotion, intentional or not.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Danny on May 24, 2007, 11:22:29 AM
So we're all agreed that Beethoven was the greatest of all composers and that we need another cycle of his symphonies recorded?  Why, I think that was Dr. Karl's intention for creating this thread, after all! ;D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: BachQ on May 24, 2007, 11:36:52 AM
Quote from: jochanaan on May 24, 2007, 11:10:00 AM
First, here's a proposed definition of music:  "Organized sound."   This discounts randomly generated noises--unless somebody deliberately exploits aspects of the randomness, in other words, organizes it; much like Stockhausen and his Music for Four Helicopters (or however many it was).

Very good!
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Don on May 24, 2007, 11:38:08 AM
Quote from: Danny on May 24, 2007, 11:22:29 AM
So we're all agreed that Beethoven was the greatest of all composers and that we need another cycle of his symphonies recorded? 

Yes, it's about time for another Beethoven symphonies cycle.  How about Yannick Nezet-Seguin?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 11:40:14 AM
Quote from: D Minor on May 24, 2007, 11:36:52 AM
Very good!

Make your checks payable to: M. Edgard Varèse (a/k/a "The stratospheric Colossus of Sound")

jochanaan does get bragging rights for the referral, naturalmente!
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: sonic1 on May 24, 2007, 11:44:47 AM
Quote from: jochanaan on May 24, 2007, 11:10:00 AM
Coming late to this thread, I'm not sure what to say.  But I'll try to say something anyway. :-\

First, here's a proposed definition of music:  "Organized sound."  This discounts randomly generated noises--unless somebody deliberately exploits aspects of the randomness, in other words, organizes it; much like Stockhausen and his Music for Four Helicopters (or however many it was).

Now to the even more problematic concept of greatness.  When I say that a composer, or a certain piece of music, is great, I usually mean that it has two things: Power, and perfection.  "Power" means that it moves me--to wonder, joy, fear, or some other emotion.  "Perfection" means that all the musical elements--notes, dynamics, phrasings, motivic developments, and so on--are in good relation to each other and form a satisfying whole.  Perfection without power is "academic" music; power without perfection never moves me for long.

Size and complexity play a role, but a small one.  A Bach organ fugue, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, or a Wagner opera are good examples of big, complex great pieces; but a late Schubert song can have equal power and perfection compacted into a small size and musical simplicity.  (I'm thinking of Der Doppelgänger.)

Of course, since music only truly lives when it's performed, we have to consider performance too.  A great performance is simply one that portrays and transmits the music's greatness.  And one measure of music's greatness might be the quality of performances it draws from musicians.  If, say, the London Symphony, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic and other world-class orchestras tend to give consistently weak performances of a certain piece, that might point to a lack in the music itself; but if the music consistently draws the best playing from the musicians, there's probably something there.

I think I said somewhere on the old forum that a good "objective" measure of greatness is simply the number of qualified listeners--that is, listeners who have experience and sensitivity--who think a composer or a composition is great.
Unless they're ranked by caliber and muzzle velocity. ;D

BTW jochanaan, how dare you interject even-tempered, objective argument! (a slug to the stomach)

;D

This is the playground, baby.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: BachQ on May 24, 2007, 11:47:38 AM
Quote from: sonic1 on May 24, 2007, 11:44:47 AM
BTW jochanaan, how dare you interject even-tempered, objective argument! (a slug to the stomach)

;D

This is the playground, baby.

Yeah, he's just neutralized about 15 pages of this thread ........
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 11:48:21 AM
Quote from: D Minor on May 24, 2007, 11:47:38 AM
Yeah, he's just neutralized about 15 pages of this thread ........

Surely not that much, mon vieux?

Perhaps you're right, at that . . . .
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Danny on May 24, 2007, 12:02:36 PM
Quote from: Don on May 24, 2007, 11:38:08 AM
Yes, it's about time for another Beethoven symphonies cycle.  How about Yannick Nezet-Seguin?

Hey, I'm buyin'! :D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 12:06:29 PM
The castanets in the third-movement Adagio (In the Store) of the Shostakovich Thirteenth.

That is greatness in music.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Danny on May 24, 2007, 12:17:22 PM
The entire Tenth Symphony is a masterful work of art, Dr. Karl.  :)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: quintett op.57 on May 24, 2007, 02:19:43 PM
Quote from: sonic1 on May 24, 2007, 11:13:11 AM
James, you make some pretty strong statements, and you expect clarification from others. It is only fair if you take the time to communicate yourself too. I agree with you about Bach being great. But you need to communicate this without saying he has no equal
But if he thinks this?
He can, he just has to give arguments if he wants to convince.
If he had not said this, we would all agree (except Josquin and Josh).

Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Bunny on May 24, 2007, 02:24:37 PM
Quote from: Don on May 24, 2007, 11:38:08 AM
Yes, it's about time for another Beethoven symphonies cycle.  How about Yannick Nezet-Seguin?

Don't forget Jos van Immerseel's cycle to be released in 2008.  There's certainly room for another period instrument cycle. ;D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: DavidW on May 24, 2007, 04:09:50 PM
Quote from: quintett op.57 on May 24, 2007, 07:57:05 AM
And Fux.
I don't think you do but I find it important not to reduce this influence to Bach and Handel (not to Fux either).

I made the same mistake I was criticizing!  I was characterizing an era by a minority! :D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: DavidW on May 24, 2007, 04:20:14 PM
If you accept organized sound as the definition of music you run into the Cage problem.

I think that any definition of music will fail to describe all types of music.  Does this mean that music is undefinable?  No, I think it just means that we need multiple definitions that are true within context.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Don on May 24, 2007, 04:22:32 PM
Quote from: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 09:10:58 AM
I'd like to try an experiment.

I have really enjoyed the ongoing exchange here, and while spirits have sometimes warmed, the tone has largely kept civil  8)

I don't see the thread's usefulness as at all done, but I am thinking of temporarily closing the thread down for the (US) holiday weekend, about this time tomorrow (Friday).  I would reopen it for 'business' Tuesday morning (Chowder time).


Looks like you're going to stretch this one as far into the future as possible. :D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: quintett op.57 on May 24, 2007, 04:26:53 PM
Quote from: jochanaan on May 24, 2007, 11:10:00 AM
Now to the even more problematic concept of greatness.  When I say that a composer, or a certain piece of music, is great, I usually mean that it has two things: Power, and perfection.  "Power" means that it moves me--to wonder, joy, fear, or some other emotion.  "Perfection" means that all the musical elements--notes, dynamics, phrasings, motivic developments, and so on--are in good relation to each other and form a satisfying whole.  Perfection without power is "academic" music; power without perfection never moves me for long.
Actually yes, I can accept there's perfection in music : there are pieces in which I can hear no defect.
But I would include "power" in "perfection".

I would describe myself as a "cold listener" : Wonder is the only emotion which is important for me in music.
Greatness for me is probably very different from what it is for someone for whom "power" is very important.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: quintett op.57 on May 24, 2007, 04:32:20 PM
Quote from: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 12:06:29 PM
The castanets in the third-movement Adagio (In the Store) of the Shostakovich Thirteenth.

That is greatness in music.
You should hear some Lee Perry.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: sonic1 on May 24, 2007, 05:07:01 PM
Is there any reason that music cannot be described at the art of sound (to get around those composers who use accident to compose with)? Even  Cage's 4'33 has the intent of sounding like something (it is not meant to be "silence" in the pure sense of the word.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: quintett op.57 on May 25, 2007, 12:18:25 AM
Supposed to make the mind create his own music?
It does not imply it's a piece of music.


Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Danny on May 25, 2007, 12:52:28 AM
Have we mentioned being sublime yet?  Is this the summation of originality, innovation, influence, power, depth and being inimitable in general, or is it just another factor?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: quintett op.57 on May 25, 2007, 12:59:39 AM
 :-\
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Danny on May 25, 2007, 01:01:40 AM
 >:D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 25, 2007, 03:33:16 AM
Quote from: DavidW on May 24, 2007, 04:20:14 PM
If you accept organized sound as the definition of music you run into the Cage problem.

Yes, and no.  4'33 is pointedly non-organized sound  :)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 25, 2007, 03:48:29 AM
Quote from: Guido on May 22, 2007, 11:18:24 AM
I have a real problem with the word masterpiece - what does it really mean?

Well, this has to help, Guido!

Quote from: Harry on May 25, 2007, 12:58:59 AM
Could not resist this, why? Because 60 cd's of worthwhile interpretations for so little money, is a steal in my opinion.

Whatever "masterpiece" may mean, according to the packaging of this consumerable, Beethoven wrote 60 discs' worth!  ;D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 25, 2007, 04:48:01 AM
No, but really . . . .

Not that I want to tell everybody how he has to use the word (though, as a general linguistic principle, agreed-upon meanings are an aid to communication) — how are we using "masterpiece"?  (I take it as read that most of us agree that, unlike the controversy over greatness, there is such a thing as a masterpiece.)

I like the guild source (as I mentioned earlier, long before the thread got clogged with the predictable "what anybody says is great, is great" traffic), but probably in the larger world, that runs a bit quaint.

Are the masterpieces highlights (and so, in the case of that enormous box set that Harry has purchased, if the great bulk of a great composer's work is highlights, are there no highlights? — does the canvas just wash into undistinguished brilliance?) Or what?

Let's all share:  how do you use "masterpiece"?

Quickly!  The thread will soon lock up for the extended weekend!  8)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 25, 2007, 05:07:05 AM
Quote from: quintett op.57 on May 24, 2007, 04:32:20 PM
You should hear some Lee Perry.

I think I've tried his Worcestershire sauce . . . .
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: DavidW on May 25, 2007, 05:39:17 AM
Quote from: sonic1 on May 24, 2007, 05:07:01 PM
Is there any reason that music cannot be described at the art of sound (to get around those composers who use accident to compose with)? Even  Cage's 4'33 has the intent of sounding like something (it is not meant to be "silence" in the pure sense of the word.

I like that. :) 

But then I wonder about the visual element in operas and music videos. ;D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 25, 2007, 06:06:46 AM
The opera version is 10h 14' 33"  0:)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on May 25, 2007, 06:29:42 AM
Quote from: Danny on May 24, 2007, 12:17:22 PM
The entire Tenth Symphony is a masterful work of art, Dr. Karl.  :)



Shostakovich's 4th,5th, and 14th ain't too shabby either!
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on May 25, 2007, 07:15:51 AM
hkkkkkk
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 25, 2007, 07:17:21 AM
Not shabby in the least, Andy!

Greg? You all right there, fella?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on May 25, 2007, 07:18:11 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on May 25, 2007, 07:17:21 AM
Greg? You all right there, fella?
hyyydfff
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on May 25, 2007, 07:18:26 AM
(excuse me, i'm in a Prokofiev mood)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on May 25, 2007, 07:18:33 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on May 25, 2007, 07:17:21 AM
Not shabby in the least, Andy!

Greg? You all right there, fella?



Looked like a temporary speech boo-boo.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on May 25, 2007, 07:23:51 AM
Quote from: Haffner on May 25, 2007, 07:18:33 AM


Looked like a temporary speech boo-boo.
Makes me feel sad for the Chinese. They will never know the joys of typing internet messages that make you sound like you have a frog croaking from inside your throat...  :'(
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on May 25, 2007, 07:26:20 AM
Quote from: greg on May 25, 2007, 07:23:51 AM
Makes me feel sad for the Chinese. They will never know the joys of typing internet messages that make you sound like you have a frog croaking from inside your throat...  :'(



;D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 25, 2007, 08:30:19 AM
Locking up till Tuesday.

Meanwhile, keep thinking great thoughts!
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 31, 2007, 03:21:42 PM
[ unlocked ]
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Maciek on May 31, 2007, 03:37:38 PM
Well, just to stir things up a bit let me say I know a European country where neither Mahler nor Bruckner are considered a part of the canon - or at least the strictly "greatest of the great" part of the canon. They are not performed very often there, certainly not by local orchestras. Especially Mahler is looked down upon and never really treated seriously. It is a country where Mahler fans always feel they have to explain themselves...

Maciek
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Gurn Blanston on May 31, 2007, 03:47:41 PM
Quote from: MrOsa on May 31, 2007, 03:37:38 PM
Well, just to stir things up a bit let me say I know a European country where neither Mahler nor Bruckner are considered a part of the canon - or at least the strictly "greatest of the great" part of the canon. They are not performed very often there, certainly not by local orchestras. Especially Mahler is looked down upon and never really treated seriously. It is a country where Mahler fans always feel they have to explain themselves...

Maciek

Texas right?  No, wait, Europe? :-\  (some Texans like Bruckner) :)

8)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Maciek on May 31, 2007, 03:56:06 PM
Quote from: Gurn Blanston on May 31, 2007, 03:47:41 PM
Texas right?  No, wait, Europe? :-\  (some Texans like Bruckner) :)

8)

Well, I'm not a Mahler fan, so I don't suffer. And Brucknerites do not have to explain themselves, so I'm fine again. (Besides, over there no one knows who Bruckner is anyway).
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on May 31, 2007, 04:23:54 PM
I'm still amazed that Mahler's Symphonies and Lieder would ever require an admirer's explanation...I guess I'm just "weird", but the complexity and range of his work is obvious.


Symphony no.3, by itself, is the musical embodiment of a great novel, in my humble opinion.


Granted, his music can require some patience...
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Steve on May 31, 2007, 04:31:40 PM
Quote from: Haffner on May 31, 2007, 04:23:54 PM
I'm still amazed that Mahler's Symphonies and Lieder would ever require an admirer's explanation...I guess I'm just "weird", but the complexity and range of his work is obvious.


Symphony no.3, by itself, is the musical embodiment of a great novel, in my humble opinion.


Granted, his music can require some patience...

Well his complexity cannot really be understated, but his greatness is still a matter of subjective opinion.

Being, a Mahlerite myself, I completely agree with you.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on May 31, 2007, 04:41:52 PM
Quote from: Steve on May 31, 2007, 04:31:40 PM
Well his complexity cannot really be understated, but his greatness is still a matter of subjective opinion.

Being, a Mahlerite myself, I completely agree with you.



Thanks, Steve, I'm guessing that you're aware of how alienated a Mahler enthusiast can be at times. Many people seem to lump him in the love-or-hate attitude toward Wagner, and all they do is cheat themselves of some of the most involved, involving music ever written.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: BachQ on May 31, 2007, 04:44:13 PM
Quote from: Steve on May 31, 2007, 04:31:40 PM
but his greatness is still a matter of subjective opinion.

Nah ....... it's objective .........
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Steve on May 31, 2007, 09:41:26 PM
Quote from: Haffner on May 31, 2007, 04:41:52 PM


Thanks, Steve, I'm guessing that you're aware of how alienated a Mahler enthusiast can be at times. Many people seem to lump him in the love-or-hate attitude toward Wagner, and all they do is cheat themselves of some of the most involved, involving music ever written.

Quote from: Haffner on May 31, 2007, 04:41:52 PM

You've just got to commit the effort, I say. Mahler's no cakewalk!  :)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on June 01, 2007, 04:38:40 AM
Quote from: D Minor on May 31, 2007, 04:44:13 PM
Nah ....... it's objective .........

And why can't it be an admixture of both, eh?

Gurn!  How many times have we reminded you?! Although a former breakaway republic, Texas has not been a discrete nation -- and unique, of course, among the States of the Union in being a former dictatorship  8) -- for more than a century and a half.

December 29, 1845 is still observed in Texas as The Beginning of the End Day, isn't it?  ;)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on June 01, 2007, 06:05:50 AM
i've been reading some of Bernstein's book, "The Joy of Music", and i read that he knew some professor who tried to put a measurement for "aesthetic value" for music, which i think is kinda like what Mikkel did. But his was more of a formula, which no one understood. Both of their "systems" haven't really gotten anywhere.

I'd like to make, not a system, but some observations about musical quality....... i'll post some stuff in a little bit
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Danny on June 01, 2007, 09:34:19 AM
Quote from: Haffner on May 31, 2007, 04:23:54 PM
I'm still amazed that Mahler's Symphonies and Lieder would ever require an admirer's explanation...I guess I'm just "weird", but the complexity and range of his work is obvious.


Symphony no.3, by itself, is the musical embodiment of a great novel, in my humble opinion.


Granted, his music can require some patience...

Very true for the last statement, and I still can't stay awake for the entire Third Symphony.  I loved the First, Fifth and Ninth Symphonies right off the bat, though.  The Second is a flawed masterpiece (is that word still undefined--I hope not!).  The others are quite good, but I still haven't digested them.  So it is a mixture of the two, really.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on June 01, 2007, 11:51:09 AM
Quote from: Steve on May 31, 2007, 04:31:40 PM
Well his complexity cannot really be understated, but his greatness is still a matter of subjective opinion.

You guys still seem to be hung up on the false dichotomy whereby if a judgment is not "objectively" provable as in a mathematical theorem, it is somehow "subjective," which makes it nothing more than a personal reaction. But that's not how cultures work, and the more interesting question is, how a piece of music becomes recognized as a work the culture in general values. (Hint: it has nothing to do with a conspiracy to overrate Beethoven or underrate Dittersdorf.)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on June 01, 2007, 11:59:15 AM
i'm working on two pieces for solo violin- one will be something which i think has quality, and the other doesn't

when it'll be done, i don't know though. maybe a few days
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Catison on June 01, 2007, 03:19:24 PM
Can a whole lot of subjectivity lead to objectivity?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Bogey on June 01, 2007, 03:44:02 PM
Quote from: Catison on June 01, 2007, 03:19:24 PM
Can a whole lot of subjectivity lead to objectivity?

One way or the other, would the answer to this be subjective?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on June 02, 2007, 05:14:56 AM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on June 01, 2007, 11:51:09 AM
You guys still seem to be hung up on the false dichotomy whereby if a judgment is not "objectively" provable as in a mathematical theorem, it is somehow "subjective," which makes it nothing more than a personal reaction. But that's not how cultures work, and the more interesting question is, how a piece of music becomes recognized as a work the culture in general values. (Hint: it has nothing to do with a conspiracy to overrate Beethoven or underrate Dittersdorf.)





Excellent points, Larry. It's interesting how you rate "personal reaction" as "lesser".

I've often inquired of myself the "whys" of listening/preferring to certain music. As you are aware, there are so many cultural, "ethonlogical", sociological theories regarding the appreciation of music. A veritable library, so I'm grateful that you summarized your idea so succinctly.

I actually have a Mahler t-shirt (I can be extremely "different" I guess), and the picture of him on the front (the classic young shot) garnered me two people asking if that was Woody Allen.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on June 02, 2007, 05:15:37 AM
Quote from: Catison on June 01, 2007, 03:19:24 PM
Can a whole lot of subjectivity lead to objectivity?




A Whole Lotta Rosie?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Bogey on June 02, 2007, 05:22:46 AM
Quote from: Haffner on June 02, 2007, 05:15:37 AM



A Whole Lotta Rosie?

Look out!:

(http://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:sCKD0IHpYqPTuM:www.gungfu.de/facts/uploads/angus_young.jpg)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on June 02, 2007, 05:58:13 AM
Quote from: Haffner on June 02, 2007, 05:14:56 AM
I actually have a Mahler t-shirt (I can be extremely "different" I guess), and the picture of him on the front (the classic young shot) garnered me two people asking if that was Woody Allen.

I thoroughly enjoy this, Andy!
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: orange on June 02, 2007, 05:59:34 AM
Quote from: bwv 1080 on May 22, 2007, 11:57:05 AM
OK, so if I say that for me personally, Andrew Lloyd Weber's music is greater than Mozart's then that is a valid proposition?

You cannot separate yourself from hundreds of years of musical culture.  True the culture is always changing and challenging its own propositions, but that is what makes it interesting and able to sort the good from the bad.  ISTM one has to either recognize that they are part of a larger culture or be stuck in aesthetic solipsism

Just another retorical question.  
I don't know why we need to contest, to judge music all the time. Ok, to know which music is good or bad. Who made these proportions in musical history and who can say it for contemporary music? People, other musicians,...

But, it is not known for sure if these proportions were made right? Maybe there was made a mistake? Because the larger group of people is not always to best judge.

Specially for contemporary music I think it's very hard to say what is good or bad? Probably the musical history will tell. But here I come to paradox. ???

Any comments? :)

Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on June 02, 2007, 06:26:59 AM
Quote from: Catison on June 01, 2007, 03:19:24 PM
Can a whole lot of subjectivity lead to objectivity?

Brett may be writing flippantly here, but in a sense, I'd say yes: a powerful groundswell of repeated, time-honored judgments eventually has the force of objective fact. No, it is not objectively provable that Shakespeare and Beethoven reached the highest peaks of the arts in which they worked. But within the culture that has shaped those of us who care about these arts, those aesthetic judgments might as well be objective fact.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on June 02, 2007, 08:52:28 AM
Quote from: Haffner on June 02, 2007, 05:14:56 AM

I actually have a Mahler t-shirt (I can be extremely "different" I guess), and the picture of him on the front (the classic young shot) garnered me two people asking if that was Woody Allen.
that's cool, i don't know if you remember Mikkel, but I convinced him to get a Penderecki t-shirt  ;D
then i asked him if girls would ask him who the heck is that, but he just said he got people staring with a confused expression

what'd be really cool is to get a shirt with Mahler and the 2nd Viennese school- have Mahler on top, then have a sorta triangle shape with Schoenberg at the top, Webern on the left and Berg on the right
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on June 02, 2007, 10:33:27 AM
Quote from: greg on June 02, 2007, 08:52:28 AM
that's cool, i don't know if you remember Mikkel, but I convinced him to get a Penderecki t-shirt  ;D
then i asked him if girls would ask him who the heck is that, but he just said he got people staring with a confused expression

what'd be really cool is to get a shirt with Mahler and the 2nd Viennese school- have Mahler on top, then have a sorta triangle shape with Schoenberg at the top, Webern on the left and Berg on the right




Excellent idea.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Catison on June 02, 2007, 01:11:49 PM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on June 02, 2007, 06:26:59 AM
Brett may be writing flippantly here, but in a sense, I'd say yes: a powerful groundswell of repeated, time-honored judgments eventually has the force of objective fact. No, it is not objectively provable that Shakespeare and Beethoven reached the highest peaks of the arts in which they worked. But within the culture that has shaped those of us who care about these arts, those aesthetic judgments might as well be objective fact.

This is precisely what I was getting at, and I agree.  But I think I might change it to say a whole lot of informed subjectivity begets objectivity.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on June 02, 2007, 04:29:21 PM
Quote from: orange on June 02, 2007, 05:59:34 AM
I don't know why we need to contest, to judge music all the time.

We just do it.  People have just done it, practically forever.  Culture itself is, from one angle, a kind of filter.

I agree it is of a certain interest to inquire why it's done.  But I think that a lot of people have come up with some kind of answer, and have been a little too satisfied a little too quickly that they have supposedly penetrated to the heart of the matter, and plumbed it thoroughly.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: 12tone. on June 02, 2007, 05:25:55 PM
Quote from: karlhenning on June 02, 2007, 04:29:21 PM
We just do it. 

It's what nerds do.  8)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on June 03, 2007, 12:48:02 PM
Ok: here's my experiment


Which one is better? A or B

both are short Violin Etudes

if it goes as predicted, one will unanimously be selected as "better" than the other.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on June 03, 2007, 12:48:16 PM
B
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on June 03, 2007, 07:38:02 PM
"A" is in my opinion better. Sounds like someone has been listening to Shostakovich.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on June 04, 2007, 05:47:50 AM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on June 03, 2007, 07:38:02 PM
"A" is in my opinion better. Sounds like someone has been listening to Shostakovich.




Sounds like alot of people have been listening to Shostakovich and composing these days (hard for me to blame 'em).
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on June 04, 2007, 08:00:49 AM
alright, I want some more opinions, people, please!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  :)
i'd like at least a total of 10 people saying their opinion before i can really make a judgement.


that's funny that you sound like it sounds like Shostakovich.  ;D
it's just easier for me to write that way- extremely chromatic, yet tonal. It comes out naturally. The problem is, if I try to write in the style of Mahler or an atonal style like Schoenberg or Boulez, it's much harder, and feels unnatural. This, despite the fact that I've studied their scores much more than Prokofiev or Shostakovich (i hardly ever study their scores!)

and the whole paradox of it all is that when I do study their scores, it makes me think that they are the hardest composers to figure out, yet they are the easiest for me to imitate  ???
with some more practice, i should be able to get over that, though and write more naturally using other styles/tonal ways of thinking/rhythm, etc.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: JoshLilly on June 04, 2007, 08:11:28 AM
I'm not a culture, I'm an individual. I'm just me. Why should "culture" affect anyone's personal listening time one way or another? Why do people let that guide them into what they will like or not like? So many people are wrecked by this canon, which is the only reason I dislike the whole idea. They make up their minds about a piece before hearing the first note of it, based on who wrote it. That's not objectivity or subjectivity, it simply doesn't make sense.

I honestly think that if people were to listen to music for years without ever knowing any composer, name, time period, or anything else, that people's choices as to what's great and what isn't would be "naturally" wider than it is now. I think many people convince themselves - to some extent - what they will and will not like without actually listening to it. I bet a lifetime of nothing but blind taste-testing would change things quite a bit for each individual. Too bad we can't set up an alternate universe with copies of ourselves to test this out, but I'm guessing that the results would probably surprise some of the devotées of the "Great Composers Pantheon" school of thought. I'm not even saying the group as a whole wouldn't automatically come up with a similar (or even identical) pantheon to what exists now, but I am saying, as individuals, some people might naturally pick composers as great that they don't now, simply based on influence of others.

I guess that's it, my whole problem with this concept being applied universally, or as a "culture", is that it stops a lot of people from just listening, and makes them mindlessly assume. They make themselves not like something by an obscure composer before they even hear it. Note that I'm not saying they would necessarily like it without doing so, but that I do think they would in a complete "natural" setting come to some different choices than they do under this culture. If you wiped every person here to a clean brain and went from scratch with music without any knowledge whatsoever... it would be interesting.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on June 04, 2007, 08:18:12 AM
good point, it's kinda like blind taste tests. People might like one brand over the other since they prefer to like that one brand over the other.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on June 04, 2007, 08:30:39 AM
Quote from: JoshLilly on June 04, 2007, 08:11:28 AM
I'm not a culture, I'm an individual. I'm just me.

You were born into a culture. Sorry to disappoint you, but you're not as much of an individual as you'd like to think.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: JoshLilly on June 04, 2007, 08:34:07 AM
Well, a famous example of this being put into practice is with wine. If they see the labels, you can almost predict down the list what the top critics will pick. It's hilarious (and embarassing for them) when they do blind taste tests. Unfortunately, with music it's different, since the taster has already sampled everything that "ought to be" labeled as Great, and upon hearing something they've never heard before will - regardless of their natural taste or inclinations - automatically say it isn't great. Even if they think they're giving it a fair, unbiased hearing, they often aren't. Once again, I stress that this does not mean they would think it was great even in a "pure" natural scenario, but that as things stand now, they have zero chance of considering it great even before leaving the starting blocks.



Quote from: Larry Rinkel on June 04, 2007, 08:30:39 AM
You were born into a culture. Sorry to disappoint you, but you're not as much of an individual as you'd like to think.

When I think about it, I don't guess it really disappoints or pleases me. I simply try to let culture in any matter of taste influence as close to nil as possible. This includes trying to avoid deliberately rebelling against it for its own sake. But you are right to say that my culture has influenced me, at least in a very meta sense. For example, I have a hard time with some music written in Chinese scales, despite that I have some favourite Chinese pieces. This is almost certainly a cultural influence that I have not yet been able to shake.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on June 04, 2007, 09:12:07 AM
I think we've got a sub-topic:

For a composer to be a great composer, has all his music got to be great?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on June 04, 2007, 09:12:47 AM
How many 'flawed masterpieces' is the great composer permitted?  :)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Catison on June 04, 2007, 09:17:07 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on June 04, 2007, 09:12:47 AM
How many 'flawed masterpieces' is the great composer permitted?  :)

49.9999% flawed.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on June 04, 2007, 09:36:18 AM
Quote from: JoshLilly on June 04, 2007, 08:34:07 AM
For example, I have a hard time with some music written in Chinese scales, despite that I have some favourite Chinese pieces. This is almost certainly a cultural influence that I have not yet been able to shake.

That is certainly part of it. But I am as skeptical of the "you're all a bunch of brainwashed sheep for liking Bach" line of thinking as I am of the "I'm an individual who thinks completely for myself and doesn't let anyone influence me" counterapproach. But coming from a person of your considerable intelligence, Joshua, a statement like "so many people are wrecked by this canon" is extremely disappointing. Whoever has been "wrecked" by a knowledge of Beethoven, Mozart, Shakespeare, Michelangelo, Renoir, Balanchine, etc.? If I have been "wrecked" in any way by the heaven-sent opportunity to have experienced the St. Matthew Passion, Antony and Cleopatra, the Sistine Chapel, Balanchine's Four Temperaments and the like, all I can say in response is, "Wreck me some more!"
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on June 04, 2007, 09:39:21 AM
Quote from: Catison on June 04, 2007, 09:17:07 AM
49.9999% flawed.

Nah, you answered the question How flawed a masterpiece is the great composer permitted?

Separetely, is Wellington's Victory a 'flawed masterpiece,' or is it just a dawg?  8)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Catison on June 04, 2007, 09:41:33 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on June 04, 2007, 09:39:21 AM
Nah, you answered the question How flawed a masterpiece is the great composer permitted?

Separetely, is Wellington's Victory a 'flawed masterpiece,' or is it just a dawg?  8)

Sorry, my units were off.  I meant 49.9999% flawed oeuvre.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: JoshLilly on June 04, 2007, 09:51:30 AM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on June 04, 2007, 09:36:18 AM
That is certainly part of it. But I am as skeptical of the "you're all a bunch of brainwashed sheep for liking Bach" line of thinking as I am of the "I'm an individual who thinks completely for myself and doesn't let anyone influence me" counterapproach. But coming from a person of your considerable intelligence, Joshua, a statement like "so many people are wrecked by this canon" is extremely disappointing. Whoever has been "wrecked" by a knowledge of Beethoven, Mozart, Shakespeare, Michelangelo, Renoir, Balanchine, etc.? If I have been "wrecked" in any way by the heaven-sent opportunity to have experienced the St. Matthew Passion, Antony and Cleopatra, the Sistine Chapel, Balanchine's Four Temperaments and the like, all I can say in response is, "Wreck me some more!"


That's definitely not what I mean here. I'm talking about how people form pre-conceptions before listening (or tasting, or viewing, &c.). It's not the familiarity with the works in the "canon" that I'm talking about as harmful, it's rather that people let this positive influence them toward the negative. I can pull off the shelf some piece of music that they've never heard before, ever, by some obscure composer and, without hearing one note, many (most?) will automatically know in the back of their mind that this won't be a "great" piece of music. This is what bothers me. And again, as I've tried to say repeatedly, this does not mean that even in a "natural" setting that they would consider it great, just that people shouldn't base their likes on anything other than the actual piece itself. They're judging something without even experiencing it. This mindset is very common in the "classical" music world, but seems much less dominant outside of it.

That's the wrecking. The knowledge (a canon established by others) that something isn't great based on absolute lack of knowledge (actually hearing for yourself). I think that without this wrecking influence, many individuals who now follow the Party Line 100% of the time on greatness would not do so. This is just a speculation on my part, but I'm fairly certain it is the case, based on my own personal experiences and those of people I know in person.

I also have a feeling that the current canon would somehow re-establish itself. It seems clear to me that the composers now deemed "great" at large have done something that appeals in general to a larger number of people. But for every individual, I don't think in a pure, unadultered, uninfluenced setting that things would be nearly so finely cut. I find it almost tragic that some people will refuse to allow their natural spirit to guide them where it will. It also leads to statements that I can't imagine seeing outside the world of "classical" music.

At the old message board you may remember (Classical Insites), someone once answered a challenge from someone else (not me!). The challenge¹ was: if you woke up tomorrow and found out that Brahms' 1st² symphony, this guy's favourite symphony, were actually a modern work, would you still like it? Without one note changing. And the guy answered: no. It would cease to be great, because it would not sound like it was written in its time. I wish I could remember who said this, but I'll never forget it as long as I live. It was that very discussion, in which I did not even participate, that got me thinking how detrimental this stuff can be. Not that it is for everyone. Not that it is often that extreme. And not that people wanting to agree on a set of "great" composers amongst themselves is harmful in and of itself.


¹ It actually started with a discussion about something else, specifically, what if someone wrote a symphony that would be exactly as good as a Brahms 5th Symphony. If I recall correctly, that's where it started.
² I'm not 100% sure it was the 1st symphony, but the point is unchanged regardless.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on June 04, 2007, 10:12:57 AM
Quote from: JoshLilly on June 04, 2007, 09:51:30 AM
I can pull off the shelf some piece of music that they've never heard before, ever, by some obscure composer and, without hearing one note, many (most?) will automatically know in the back of their mind that this won't be a "great" piece of music.

No, that's outside the text.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on June 04, 2007, 11:29:29 AM
hhkkkkkkkkkkk

is A better than B or B better than A?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on June 04, 2007, 11:34:08 AM
Quote from: JoshLilly on June 04, 2007, 09:51:30 AM
At the old message board you may remember (Classical Insites), someone once answered a challenge from someone else (not me!). The challenge¹ was: if you woke up tomorrow and found out that Brahms' 1st² symphony, this guy's favourite symphony, were actually a modern work, would you still like it? Without one note changing. And the guy answered: no. It would cease to be great, because it would not sound like it was written in its time.

That's a great contribution to the overall question, because hardly anybody denies that greatness has its context.  The Mendelssohn Octet is a great piece written by a composer in the first half of the 19th century.  It wouldn't be a great piece if, today, Elliott Carter, or Arvo Pärt, or John Adams wrote it.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Danny on June 04, 2007, 11:35:54 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on June 04, 2007, 09:12:07 AM
I think we've got a sub-topic:

For a composer to be a great composer, has all his music got to be great?

Well, for my favs I usually like their total output and can see the good things even in the sub-par pieces.  I find often that I eventually come around to the works that didin't immediately strike me at first.  

So, I guess that's my answer.   ;D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on June 04, 2007, 11:40:29 AM
Quote from: Danny on June 04, 2007, 11:35:54 AM
Well, for my favs I usually like their total output and can see the good things even in the sub-par pieces.  I find often that I eventually come around to the works that didin't immediately strike me at first.

I like that;  what is more, it harmonizes with some of my own listening experience  8)

Every composer has a context, has a life to live.  Few composers have the privilege of only writing what they want to write, when they want to write it.  Or, I guess that in my own modest circumstances, I enjoy that privilege, but then, my gainful employment and my creative work are almost entirely separate entities :-)

So a great composer is one who has, at the least, assembled a certain critical mass of juicy sonic greatness;  and the top of the range has greater weight than the bottom.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Danny on June 04, 2007, 11:52:35 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on June 04, 2007, 11:40:29 AM
So a great composer is one who has, at the least, assembled a certain critical mass of juicy sonic greatness;  and the top of the range has greater weight than the bottom.

Succulently sonic..........................mmmmmmmmmmm, yes!   :D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on June 04, 2007, 11:54:55 AM
so i guess everyone here has the same opinion- that there is a such thing as "quality" when it comes to music?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Danny on June 04, 2007, 12:12:43 PM
Quote from: greg on June 04, 2007, 11:54:55 AM
so i guess everyone here has the same opinion- that there is a such thing as "quality" when it comes to music?

What kind of quality?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: JoshLilly on June 04, 2007, 02:50:12 PM
Quote from: karlhenning on June 04, 2007, 11:34:08 AM
That's a great contribution to the overall question, because hardly anybody denies that greatness has its context.  The Mendelssohn Octet is a great piece written by a composer in the first half of the 19th century.  It wouldn't be a great piece if, today, Elliott Carter, or Arvo Pärt, or John Adams wrote it.


This is where people completely lose me. If not one note changes, how can it suddenly become "worse"?! Note (haha!) that I'm talking about not one single note, not one single dynamic marking, NOTHING changing.

I find this way of thinking absolutely beyond my comprehension, I can't even begin to wrap my mind around it. It's the same exact piece we're talking about. Maybe I didn't make that completely clear before. Every single dot, iota, and line in the exact same spot.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on June 04, 2007, 04:00:54 PM
Quote from: JoshLilly on June 04, 2007, 02:50:12 PM

This is where people completely lose me. If not one note changes, how can it suddenly become "worse"?! Note (haha!) that I'm talking about not one single note, not one single dynamic marking, NOTHING changing.

I find this way of thinking absolutely beyond my comprehension, I can't even begin to wrap my mind around it. It's the same exact piece we're talking about. Maybe I didn't make that completely clear before. Every single dot, iota, and line in the exact same spot.

I suggest a reading of Jorge Luis Borges's famous story, "Pierre Menard: Author of the Quixote."
http://web.archive.org/web/20041109092837/http://www.english.swt.edu/
cohen_p/avant-garde/Literature/Borges/Menard.html
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: JoshLilly on June 04, 2007, 04:06:50 PM
That is not related at all. I'm talking about if Mendelssohn's Octet had never been written at all and were, instead, composed next week by some composer, completely original. It's either great or it isn't. So which is it?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on June 04, 2007, 04:18:44 PM
Quote from: JoshLilly on June 04, 2007, 04:06:50 PM
That is not related at all. I'm talking about if Mendelssohn's Octet had never been written at all and were, instead, composed next week by some composer, completely original. It's either great or it isn't. So which is it?

It is related. Context matters, as does history. No composer can, let alone would, write the Octet today because no composer can deny or forget c. 150 years of musical evolution following the era in which the Octet was written. That's why the fledgling efforts of the young composers on this board trying to sound like Mozart rarely succeed. They are not immersed in the language, and they are imitating rather than creating a style. Writing the Octet today would be a kind of tour de force that could be achieved only by a composer extremely well versed in the language of the early 19th century. Even when Fritz Kreisler wrote pastiches pretending to be this or that Baroque composer, he left musical fingerprints showing that he couldn't divorce himself from the language as it had evolved past the time he was pretending to imitate. But I will concede that had someone achieved the exact musical structure of the Octet in 2007, the piece would be as valuable as if it was written by Mendelssohn.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on June 04, 2007, 07:29:37 PM
Quote from: JoshLilly on June 04, 2007, 08:11:28 AM
I'm not a culture, I'm an individual. I'm just me. Why should "culture" affect anyone's personal listening time one way or another? Why do people let that guide them into what they will like or not like? So many people are wrecked by this canon, which is the only reason I dislike the whole idea. They make up their minds about a piece before hearing the first note of it, based on who wrote it. That's not objectivity or subjectivity, it simply doesn't make sense.

I honestly think that if people were to listen to music for years without ever knowing any composer, name, time period, or anything else, that people's choices as to what's great and what isn't would be "naturally" wider than it is now. I think many people convince themselves - to some extent - what they will and will not like without actually listening to it. I bet a lifetime of nothing but blind taste-testing would change things quite a bit for each individual. Too bad we can't set up an alternate universe with copies of ourselves to test this out, but I'm guessing that the results would probably surprise some of the devotées of the "Great Composers Pantheon" school of thought. I'm not even saying the group as a whole wouldn't automatically come up with a similar (or even identical) pantheon to what exists now, but I am saying, as individuals, some people might naturally pick composers as great that they don't now, simply based on influence of others.

I guess that's it, my whole problem with this concept being applied universally, or as a "culture", is that it stops a lot of people from just listening, and makes them mindlessly assume. They make themselves not like something by an obscure composer before they even hear it. Note that I'm not saying they would necessarily like it without doing so, but that I do think they would in a complete "natural" setting come to some different choices than they do under this culture. If you wiped every person here to a clean brain and went from scratch with music without any knowledge whatsoever... it would be interesting.

I'm trying to determine why I find this position unsatisfactory. After all, in an ideal world we all should all make up our individual minds, shouldn't we? But it doesn't really work that way, does it? We're not all tabulae rasae, in fact. On the contrary, what we like to think of as "our" judgments and values are continually molded by outside influences and constraints. You seem to think this a bad thing, but I think the situation is not that cut and dried.

You say, "I am saying, as individuals, some people might naturally pick composers as great that they don't now, simply based on influence of others." Maybe, maybe not. But to start with, the composers one "picks" are already the product of outside influences. One "picks" from what is available on recordings or in the concert hall. One "picks" the music that performers have already "picked" as desirable to play. There has already been a process of selection before you even get to "pick" what you want to hear. When I grew up in the 50s-60s, there was in fact far less to "pick" from than there is today, where everything seems to be recorded. But not everything: for example, the pianist and scholar Charles Rosen, whom I regard very highly, has stated that one of Mehul's greatest works is his opera Ariodante, which Rosen most likely studied from a hard-to-find score. But Ariodante has never been recorded, which means it's not available for you to "pick" even if you wanted to.

When you say, "I think many people convince themselves - to some extent - what they will and will not like without actually listening to it," I see this as nothing more than healthy skepticism. It would be nice if we could all hear everything available, but that's not practical. If a composer has generally been forgotten, there's a good chance that's because that composer is less interesting than other composers who are widely performed and admired. Not necessarily, of course, but the probability is greater. I sense too that you think of the generally accepted musical canon as a kind of brainwashing, some kind of conspiracy to keep worthy composers down and exalt the undeserving. Yet I remember a time when you were very opposed to Beethoven, and now it seems that you've encountered a version of the symphonies that opened them up for you. So who's being brainwashed now? Maybe - well, no maybe about it - the real reason composers like Beethoven and Bach have survived for 200 years is that these are among the composers that performers have most wanted to play and audiences have most wanted to hear. And if you've finally "gotten" Beethoven, some day you may finally "get" Bach.

I want to say more about the beneficial influence of informed authorities, but perhaps laters. I'm tired and have said enough for one post.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Maciek on June 05, 2007, 01:21:37 AM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on June 04, 2007, 07:29:37 PM
the pianist and scholar Charles Rosen, whom I regard very highly, has stated that one of Mehul's greatest works is his opera Ariodante, which Rosen most likely studied from a hard-to-find score. But Ariodante has never been recorded

The question is: do you believe him (I assume yes?)? And why?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on June 05, 2007, 03:02:56 AM
Quote from: MrOsa on June 05, 2007, 01:21:37 AM
The question is: do you believe him (I assume yes?)? And why?

Excellent question, to which I will return later.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on June 05, 2007, 05:19:04 AM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on June 04, 2007, 04:18:44 PM
. . . Writing the Octet today would be a kind of tour de force that could be achieved only by a composer extremely well versed in the language of the early 19th century. Even when Fritz Kreisler wrote pastiches pretending to be this or that Baroque composer, he left musical fingerprints showing that he couldn't divorce himself from the language as it had evolved past the time he was pretending to imitate.

In ways that we could not penetrate anything like thoroughly in this discussion, the process impacts upon the resulting document.

Take Prokofiev and his 'Classical' Symphony, which he set out writing with the thought of how Haydn might write a piece if he lived in Prokofiev's day (or, younger days).

On the one hand, we can say right away that Prokofiev's goal was not, simply to reproduce Haydn's idiom perfectly.  Had he wished to to do that, he would have had to try much harder:  there is much musical information dating since Haydn, which Prokofiev had sopped up with his musical mother's-milk, so to speak, which he would have had to make enormous effort to sift out from this abstract called "the pure Haydn idiom."

Now, the first problem is:  How does Prokofiev know, when the filtration process has reached its state of operational perfection?

The second problem, which follows close on the heels of the first, is:  the material itself, and not the process only, is part of "the pure Haydn idiom";  it is a simple impossibility for Prokofiev to create material which "belongs" to Haydn. (This of course is the practical consideration which immediately compromises the "what if the octet that Carter wrote is, to every last note and notation, identical to the Mendelssohn Octet.)

Another problem, which seems to me even more fundamental, though that may be simply because I spend at least some time most days engaged in some phase of compositional work:  That enormous effort which Prokofiev would have to make, is itself part of the problem.  Haydn was himself, effortlessly.  Yes, Haydn exerted compositional efforts, but he didn't work to be who he was.  For Prokofiev to write our theoretical symphony in "the pure Haydn idiom," he must make not only the compositional efforts which Haydn made (themselves, of course, irreproduceable, but let that slide), he makes a huge and improbable effort which would have been unnecessary for Haydn, to "be" Haydn.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on June 05, 2007, 05:45:21 AM
Great post, Larry (and great question in The Dialogue, Maciek).

Mine is only one tangent, and does not reflect all that is noteworthy in the post, by any means . . . .

Quote from: Larry Rinkel on June 04, 2007, 07:29:37 PMYou say, "I am saying, as individuals, some people might naturally pick composers as great that they don't now, simply based on influence of others." Maybe, maybe not. But to start with, the composers one "picks" are already the product of outside influences. One "picks" from what is available on recordings or in the concert hall. One "picks" the music that performers have already "picked" as desirable to play. There has already been a process of selection before you even get to "pick" what you want to hear.

This links up with a point which I've added into the mix betimes and oft.  Discussing questions of music, what it means &c. run seriously aground if we speak from the improbable abstract that the consumer of this or that recording is the Captain of his own Musical Soul, that he is The Master.

Either there is a community and a network of people creating the world of Music, or there is no Music.

Modular discussions of how every listener can decide for himself what is Great, can be of some degree of interest, to be sure.  But it remains a side-issue.

(Sometimes, an unseemly narcissistic side-issue.)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on June 05, 2007, 09:59:36 AM
Quote from: Danny on June 04, 2007, 12:12:43 PM
What kind of quality?
that one piece of music is "better" than the other, regardless of taste. It's something you can hear when a newbie tries to imitate their favorite composer but makes something that is 22-nd rate garbage. I know Larry, for one, agrees that "quality" exists (though hard to define, even though i'm trying to make conclusions but with hardly any responses to my experiment), but I'm not sure everyone else does.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: jochanaan on June 05, 2007, 01:21:18 PM
Quote from: greg on June 05, 2007, 09:59:36 AM
...I know Larry, for one, agrees that "quality" exists...but I'm not sure everyone else does.
Well, I do.  But I can't define it. :-\

Like it or not, we are all influenced by the culture we live in.  And that includes not just Universally Recognized Authorities (of which there are almost none in music), but our families and friends.  I doubt I'd be here on GMG if it weren't for my mother assembling and saving a large collection of LPs and encouraging me to listen to them, or my high school band director playing contemporary classical music in music appreciation.  But also, I have gone considerably beyond what my mother and band teacher showed me, and have thus gained a more sophisticated taste.

Karl, that Prokofiev symphony may be Haydnesque, but it ain't Haydn!  Its harmonies and instrumental usages reflect a century and a half of musical evolution even though Sergei tried to consciously to emulate Franz Joseph.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on June 05, 2007, 02:27:37 PM
Quote from: jochanaan on June 05, 2007, 01:21:18 PM
Karl, that Prokofiev symphony may be Haydnesque, but it ain't Haydn!  Its harmonies and instrumental usages reflect a century and a half of musical evolution even though Sergei tried to consciously to emulate Franz Joseph.

Precisamente!

And, in fairness to Sergei Sergeyevich, Haydn was the Point of Musical Departure, not the Goal.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on June 05, 2007, 07:42:44 PM
Quote from: greg on June 05, 2007, 09:59:36 AM
that one piece of music is "better" than the other, regardless of taste. It's something you can hear when a newbie tries to imitate their favorite composer but makes something that is 22-nd rate garbage. I know Larry, for one, agrees that "quality" exists (though hard to define, even though i'm trying to make conclusions but with hardly any responses to my experiment), but I'm not sure everyone else does.

It cannot be "defined," perhaps, by a formula, but there is no question in my mind that it exists. One evening last week, my half-hour at the piano consisted of playing Chopin's Rondo alla Mazurka in F, Op. 5, following by the Fourth Ballade. Now the Rondo is a very good piece - well-constructed, appealingly melodic, well-varied. It does everything right and nothing wrong. But then the Ballade comes along and we're in a realm that so transcends the earlier Rondo as to make it little more than a competent student exercise. The variety and beauty of the melodic material, the always surprising turns of harmony and key center, the contrapuntal devices, the extraordinary pianistic textures, the ornamentation, the iridescent changes of mood, the freedom and flexibility of form leading from the tragic opening to the stormy conclusion - are all simply flabbergasting. I couldn't care less if this one or that one "likes" the Rondo better, or whether the degree of difference between these two works is "objective" or "subjective." Simply put, if you can't hear the immeasurable superiority of the F minor Ballade, then you don't know how to listen. Period.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: JoshLilly on June 05, 2007, 08:09:02 PM
Wow. A lot of things spring to my mind after reading that, especially the last sentences, and none of those things are good.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on June 06, 2007, 04:08:05 AM
Quote from: JoshLilly on June 05, 2007, 08:09:02 PM
Wow. A lot of things spring to my mind after reading that, especially the last sentences, and none of those things are good.

Well, can you express any of them in becoming moderation?  8)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on June 06, 2007, 04:12:16 AM
Quote from: JoshLilly on June 05, 2007, 08:09:02 PM
Wow. A lot of things spring to my mind after reading that, especially the last sentences, and none of those things are good.

The examples I gave are as uncontroversial as one could wish. Pianists all over the world play the ballades; the F major rondo is virtually ignored. And I am confident that is for good, intrinsic reasons. If it bothers you that I am going out on a (very broad, safe) limb and stating that "yes, A is better than B, and it's not just a matter of personal whim," then so be it. I stand by what I said.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on June 06, 2007, 04:37:04 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on June 05, 2007, 02:27:37 PM
Precisamente!

And, in fairness to Sergei Sergeyevich, Haydn was the Point of Musical Departure, not the Goal.




I agree. There are symphonies of Haydn's which I simply can't listen to after a prolonged period of Mahler, Wagner, Shostakovich,etc. But, for me at least, it's most often individual movements within his symphonies that gain my ardent admiration. There are many Haydn symphonies which are hard to swallow as whole works...I always wondered if he ever got sick to death of writing those menuetti in his symphonies (not to mention those Baryton works!).
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on June 06, 2007, 04:41:48 AM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on June 06, 2007, 04:12:16 AM
The examples I gave are as uncontroversial as one could wish. Pianists all over the world play the ballades; the F major rondo is virtually ignored. And I am confident that is for good, intrinsic reasons. If it bothers you that I am going out on a (very broad, safe) limb and stating that "yes, A is better than B, and it's not just a matter of personal whim," then so be it. I stand by what I said.




That is a very inspired work of Chopin's. It's so Affirming in its expression.

Chopin's music can often seem like the soundtrack to your life, but it can also be imagined as the soundtrack of other, different lives as well. Like reading a short story.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on June 06, 2007, 07:01:49 AM
Quote from: Haffner on June 06, 2007, 04:41:48 AM



That is a very inspired work of Chopin's.

I hope and pray you are referring to the ballade, and not the rondo.  0:)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on June 06, 2007, 07:05:12 AM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on June 05, 2007, 07:42:44 PM
It cannot be "defined," perhaps, by a formula, but there is no question in my mind that it exists. One evening last week, my half-hour at the piano consisted of playing Chopin's Rondo alla Mazurka in F, Op. 5, following by the Fourth Ballade. Now the Rondo is a very good piece - well-constructed, appealingly melodic, well-varied. It does everything right and nothing wrong. But then the Ballade comes along and we're in a realm that so transcends the earlier Rondo as to make it little more than a competent student exercise. The variety and beauty of the melodic material, the always surprising turns of harmony and key center, the contrapuntal devices, the extraordinary pianistic textures, the ornamentation, the iridescent changes of mood, the freedom and flexibility of form leading from the tragic opening to the stormy conclusion - are all simply flabbergasting. I couldn't care less if this one or that one "likes" the Rondo better, or whether the degree of difference between these two works is "objective" or "subjective." Simply put, if you can't hear the immeasurable superiority of the F minor Ballade, then you don't know how to listen. Period.
One thing that stumps me is how both minimal music and "maximal" music (atonal music) has the same thing going on for them. There's quality, and there's garbage- even if you hate the musical style, you can tell one piece of music is better than the other. I'm not the biggest fan of Chopin, haven't been moved by his music (at least not yet), but I can surely tell with a blind "taste test" which would be better- a novice trying to imitate Chopin or Chopin himself.

Maybe if it can't be defined using a formula, then the whole judgement of "musical quality" is something bigger, something that takes place in your subconscious mind. Both this and taste take place more or less in your subconscious mind while analyis and complexity takes place in your conscious mind. And also, recognition of quality is something that is shared between everyone while taste is something that varies from person to person (so there is something universal about humans). The reason why both are hard to explain why you like a piece of music or why one piece is "better" than the other is because the logic of the subconscious mind is impossible to explain completely- no one has ever done it. You can interpret dreams, some are easy while others have to many possible explanations- but why do you end up dreaming what you dream? Why not something else?... so probably all this is related in some way. Music has an infinite amount of possibilities, so yeah, a formula would never work.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on June 06, 2007, 07:07:36 AM
Quote from: greg on June 06, 2007, 07:05:12 AM
One thing that stumps me is how both minimal music and "maximal" music (atonal music) has the same thing going on for them. There's quality, and there's garbage

I find this is true of all styles, not of minimalism and 'atonality' exclusively.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on June 06, 2007, 07:11:11 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on June 06, 2007, 07:07:36 AM
I find this is true of all styles, not of minimalism and 'atonality' exclusively.
Yeah, I meant to add popular music, too.
But the fact that minimal and maximalism has quality or not is weird since you'd think quality could only be analyzed in scores of complexity inbetween the two.

then again, i'm not sure how to compare John Cage and a novice imitator  ???
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on June 06, 2007, 07:32:22 AM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on June 06, 2007, 07:01:49 AM
I hope and pray you are referring to the ballade, and not the rondo.  0:)



;)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Guido on June 06, 2007, 07:59:55 AM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on June 05, 2007, 07:42:44 PM
It cannot be "defined," perhaps, by a formula, but there is no question in my mind that it exists. One evening last week, my half-hour at the piano consisted of playing Chopin's Rondo alla Mazurka in F, Op. 5, following by the Fourth Ballade. Now the Rondo is a very good piece - well-constructed, appealingly melodic, well-varied. It does everything right and nothing wrong. But then the Ballade comes along and we're in a realm that so transcends the earlier Rondo as to make it little more than a competent student exercise. The variety and beauty of the melodic material, the always surprising turns of harmony and key center, the contrapuntal devices, the extraordinary pianistic textures, the ornamentation, the iridescent changes of mood, the freedom and flexibility of form leading from the tragic opening to the stormy conclusion - are all simply flabbergasting. I couldn't care less if this one or that one "likes" the Rondo better, or whether the degree of difference between these two works is "objective" or "subjective." Simply put, if you can't hear the immeasurable superiority of the F minor Ballade, then you don't know how to listen. Period.

(cf. your criticism of 71dB on the Elgar forum.)

QuoteBut 71 doesn't just love Elgar;... he's ready to accuse people who don't share his opinion of having some kind of cognitive deficiency, as when he accused a number of people as follows: "People's understanding of musical complexity is relatively low ... People's ability to follow multiple simultanuous sounds seems to be limited... It's not my fault if you haven't practised your ears and brain

I think I agree with you though... ;D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on June 06, 2007, 08:08:59 AM
Quote from: Guido on June 06, 2007, 07:59:55 AM
Please say you're not being serious now - (cf. your criticism of 71dB on the Elgar forum.)

Right. I'm not being serious in the least. All music is good, all listeners are equally experienced, sensitive, and insightful, nobody has to grow or mature as a listener, nothing is good or bad except in our own little solipsistic minds, there are no standards, no work of music is intrinsically superior to any other, people who revere Beethoven and Bach are all brainwashed, it's all just a conspiracy by the big meanies to keep neglected composers from being heard, etc., etc.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on June 07, 2007, 05:40:37 AM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on June 06, 2007, 08:08:59 AM
Right. I'm not being serious in the least. All music is good, all listeners are equally experienced, sensitive, and insightful, nobody has to grow or mature as a listener, nothing is good or bad except in our own little solipsistic minds, there are no standards, no work of music is intrinsically superior to any other, people who revere Beethoven and Bach are all brainwashed, it's all just a conspiracy by the big meanies to keep neglected composers from being heard, etc., etc.




Love the sarcasm (maybe the above leans more toward winking irony!). And many people come across on forums this way. Your critique was spot on, and even more wicked for being so  ;)/
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on June 07, 2007, 06:44:32 AM
ok......
um, should i add that "A" was supposed to be better than "B".... so Larry was right.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on June 07, 2007, 06:52:24 AM
Quote from: greg on June 07, 2007, 06:44:32 AM
ok......
um, should i add that "A" was supposed to be better than "B".... so Larry was right.

So you deliberately slacked for "B"?  $:) >:D :o
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on June 07, 2007, 07:26:30 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on June 07, 2007, 06:52:24 AM
So you deliberately slacked for "B"?  $:) >:D :o



:D


Greg, we know you're better than that.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on June 07, 2007, 07:38:43 AM
Quote from: greg on June 07, 2007, 06:44:32 AM
ok......
um, should i add that "A" was supposed to be better than "B".... so Larry was right.

How can that be, when everything is just a matter of opinion?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on June 07, 2007, 07:40:53 AM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on June 07, 2007, 07:38:43 AM
How can that be, when everything is just a matter of opinion?




;)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: jochanaan on June 07, 2007, 10:47:23 AM
All right!  This thread has officially gotten silly.  And that's objective fact! ;D ;D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on June 07, 2007, 10:53:18 AM
Thread restoration is indicated, jochanaan!
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: jochanaan on June 07, 2007, 10:57:28 AM
So what surgery shall we perform? ;D

I think it has been well-established that, first, greatness exists in greater or lesser measures, but, second, that we can neither define the quality nor the measures.  So, seriously, what more can be said? ???
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on June 07, 2007, 11:06:28 AM
I was hoping for a non-invasive procedure.

Well, I agree that those broad guidelines have by now been reasonably well established.

There's still ever so much to explore.

Though this may seem circular, we agree that the great artists had a better sense of what is great, than Fred Flintstone.  I am interested in 'road to Damascus' experiences, reversals in some composers' estimation of other composers.  Not so much the negative direction, like Britten's acquired distaste of Brahms.  Or the fact that young Stravinsky was apparently enamored of Parsifal.

But for instance, Schoenberg started out with a poor opinion of Mahler, and then changed his attitude dramatically.  And as you know, Sarge is praying for my Enlightenment, too  8)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: jochanaan on June 07, 2007, 11:21:04 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on June 07, 2007, 11:06:28 AM
...But for instance, Schoenberg started out with a poor opinion of Mahler, and then changed his attitude dramatically...
I suspect this was as much due to non-musical reasons as musical ones.  For example, Mahler was very generous financially to the younger composer, even remembering him in his will... :o
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Danny on June 07, 2007, 11:23:05 AM
Quote from: greg on June 05, 2007, 09:59:36 AM
that one piece of music is "better" than the other, regardless of taste. It's something you can hear when a newbie tries to imitate their favorite composer but makes something that is 22-nd rate garbage. I know Larry, for one, agrees that "quality" exists (though hard to define, even though i'm trying to make conclusions but with hardly any responses to my experiment), but I'm not sure everyone else does.

"One piece is better than the other, regardless of taste."  Perhaps in some circumstances, perhaps not in others.  I dunno; I get your point about there being inherent value in something, and that when contrasted with something of supposed inferior value that it will be viewed as being better or having more "quality" because it is naturally better.  But each individual's taste is still involved in the grading factor.  So, I dunno; maybe a little bit of both.   ;D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Scriptavolant on June 07, 2007, 11:34:12 AM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on June 06, 2007, 08:08:59 AM
Right. I'm not being serious in the least. All music is good, all listeners are equally experienced, sensitive, and insightful, nobody has to grow or mature as a listener, nothing is good or bad except in our own little solipsistic minds, there are no standards, no work of music is intrinsically superior to any other, people who revere Beethoven and Bach are all brainwashed, it's all just a conspiracy by the big meanies to keep neglected composers from being heard, etc., etc.

Once again: who said that? Are you tilting at windmills?
Because on the whole I do share your implicit point of view, I've argued countless times with absolutistic relativists who said that the "aesthetic judgement has no reason to be". I can even remember a friend of mine, on an Italian board, telling me that an Easter Egg was no less considerable work of art than the Gioconda. There's something incredibly megalomaniac in this viewpoint, I mean the ultra-subjectivist reasoning, that is considering my taste and my phenomenological reality as the measure for the entire universe.

By the way, as I always choose for a scientifical approach, and I'm proud of being a logical neopositivist, I like - when I meet people that talk about the (undeniable) objectivity of Art - to exhort them to spill the beans and explain clearly and once for all, how this is possible, just to make myself sure they're not just repeating in a slavish way things heard by other and "more mature" critics; that implies that it's too easy to support your view with an "eh, the majority of cultivated people think that way".

In the same way, when I hear someone say that Dufay is worst than Luigi Nono, I'd rather be curious to know how the hell these two composers are supposed to match and which are the parameters that make such a comparison meaningful.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on June 07, 2007, 11:35:33 AM
Quote from: jochanaan on June 07, 2007, 11:21:04 AM
I suspect this was as much due to non-musical reasons as musical ones.  For example, Mahler was very generous financially to the younger composer, even remembering him in his will... :o



Mahler also was very concerned, just before his death, that Schoenberg wouldn't have anyone to help him (S.) financially.

Alot of people "hear the Mahler" in Schoenberg, but I only hear it in the pieces like Verklarte Nacht. In fact, I'm curious if the harmonic "chances" that Schoenberg took in even his early work weren't more influenced by Mahler than the then-in-huge-fashion Richard Wagner. The "Pelleas..." piece doesn't sound entirely unlike "Ruckert Lieder" at points.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on June 07, 2007, 11:39:25 AM
Quote from: Haffner on June 07, 2007, 11:35:33 AM
Alot of people "hear the Mahler" in Schoenberg, but I only hear it in the pieces like Verklarte Nacht. In fact, I'm curious if the harmonic "chances" that Schoenberg took in even his early work weren't more influenced by Mahler than the then-in-huge-fashion Richard Wagner. The "Pelleas..." piece doesn't sound entirely unlike "Ruckert Lieder" at points.

I'm not sure what the timing was like in Schoenberg's chronology . . . it is possible that Schoenberg's admiration for Mahler came at a point in Schoenberg's style when his music would not have sounded much 'influenced' by Mahler (i.e., that admiration in this case does not directly translate into influence).
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on June 07, 2007, 11:48:32 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on June 07, 2007, 11:39:25 AM
I'm not sure what the timing was like in Schoenberg's chronology . . . it is possible that Schoenberg's admiration for Mahler came at a point in Schoenberg's style when his music would not have sounded much 'influenced' by Mahler (i.e., that admiration in this case does not directly translate into influence).





I see what you mean. There would have been a maturation on Schoenberg's part. One could even find parrallels in the lives of these two great men, with such relationships as Nietzsche's with Wagner. Nietzsche went from total reverence, to reservations, to complete invective. Yet it says alot about how much Wagner influenced Nietzsche, that the latter fought so hard against him in the last years of his writing career.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on June 07, 2007, 12:37:06 PM
Quote from: karlhenning on May 22, 2007, 11:06:27 AM
Can Nielsen really be as great as Bach, if I just feel that it is so?

Can Beethoven's First Symphony really be as great as Fidelio, if I just feel that it is so?

(I mean, no sopranos, right?)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: jochanaan on June 07, 2007, 06:09:28 PM
Quote from: karlhenning on June 07, 2007, 12:37:06 PM
Can Beethoven's First Symphony really be as great as Fidelio, if I just feel that it is so?

(I mean, no sopranos, right?)
Of course not!  The symphony only takes a half-hour to play! ;D  But then, Schubert's Der Doppelgänger only takes, what, five minutes or less? ;D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on June 07, 2007, 06:49:39 PM
Quote from: Scriptavolant on June 07, 2007, 11:34:12 AM
Once again: who said that? Are you tilting at windmills?

Not at all. More tilting at certain positions taken on this thread, in what I hope was understood as an ironic manner. But I'm not making up the fact that those of us who primarily cherish the established canon run the risk of being perceived as brainwashed, while conspiracy theories to prevent second-raters from taking their rightful place in the pantheon are not unknown. I quote the following wicked but delicious quip from Charles Rosen:

QuoteSome years ago a critic in The New York Times wrote that there was a conspiracy to prevent the music of Hans Pfitzner from being performed. I remember wondering how one could join such a splendid conspiracy.
- Critical Entertainments, p. 312

For Pfitzner, substitute neglected second- or third-rater of your choice.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on June 08, 2007, 05:44:44 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on June 07, 2007, 06:52:24 AM
So you deliberately slacked for "B"?  $:) >:D :o
yep  ;)

one thing i've noticed recently, as i've been studying scores the past few days more than normal. I said before that I think "quality" is basically the same thing as originality, BUT it doesn't have to be like revolutionarily original, a good piece of music fits under a style and has enough originality to stand out. All this is hard to define, but I've noticed when i'm looking at the scores for the Brahms and Mahler symphonies that.....

if i decided to write something imitating them, say an Adagio maybe, when you don't study enough or understand enough of their music and the many originalities in the details, your brain gets an oversimplified model of the style.

Here's a better way of putting this- say I'm Saul, and I really like Mendelssohn. But maybe I study his scores and THINK I know everything that's going on, but I really know much less than i think I do. So when I go to compose, my brain's ideas are limited to the basics, so I just use I-IV-V progressions all day long. I do notice, however, that this isn't masterly, so I struggle to come up with different ideas yet keep it in the same style, but these ideas are hard to find and seem foreign.

(to be fair, i honestly did like some of Saul's music, though a lot of it was a lot like this)

Another version (i hate to pick on people) is when Mikkel wrote this one work for strings, it was original yet it just didn't sound right during this one section, and his composition teacher told him basically the same thing i told him. There was a section where it started off somewhat atonal, but then it goes straight into simple tonality, and it just doesn't sound right. His teacher said the transition was "boring". Now that i think of it....... maybe this is really the same thing? Maybe it wasn't original because he didn't have an original transition?

As for me, I have a lot of dry spots in my music when I don't know how to connect one idea with another (and the thing is, it probably be best if i didn't use that idea in the first place)  :P
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on June 08, 2007, 05:49:51 AM
and...... when you study a score, you have to totally pay attention to what's going on, and to REALLY learn it, you have to make connections with everything else that is similar to it, especially chord progression and such.

this is something i often don't do, it's too easy to think you're studying by following along with the score  :-X

in the scores of the great composers, if you really look closely, you'll see things that you've never thought of before ALL THE TIME, on every page. I could give examples, but I'd probably bore everyone and they probably won't know what I'm talking about since they don't have the score, too.

if you ever run out of ideas, there's always the Well-Tempered Klavier. With that, you'll never run out of ideas, lol
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: BachQ on June 08, 2007, 05:50:05 AM
There's no such thing as a wrong note ........
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on June 08, 2007, 05:54:54 AM
Quote from: D Minor on June 08, 2007, 05:50:05 AM
There's no such thing as a wrong note ........
There's no such thing as a wrong note ........
There's no such thing as a wrong note ........
There's no such thing as a wrong note ........
There's no such thing as a wrong note ........
There's no such thing as a wrong note ........
There's no such thing as a wrong note ........
There's no such thing as a wrong note ........
There's no such thing as a wrong note ........
There's no such thing as a wrong note ........
There's no such thing as a wrong note ........
There's no such thing as a wrong note ........
There's no such thing as a wrong note ........


if i keep on saying this when i compose, it'll all be good  8)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on June 08, 2007, 05:57:08 AM
Quote from: D Minor on June 08, 2007, 05:50:05 AM
There's no such thing as a wrong note ........

I see you are assisting me in a test of will power.

Merci beaucoups, mon vieux!
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on June 08, 2007, 05:59:34 AM
these notes are good:

dah dee lah tcha! ~~~

bu BOOM bu BOOM drrrrrrr ts ts pkCH!

s.

llllllllll kK CHk dah dee tchuuuuuu
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on June 08, 2007, 06:03:31 AM
Quote from: greg on June 08, 2007, 05:44:44 AM
I said before that I think "quality" is basically the same thing as originality, BUT it doesn't have to be like revolutionarily original, a good piece of music fits under a style and has enough originality to stand out. All this is hard to define . . . .

Carry on.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on June 08, 2007, 06:16:32 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on June 08, 2007, 06:03:31 AM
Carry on.
do you have the scores to Brahms symphonies? I could give an example or two of what i'm talking about
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on June 08, 2007, 06:22:34 AM
Quote from: greg on June 08, 2007, 06:16:32 AM
do you have the scores to Brahms symphonies?

Yes, but at home.  By all means, bring the examples on! :-)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on June 08, 2007, 06:23:54 AM
Quote from: jochanaan on June 07, 2007, 11:21:04 AM
I suspect this was as much due to non-musical reasons as musical ones.  For example, Mahler was very generous financially to the younger composer, even remembering him in his will... :o

If that was the heart of it, jochanaan, are you suggesting that Sarge despair?  :o 8)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on June 08, 2007, 06:43:52 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on June 08, 2007, 06:22:34 AM
Yes, but at home.  By all means, bring the examples on! :-)
alrighty then  8)

here's my list of examples of what amateurs would never have thought of doing. When I look at these little things, it makes me think, "Hm!" which means "new idea"  ;D

Symphony 1- Adagio

bar 2- the 1st horn in C is doubling the 2nd strings. Actually, now that I think of it, it's probably more for reasons of balance than tone color since the other woodwind lines are around the same register.

bar 6- if you notice, the real, complete line is only being played by the violas and the cellos. It's just a repeated 2 notes every quarter note. BUT.... the violins pluck on the eighth notes 2, 3, 6, and 7 while the double basses pluck on eight note beats 4, 5, and 8. But both only pluck the same notes that the vla/vc are playing. Completely amazing idea, an amateur would have sat down and just written out pizz. chords, and these are way different than just chords.

bar 12- the Db major chord (b II) that it reaches is unusual in it's placement. Normally, when you think of a chord like that, it's at the end of a phrase which eventually connects back to I by either a plain bII- I or a bII-V-I cadence. It seems like almost all the time you hear that cadence, it's used in that way. But coming to a pizz. climax which ends on bII is very original. And then, on bar 13, he doesn't even launch straight into a Cm chord on the first note- instead, he goes for a first inversion Ab maj chord, which i like to think of as Cm 6 (no 5th).


Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: jochanaan on June 08, 2007, 07:04:30 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on June 08, 2007, 06:23:54 AM
If that was the heart of it, jochanaan, are you suggesting that Sarge despair?  :o 8)
Not at all!  Merely to take extramusical factors into account when considering such reversals.  I do find it a little unlikely that Schoenberg would have reacted in exactly the same way if, say, a talentless but wealthy student of Franz von Suppé would have exhibited the same generosity toward him. ;D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on June 08, 2007, 07:12:23 AM
Quote from: greg on June 08, 2007, 06:16:32 AM
do you have the scores to Brahms symphonies? I could give an example or two of what i'm talking about

http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/variations/scores/bhr2575/index.html

If Greg wants to tackle an interesting problem in Brahms 1, he should consider the exposition repeat in the first movement (a controversial spot that many conductors bypass by not taking the repeat at all).
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on June 08, 2007, 10:57:02 AM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on June 08, 2007, 07:12:23 AM
http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/variations/scores/bhr2575/index.html

If Greg wants to tackle an interesting problem in Brahms 1, he should consider the exposition repeat in the first movement (a controversial spot that many conductors bypass by not taking the repeat at all).
huh..... that would sound weird without the repeat. I'd like it repeated better, though, just cuz it sounds good  8)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on June 08, 2007, 11:07:01 AM
Quote from: KullervoI prefer not to rate one composer against other composers, even those of the said composer's time period.

Of course, that way one avoids stepping on toes.  To acknowledge Beethoven's greatness, for instance — an actual artistic legacy for which generations of other artists have been grateful, and which they have not been shy to own — one risks offending eccentrics who wish, by sheer dint of their musical likes, and will-power, to assert that Pettersson or Elgar (e.g.) is just as great as Beethoven.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Danny on June 08, 2007, 11:17:12 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on June 08, 2007, 11:07:01 AM
Of course, that way one avoids stepping on toes.  To acknowledge Beethoven's greatness, for instance — an actual artistic legacy for which generations of other artists have been grateful, and which they have not been shy to own — one risks offending eccentrics who wish, by sheer dint of their musical likes, and will-power, to assert that Pettersson or Elgar (e.g.) is just as great as Beethoven.

I hear that God taps his anthropomorphic feet to the Pomp and Circumstance because even the Deity is positively Elgarian.   0:)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on June 08, 2007, 11:18:58 AM
The Blessed Virgin, at her Assumption, is rumoured to have hummed "Land of Hope & Glory" on the way up . . . .
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Danny on June 08, 2007, 11:26:15 AM
"Thou art Elgar, and upon this moustache I'll build my Church!"
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on June 08, 2007, 02:40:21 PM
Quote from: karlhenning on June 08, 2007, 11:18:58 AM
The Blessed Virgin, at her Assumption, is rumoured to have hummed "Land of Hope & Glory" on the way up . . . .






No, that was from the last movement of Mahler's 9th.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: lukeottevanger on June 08, 2007, 03:19:40 PM
Quote from: Haffner on June 08, 2007, 02:40:21 PM





No, that was from the last movement of Mahler's 9th.

Ah, yes, 'Abide with me'
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on June 08, 2007, 06:43:29 PM
Quote from: greg on June 08, 2007, 10:57:02 AM
huh..... that would sound weird without the repeat. I'd like it repeated better, though, just cuz it sounds good  8)

No. The problem is the nature of the modulation from the end of the exposition to the repeat if the first ending is taken. See if you can understand why. A recording that takes the repeat (e.g., Mackerras) could help. And when you're done with that, another interesting problem in the first movement is, where exactly does the recapitulation start?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on June 09, 2007, 05:47:20 AM
Quote from: lukeottevanger on June 08, 2007, 03:19:40 PM
Ah, yes, 'Abide with me'




Luke is da man.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Mark G. Simon on June 09, 2007, 07:11:06 AM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on June 08, 2007, 06:43:29 PM
No. The problem is the nature of the modulation from the end of the exposition to the repeat if the first ending is taken. See if you can understand why. A recording that takes the repeat (e.g., Mackerras) could help. And when you're done with that, another interesting problem in the first movement is, where exactly does the recapitulation start?

I find that one of the more fascinating exposition repeats in music. The abruptness of the switch from Eb minor to C minor amplifies the boldness of Brahms' opening idea. It should be recalled that the whole "Un poco sostenuto" introduction to the symphony was an afterthought which he put on fairly late in the composition process. Originally the symphony just started boom with the Allegro, beginning with a dissonance which fans out to establish C minor by way of V/V, V7, I. Perhaps this was another tip of the hat to Beethoven, who started his first symphony with a search for the tonic. Eventually Brahms was persuaded that the opening was too abrupt and so he added the slow introduction which establishes a solid C minor (and does so quite magnificently, even intensifying the dissonance that Brahms was determined to open his symphony with) so that listeners would be thoroughly oriented by the time the allegro started. But the first ending undoes all that preparation and tosses the listener once again disoriented into the search for C minor.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Mark G. Simon on June 09, 2007, 07:14:24 AM
I'd say the recap starts at meas. 343.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on June 09, 2007, 09:00:34 AM
Quote from: Mark G. Simon on June 09, 2007, 07:14:24 AM
I'd say the recap starts at meas. 343.

In the sense that this is where C minor definitively returns, yes. But the upper voice in 339-42 parallels the music from 38-41, where the exposition begins (though the underlying harmonies are very different). And while 321-334 sound like a standard dominant preparation for C minor, at 335 the music takes a wrenching turn to B minor as the upper voice starts its ascending chromatics. So as in some of Haydn, I'd say the actual point of recapitulation is somewhat ambiguous. Another sign that Brahms is never willing to take the easy way out; he so often goes beyond the predictable or expected.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on June 09, 2007, 02:15:30 PM
Quote from: Danny on June 08, 2007, 11:26:15 AM
"Thou art Elgar, and upon this moustache I'll build my Church!"
:o
scary.....

so what did Brahms actually write in the score? Did he write a repeat at mm.191 or what?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Mark G. Simon on June 09, 2007, 04:43:54 PM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on June 09, 2007, 09:00:34 AM
In the sense that this is where C minor definitively returns, yes. But the upper voice in 339-42 parallels the music from 38-41, where the exposition begins (though the underlying harmonies are very different). And while 321-334 sound like a standard dominant preparation for C minor, at 335 the music takes a wrenching turn to B minor as the upper voice starts its ascending chromatics. So as in some of Haydn, I'd say the actual point of recapitulation is somewhat ambiguous. Another sign that Brahms is never willing to take the easy way out; he so often goes beyond the predictable or expected.

This is all quibbling over a few bars. Either the recap begins with the thematic return or the tonal return. Since the theme itself is searching for the tonic, the difference is a matter of four bars. The interrupted dominant preparation really has no bearing on this. The move to B minor was necessary to join to the recap in the oblique manner required. The fact that it has a wrenching effect is gravy. Not to say there's anything automatic or routine about what Brahms does, quite the opposite, but determining the precise moment of recap is not terribly ambiguous.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: lukeottevanger on June 10, 2007, 01:27:20 AM
I think Mark is right that this, deciding where, precisely and technically, the recapitulation starts is in a sense 'quibbling' - after all, pinpointing it is in itself just a matter of tidy labelling. What is more to the point, I think, is charting what we sense to be happening at this point, and that is that the recapitulation doesn't start with a bang, but over the course of those few bars. But after all, the exposition proper also starts with this ambiguity: does it begin with the chords of b 38-41 or at the point of cadence into C minor, b 42? Personally, I think it's pretty clearly the former, but they are a point of relative harmonic fluidity compared to the firmness of that first C minor cadence, which is where we feel the journey really begins. The recap simply echoes that, but with different harmonies under the music paralleling b 38-41 (b 339-342)

IOW, what we sense is that the recap 'starts to start' with the return of those opening fan-like chords (b 339) ...only this time swiftly moving through different harmonic regions...and it 'finishes starting' when C minor is reached at the same point as it was reached in the exposition (b 343) true point of harmonic resolution. This doesn't need to be a problem of labelling, though, only an analysis technique that requires bars to be clearly on one or other side of a divide makes it so. As Larry says, it simply makes the 'actual point of recapitulation...somewhat ambiguous. Another sign that Brahms is never willing to take the easy way out; he so often goes beyond the predictable or expected'. That last point is they key - where we are used to thinking of formal pivots happening over the course of a split second, here it functions more as a process, but one, as Mark says that is a pretty quick one and easier to describe in terms of what we hear than technically.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on June 10, 2007, 06:15:39 AM
Enjoyed looking in on this a great deal, and I would crack open my Brahms First score, if I did not need to scuffle off to the MFA shop shortly . . . .
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on June 10, 2007, 06:37:32 AM
Quote from: lukeottevanger on June 10, 2007, 01:27:20 AM
I think Mark is right that this, deciding where, precisely and technically, the recapitulation starts is in a sense 'quibbling' - . . .

As Larry says, it simply makes the 'actual point of recapitulation...somewhat ambiguous.

Quibble or not, the thematic return is, for a few bars, out of phase with the tonal return. And it seems to me that this playing with the expectations of sonata form, where in the most conventional pattern a dominant preparation simply leads to the thematic and tonal return of the main material, is what makes this passage so fascinating, and a sign of a real master.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: lukeottevanger on June 10, 2007, 06:55:43 AM
It is fascinating - but as I said, it is (as one would expect with Brahms) implicit in that main material itself, because that too, at the beginning of the Allegro, starts with dominant preparation, not straight on the tonic as is usual. So in a sense, this ambiguous point of recapitualtion is only what we should expect; all that is unexpected is the different harmonies from which Brahms starts the process.

IOW, the 'norm', if such there is, is:

Exposition: 1st sub in I .........................end of development V; recap 1st sub in I

but here:

Exposition: 1st sub: harmonies leading to V  I................end of development or start of recap (you decide): 1st sub harmonies leading to V  I

So I see the recap as starting at the return of the melodic material, but the full return only felt at the return of the tonic; and this parallels the way the exposition starts with the Allegro, but only really 'kicks off' with the resolution to C minor. Both are interesting examples of formal boundaries being blurred over the space of a few bars, and the reason I agreed with Mark that the discussion could be seen as a 'quibble' was because worrying (like those old Philharmonia scores) over which is technically the correct bar to mark 'the point of recapitulation' (and I know you weren't doing that, Larry) would miss what is perceptually interesting about the music - this blurring I was describing, and that was the reason you picked out this passage in the first place.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on June 10, 2007, 07:20:57 AM
Quote from: lukeottevanger on June 10, 2007, 06:55:43 AM
this blurring I was describing, and that was the reason you picked out this passage in the first place.

What you call "blurring" is what I call "ambiguous."
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: lukeottevanger on June 10, 2007, 08:03:37 AM
Me too - simply seeking a quasi-synonym for the use of ambiguous in my first paragraph! Although actually, I think blurring describes well what is happening, as if the 'single point' that is a standard recap has been smeared somewhat across the score.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on June 11, 2007, 04:51:07 AM
Yes, a move from "this point is the seam" to "recapitulation is a journey, not a destination."
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on June 11, 2007, 05:02:57 AM
Had to carry this here, from the Elgar Swamp  ;)

Quote from: Larry Rinkel on June 10, 2007, 04:53:00 PM
No judgment of artistic merit is a fact, but neither need it be a purely subjective opinion. There are aesthetic criteria that we can use to help us decide how well Beethoven orchestrates, criteria that we can apply to any number of composers. Now, I'm not going to debate the philosophical issues because that's out of my expertise, but consider for instance:

- Are all the voices in Beethoven's orchestration audible in performance?
- Does Beethoven write anything that is impossible for the instruments for which he scores to play? For example, does he ask any instruments to play things out of their ranges, or does he ask for double/triple stops on the strings that cannot be played - such as an open G along with the C# above middle C for the violins? Or does he write for instruments in their weakest register, or combine instruments in ways in which they don't sound well? (E.g., flutes in their weak lowest register are hard to hear against the more powerful lowest register of the oboe; so bring the flutes up an octave.)
- Does Beethoven write for the instruments idiomatically? For example, does he ask from them things they naturally cannot do, such as writing chromatic melody lines for the trumpets or timpani? If he wrote for harp, would he write a long sustained note, which the harp cannot do?
- Does Beethoven follow generally accepted practices for voice-leading in his instrumental parts?
- Does Beethoven vary his instrumental textures in relation to his thematic material and dynamic scheme?

Etc.

To return to question 1:
- Are all the voices in Beethoven's orchestration audible in performance?

I can think of a couple of examples where Beethoven falls short unless the conductor balances things very carefully. One is in the introduction to the Consecration of the House Overture, where the running bassoon lines are not always heard against the trumpets. (But there is also a strong possibility that Beethoven could have doubled each of the wind parts.) Abbado gets this right. Another is this woodwind passage from the Andante of the fifth symphony:

http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/variations/scores/bgp5237/large/index.html, Andante, bars 185-90.

This close canon is not always audible if the conductor is letting the strings play out too freely. Gunther Schuller is one conductor who "nails" it.

So you might say these instances reflect problems in Beethoven's orchestration, though they are few and far between; moreover, the problems may instead be with the performance.

This, one of much the better responses to the eccentric idea that Beethoven was a "poor orchestrator."

In order for it to be an "objective fact" that Beethoven was a "poor orchestrator," the idea of good orchestration must be agreed upon, for a start.

For another, "good orchestration" is partly conditioned by the style, the era, yes?  In any event (unless someone, for example, whimsically fixates upon Elgar as the greatest orchestrator Of All Time), great orchestration is yet another of those musical moving targets . . . .
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on June 11, 2007, 05:03:27 AM
And yet, of course, there really is such a thing as great orchestration.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Steve on June 11, 2007, 05:06:11 AM
Quote from: bwv 1080 on May 22, 2007, 11:57:05 AM
OK, so if I say that for me personally, Andrew Lloyd Weber's music is greater than Mozart's then that is a valid proposition?

You cannot separate yourself from hundreds of years of musical culture.  True the culture is always changing and challenging its own propositions, but that is what makes it interesting and able to sort the good from the bad.  ISTM one has to either recognize that they are part of a larger culture or be stuck in aesthetic solipsism

Yes, that claim is entirely valid (assuming, of course, it's the result of some expousure with both composers). When you move from just making subjective claims about your own listening experience, to believing them to be fact (beyond dispute)
as 71db does about Beethoven's poor orchestration, then we have a problem.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Mark G. Simon on June 11, 2007, 05:27:51 AM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on June 10, 2007, 07:20:57 AM
What you call "blurring" is what I call "ambiguous."

Ambiguous would be if there were two entirely different passages capable of being interpreted as the start of the recap. Here there is one passage in which we all agree the recap starts, and the only discussion is about where to draw the actual boundary line.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on June 11, 2007, 05:30:12 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on June 11, 2007, 05:03:27 AM
And yet, of course, there really is such a thing as great orchestration.

Sure. But a distinction should be drawn between "effective or brilliant orchestration" for its own sake, and writing good music for the orchestra. Or more neutrally if you prefer, using the orchestra more for the sake of color or for the sake of line. Berlioz, Rimsky, Strauss, Ravel are composers who could be characterized in the former camp; Beethoven and Brahms in the latter. Stravinsky, in praising the orchestration of Beethoven's 8th symphony,* said that the composers of the first type are not necessarily the best composers. (Of course, the irony is that Stravinsky is probably more a composer of the first type than the second.)

--------
* CRAFT: "What is good orchestration?"
STRAVINSKY: "When you are unaware that it is orchestration."
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on June 11, 2007, 05:31:16 AM
Quote from: Mark G. Simon on June 11, 2007, 05:27:51 AM
Ambiguous would be if there were two entirely different passages capable of being interpreted as the start of the recap. Here there is one passage in which we all agree the recap starts, and the only discussion is about where to draw the actual boundary line.

As Empson said, there are seven types of ambiguity.  :D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Mark G. Simon on June 11, 2007, 05:35:04 AM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on June 11, 2007, 05:31:16 AM
As Empson said, there are seven types of ambiguity.  :D

This ambiguity is only of academic interest.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on June 11, 2007, 05:42:39 AM
Quote from: Mark G. Simon on June 11, 2007, 05:35:04 AM
This ambiguity is only of academic interest.

Whatever.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Hector on June 11, 2007, 06:21:34 AM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on June 11, 2007, 05:30:12 AM
Sure. But a distinction should be drawn between "effective or brilliant orchestration" for its own sake, and writing good music for the orchestra. Or more neutrally if you prefer, using the orchestra more for the sake of color or for the sake of line. Berlioz, Rimsky, Strauss, Ravel are composers who could be characterized in the former camp; Beethoven and Brahms in the latter. Stravinsky, in praising the orchestration of Beethoven's 8th symphony,* said that the composers of the first type are not necessarily the best composers. (Of course, the irony is that Stravinsky is probably more a composer of the first type than the second.)

--------
* CRAFT: "What is good orchestration?"
STRAVINSKY: "When you are unaware that it is orchestration."

What are you saying here: that great orchestrators were poorer composers than those that were not?

In which case those of us who believe that both Beethoven and Brahms were great orchestrators as well as being great composers for the orchestra have a problem with your, implied, lumping of perceived great orchestrators, Berlioz, Ravel etc, as lesser composers.

They may well be, but not because they were great orchestrators, I think you will agree.

Schumaan is perceived as a poor orchestrator with his thickening of lines and doubling of instruments but conductors have shown that without thinning out his orchestration but by merely balancing the orchestra effectively he can sound as good as any.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on June 11, 2007, 06:37:45 AM
Quote from: Hector on June 11, 2007, 06:21:34 AM
What are you saying here: that great orchestrators were poorer composers than those that were not?

In which case those of us who believe that both Beethoven and Brahms were great orchestrators as well as being great composers for the orchestra have a problem with your, implied, lumping of perceived great orchestrators, Berlioz, Ravel etc, as lesser composers.

They may well be, but not because they were great orchestrators, I think you will agree.

Schumaan is perceived as a poor orchestrator with his thickening of lines and doubling of instruments but conductors have shown that without thinning out his orchestration but by merely balancing the orchestra effectively he can sound as good as any.

Please read more carefully what I actually wrote. But yes, I would consider Ravel and Rimsky as lesser composers than Beethoven and Brahms.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on June 11, 2007, 07:26:07 AM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on June 11, 2007, 05:30:12 AM

* CRAFT: "What is good orchestration?"
STRAVINSKY: "When you are unaware that it is orchestration."
;D
nice quote

and something to keep in mind for anyone who orchestrates, since it was said by one of the greatest of all time
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on June 11, 2007, 08:05:33 AM
Quote from: Hector on June 11, 2007, 06:21:34 AM
Schumaan is perceived as a poor orchestrator with his thickening of lines and doubling of instruments but conductors have shown that without thinning out his orchestration but by merely balancing the orchestra effectively he can sound as good as any.

An interesting aesthetic study would be, how Schumann came to be regarded as a poor orchestrator . . . .
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on June 11, 2007, 08:09:38 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on June 11, 2007, 08:05:33 AM
An interesting aesthetic study would be, how Schumann came to be regarded as a poor orchestrator . . . .

One way to start would be to compare the first and final versions of the 4th symphony.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Al Moritz on June 11, 2007, 09:15:48 AM
In answer to Larry, Hector wrote:

Quote from: Hector on June 11, 2007, 06:21:34 AM
What are you saying here: that great orchestrators were poorer composers than those that were not?

I never cease to be amazed in what varied ways someone's words can be misinterpreted.

(Larry already responded to this, but I found it just too strange.)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Danny on June 11, 2007, 11:32:45 AM
Quote from: greg on June 09, 2007, 02:15:30 PM
:o
scary.....

You're going against God, now, Greg.....................be afraid--very afraid!   :o
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: quintett op.57 on June 11, 2007, 02:05:29 PM
Quote from: karlhenning on June 11, 2007, 08:05:33 AM
An interesting aesthetic study would be, how Schumann came to be regarded as a poor orchestrator . . . .
orchestration is quite a strange skill : As Rimsky said, there is no bad orchestration.
Some composers gave (brilliantly) more importance to the variousness of the colours and can be called "great orchestrators".
But this does not necesarily  mean the others are worse orchestrators :-\


Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on June 11, 2007, 06:24:05 PM
Quote from: greg on June 11, 2007, 07:26:07 AM
;D
nice quote

and something to keep in mind for anyone who orchestrates, since it was said by one of the greatest of all time

Well, yes, but it is only Stravinsky's statement and not necessarily true for all occasions. There are parts of Stravinsky's works, Agon for example, where my first thought is, "what inventive orchestration"! - things like combining violin solo, two trombones, and xylophone in its lowest register; or using solo woodwinds, harp, and castanets; or flutes in harmonics, mandoline, and solo low strings with the basses in harmonics above the cellos. Agon is a treasure-trove of exquisite orchestral effects, as well as a very compelling piece of music in all other respects. I would not subscribe to the simple-minded equation: good orchestration = bad music. But certainly there are different ways in which the orchestra can be used - more or less coloristically, as is true of Rimsky (the father-figure from whom Stravinsky took pains all his life to dissociate himself), Ravel, and Stravinsky himself; or more or less linearly, as in Beethoven. Beethoven's orchestra is a very muscular, no frills apparatus, where winds are often used en bloc, tuttis tend to be massive rather than transparent, and extreme high registers are generally avoided. But it's excellent orchestration for the kind of music Beethoven was trying to write.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Mark G. Simon on June 11, 2007, 06:30:21 PM
But prior to Berlioz orchestration wasn't even thought of as a separate skill from composition. Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven weren't aware of their own orchestration, so they must be the best orchestrators of all.  :)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Ten thumbs on June 12, 2007, 01:32:59 AM
The question then arises as to who taught Berlioz? I know that Mendelssohn studied orchestration under Zelter.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on June 12, 2007, 04:38:03 AM
Quote from: Ten thumbs on June 12, 2007, 01:32:59 AM
The question then arises as to who taught Berlioz?

Berlioz was that extreme rarity, an autodidact who was instructed very well.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on June 12, 2007, 06:35:56 AM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on June 11, 2007, 06:24:05 PM
Well, yes, but it is only Stravinsky's statement and not necessarily true for all occasions. There are parts of Stravinsky's works, Agon for example, where my first thought is, "what inventive orchestration"! - things like combining violin solo, two trombones, and xylophone in its lowest register; or using solo woodwinds, harp, and castanets; or flutes in harmonics, mandoline, and solo low strings with the basses in harmonics above the cellos. Agon is a treasure-trove of exquisite orchestral effects, as well as a very compelling piece of music in all other respects. I would not subscribe to the simple-minded equation: good orchestration = bad music. But certainly there are different ways in which the orchestra can be used - more or less coloristically, as is true of Rimsky (the father-figure from whom Stravinsky took pains all his life to dissociate himself), Ravel, and Stravinsky himself; or more or less linearly, as in Beethoven. Beethoven's orchestra is a very muscular, no frills apparatus, where winds are often used en bloc, tuttis tend to be massive rather than transparent, and extreme high registers are generally avoided. But it's excellent orchestration for the kind of music Beethoven was trying to write.
well, if he was so good at orchestrating that he was God, then yeah, the whole statement would still be true because God wouldn't have to think twice about orchestrating Agon.  ;D

But even a genius like Stravinsky is limited, so if even HE had to think real hard, that says a lot about how good the orchestrations must be  :D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: jochanaan on June 12, 2007, 08:32:45 AM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on June 11, 2007, 06:24:05 PM
...Beethoven's orchestra is a very muscular, no frills apparatus, where winds are often used en bloc, tuttis tend to be massive rather than transparent, and extreme high registers are generally avoided...
...mostly because the instruments of his time couldn't play them! ;D

Note: My point is altogether serious.  Instruments of Beethoven's time, even the strings, were very different than instruments today: gut strings and shorter, wider necks for strings, fingerholes rather than keys for woodwinds, valve-free brass, and pedal-free timpani.  Also, it was common to double the woodwind parts (use two or more players on a part as available) in Beethoven's time, while he had generally fewer string players than orchestras do today.  So in a very real sense, you can't compare Beethoven and Stravinsky as orchestrators any more than you can compare Bach and Liszt as keyboard composers; they were writing for completely different machinery.

As it was, Beethoven was responsible for many orchestral innovations including timpani tuned in something other than tonic and dominant (those scary octaves in the Ninth's scherzo!), horns changing keys in mid-movement, and above all that big, powerful sound that influenced nearly every composer after him to some degree, even in negative ways.  It's just amazing what Beethoven could do with how "little" (by today's standards) he had. :D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on June 12, 2007, 03:08:03 PM
Quote from: jochanaan on June 12, 2007, 08:32:45 AM
So in a very real sense, you can't compare Beethoven and Stravinsky as orchestrators any more than you can compare Bach and Liszt as keyboard composers; they were writing for completely different machinery.
hmmmm..... what about a comparison between Beethoven's and Penderecki's orchestrations  ;)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Josquin des Prez on June 12, 2007, 03:36:53 PM
http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,1506.0.html
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on June 12, 2007, 05:51:52 PM
Quote from: jochanaan on June 12, 2007, 08:32:45 AM
...mostly because the instruments of his time couldn't play them! ;D

Note: My point is altogether serious.  Instruments of Beethoven's time, even the strings, were very different than instruments today: gut strings and shorter, wider necks for strings, fingerholes rather than keys for woodwinds, valve-free brass, and pedal-free timpani.  Also, it was common to double the woodwind parts (use two or more players on a part as available) in Beethoven's time, while he had generally fewer string players than orchestras do today.

Well, yes. But this doesn't explain the individuality of Beethoven's orchestration, say in comparison to Haydn or Mozart, who had the same resources but whose orchestral sound is quite different. And it was only three years after Beethoven's death that the Symphonie Fantastique saw its first performance.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: jochanaan on June 13, 2007, 09:12:56 AM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on June 12, 2007, 05:51:52 PM
Well, yes. But this doesn't explain the individuality of Beethoven's orchestration...
Indeed it doesn't.  (I never said it did. ;D)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Ten thumbs on June 15, 2007, 03:47:48 AM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on June 12, 2007, 05:51:52 PM
Well, yes. But this doesn't explain the individuality of Beethoven's orchestration, say in comparison to Haydn or Mozart, who had the same resources but whose orchestral sound is quite different. And it was only three years after Beethoven's death that the Symphonie Fantastique saw its first performance.
It's also interesting that this subject of 'greatness in music' was very much alive at that same time. The question was: to what extent 'greatness' was effected by changes in fashion. As some composers reputations faded, would Beethoven and Bach also one day lose their appeal? Some of the arguments put forwards in those days make good reading.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on June 15, 2007, 04:04:50 AM
Quote from: Ten thumbs on June 15, 2007, 03:47:48 AM
It's also interesting that this subject of 'greatness in music' was very much alive at that same time.

More than interesting, it seems to me part of the heart of the matter.

If some of our neighbors here, who fondly imagine that calling music "great" is simply code for "it's what I like, it's what I'm used to" had tried pitching that line to Haydn, Mozart or Beethoven in their day, they might be surprised at just how little traction their pitch had gotten.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on June 15, 2007, 04:40:29 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on June 15, 2007, 04:04:50 AM
More than interesting, it seems to me part of the heart of the matter.

If some of our neighbors here, who fondly imagine that calling music "great" is simply code for "it's what I like, it's what I'm used to" had tried pitching that line to Haydn, Mozart or Beethoven in their day, they might be surprised at just how little traction their pitch had gotten.




Excellent point. The majority of folks just seem to not like "thinking too much", and often resent people whom ask for more from music. After years of listening mostly to Rock and Metal, with Classic Music as a sparing side dish, I could see that I was just getting put to sleep after awhile (the same tempos, I-V relationship almost constantly).

I started noticing also that I was being stagnant in other parts in my life; in other words my relationship to music was mirroring my life at the time. Once I demanded more of my life, I concurrently demanded more from Our Music.

One of the most beautiful things about Our Music is the apparent fact that it will give you pretty much all you demand...with the stipulation that, as in any loving relationship, you respect it.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: JoshLilly on June 15, 2007, 12:04:15 PM
"But prior to Berlioz orchestration wasn't even thought of as a separate skill from composition."


Where does this stuff come from? I just don't think this is true at all. Look at Muzio Clementi, who specifically wrote his big symphonies after dedicating himself to the study of orchestration, and set out to make statements very specifically in orchestration.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Mark G. Simon on June 15, 2007, 12:29:30 PM
You realize that when you're talking about the late symhonies of Clementi, you're talking about the 1820s, just before Berlioz and the Fantastique.

But, you see, Berlioz was the first person to write a textbook on orchestration. You might wonder why no one before him ever saw the need for such a thing. They simply didn't think of it as a separate skill. You look at Mozart's sketches and you see that he typically would start by writing a first violin line and a bass line, and if he wanted a solo for flute or oboe or other wind instrument he would put the melody line there instead of the first violins. Later on he would fill in the inner parts (one can tell because it's often clear that a different ink was used). He could do this because there was an assumption that the strings would carry the weight of the musical argument and that winds could be added for variety's sake. The amount of planning necessary to carry this out was not so onerous that he had to consider a separate step.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: JoshLilly on June 15, 2007, 01:12:27 PM
"You realize that when you're talking about the late symhonies of Clementi, you're talking about the 1820s, just before Berlioz and the Fantastique."


Uh... that was the whole reason I pointed it out, so yes.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Mark G. Simon on June 15, 2007, 02:22:00 PM
Quote from: JoshLilly on June 15, 2007, 01:12:27 PM
"You realize that when you're talking about the late symhonies of Clementi, you're talking about the 1820s, just before Berlioz and the Fantastique."


Uh... that was the whole reason I pointed it out, so yes.

So what's your point?
(to be continued)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Mark G. Simon on June 15, 2007, 02:32:52 PM
It would be just as tall a claim to say Clementi invented orchestration as to say Berlioz did. But what did happen is that at some point in the early 19th century, writing for orchestra became a matter of sufficient complexity that it became clear that handling all the orchestral instruments required consideration on its own terms apart from composition. Berlioz recognized that need and provided the first text. That was the whole point of my saying "prior to Berlioz".
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Christo on June 16, 2007, 12:50:03 AM
An entry from my always helpful DLMD (Daily Lama Music Dictionary):

Mozart, name:
1. First name of Brasilian (1907-1993) composer, Mozart Camargo Guarnieri.
2. Family name of Habsburg (1756-1793) composer Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart. Generally considered to be one of the greatest talents of his age, he died too young to fulfill his promises. Some ater works reveal glimpses of what might have been.
verb:
1. To create nasty sounds in a shopping mall
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Scriptavolant on June 16, 2007, 03:39:22 AM
Quote from: Haffner on June 15, 2007, 04:40:29 AM
Excellent point. The majority of folks just seem to not like "thinking too much", and often resent people whom ask for more from music.

That's true, and I'm seriously worried about the whole situation.
Last night I was watching a TV broadcast, something like the Wind Music Award, a bunch of nasty pop singers of all kinds (i listen to pop sometime, but defintely not that kind of pop); the leader of our main left democratic party (and minister of cultural properties, think about it!) was invited on the stand where he took Ennio Morricone as a pretext to talk about the old story of the necessary fusion between popular istances and cultivated music, in the aim to achieve everybody's heart against all kinds of snobbish and elitist ideals; a point that isn't wrong at all, in itself, but that is often distorted under ideological lens, as our politician did before thousands of young people, stating that "there is only one music, not only cultivated music". ANd this is false, it's a determined lie.
The point is that every kind of discussion on quality and greatness in music is slowly and progressively fading away, in the name of a noxious democracy, and the interests of the market.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Mark G. Simon on June 16, 2007, 04:53:18 AM
Quote from: Scriptavolant on June 16, 2007, 03:39:22 AM
"there is only one music, not only cultivated music".

Maybe there was something lost in translation, but this statement seems to contradict itself.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on June 16, 2007, 05:12:05 AM
Quote from: Scriptavolant on June 16, 2007, 03:39:22 AM

The point is that every kind of discussion on quality and greatness in music is slowly and progressively fading away, in the name of a noxious democracy, and the interests of the market.




I agree, but I wonder if today is that much different from generations past. There's likely always been a general, though often faulty, recognition of what is fleeting garbage and what could be termed "music of substance".
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Scriptavolant on June 16, 2007, 05:20:48 AM
Quote from: Mark G. Simon on June 16, 2007, 04:53:18 AM
Maybe there was something lost in translation, but this statement seems to contradict itself.

The literal translation is "there is only one music, not only music for cultivated people"; I picked the contradiction too, probably the proof that he wasn't convinced neither of what he was saying. The point is that: such statements and philosophies are a mere display of demagogy and political correcteness.

Quote from: Haffner on June 16, 2007, 05:12:05 AM
I agree, but I wonder if today is that much different from generations past. There's likely always been a general, though often faulty, recognition of what is fleeting garbage and what could be termed "music of substance".

My main preoccupation is the war against distinctions, I mean "differences", particularities, which seems to be a prerogative of modern times and market. I think too that the non-acknowledgement of greatness always existed, but today it lays on particularly ludicrous basis.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on June 16, 2007, 05:24:29 AM
Quote from: Scriptavolant on June 16, 2007, 05:20:48 AM


My main preoccupation is the war against distinctions, I mean "differences", particularities, which seems to be a prerogative of modern times and market. I think too that the non-acknowledgement of greatness always existed, but today it lays on particularly ludicrous basis.





Again, I'm inclined to agree with you. But could you elaborate the reasons why you feel such non-acknowledgement exists today in particular, please?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: JoshLilly on June 16, 2007, 10:12:54 AM
Quote from: Mark G. Simon on June 15, 2007, 02:32:52 PM
It would be just as tall a claim to say Clementi invented orchestration as to say Berlioz did.


Who would make such a claim? All I was responding to, was someone saying something about that it didn't happen prior to Berlioz, and I gave one example (probably among many) that it did. That's all, nothing more than that. Debunking "{insert famous composer} was the first to do {x}" myths is among my favourite hobbies.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Mark G. Simon on June 16, 2007, 10:37:03 AM
Quote from: JoshLilly on June 16, 2007, 10:12:54 AM

Who would make such a claim? All I was responding to, was someone saying something about that it didn't happen prior to Berlioz, and I gave one example (probably among many) that it did. That's all, nothing more than that. Debunking "{insert famous composer} was the first to do {x}" myths is among my favourite hobbies.

Well you're making a mountain out of a mole hill, sir. The choice of Berlioz was simply a matter of convenience owing to the fact that he wrote the first orchestration treatise. Now if you want to debunk a myth, why don't you do some research and find me an example of an orchestration treatise that predates his? I will be quite pleased to amend my statement if you do.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on June 16, 2007, 03:08:40 PM
Quote from: JoshLilly on June 16, 2007, 10:12:54 AM
Debunking "{insert famous composer} was the first to do {x}" myths is among my favourite hobbies.

An interesting hobby. But to paraphrase (to the best of my recollection) Sir Donald Tovey, an idea does not necessarily belong to the first person to use it, but to the first person who understands how to use it.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on June 16, 2007, 03:34:11 PM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on June 16, 2007, 03:08:40 PM
An interesting hobby. But to paraphrase (to the best of my recollection) Sir Donald Tovey, an idea does not necessarily belong to the first person to use it, but to the first person who understands how to use it.



Very cool. 8)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Scriptavolant on June 16, 2007, 03:49:58 PM
Quote from: Haffner on June 16, 2007, 05:24:29 AM
Again, I'm inclined to agree with you. But could you elaborate the reasons why you feel such non-acknowledgement exists today in particular, please?

Because it is fuelled by the massification of culture that modernity brought up, a phenomenon with its pro and contra, of course. The market survives only homologating taste and priorizing it, to the point where everything depends on your taste (and taste is itself a sort of cultural status quo, you like things that your group likes and so on, leaving almost nothing to individual judgements). A major role is played by the Media. As Umberto Eco wrote today the Media promotes a sort of syncretic acceptance of every kind of value; an advertisting where you see Megan Gale dancing naked in the Guggenheim will promote the idea that both are cultural values, both are sexual objects, practically every kind of particularity tends to get blury in this scenario.

Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on June 17, 2007, 06:06:45 AM
Quote from: Scriptavolant on June 16, 2007, 03:49:58 PM
Because it is fuelled by the massification of culture that modernity brought up, a phenomenon with its pro and contra, of course. The market survives only homologating taste and priorizing it, to the point where everything depends on your taste (and taste is itself a sort of cultural status quo, you like things that your group likes and so on, leaving almost nothing to individual judgements). A major role is played by the Media. As Umberto Eco wrote today the Media promotes a sort of syncretic acceptance of every kind of value; an advertisting where you see Megan Gale dancing naked in the Guggenheim will promote the idea that both are cultural values, both are sexual objects, practically every kind of particularity tends to get blury in this scenario.






I'm grateful and admiring toward your post; I agree with your points. Thanks for writing things that many people won't.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on June 17, 2007, 12:07:35 PM
so what do you say about something that is universally popular in taste, like pizza  ???
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: quintett op.57 on June 17, 2007, 03:25:38 PM
Quote from: Scriptavolant on June 16, 2007, 03:49:58 PM
Because it is fuelled by the massification of culture that modernity brought up, a phenomenon with its pro and contra, of course. The market survives only homologating taste and priorizing it, to the point where everything depends on your taste (and taste is itself a sort of cultural status quo, you like things that your group likes and so on, leaving almost nothing to individual judgements)
But I believe tolerance has improved. It's not a scandal any more to write a very innovative piece of music, they won't insult you as they still did at the beginning of the XXth. People respect difference more than they used to do. People who really want to taste by themselves can do it nowadays.
What modernity is responsible for is a globalisation of taste. The taste of the africans and the taste of the european are getting more similar.
But differences are more accepted than they used to be. Furthermore, we take time to discover new things and to choose what we like best. Of course, we have more sources of influence than we used to have, but they're weaker.
Quote. A major role is played by the Media. As Umberto Eco wrote today the Media promotes a sort of syncretic acceptance of every kind of value; an advertisting where you see Megan Gale dancing naked in the Guggenheim will promote the idea that both are cultural values, both are sexual objects, practically every kind of particularity tends to get blury in this scenario.
Yes, the media has taken the leadership and this is what provokes a globalisation of taste.
But the media's taken a part of a role that used to belong to the local cultures and leaders.

Quote from: greg on June 17, 2007, 12:07:35 PM
so what do you say about something that is universally popular in taste, like pizza  ???
I say that one can get greater pleasure eating snails.
I mean I agree with james when he says some musics are better than others without being necesarily the most popular.

in this particular case I can be wrong (unless I'm pretty sure of it ;D), but i don't think you can deny that the most universal source of pleasure is not always the source of the greatest pleasure.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Scriptavolant on June 17, 2007, 03:53:56 PM
QuoteBut differences are more accepted than they used to be.

I'm quite sure we're talking about different things.
The hegemony of the Media has caused a Babel-Tower of values; it is like going through bilions of stalls in a gigantic market place. You can find everything, but you have no time for distinguo and critical judgements.
People have progressively lost the ability to pick differences and distinctions, and I'm not talking about knowledgeable classical music listeners, but musically uneducated people instead.

Today the main tendency goes towards a "there is only music" ideology; I'm not saying that different genres or styles are not considered, but they're not considered in terms of values, they're only products to be consumed as soon as possible.
And particularly in Italy I'm feeling this new tendency as something that is imposing quite firmly; a lot of new-age piano composers have becomed the new idols and personifications of popular will; because they consciously spread the idea that distinctions are bad, worthless, obsolete, that "classical music" has gone wrong separating itself from the popular sentiment (as someone wrote on this board) throughout modern times and this is wrong because the first issue for music must be entertaining people and infuse emotions in housewives, lovers and hysterical teenagers, which are precisely the foundations on which modern market lays.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: quintett op.57 on June 18, 2007, 01:02:28 AM
Quote from: Scriptavolant on June 17, 2007, 03:53:56 PM
I'm quite sure we're talking about different things.
possibly, but I'm not that sure :)
QuoteThe hegemony of the Media have caused a Babel-Tower of values; it is like going through bilions of stalls in a gigantic market place. You can find everything, but you have no time for distinguo and critical judgements.
People have progressively lost the ability to pick differences and distinctions, and I'm not talking about knowledgeable classical music listeners, but musically uneducated people instead.
it makes me think of the Baroque era, especially in Italy : One particular piece of music could be very popular but for a really short time. People wanted to hear what's new only.
I think that more people have the ability to pick differences nowadays. (I only humbly think this)
QuoteToday the main tendency goes towards a "there is only music" ideology; I'm not saying that different genres or styles are not considered, but they're not considered in terms of values, they're only products to be consumed as soon as possible.
I think it's natural for humans to be fascinated by what's new.
It's rarer for a human being to get deeply interested in something. I've always noticed that.
I used to collect 60's/70's reggae music and to meet other reggae fans. But it was hard to speak deeply about music with them. You (almost) never talk about harmony with reggae lovers (it's the same when people talk about soccer. The aim seems to be speaking, not really convincing or understanding something in the game).
This has nothing to do with media (media try to sell new music, guys like Max Romeo are not sold by the media). But it didn't prevent people from following the same fashions : Some music were very popular during a period of time and were then forgotten. This, for me, means that people didn't really appreciate the music. The most creative & different musicians (including Lee Scratch Perry :)) were not really popular.
What media try to do is to decide what music people should listen to. The problem is that media have no taste : The music they advise to listen can be either good or bad, there is no difference for them. media have replaced people (leaders) who had taste but the people who followed this taste don't necesarily see the difference between good and bad music. They don't necesarily get more pleasure out of good musics than out of bad ones.
QuoteAnd particularly in Italy I'm feeling this new tendency as something that is imposing quite firmly; a lot of new-age piano composers have becomed the new idols and personifications of popular will; because they consciously spread the idea that distinctions are bad, worthless, obsolete, that "classical music" has gone wrong separating itself from the popular sentiment (as someone wrote on this board) throughout modern times and this is wrong because the first issue for music must be entertaining people and infuse emotions in housewives, lovers and hysterical teenagers, which are precisely the foundations on which modern market lays.
quite expectable !

There's one thing that could get me into agreeing with you : Media don't try to diffuse great music. If you want an access to new great music, you'll have to look for it. Maybe there is less.
But I think people who want to find greatness can do it, and people who don't need won't do, as always, even if they listen to great music. 

Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: quintett op.57 on June 18, 2007, 01:32:26 AM
 >:D In this very forum, you can meet people who can't find greatness in one given composer's music because they don't really need or want to.
Actually, I think we're all less or more like this.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on June 18, 2007, 04:50:34 AM
Quote from: quintett op.57 on June 18, 2007, 01:32:26 AM
>:D In this very forum, you can meet people who can't find greatness in one given composer's music because they don't really need or want to.
Actually, I think we're all less or more like this.

Yes, we all hear with our own ears.

No, I don't think all of us are narcissistic in pegging musical greatness onto What It's Done for Me Lately

The Bach B Minor Mass is great;  I gladly own its greatness.

It is very seldom that I feel the need to listen to that piece;  but it is undeniably a great musical monument.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on June 18, 2007, 04:59:55 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on June 18, 2007, 04:50:34 AM


It is very seldom that I feel the need to listen to that piece;  but it is undeniably a great musical monument.





There are many pieces I feel similarly about. I often can hear (and marvel) at the complexity of a piece, but not feel much from it.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on June 18, 2007, 05:00:53 AM
you know..... it's hard to qualify what's actually "good" in popular music ("good" as in better than other popular music), if you define "good" as thinking outside the box while staying in a certain style, and that's how I define it- because popular music thinks so little outside the box that it's hard to even tell a difference between what's good and bad. Actually, the truly "good" popular music really isn't that popular because it's more likely to be more complex, less understood by people. And the stuff that gets recognized is just the stuff that's played a million times on the radio station.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on June 18, 2007, 05:02:36 AM
Quote from: Haffner on June 18, 2007, 04:59:55 AM




There are many pieces I feel similarly about. I often can hear (and marvel) at the complexity of a piece, but not feel much from it.
yep, this is pretty much what I was talking about  before, same here 8)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Scriptavolant on June 18, 2007, 05:26:09 AM
Quote from: quintett op.57 on June 18, 2007, 01:02:28 AM
possibly, but I'm not that sure :)it makes me think of the Baroque era, especially in Italy : One particular piece of music could be very popular but for a really short time. People wanted to hear what's new only.
I think that more people have the ability to pick differences nowadays. (I only humbly think this) I think it's natural for humans to be fascinated by what's new.
It's rarer for a human being to get deeply interested in something. I've always noticed that.
I used to collect 60's/70's reggae music and to meet other reggae fans. But it was hard to speak deeply about music with them. You (almost) never talk about harmony with reggae lovers (it's the same when people talk about soccer. The aim seems to be speaking, not really convincing or understanding something in the game).
This has nothing to do with media (media tries to sell new music, guys like Max Romeo are not sold by the media). But it didn't prevent people from following the same fashions : Some music were very popular during a period of time and were then forgotten. This, for me, means that people didn't really appreciate the music. The most creative & different musicians (including Lee Scratch Perry :)) were not really popular.
What media tries to do is to decide what music people should listen to. The problem is that media has no taste : The music they advise to listen can be either good or bad, there is no difference for them. medias has replaced people (leaders) who had taste but the people who followed this taste don't necesarily see the difference between good and bad music. They don't necesarily get more pleasure out of good musics than out of bad ones. quite expectable !

There's one thing that could get me into agreeing with you : Media don't try to diffuse great music. If you want an access to new great music, you'll have to look for it. Maybe there is less.
But I think people who want to find greatness can do it, and people who don't need won't do, as always, even if they listen to great music. 


So you think that the Media, and the gigantic technological development of communications had little bearing on the people's way to appreciate music? I don't think I'm in agreement; a typical phenomenon of the last Century has been the fusion between cultural products and consuming products, to the point where it's difficult to pick the differences between the two.
Maybe I'll come back later on the point.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: quintett op.57 on June 18, 2007, 06:53:52 AM
No, no, it's not what I'm saying.
I'm just saying media has replaced other influences.
The fact that people follow some leaders and all enjoy the same thing in a given community is not new.

In fact, showing one's difference is not such a problem as it used to be. Tolerance has improved.
you can't provoke people anger anymore if you compose something new.
This makes people freer than before.
People who look for greatness can do it easier, access is easier. The others won't find greatness in music because they don't want to; this does not change.

Nowadays, I think you can be more different from your community than before. But your community is the whole world. It implies that not independant minds  have similar taste in Italy and in Canada.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Scriptavolant on June 18, 2007, 07:22:51 AM
Quote from: quintett op.57 on June 18, 2007, 06:53:52 AM
No, no, it's not what I'm saying.
I'm just saying media has replaced other influences.
The fact that people follow some leaders and all enjoy the same thing in a community is not new.


Mmm..The Media effect is much more complex and cannot be reduced, in my opinion, to a mere replacement of previous forms of influence. It is a particular and specific system which brought previously non-existent phenomena.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on June 18, 2007, 09:23:00 AM
Quote from: Scriptavolant on June 18, 2007, 07:22:51 AM
Mmm..The Media effect is much more complex and cannot be reduced, in my opinion, to a mere replacement of previous forms of influence. It is a particular and specific system which brought previously non-existent phenomena.
This is something we should all try to remember when we try to compare "popular" music of today with "folk" music of 200 years ago.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Scriptavolant on June 18, 2007, 12:20:09 PM
Quote from: greg on June 18, 2007, 09:23:00 AM
This is something we should all try to remember when we try to compare "popular" music of today with "folk" music of 200 years ago.

Exactly.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: jochanaan on June 18, 2007, 02:18:51 PM
The media's first priority is not "What is great?" or "What will challenge the audience to think more clearly, feel more deeply, love more powerfully?"  It is "What will sell? ::)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on June 18, 2007, 04:40:24 PM
What will challenge the audience to reach more deeply into their pockets?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: quintett op.57 on June 19, 2007, 04:13:31 AM
Quote from: jochanaan on June 18, 2007, 02:18:51 PM
The media's first priority is not "What is great?" or "What will challenge the audience to think more clearly, feel more deeply, love more powerfully?"  It is "What will sell? ::)
I think greatness is not good for them.
I think selling is not a problem. They could sell many things. The most important is to sell their product.
I think the media choose artists who can't sell without them in order to keep them under control. They don't want to create an artist who can become a competitor. I think media don't want a musician to be too good. He could take a part of their market share if he left them.
Better for them to promote a singer who can't compose by himself.
The producers compose, quickly and cheaply and make the singers sing their products or remakes.
The music and the text have to follow a couple of rules for it to be sellable, the quality has no importance. Most important is the image of the singer, the music video, the clothes....
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on June 19, 2007, 05:27:43 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on June 18, 2007, 04:40:24 PM
What will challenge the audience to reach more deeply into their pockets?
naked people in operas?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: jochanaan on June 19, 2007, 03:15:51 PM
Quote from: quintett op.57 on June 19, 2007, 04:13:31 AM
...I think media don't want a musician to be too good...
They don't mind technical proficiency; what they fear is individuality.
Quote from: greg on June 19, 2007, 05:27:43 AM
naked people in operas?
Until the Christian Right boycotts the performances.  Wait--that would only interest more people! ;D
Quote from: karlhenning on June 18, 2007, 04:40:24 PM
What will challenge the audience to reach more deeply into their pockets?
Indeed.  You have a way with words, Karl. ;)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on June 20, 2007, 05:22:12 AM
Quote from: jochanaan on June 19, 2007, 03:15:51 PM
They don't mind technical proficiency; what they fear is individuality.
wow, that's an interesting way to look at it  :o
I think to expand on that thought, individuality is anything other than music that is a certain format. It has to have singable melodies, be predictable, and simple. It can't challenge your mind, since most people have a musical IQ of -5 million, so anything to complex won't be understood.

shred guitarists have much of their music filled up with, well, technically proficient shredding and usually the music is instrumental, so that's two things that different from the "format".

stupid format.  :P
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on June 20, 2007, 05:36:55 AM
Quote from: greg on June 20, 2007, 05:22:12 AM

shred guitarists have much of their music filled up with, well, technically proficient shredding and usually the music is instrumental, so that's two things that different from the "format".

stupid format.  :P




The main problem I hear in "guitar shredding" is the fact that the music behind the shredding is ridiculously rudimentary and predictable. I recently threw on George Bellas' Mind Over Matter and afterward Vinnie Moore's Mind's Eye   and was completely unimpressed by the songwriting. The other voices in the compositions (besides the finger-exercising guitarist) were at times hilariously simple...too simple to be under a title of "neo-classicism". There were often additions of keyboards as an extra voice in the compositions...these served mainly as Sominex-chord backup, unless they decided to whank out (typically sounding very much like the supa-whank guitar player).

I still love Yngwie, Ul Jon Roth, and Ritchie Blackmore. And I do hear some very interesting things done with dissonance and experimental time signatures and harmony in today's Death Metal scene (Necrophagist and most recent Deicide come to mind). But after my lengthy immersion into Mahler, Haydn, J.S. Bach, Beethoven...I at times get as uncomfortable with the bubble-gum repetition of "Shred Guitar" as I would listening to FM radio Rap and R and B.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on June 20, 2007, 05:53:22 AM
Quote from: Haffner on June 20, 2007, 05:36:55 AM



The main problem I hear in "guitar shredding" is the fact that the music behind the shredding is ridiculously rudimentary and predictable. I recently threw on George Bellas' Mind Over Matter and afterward Vinnie Moore's Mind's Eye   and was completely unimpressed by the songwriting. The other voices in the compositions (besides the finger-exercising guitarist) were at times hilariously simple...too simple to be under a title of "neo-classicism". There were often additions of keyboards as an extra voice in the compositions...these served mainly as Sominex-chord backup, unless they decided to whank out (typically sounding very much like the supa-whank guitar player).

I still love Yngwie, Ul Jon Roth, and Ritchie Blackmore. And I do hear some very interesting things done with dissonance and experimental time signatures and harmony in today's Death Metal scene (Necrophagist and most recent Deicide come to mind). But after my lengthy immersion into Mahler, Haydn, J.S. Bach, Beethoven...I at times get as uncomfortable with the bubble-gum repetition of "Shred Guitar" as I would listening to FM radio Rap and R and B.
yeah, it can be overly-simple, and it is a lot.
i think Mind's Eye was the only Vinnie Moore album I didn't like, lol

hey, check out this guy, he just sent me a friend request:
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=149210609

this is some sweet stuff. He's not a shred guitarist, but he can shred if he wants to. But this stuff is definetely original. My favorite track is "Beautiful Strange". He has lots of influences, from Jeff Beck to Prokofiev to Michael Jackson to Snoop Doggy Dog. But in my opinion he sounds like Satriani on Engines of Creation, definetely. This is real individuality here. If they played this stuff on the radio all the time, i wouldn't ever have to complain about it  0:)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on June 20, 2007, 06:15:37 AM
Quote from: greg on June 20, 2007, 05:53:22 AM
yeah, it can be overly-simple, and it is a lot.
i think Mind's Eye was the only Vinnie Moore album I didn't like, lol

hey, check out this guy, he just sent me a friend request:
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=149210609

this is some sweet stuff. He's not a shred guitarist, but he can shred if he wants to. But this stuff is definetely original. My favorite track is "Beautiful Strange". He has lots of influences, from Jeff Beck to Prokofiev to Michael Jackson to Snoop Doggy Dog. But in my opinion he sounds like Satriani on Engines of Creation, definetely. This is real individuality here. If they played this stuff on the radio all the time, i wouldn't ever have to complain about it  0:)




I have both Mind's Eye and Time Odyssey by Moore. I like the latter better, but even that is mostly simple and boring to me these days. I should admit also that I was way more impressed with Rising Force, Tokyo Tapes, and Assault Attack when I was 19 in the mid-'80's. Those are still great albums, but I notice how boring they are after listening to, say, Schoenberg's String Quartets.

I liked Engines of Creation, but again I don't hear much beyond the Van Halen style in any of the playing of Satriani and Vai. But maybe that's because I was "there" when Van Halen invented those techniques/sound.

Lately I enjoy the often more...daring music of Necrophagist. It tends to keep my interest, minus the bubblegum boredom.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on June 20, 2007, 10:34:35 AM
Quote from: greg on June 19, 2007, 05:27:43 AM
naked people in operas?

Karita Mattila did it when she sang Salome.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: lukeottevanger on June 20, 2007, 10:59:17 AM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on June 20, 2007, 10:34:35 AM
Karita Mattila did it when she sang Salome.

Didn't know that was an opera buff[a]...

[I like the idea that 'singing Salome' could become a phrase commensurate with something like 'going commando'...]
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on June 20, 2007, 11:35:37 AM
Quote from: lukeottevanger on June 20, 2007, 10:59:17 AM
Didn't know that was an opera buff[a]...

[I like the idea that 'singing Salome' could become a phrase commensurate with something like 'going commando'...]

She did more than go commando . . .
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on June 20, 2007, 12:37:46 PM
Quote from: Haffner on June 20, 2007, 06:15:37 AM


Lately I enjoy the often more...daring music of Necrophagist. It tends to keep my interest, minus the bubblegum boredom.
i'll do a search on them...
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on June 21, 2007, 01:16:09 PM
Quote from: greg on June 20, 2007, 12:37:46 PM
i'll do a search on them...




You won't regret it. Their album Epitaph is excellent (the first one is quite good as well); the guitar player is an ardent admirer of Profokiev, and a very proficient and interesting shredder as a rule.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on June 21, 2007, 01:31:37 PM
Quote from: Haffner on June 21, 2007, 01:16:09 PM



You won't regret it. Their album Epitaph is excellent (the first one is quite good as well); the guitar player is an ardent admirer of Profokiev, and a very proficient and interesting shredder as a rule.
i just listened to 4 of their songs on their myspace and honestly thought they're much better than the average metal band. Why? Because they have neoclassical solos and at the end of "Ash Remains", they have the Dance of the Knights theme from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet.

...ok, lol, that's not the only thing. They're pretty good anyways, and yeah- the time signatures and rhythms they use are all over the place!  ;D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on June 21, 2007, 01:35:17 PM
Quote from: greg on June 21, 2007, 01:31:37 PM
i just listened to 4 of their songs on their myspace and honestly thought they're much better than the average metal band. Why? Because they have neoclassical solos and at the end of "Ash Remains", they have the Dance of the Knights theme from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet.

...ok, lol, that's not the only thing. They're pretty good anyways, and yeah- the time signatures and rhythms they use are all over the place!  ;D



I love crazy-fast bands like Krisiun (Moyses Kolesne on guitar...AIIIIEEEE! Scary at times!), but Necrophagist is consistently interesting throughout Epitaph, Greg. I highly reccomend that one to you. Wait until you hear the facinating experimentation of track two.

Also, if you want power-metalish (but fantastic) shred guitar in a classic, punishing death metal band, definitely check out Deicide's latest. new guitarist Ralph Santolla is tremendous at times.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on June 22, 2007, 05:59:30 AM
cool... i'll keep those bands in mind.

anyways, it's nice to hear the metal bands that at least have a little bit of shred in them, instead of hitting palm-muted power chords 24/7. It at least keeps the interest going and all
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: jochanaan on June 22, 2007, 08:36:37 AM
All right, this thread had gotten silly, now it's being "shredded"! ;D  I love a good shred too, but maybe it's time to get back to The Great Masters and what makes them great--or not. ;)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on June 22, 2007, 09:29:56 AM
An example of greatness in music, for me, is Arnold Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire. Although there is an actual voice used, the other instruments (especially the piano) are voices in themselves. Each with different patterns and idiosyncracies of speech.


The mind gets around the ensemble only upon concentrated (and repeated) listenings. The many alternatngly divergent and repellent lines of language utilised here make for fascinating profiles of different characters and emotions. In a way, Schoenberg's work is what took the Wagner, Strauss and Mahler breakthroughs to an extreme level. Contained inside the overall atmospere are the more "accepted" modes...but these stand out in ways different that one would normally expect.


Without the impetus resulting from this landmark composition, it is difficult to imagine jazz, mid-to-later era Death Metal, jazz/rock fusion (anyone familiar with Return to Forever, Allan Holdsworth, etc?)...I'd even venture as far as mentioning the Dmitri Shostakovich we heard from his 4th Symphony and many of his works afterward. I'm hearing the influence especially more in the overall output of Alfred Schnittke as well.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: BachQ on June 22, 2007, 09:47:03 AM
Quote from: Haffner on June 22, 2007, 09:29:56 AM
An example of greatness in music, for me, is Arnold Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire.

Not for me.  Rather, Epitaph by Necrophagist epitomizes greatness ........
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on June 22, 2007, 10:02:09 AM
Quote from: D Minor on June 22, 2007, 09:47:03 AM
Not for me.  Rather, Epitaph by Necrophagist epitomizes greatness ........




:D


Really 0:)?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on July 09, 2007, 05:11:22 AM
Just a note, that it does not seem to me that either the Handel vs. Bach, nor the Prokofiev vs. Stravinsky thread has greatly illuminated The Greatness Question.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: M forever on July 09, 2007, 05:25:45 AM
They have. They have shown clearly yet again that it is an idiotic question to begin with.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Topaz on July 09, 2007, 11:33:49 PM
Quote from: bwv 1080 on May 22, 2007, 11:31:23 AM
The best way I know of is the collective judgement of musicians and informed fans - i.e. the "market".  It is very difficult to find an instance where, given a generation or so of digestion, the market has been wrong about the greatness of a composer. 


Whenever I come across this age-old question of who is the greater of two composers, A and B, this is often done in terms of number of "masterpieces", diversity, novelty, influence, etc.  The latest variant (e.g. in Bach versus Handel thread) seems to one of trying to form a judgement based on a detailed analysis of comparable individual pieces of music. 

All these purely musical "micro" approaches seldom get anywhere, except cause huge debate. 

A more "macro", market-based test is required, and in principle I consider the above quote provides the best answer.  However, it doesn't solve the problem unambiguously because of uncertainty in how exactly to ascertain the market's collective judgement.  There are several different ways of measuring what the "market" thinks: e.g. sales of CDs, number of different recordings of the same piece of music, concert programming activity, radio schedules, popularity polls.  Each of these has its own measurement problem, and each only looks at one aspect of the overall market. 

I would suggest that the best overall summary measure of what the market thinks is the notion of the price paid a competitive bid to become the sole licensor of each (historical) composer's works for a specified future period.  The higher the price the higher is that composer's greatness.  I fully accept that this concept contains many huge practical estimation problems, to which I can't offer any solutions.  However, in principle it contains all the key aspects for determining the value of anything, namely the interplay of supply and demand.  One therefore has to guess what bids might be made in any such grand licensing tender exercise, and to rank composers according to the winning bid prices.  I'd bet that the holy "trinity" of Beethoven, Mozart, Bach would come out on top. Beyond that, it's more speculative but at least the right questions would be asked in forming a judgement, not some nit-picking analysis based on all manner of minor detail.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on July 10, 2007, 04:01:07 AM
Quote from: Topaz on July 09, 2007, 11:33:49 PM
I would suggest that the best overall summary measure of what the market thinks is the notion of the price paid a competitive bid to become the sole licensor of each (historical) composer's works for a specified future period.  The higher the price the higher is that composer's greatness.  I fully accept that this concept contains many huge practical estimation problems, to which I can't offer any solutions.  However, in principle it contains all the key aspects for determining the value of anything, namely the interplay of supply and demand.

And of course, supply and demand are always determined by context.

And there's a different "World Champion" this year than there was last year . . . .
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: not edward on July 10, 2007, 06:07:20 AM
And everyone loves a false dichotomy!
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on July 10, 2007, 06:11:04 AM
Pithy, and to the point, Edward!
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Scriptavolant on July 10, 2007, 08:13:53 AM
QuoteThe best way I know of is the collective judgement of musicians and informed fans - i.e. the "market".  It is very difficult to find an instance where, given a generation or so of digestion, the market has been wrong about the greatness of a composer.

Absurd. The premise is completely fallacious, since the market is everything but not the collective judgement of musicians and informed fans. I'm disappointed by this quantitative way to measure musical greatness, is this aesthetics for land-surveyors, or maybe simple middle-class conventionalism?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Topaz on July 10, 2007, 08:30:46 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on July 10, 2007, 04:01:07 AM
And of course, supply and demand are always determined by context.

And there's a different "World Champion" this year than there was last year . . . .

Come on then clever clogs, let's have your analysis of how to establish "greatness".  I'll be thinking of a cute way to respond, you can be sure. 
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on July 10, 2007, 08:34:39 AM
bwv1080 used "market" in a nuanced fashion;  for only one thing 'supply' and 'demand' operate in different ways when we speak, not of Coke Blak, but of Billy Budd.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Topaz on July 10, 2007, 08:36:48 AM
Quote from: Scriptavolant on July 10, 2007, 08:13:53 AM
Absurd. The premise is completely fallacious, since the market is everything but not the collective judgement of musicians and informed fans. I'm disappointed by this quantitative way to measure musical greatness, is this aesthetics for land-surveyors, or maybe simple middle-class conventionalism?


That's what I said, but not quite so rudely.  The market is indeed more than just the opinions of musicians and informed fans.  It's the weighted opinion of everybody in the market, including all the less well-informed fans who probably vastly outnumber the intelligentsia by a considerable margin.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Topaz on July 10, 2007, 08:39:18 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on July 10, 2007, 08:34:39 AM
bwv1080 used "market" in a nuanced fashion;  for only one thing 'supply' and 'demand' operate in different ways when we speak, not of Coke Blak, but of Billy Budd.

Fair enough, but how do you measure "greatness"?  You asked the question in the first place.  Don't you have any ideas?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on July 10, 2007, 08:45:21 AM
In reverse order:

Quote from: Topaz on July 10, 2007, 08:39:18 AM
You asked the question in the first place.  Don't you have any ideas?

I did ask the question, wanting to see what some of my neighbors thought.  I have quite a few ideas on the broad topic;  for purposes of this thread I am (generally speaking) more interested in the replies, than in propounding my own ideas.

Quote from: TopazFair enough, but how do you measure "greatness"?

Well, I do think there is such a thing as artistic greatness, so I won't cast it in scare-quotes.

But I don't think it is the sort of thing which can be "measured."  Notwithstanding the fact that there are artists who are much greater than others.  Which is to say, I suppose, that comparison is not always measurement.

That's it for the moment.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: bwv 1080 on July 10, 2007, 08:49:31 AM
Quote from: Topaz on July 10, 2007, 08:36:48 AM

That's what I said, but not quite so rudely.  The market is indeed more than just the opinions of musicians and informed fans.  It's the weighted opinion of everybody in the market, including all the less well-informed fans who probably vastly outnumber the intelligentsia by a considerable margin.

But opinion is not equally weighted, the "intelligentsia" carry a disproportionate weight - just like Warren Buffett's opinion on Coke matters much more than yours or mine.  But again, the term market is somewhat of a metaphor
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: bwv 1080 on July 10, 2007, 08:56:53 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on July 10, 2007, 08:45:21 AM

Well, I do think there is such a thing as artistic greatness, so I won't cast it in scare-quotes.

But I don't think it is the sort of thing which can be "measured."  Notwithstanding the fact that there are artists who are much greater than others.  Which is to say, I suppose, that comparison is not always measurement.


This is my opinion as well, and why the concept of a "market" is the only thing that works because it encompasses all the differing opinions of what constitutes "greatness"
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: jochanaan on July 11, 2007, 01:26:05 PM
Quote from: karlhenning on July 10, 2007, 08:45:21 AM
Well, I do think there is such a thing as artistic greatness, so I won't cast it in scare-quotes.

But I don't think it is the sort of thing which can be "measured."...
And that's why so many people think it doesn't exist, or foolishly reduce it to market sales.  But if it can't be measured, does it exist at all?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Boris_G on July 11, 2007, 01:32:23 PM
Quote from: Topaz on July 09, 2007, 11:33:49 PM
Whenever I come across this age-old question of who is the greater of two composers, A and B, this is often done in terms of number of "masterpieces", diversity, novelty, influence, etc.  The latest variant (e.g. in Bach versus Handel thread) seems to one of trying to form a judgement based on a detailed analysis of comparable individual pieces of music. 

All these purely musical "micro" approaches seldom get anywhere, except cause huge debate. 

And, depending on who gets involved in the debate, the arguments raised can be quite illuminating, IMHO.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: bwv 1080 on July 11, 2007, 01:36:28 PM
Quote from: jochanaan on July 11, 2007, 01:26:05 PM
But if it can't be measured, does it exist at all?

Do you love your mother or spouse or child?  Can the degree be measured?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Topaz on July 11, 2007, 02:03:28 PM
Quote from: karlhenning on July 10, 2007, 08:45:21 AM

Well, I do think there is such a thing as artistic greatness, so I won't cast it in scare-quotes.

But I don't think it is the sort of thing which can be "measured."  Notwithstanding the fact that there are artists who are much greater than others.  Which is to say, I suppose, that comparison is not always measurement.
From this I dedc

From the above, I deduce that you think that a rough sort of ranking, at least, is possible.  Hence you do believe in a kind of measurement.  Perhaps you didn't realise it.



Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: marvinbrown on July 11, 2007, 02:03:56 PM
Quote from: karlhenning on July 10, 2007, 08:45:21 AM
In reverse order:

Well, I do think there is such a thing as artistic greatness, so I won't cast it in scare-quotes.

But I don't think it is the sort of thing which can be "measured."  Notwithstanding the fact that there are artists who are much greater than others.  Which is to say, I suppose, that comparison is not always measurement.

That's it for the moment.

 Karl I am going to have to agree with you on a few points.  I too believe that there is such a thing as artistic greatness.  I would go further and say that it is an "intrinsic quality" in the same way that beauty is an "intrinsic quality" but I digress.  Question is can it be measured? and if so how?  I do not really know the answer to these questions.  I would like to think that there are a few indicators or pointers that one can refer to when asked to explain why an allegedly great piece of music is GREAT.....however when I am asked what makes Bach's St. Matthew Passion great I usually respond that it has this "je ne sais quoi" attribute about it that other not so great pieces of music lack...yes its a cheeky way of dodging the question....but it works every time  ;) .

 marvin  
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Topaz on July 11, 2007, 02:41:12 PM
Quote from: Boris_G on July 11, 2007, 01:32:23 PM
And, depending on who gets involved in the debate, the arguments raised can be quite illuminating, IMHO.

I've seen many debates on "greatness" of composers.  My observation on the whole process is that some can  generate interesting observations if there are a few genuine participants.  But sadly many are little more than exercises in producing hot air, largely attracting a bunch of idiots who merely champion their "boy", and often out of ignorance of other contenders because they haven't progressed that far on their own learning curve.  I've seen many such debates degenerate into ill-feeling and squabbles.  Some descend into complete farce, like the one here on Bach and Handel.

Further, where such ranking exercises form part of the raison d'etre of the Forum in which they take place, it's all mainly a joke anyway because the Admin/Mods who run these things know in advance what eventual answers are going to be imposed, since the final lists are actually based on an assortment of far more reliable market based data.   I think some of the participants now realise this con, hence the moribund state of such places.
 


Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on July 11, 2007, 03:39:55 PM
Quote from: Topaz on July 11, 2007, 02:03:28 PM
From the above, I deduce that you think that a rough sort of ranking, at least, is possible.  Hence you do believe in a kind of measurement.  Perhaps you didn't realise it.

Rough comparison, yes.

Ranking, nnnno.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: jochanaan on July 11, 2007, 04:08:13 PM
Well, when some people try to argue that one composer is absolutely greater than another, the discussion can become very "rank." :o ;D

bwv1080:  Of course I love my mother and many other friends and relatives!  And of course my love for them can be neither measured, nor defined, nor even adequately described.  Likewise greatness in music.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Topaz on July 11, 2007, 10:53:01 PM
There are many examples in the real world of measuring systems being applied to assess "quality" in difficult situations.  In any commercial organisation, for example, there is usually a system to measure the performance of staff, based on competencies, achievements, initiative etc.   Health care facilities (eg quality of nursing homes, post op convalescence, outpatient services, screening facilities, etc) are all subject to quality measurement systems.  There are many quality measurement examples in education, for example the ranking of Universities or medical schools.  As many aspiring music students will know, they too are subject to an assessment before being admitted to college!  Quality measurement systems exist for grading hotels, restaurants, holiday resorts, aircraft in-flight facilities.  The lists are endless. 

In the more aesthetic sphere, the "market" does provide some useful leads although care must be exercised to avoid simplistic conclusions being drawn based on a narrow or inapproriate measure. Take for example a big Movie.  There will be thousands/millions of different opinions about its quality or "greatness", and thus it might be said you can't measure quality.  But this is rubbish: an overall market view can be based on box-office takings.  Take another example: classic motor cars.  Car enthusiasts will argue endlessly about the relevant technical criteria and how each contender lines up against those criteria.  Forget all that twaddle; just look in a decent car price guide, and rank the cars by price.  If, for example, a 1965 Aston Martin DB5 costs more than a 1948 Rolls Royce Silver Cloud (or whatever), the Aston is the "greater car".  In the world of art, arguments about the greatness of different painters could based on all manner of purely technical aspects of their work.  Again, forget it.  All you need is an estimate of the market value of their works (auction prices etc).

If something useful can be said about the quality of people in commercial organisations, nursing facilities, schools, medical schools classic cars, picture movies, art etc, what's so different about classical composers?  Just because each individual classical music fan may have a different view about the relevant criteria, and there may be uncertainty about the outcome, doesn't mean that more general comparisons can't be construed. I'm not suggesting that everything is measurable for quality, or that it's always an easy task and the results unobjectionable.  Often it may be diificult, but to say that "greatness" among composers can't be measured is going too far.  In principle the answer is that "greatness" among composers is measured according to how much, collectively as consumers, we are prepared to pay to retain access to their works rather than forego it.  The correct proxy measures relate to this concept, and nothing else.  Hence popularity is important, as too are sales, number of concert performances, radio programming, etc.  Unimportant is what Robert and Clara Schumann thought about Beethoven's Hammerklavia, or what Brahms thought about Wagner and vice versa, or whether HIP is better than modern rendition , and other suchlike irrelevant twaddle that permeates this and many other Boards.  Such discussion is possibly interesting in its own right, but is not relevant to establishing greatness.  And yes, these market results will be subject to variation over time, as tastes change and the composition of the market evolves in terms of education, age structures etc.


Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: jochanaan on July 12, 2007, 05:08:28 AM
Quote from: Topaz on July 11, 2007, 10:53:01 PM
There are many examples in the real world of measuring systems being applied to assess "quality" in difficult situations.  In any commercial organisation, for example, there is usually a system to measure the performance of staff, based on competencies, achievements, initiative etc...
And how many of the best people in a corporation get laid off because some financial officer thought they were being paid too much?  And a lot of great movies just never make it financially.  Anybody remember The Ballad of Jack and Rose?

Perhaps, if all humans had equal income and equal experience with greatness of many kinds, market values could be an objective measure of greatness.  As it is, market values now mostly reflect how much advertising the producers can afford. ::)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on July 12, 2007, 05:29:55 AM
Many measuring systems are themselves a kind of variable.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Boris_G on July 12, 2007, 09:40:13 PM
Quote from: Topaz on July 11, 2007, 02:41:12 PM
I've seen many debates on "greatness" of composers.  My observation on the whole process is that some can  generate interesting observations if there are a few genuine participants.  But sadly many are little more than exercises in producing hot air, largely attracting a bunch of idiots who merely champion their "boy", and often out of ignorance of other contenders because they haven't progressed that far on their own learning curve.  I've seen many such debates degenerate into ill-feeling and squabbles.  Some descend into complete farce, like the one here on Bach and Handel.

Haffta agree there.  :(
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on July 13, 2007, 09:05:04 AM
FYI

Quote from: karlhenning on May 24, 2007, 05:27:58 AM
BTW, I do not see the "purpose" of this thread as encompassing the drawing up of any such definitive roster.  Not that the thread is bound to any conception I may or may not have as to its purpose.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on July 13, 2007, 09:14:12 AM
Quote from: jochanaan on June 18, 2007, 02:18:51 PM
The media's first priority is not "What is great?" or "What will challenge the audience to think more clearly, feel more deeply, love more powerfully?"  It is "What will sell? ::)

My point in returning to this post of jochanaan's is:  when we speak of the scare-quotes "market" and its role in evaluating artistic worth, we should remain aware that this "artistic value market" and the recording/publishing industry market are different entities.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on July 13, 2007, 09:14:44 AM
Perhaps there is overlap?  Very well, perhaps there is.

What's the nature of the overlap?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on July 13, 2007, 09:22:10 AM
Quote from: sonic1 on May 24, 2007, 10:13:20 AM
So does everyone here agree that a hierarchal cannon is silly? A cannon maybe fine, if it doesn't attempt at ranking composers against one another.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: M forever on July 13, 2007, 09:54:05 AM
Dunno if you noticed, karlhenning, but you are totally talking to yourself here.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on July 13, 2007, 09:55:57 AM
I'm working on inspiring another poster "type."
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: EmpNapoleon on July 13, 2007, 11:23:21 AM
Music sounds great.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on July 13, 2007, 11:23:56 AM
Quote from: EmpNapoleon on July 13, 2007, 11:23:21 AM
Music sounds great.

All of it?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on July 13, 2007, 12:56:19 PM
Quote from: karlhenning on July 13, 2007, 11:23:56 AM
All of it?
sure, if it means it shuts out the sound of a baby crying nearby.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: M forever on July 13, 2007, 01:36:00 PM
Quote from: greg on July 13, 2007, 12:56:19 PM
sure, if it means it shuts out the sound of a baby crying nearby.

Those are things you just have to learn to live with in the trailer park, I guess.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: quintett op.57 on July 14, 2007, 12:07:05 AM
Quote from: jochanaan on July 11, 2007, 01:26:05 PM
And that's why so many people think it doesn't exist, or foolishly reduce it to market sales.  But if it can't be measured, does it exist at all?
If we were omniscient, we should be able to measure a work's influence, but quality...
It has to be related with people's taste I believe.
If every human being knew every piece of music perfectly well, we could start a poll, couldn't we?
But is universal taste more important than mine?
Neither universal taste nor mine are stable by the way.
How important is the truth of an instant?

Or maybe you consider we should include cat's point of view? And every creature's in the Universe? 

Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on July 14, 2007, 08:03:32 AM
Quote from: quintett op.57 on July 14, 2007, 12:07:05 AM
But is universal taste more important than mine?

If there is such a thing as "universal taste," how would yours be something distinct?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Christo on July 14, 2007, 10:19:35 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on July 14, 2007, 08:03:32 AM
If there is such a thing as "universal taste," how would yours be something distinct?

Simply by not being universal. It is as the ancients said: de gustibus non disputandum, generally mis-translated as 'tastes may differ'. In reality they meant: quality is self-evident, there's no use disputing it. And that's how I take it.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Scriptavolant on July 14, 2007, 01:03:30 PM
Quote from: Christo on July 14, 2007, 10:19:35 AM
Simply by not being universal. It is as the ancients said: de gustibus non disputandum, generally mis-translated as 'tastes may differ'. In reality they meant: quality is self-evident, there's no use disputing it. And that's how I take it.

"De gustibus non est disputandum" means literally "Tastes are not disputable".
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: M forever on July 14, 2007, 01:17:36 PM
Exactly. For a more general meaning such as "taste is not discussable" (because it should be self-evident or whatever), it should be in the singular. But it isn't. It means individual (potentially differing) tastes.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Steve on July 14, 2007, 01:29:11 PM
Quote from: Christo on July 14, 2007, 10:19:35 AM
Simply by not being universal. It is as the ancients said: de gustibus non disputandum, generally mis-translated as 'tastes may differ'. In reality they meant: quality is self-evident, there's no use disputing it. And that's how I take it.

No, it is as Scriptavolant has said, 'Tatests are not disputable'. Which would mean that no individual preference is invalid. That would seem to rule out "universal quality' in music.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Scriptavolant on July 14, 2007, 05:57:07 PM
Quote from: quintett op.57 on July 14, 2007, 12:07:05 AM
If we were omniscient, we should be able to measure a work's influence, but quality...
It has to be related with people's taste I believe.

Well, it depends. We should extend the term "taste" a bit. If by taste we mean the immediate, thoughtless response (in a pavlovian sense, response to a musical stimulus), or a thoughtless emotional arousal, I think this has nothing to do with intrinsic quality of Art; your reaction is subjective in the sense that your subjectivity (I mean your musical attitude, skill and ability) reflects your preference, but that doesn't tell anything about the music itself, just as a livid tells you very little about the shape of the stone that caused it.

Things has got extreme and radical as time passed by; I mean once there seemed to be a sort of compromise between the need for quality and the need for individual fulfilment and the latter was almost always linked to the former. In modern times, and thanks to the "market" we came to a point where the only thing that seems to be important is the immediate reaction of the listener. Listener must be happy and satisfied, listener has no time to think and deepen or to break the curtain of immediate "emotions", listener must be entertained. If he does so by using an opium suppository or by studying and knowing Bach makes no difference nowadays.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: PSmith08 on July 14, 2007, 06:27:53 PM
Quote from: Christo on July 14, 2007, 10:19:35 AM
Simply by not being universal. It is as the ancients said: de gustibus non est disputandum, generally mis-translated as 'tastes may differ'. In reality they meant: quality is self-evident, there's no use disputing it. And that's how I take it.

Quote from: Scriptavolant on July 14, 2007, 01:03:30 PM
"De gustibus non est disputandum" means literally "Tastes are not disputable".

Not quite. The cases would be all wrong. "Tastes" would have to be nominative (the preposition "de" would be superfluous), a different form of sum would be needed, and you would need another form of "disputo."

The gerundive here seems to incline me to think that the most literal interpretation is, "Of tastes, it must not be argued." The gerundive plus the form of sum makes me think that we're talking about a passive periphrastic construction (i.e., for those without Latin, the expression of debt or duty)  Or, taking a slightly less literal approach, "On the subject of tastes, something should not be argued." Though, should gets us into subjunctive country and waters down the force of the passive periphrastic (viz "Karthago delenda est.")

In any event, the Latin is clear, and it doesn't have anything to do with establishing a standard of objective quality. Rather, it eschews the issue altogether, preferring to say that people like what they like and there's no sense in arguing them out of it. You would have to consult others for a discussion of objective quality.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Scriptavolant on July 14, 2007, 06:34:23 PM
Quote from: PSmith08 on July 14, 2007, 06:27:53 PM
Not quite. The cases would be all wrong. "Tastes" would have to be nominative (the preposition "de" would be superfluous), a different form of sum would be needed, and you would need another form of "disputo."

The gerundive here seems to incline me to think that the most literal interpretation is, "Of tastes, it must not be argued." The gerundive plus the form of sum makes me think that we're talking about a passive periphrastic construction (i.e., for those without Latin, the expression of debt or duty)  Or, taking a slightly less literal approach, "On the subject of tastes, something should not be argued." Though, should gets us into subjunctive country and waters down the force of the passive periphrastic (viz "Karthago delenda est.")


http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=vsawP_Ew0r4

(http://www.studentibicocca.it/portale/forum/images/smilies/asd.gif)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: jochanaan on July 14, 2007, 06:40:49 PM
Quote from: karlhenning on July 13, 2007, 09:55:57 AM
I'm working on inspiring another poster "type."
I know a good poster shop on Denver's Colfax Avenue... ;D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: PSmith08 on July 14, 2007, 06:43:25 PM
Quote from: Scriptavolant on July 14, 2007, 06:34:23 PM
http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=vsawP_Ew0r4

(http://www.studentibicocca.it/portale/forum/images/smilies/asd.gif)

"People called the Romanes, they go the house?"

Compared to some of my experiences in Latin, that isn't that bad.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on July 14, 2007, 08:40:07 PM
Quote from: Christo on July 14, 2007, 10:19:35 AM
Simply by not being universal.

Okay, but of course, my point is that there is a fatal internal contradiction in the statement:

QuoteBut is universal taste more important than mine?

If the taste is universal, his taste is subsumed within it, and there can be no question of relative "importance."
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: jochanaan on July 15, 2007, 04:45:02 PM
Quote from: karlhenning on July 14, 2007, 08:40:07 PM
If the taste is universal, his taste is subsumed within it, and there can be no question of relative "importance."
Which leads me to disbelieve in the concept altogether.  How can there be universal taste in a world of different individuals? ???
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: quintett op.57 on July 16, 2007, 10:04:48 AM
I didn't express myself very well, I was talking about a average taste.
In a world where everyone is an expert about music, would a work be greater than another because more people enjoy it greatly?

Personnally, I think any music which is able of pleasing many classical fans has to be considered great.
But no one will find any relevant argument to prove Mozart piano concertos are better than Haydn Cello concertos.
Some will give arguments but they won't be able to explain the link with greatness.

A problem remains with the word "greatness" : You're great at achieving something, you're not just "great".
"Something" has to be defined.

In music, you can be great at achieving different kind of things. some of us have ranked these things, but they haven't given arguments to justify why more importance should be given to one of these things.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on July 16, 2007, 10:15:25 AM
Quote from: quintett op.57 on July 16, 2007, 10:04:48 AM
I didn't express myself very well, I was talking about a average taste.
In a world where everyone is an expert about music, would a work be greater than another because more people enjoy it greatly?

Interesting question.  And yes, "average taste" is probably an improvement on "universal taste" . . . though it is still open to amplification :-)

QuotePersonnally, I think any music which is able of pleasing many classical fans has to be considered great.
But no one will find any relevant argument to prove Mozart piano concertos are better than Haydn Cello concertos.

Good points. I like the first sentence, both for what it says, and for where it does not tread.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: EmpNapoleon on July 16, 2007, 10:30:58 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on July 16, 2007, 10:15:25 AM
I like the first sentence, both for what it says, and for where it does not tread.

Cheap!  (Immoderate personal attack)

Quote from: karlhenning on July 16, 2007, 10:15:25 AM
And yes, "average taste" is probably an improvement on "universal taste" . . . though it is still open to amplification :-) [/i].

Voices learn well how to act.  Every syllable is a universal statement. 

Please, you know more than me.  I'm trying to listen and learn, and I can't reach the levels here you can (then why am I speaking, right?).  I just ask you to try harder in your oratory, Mr. Henning.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on July 16, 2007, 10:32:09 AM
Quote from: EmpNapoleon on July 16, 2007, 10:30:58 AM
Cheap!  (Immoderate personal attack)

Beg pardon?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: jochanaan on July 16, 2007, 04:40:14 PM
Quote from: quintett op.57 on July 16, 2007, 10:04:48 AM
A problem remains with the word "greatness" : You're great at achieving something, you're not just "great".
"Something" has to be defined.

In music, you can be great at achieving different kind of things. some of us have ranked these things, but they haven't given arguments to justify why more importance should be given to one of these things.
This is technical proficiency, not greatness.  The two often coexist, but they are not the same thing at all.
Quote from: EmpNapoleon on July 16, 2007, 10:30:58 AM
Cheap!  (Immoderate personal attack)
I don't understand.  Are you accusing Karl, or yourself, of a cheap, immoderate personal attack?  ???
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on July 17, 2007, 05:55:25 AM
Quote from: jochanaan on July 16, 2007, 04:40:14 PM
I don't understand.  Are you accusing Karl, or yourself, of a cheap, immoderate personal attack?  ???

Whatever the solution to the riddle may be, it is a post which falls short of greatness.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: quintett op.57 on July 17, 2007, 08:19:33 AM
Quote from: jochanaan on July 16, 2007, 04:40:14 PM
This is technical proficiency, not greatness.  The two often coexist, but they are not the same thing at all.
With this, I completely agree
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: jochanaan on July 17, 2007, 08:31:48 AM
:)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Topaz on July 18, 2007, 11:17:28 PM
"Greatness" among classical composers is an empirical matter.  There is no need to define the components of greatness.  The greatest composers are those whom people like the most, for whatever reason (e.g. aesthetic quality, range of output). 

The market comprises a wide range of opinion.  Some people may have a very shallow declining set of preferences (eg they like No 20 on their list almost as much as No 1); some may have sharply declining preferences; some may have highly unstable preferences, etc.  All types are in there, including people who think there is no way of measuring "greatness".

It's the totality of individual views which matters.  By "views", this obviously doesn't include the views of cats, as ludicrously suggested by one contributor above.  Nor does it include the views of people who merely have "views".  It's only the views of those who form form part of the market's "effective demand" (i.e those willing and able to buy) which should be counted. 

Adding up all individual preferences produces a market assesment, and reading off the ranks from this produces the best measure of "greatness".  This is the principle of it, but clearly there is still a big problem of how to measure the market's assessment correctly.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on July 19, 2007, 04:29:21 AM
Very nice summary, Topaz.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Boris_G on July 19, 2007, 10:13:16 AM
Quote from: Topaz on July 18, 2007, 11:17:28 PM
"Greatness" among classical composers is an empirical matter.  There is no need to define the components of greatness.  The greatest composers are those whom people like the most, for whatever reason (e.g. aesthetic quality, range of output). 

The market comprises a wide range of opinion.  Some people may have a very shallow declining set of preferences (eg they like No 20 on their list almost as much as No 1); some may have sharply declining preferences; some may have highly unstable preferences, etc.  All types are in there, including people who think there is no way of measuring "greatness".

It's the totality of individual views which matters.  By "views", this obviously doesn't include the views of cats, as ludicrously suggested by one contributor above.  Nor does it include the views of people who merely have "views".  It's only the views of those who form form part of the market's "effective demand" (i.e those willing and able to buy) which should be counted. 

Adding up all individual preferences produces a market assesment, and reading off the ranks from this produces the best measure of "greatness".  This is the principle of it, but clearly there is still a big problem of how to measure the market's assessment correctly.

Sorry, I may be missing something here. AFAIK, more people go along to a performance of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana than would bother to go along to a performance of Schoenberg's Verklarte Nacht. By that reckoning Carmina Burana is the greater of those two works. That can't be remotely right, can it??
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: bwv 1080 on July 19, 2007, 10:24:20 AM
Quote from: Boris_G on July 19, 2007, 10:13:16 AM
Sorry, I may be missing something here. AFAIK, more people go along to a performance of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana than would bother to go along to a performance of Schoenberg's Verklarte Nacht. By that reckoning Carmina Burana is the greater of those two works. That can't be remotely right, can it??

Votes in a market are not equally weighted, they are dollar weighted.  The currency in this case being the stature of the person within the culture.   I am fairly certain that no conductor of a major symphony, musicologist, composer or performer would subscribe to the view that Orff is greater than Schoenberg.  It is the equivalent of your opinion on the value of Coke compared to Warren Buffett's.  If 1000 or 10000 of us think coke is worth $50 and Buffett thinks it is worth $60, whose opinion "wins"?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Boris_G on July 19, 2007, 10:31:07 AM
Quote from: bwv 1080 on July 19, 2007, 10:24:20 AM
Votes in a market are not equally weighted, they are dollar weighted.  The currency in this case being the stature of the person within the culture.   I am fairly certain that no conductor of a major symphony, musicologist, composer or performer would subscribe to the view that Orff is greater than Schoenberg.  It is the equivalent of your opinion on the value of Coke compared to Warren Buffett's.  If 1000 or 10000 of us think coke is worth $50 and Buffett thinks it is worth $60, whose opinion "wins"?

That sounds quite reasonable, but in that case who today has the 'stature' - in our democratic age and given the 'anything goes' attitude to music these days - to decide which are the 'great' works in classical music? Indeed, who decides what is 'classical' music?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Scriptavolant on July 19, 2007, 10:36:36 AM
Quote from: Topaz on July 18, 2007, 11:17:28 PM
"Greatness" among classical composers is an empirical matter.  There is no need to define the components of greatness.  The greatest composers are those whom people like the most, for whatever reason (e.g. aesthetic quality, range of output). 

The market comprises a wide range of opinion.  Some people may have a very shallow declining set of preferences (eg they like No 20 on their list almost as much as No 1); some may have sharply declining preferences; some may have highly unstable preferences, etc.  All types are in there, including people who think there is no way of measuring "greatness".

It's the totality of individual views which matters.  By "views", this obviously doesn't include the views of cats, as ludicrously suggested by one contributor above.  Nor does it include the views of people who merely have "views".  It's only the views of those who form form part of the market's "effective demand" (i.e those willing and able to buy) which should be counted. 

Adding up all individual preferences produces a market assesment, and reading off the ranks from this produces the best measure of "greatness".  This is the principle of it, but clearly there is still a big problem of how to measure the market's assessment correctly.

There is a way to measure greatness, but it is light years away from the way you're talking about. Musical, and artistical greatness, is something intrinsic to the matter, objectively intrisic to the the work of art when considered and related to certain contexts (aesthetical and historical contextualization and so on). It has nothing to do with greatness in a purely quantitative dimension; that I would rather call popularity or collective consent, which usually are tools utilised from people who knows nothing about the greatness of music, and just lean on someone else brain to think. More, the "market" has been introduced in relatively recent times, that makes me infer that prior to the market there was no way to measure greatness. Wow. Centuries of aesthetical debate tossed in the closet.

Most of all, at the risk of being foreseeable, I would like to point out that a lot of collective judgements upon certain composers and so on, needed a lot of time to become shared by the community, a lot of Art had to wait to be understood. The way you're putting things, for instance, leads to the point of considering a composer great, only when his artistical achievements are known. Untill that day he's a perfect no-one. Bach has always been great, despite his contemporaries judgement. Mozart has always been great, despite the Romantics judgements. Schubert's 9th was a great symphony ( ;D ) even the day before Schumann pulled it out from the drawer.

Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on July 19, 2007, 10:56:57 AM
Excellent, excellent.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Boris_G on July 19, 2007, 11:53:55 AM
Quote from: Scriptavolant on July 19, 2007, 10:36:36 AM
There is a way to measure greatness, but it is light years away from the way you're talking about. Musical, and artistical greatness, is something intrinsic to the matter, objectively intrisic to the the work of art when considered and related to certain contexts (aesthetical and historical contextualization and so on). It has nothing to do with greatness in a purely quantitative dimension; that I would rather call popularity or collective consent, which usually are tools utilised from people who knows nothing about the greatness of music, and just lean on someone else brain to think. More, the "market" has been introduced in relatively recent times, that makes me infer that prior to the market there was no way to measure greatness. Wow. Centuries of aesthetical debate tossed in the closet.

Most of all, at the risk of being foreseeable, I would like to point out that a lot of collective judgements upon certain composers and so on, needed a lot of time to become shared by the community, a lot of Art had to wait to be understood. The way you're putting things, for instance, leads to the point of considering a composer great, only when his artistical achievements are known. Untill that day he's a perfect no-one. Bach has always been great, despite his contemporaries judgement. Mozart has always been great, despite the Romantics judgements. Schubert's 9th was a great symphony ( ;D ) even the day before Schumann pulled it out from the drawer.

I second that, totally.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Boris_G on July 19, 2007, 12:03:20 PM
Quote from: karlhenning on July 19, 2007, 04:29:21 AM
Very nice summary, Topaz.

Quote from: karlhenning on July 19, 2007, 10:56:57 AM
Excellent, excellent.

Good to see such substantial development of this thread from you, Karlhenning.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on July 19, 2007, 04:02:25 PM
Gosh. No one has ever been sarcastic to me before.

That is really, really impressive!
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Boris_G on July 19, 2007, 07:46:33 PM
Sorry if I caused any offence: but your casual endorsement of two opposing points of view seemed to me either condescending or lazy, not qualities which I thought worthy of you.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Topaz on July 20, 2007, 12:29:21 AM
Quote from: Scriptavolant on July 19, 2007, 10:36:36 AM
There is a way to measure greatness, but it is light years away from the way you're talking about. Musical, and artistical greatness, is something intrinsic to the matter, objectively intrisic to the the work of art when considered and related to certain contexts (aesthetical and historical contextualization and so on). It has nothing to do with greatness in a purely quantitative dimension; that I would rather call popularity or collective consent, which usually are tools utilised from people who knows nothing about the greatness of music, and just lean on someone else brain to think. More, the "market" has been introduced in relatively recent times, that makes me infer that prior to the market there was no way to measure greatness. Wow. Centuries of aesthetical debate tossed in the closet.

Most of all, at the risk of being foreseeable, I would like to point out that a lot of collective judgements upon certain composers and so on, needed a lot of time to become shared by the community, a lot of Art had to wait to be understood. The way you're putting things, for instance, leads to the point of considering a composer great, only when his artistical achievements are known. Untill that day he's a perfect no-one. Bach has always been great, despite his contemporaries judgement. Mozart has always been great, despite the Romantics judgements. Schubert's 9th was a great symphony ( ;D ) even the day before Schumann pulled it out from the drawer.



I disagree with the above completely.  I do not think musical greatness exists in a vacuum, i.e. it is not something that exists on its own independent of perception and experience.  As I made clear, I am an Empiricist not a Platonist, in the context of discussing the concept of "greatness" in spheres, like music, where there is no single easily measurable attribute of "greatness" like height, or weight, or strength, distance, loudness, etc.  Where greatness comprises a multi-faceted list of largely aesthetic criteria, and where views differ greatly among people on the relative weighting and scoring of each criterion, I think it is impossible to come up with a ranking of greatness except based on the concept of mass appeal. I fully realise that this involves accepting some volatility in the rankings, but I happen to think that this is both desirable and inevitable. 

If it were true that greatness in music has intrinsic properties, there would be little or no change in societies' perceptions of past great composers.   On the above "intrinsic quality" argument, their present-day "greatness" would be based on the high point in their historical fame.  For example, Weber was once adored but his reputation is now much reduced.  Is he still "great"?  Is he still as great as he once was?  Has it his "greatness" not changed?  Specifically, does such a system allow for any historical variation in "greatness", or is it fixed? It would be interesting to hear further views on this. 

For those who have difficulty with the concept of an empirical measure of greatness, it may be easier to look at this from an earlier example I gave: classic cars.  How might we establish their relative greatness?  On the premise of the "intrinsic quality" approach, we should list a number of features (design, braking, performance, etc) and form a judgement - presumably by "experts" only - based on the relative merits of the different vehicles.  However, it would clearly lead to argument and a range of results.  The answers wouldn't be time-stable anyway.  Why bother going through all this when the market has done it for you: just look at the prices in a decent Classic Car price guide. 

Alternatively, what is the greatest house in a street?  You could look at the number of bathrooms, size of garden, exact location, whether or not it has gold-plated basin taps etc.  Alternatively, you could focus attention on relative architectural attractiveness.  Why bother when the market can embody all the relevant factors and produce a single overall summary measure, price?

Perhaps another artistic comparison might be suitable: what about great painters (Rembrandt etc)?  Are they to be judged on the number and quality of their works, their novelty, their legacy, or what?  How do you measure quality?  How does one measure number when they vary in quality.  What relevance is legacy if all they themselves painted was second-rate work?  Huge problems abound, and again all that debate can be short-circuited by simply looking at the auction values of their works.

Market results are weighted by buying power.  If, for every 100 classical music fans, 90 prefer Carmina Burana to 10 who people the Mass in B Minor, as far I'm concerned the former is the "greater".  To argue otherwise is snobbish and undemocratic.  This is not to say, however, that sub-markets may exist (e.g. among conductors and music professors from Boston, or whoever) who may think that the Mass in B Minor is the greater. 

Lastly, it is an empirical observation that intrinsic quality assessments make little progress.  I have seen a few Music Forum debates on greatness that have attempted to rank classical composers using such an approach.  They usually have their own list of desiderata, but they boild down to much the same thing. There was a discussion recently on CMG, which may possibly have sparked off Karl Henning's interest.  That was a very inconclusive exercise, to say the least, and the main advocate seemed to be constantly struggling to maintain order and interest against a series of jibes from others.  Another one elsewhere, which lasted some 90 pages, was another questionable exercise.  It generated controversy, almost everywhere in the construction of a long list of the greatest composers.  There was, for example, a very long debate on where to place Wagner.  Some thought the No 4 slot was correct, others thought about No 8; others could not make up their mind largely because it turned out had not heard any Schubert, or much of Brahms - a fact in itself which was quite funny, i.e. who exactly is the judge of these things?  In fact few of the participants (a rapidly declining set of people incidentally) could agree on anything after about the No 6 slot, and in the end the Mod imposed his own view, which was evidently based largely on a variety of market-related data. 
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on July 20, 2007, 03:48:56 AM
Quote from: Boris_G on July 19, 2007, 07:46:33 PM
Sorry if I caused any offence: but your casual endorsement of two opposing points of view seemed to me either condescending or lazy, not qualities which I thought worthy of you.

Thank you for the clarification; no offense taken.

The fact is, that even while much in Topaz's post was discussible (arguable, depending on how he defined terms), I thought it a serviceable general framework.

The "excellent, excellent" was simply noting that I was enjoying the discussion.  Much of the ground has been covered more than once over the course of this thread's life.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on July 20, 2007, 03:54:15 AM
Quote from: Topaz on July 20, 2007, 12:29:21 AM
I disagree with the above completely.  I do not think musical greatness exists in a vacuum, i.e. it is not something that exists on its own independent of perception and experience.

This is one of the tensions in the question which I do enjoy.  Greatness, the evaluation of the artistic object, does indeed have context.  Yet, the artistic object itself -- even a musical score, subject to whimsies of interpretation and vagaries of presentation -- must be, to some degree, a 'fixture'.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: DavidW on July 30, 2007, 02:10:11 PM
Quote from: Topaz on July 20, 2007, 12:29:21 AM
I do not think musical greatness exists in a vacuum, i.e. it is not something that exists on its own independent of perception and experience. 

That is not the same thing though.  Intrinsic value is not existence in a vacuum.  I get what you're saying-- you're saying that you need someone to assign value to something for that thing to have value right?

If everyone turned their backs on Bach's Art of the Fugue, dismissing it's worth as great art so that there was no one alive that valued it-- would it lose it's value?  Of course the quick reply is value to whom?

One outlook is that value is part of the object itself, so the answer is it doesn't lose it's value.  The other outlook is that value is assigned by the observer if you will, then the answer is yes it does lose it's value.  These are both simply points of view, and both are valid, and neither have any truth value that we can assign to them.

Fully embracing either point of view leads to absurdity.  If you fully accept intrinsic value, then how is it determined?  If you fully accept that value is extrinsic, then you have no criterion for judgment.  That seems like a dichotomy and not a spectrum though, so how do you say pick the middle?  I was about to say that when I realized that also doesn't make sense.  How can you have a symbiosis where there is a sense of both intrinsic and extrinsic merit and they both nurture each other?  This example would be critical consensus of greatness of Beethoven tends to imply in people's minds that Beethoven must be intrinsically great.  Hmm, does it make sense?   
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Scriptavolant on July 30, 2007, 02:58:35 PM
Quote from: Topaz on July 20, 2007, 12:29:21 AM
  If, for every 100 classical music fans, 90 prefer Carmina Burana to 10 who people the Mass in B Minor, as far I'm concerned the former is the "greater".  To argue otherwise is snobbish and undemocratic. 

Something prevent me from taking seriously such assertion. Snobbish, undemocratic? No, the point is: who cares about what the majority like better?
One simplicistic view could be: we rate greatness by considering the judgement of people with high musical attitude and knowledge. Now, do you think this attitude is democratically spread in the population, or rather it follows the classical gaussian curve? Hence, preferences, on a large scale, cannot measure anything intrisic to the artistic work.

Your view of empiricism tends to trespass rational boundaries to land into a pure and radical form of hyper-subjectivity.
The point is that, in my opinion, you're messing up parameters, arbitrarly arguing that the quantitative amount of "pieces" sold should somehow tell something about the intrinsic proprierty of the object. Which is pure metaphysics. It doesn't tell you anything but the fact that it sells a lot.
Empiricism? Show this picture to 100 subjects.

(http://www.mat.uniroma2.it/LMM/BCD/SSIS/Neurosc/Percezione/Kanizsa.gif)

Most probably 99 out of 100 will tell you they neatly see a white triangle. What is wrong in this empirical observation? Well, that there is no white triangle at all.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: quintett op.57 on July 31, 2007, 08:39:36 AM
Quote from: DavidW on July 30, 2007, 02:10:11 PM
That is not the same thing though.  Intrinsic value is not existence in a vacuum.  I get what you're saying-- you're saying that you need someone to assign value to something for that thing to have value right?

If everyone turned their backs on Bach's Art of the Fugue, dismissing it's worth as great art so that there was no one alive that valued it-- would it lose it's value?  Of course the quick reply is value to whom?

One outlook is that value is part of the object itself, so the answer is it doesn't lose it's value.  The other outlook is that value is assigned by the observer if you will, then the answer is yes it does lose it's value.  These are both simply points of view, and both are valid, and neither have any truth value that we can assign to them.

Fully embracing either point of view leads to absurdity.  If you fully accept intrinsic value, then how is it determined?  If you fully accept that value is extrinsic, then you have no criterion for judgment.  That seems like a dichotomy and not a spectrum though, so how do you say pick the middle?  I was about to say that when I realized that also doesn't make sense.  How can you have a symbiosis where there is a sense of both intrinsic and extrinsic merit and they both nurture each other?  This example would be critical consensus of greatness of Beethoven tends to imply in people's minds that Beethoven must be intrinsically great.  Hmm, does it make sense?   
This is a very pertinent post.
This could be the starting point for a believers VS atheists discussion

Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on July 31, 2007, 08:47:59 AM
Quote from: Scriptavolant on July 30, 2007, 02:58:35 PM
Well, that there is no white triangle at all.

That is a disingenuous statement.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Scriptavolant on July 31, 2007, 09:08:41 AM
Quote from: DavidW on July 30, 2007, 02:10:11 PM
That is not the same thing though.  Intrinsic value is not existence in a vacuum.  I get what you're saying-- you're saying that you need someone to assign value to something for that thing to have value right?

Yes, but the question would be: is this "someone" just indifferent, why should it be undefined? Is there a natural equality in human judgement? Schumann's judgement upon a sonata is comparable to the judgement of a Wyoming housewife with no interest in classical music?

QuoteIf everyone turned their backs on Bach's Art of the Fugue, dismissing it's worth as great art so that there was no one alive that valued it-- would it lose it's value?  Of course the quick reply is value to whom?

One outlook is that value is part of the object itself, so the answer is it doesn't lose it's value.  The other outlook is that value is assigned by the observer if you will, then the answer is yes it does lose it's value.  These are both simply points of view, and both are valid, and neither have any truth value that we can assign to them.

These two outlooks aren't both valid.
Implicit in the statement "The art of fugue loses its value if everyone turned their backs on it", is the assumption that the only way to measure greatness is subjective appreciation, which once again isn't defined. What determines subjective appreciation? Are there some factors which can influence subjective appreciation? It is an open matter.
Implicit in the statement "The art of fugue doesn't lose value if everyone turned their backs on it", is the assumption that things may exist even if you don't know or you don't pick their proprierties. If I ignore Beethoven, does that mean Beethoven doesn't exist, I mean, for everyone else?

QuoteFully embracing either point of view leads to absurdity.  If you fully accept intrinsic value, then how is it determined?  If you fully accept that value is extrinsic, then you have no criterion for judgment. 

As I said, these points don't both lead to absurdity. One leads to the need to define what is intrinsic value, a thing that can be done in a relative framework. The other leads to the denial of every rational criterion to estimate the value of work of art, object or everything else; a thing that would make me infer that the same is true for these kinds of approaches. You cannot say if they're true or false, they don't tell you anything on the subject.

Quote from: karlhenning on July 31, 2007, 08:47:59 AM
That is a disingenuous statement.

A question for you: when people thought that the sun was orbiting around the earth, did the sun really orbit around the earth?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: DavidW on July 31, 2007, 09:59:02 AM
Quote from: Scriptavolant on July 31, 2007, 09:08:41 AM
Yes, but the question would be: is this "someone" just indifferent, why should it be undefined? Is there a natural equality in human judgement? Schumann's judgement upon a sonata is comparable to the judgement of a Wyoming housewife with no interest in classical music?

And how do you determine that Schumann > Wyoming housewife?  Again it's based upon opinion from yourself or opinion of others, it's not intrinsic to Beethoven. 

But suppose you were to say that it was was to say that yes there is some absolute perception of how to rank the worth of opinions.  What if another great composer said that Beethoven stinks?  Which one's opinion is more valid?  And if their validity is close to each other due to their stature, then you have a problem... the problem being that you have two opposite opinions that are somehow close to each other in truth.  It's paradoxical.

QuoteThese two outlooks aren't both valid.
Implicit in the statement "The art of fugue loses its value if everyone turned their backs on it", is the assumption that the only way to measure greatness is subjective appreciation, which once again isn't defined. What determines subjective appreciation? Are there some factors which can influence subjective appreciation? It is an open matter.

One doesn't "measure" greatness in that world view.  As for what determines subjective appreciation-- by it's definition it's determined by the person.  How does the person make this decision?  That's a very complex question, I agree with you that would be very difficult to answer... but I fail to see how that poses any problems.

QuoteImplicit in the statement "The art of fugue doesn't lose value if everyone turned their backs on it", is the assumption that things may exist even if you don't know or you don't pick their proprierties. If I ignore Beethoven, does that mean Beethoven doesn't exist, I mean, for everyone else?

Well okay that's a misinterpretation of what I wrote.  The assumption is not that things exist independent of the observer, but rather does artistic merit exist independent of the observer.  And actually what I really what I meant is "does artistic merit exist independent of the observer because it is an attribute of the object being assigned merit [in our example Beethoven]?"

QuoteAs I said, these points don't both lead to absurdity. One leads to the need to define what is intrinsic value, a thing that can be done in a relative framework.

Since I was questioning in my post whether you can make a meaningful definition that mingles the relative and the absolute, I want to see how you would do this.  For merit to be intrinsic, some aspect of it must be absolute.  So I would look for that in a definition if you provided one (if you already did, I'll look back).

QuoteThe other leads to the denial of every rational criterion to estimate the value of work of art, object or everything else; a thing that would make me infer that the same is true for these kinds of approaches. You cannot say if they're true or false, they don't tell you anything on the subject.

Actually it doesn't lead to that.  You can still say I accept that Beethoven is great because Rosen and his colleagues said so.  And then Paulb can say I accept that Beethoven is shit because Tony said so.  You can even then go on and think well Rosen > Tony --> my evaluation of Beethoven > Paulb's.  And that's pretty reasonable.  The key difference is that thought process is yours and yours alone, it doesn't belong to Beethoven.

QuoteA question for you: when people thought that the sun was orbiting around the earth, did the sun really orbit around the earth?

You just don't get it, the question is not "are there things that exist independent of our perception of them?"  The question posed would be "is artistic merit one of those things?"
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: jochanaan on July 31, 2007, 10:01:06 AM
If the Art of the Fugue is played in a church and no one hears it, is it music? ???
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: DavidW on July 31, 2007, 10:08:38 AM
Quote from: jochanaan on July 31, 2007, 10:01:06 AM
If the Art of the Fugue is played in a church and no one hears it, is it music? ???

According to a few infamous posters here, no it's not music. ;) ;D :D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Scriptavolant on July 31, 2007, 10:31:38 AM
Quote from: jochanaan on July 31, 2007, 10:01:06 AM
If the Art of the Fugue is played in a church and no one hears it, is it music? ???

But at least the performer would hear it. So it would be music, but even if the performer didn't hear it (let's say, Beethoven who was deaf), it would still be music. Or at least, Beethoven thought so.  :D

DavidW, I'll come back later on your arguments.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Scriptavolant on July 31, 2007, 11:15:08 AM
DavidW wrote:
QuoteAnd how do you determine that Schumann > Wyoming housewife?  Again it's based upon opinion from yourself or opinion of others, it's not intrinsic to Beethoven.

No, I would see it in different terms. I'm interested in the structure of that hypothetical Sonata (first contextualization: we're talking about musical properties), given that artistic merit implies a relationship with the form, a relation which is a commistio of historical and individual elements. I would ask what the Wyoming housewife insight tells me about the objective property of that sonata, and what Schumann – or say, a musical analyst – would tell, and decide that the former tells me nothing.

QuoteBut suppose you were to say that it was was to say that yes there is some absolute perception of how to rank the worth of opinions.  What if another great composer said that Beethoven stinks?  Which one's opinion is more valid?  And if their validity is close to each other due to their stature, then you have a problem... the problem being that you have two opposite opinions that are somehow close to each other in truth.  It's paradoxical.

No it isn't. What is the common way to rate opinions? Evaluating the arguments, that is correspondence between opinions and facts; if you say that Beethoven stinks the burden of proof is on you, you shall explain why. Possibly you should show me on the paper how Beethoven is supposed to stink. You may be wrong or you may be right, but I would like to see the arguments.

QuoteThe assumption is not that things exist independent of the observer, but rather does artistic merit exist independent of the observer.  And actually what I really what I meant is "does artistic merit exist independent of the observer because it is an attribute of the object being assigned merit [in our example Beethoven]?"

Yes, I think I've just answered this objection. Of course one problem remains, which is "who is the observer"; I think this is a crucial matter.
But once again I would take this "but rather does artistic merit exist independent of the observer", and consider the example of J.S. Bach. Unless we assume that Bach has not been a great composer since, let's say, 1751 and 1850, and he has been a great composer since 1850 up to today (according to his level of popularity and market, as Topaz was suggesting), which I think is nonsense, we should admit that yes, artistic merit exists independent of the artless observer "taste" or "preference".

QuoteFor merit to be intrinsic, some aspect of it must be absolute

They're relatively absolute, in my opinion. They're absolute, but only given a certain set of parameters (historical frames, aesthetical canons and so on). Say, the aesthetical aim of a classical Minuetto and Trio is, among the others, to propose a well-done juxtaposition between the two different sections of the piece, and all the musical properties which can be studied. So there will be good minuettos and aweful ones. Wheter you like the awful and despise the good one is just another story, absolutely legitimate, but definitely not the only canon. Because as I've said artistic aims are not only to please or satisfy the auditorium, this is just a modern degeneration of the idea of artistic value.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on July 31, 2007, 11:17:17 AM
Quote from: Scriptavolant on July 31, 2007, 11:15:08 AM
They're relatively absolute
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: DavidW on July 31, 2007, 02:13:48 PM
Quote from: Scriptavolant on July 31, 2007, 11:15:08 AM
DavidW wrote:

No, I would see it in different terms. I'm interested in the structure of that hypothetical Sonata (first contextualization: we're talking about musical properties), given that artistic merit implies a relationship with the form, a relation which is a commistio of historical and individual elements. I would ask what the Wyoming housewife insight tells me about the objective property of that sonata, and what Schumann – or say, a musical analyst – would tell, and decide that the former tells me nothing.

Yes that is the process that you would go through to determine your ranking of opinions.

QuoteWhat is the common way to rate opinions?

There is no absolute way to rate opinions.  Common is not the same as universal.  One person might rate opinions on the basis of how qualified they are, as you did above (which is btw a classic fallacy), another might rate opinions based on how they feel about the people offering the opinions, and perhaps one of the most used way people rate opinions is by how closely they match their own. >:D

QuoteEvaluating the arguments, that is correspondence between opinions and facts;

That's not what arguments are.  An argument is a chain of logic meant to persuade someone. 

Quoteif you say that Beethoven stinks the burden of proof is on you, you shall explain why.

No, you falsely identified an opinion as an argument to make that claim.  An opinion doesn't need to be supported, unless you are trying to persuade others to agree with you.  For example, usually when an opinion is asked of you from a friend, it's only to see what it is, and not meant as an invitation to debate.

QuoteYes, I think I've just answered this objection. Of course one problem remains, which is "who is the observer"; I think this is a crucial matter.

But you answered it circularly, your answer that you thought affirmed absolutism was done in a relative frame.  It was done exclusively from your own perspective.  Unless you think that your perspective is absolute?  Or that everyone should think and judge as you do? >:D

QuoteBut once again I would take this "but rather does artistic merit exist independent of the observer", and consider the example of J.S. Bach. Unless we assume that Bach has not been a great composer since, let's say, 1751 and 1850, and he has been a great composer since 1850 up to today (according to his level of popularity and market, as Topaz was suggesting), which I think is nonsense, we should admit that yes, artistic merit exists independent of the artless observer "taste" or "preference".

Yes that's the problem with one, you liked that problem but you didn't like the similarly grave problem with absolutism.  Hmm...

QuoteThey're relatively absolute, in my opinion. They're absolute, but only given a certain set of parameters (historical frames, aesthetical canons and so on).
Say, the aesthetical aim of a classical Minuetto and Trio is, among the others, to propose a well-done juxtaposition between the two different sections of the piece, and all the musical properties which can be studied. So there will be good minuettos and aweful ones. Wheter you like the awful and despise the good one is just another story, absolutely legitimate, but definitely not the only canon. Because as I've said artistic aims are not only to please or satisfy the auditorium, this is just a modern degeneration of the idea of artistic value.

Okay, so you're saying that there is an absolute aspect of judging quality of the minuet.  Would that be asking if it follows the definition of what is a minuet?  Or is it the concept of well-doneness that you put forward?  Proceed carefully, but please proceed.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on August 01, 2007, 05:02:23 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on July 31, 2007, 11:17:17 AM






I quas-always take a naturally abnormal relatively absolute take on all this. I call it the "Abby Normal" perspective.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Scriptavolant on August 01, 2007, 06:53:04 AM
DavidW, in order to come to a conclusion, I should know what you mean by absolute and relative.
As I've said there is a way to rate opinions, which is checking their correspondence with facts, or - in other words - they're capability to explain facts in a likely way, and of course their inner logic coherence as you say.
Yours in not an uncommon approach, which basically consists of doubting about everything, opposing the "each statement is individual, relative and not definetely - or mathematicall - provable beyond doubt" argument.
Even if I'd admit that everything is an opinion, I could hardly reject the evidence that opinions are different indeed. Would you define mathematics as an opinion just because its axioms are not undoutable? Would you compare evolutionary biology and ID pseudo-theories?
Would you reject scientifical method since it's not absolute?
How would you disprove the assumption by which in order to know something abou the musical structure of a Sonata I need to listen to Schumann and not to the notorious Wyoming housewife?
Do you know the Bertrand Russell's argument: the statement by which there is a chinese tea cup orbiting around Jupiter and the statement by which there isn't a tea cup are both irrefutable, but the former is absurd, the latter isn't.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: DavidW on August 01, 2007, 07:04:53 AM
Quote from: Scriptavolant on August 01, 2007, 06:53:04 AM
Yours in not an uncommon approach, which basically consists of doubting about everything, opposing the "each statement is individual, relative and not definetely - or mathematicall - provable beyond doubt" argument.
Even if I'd admit that everything is an opinion,

This is a strawman, and in fact this is exactly the same strawman you used earlier.  Before I forgave you as simply misreading me, now I know that you're intentionally recasting what I said into the only form you know how to reply to.

Engage my post, and answer what I wrote instead.  If you have trouble understanding any of my points, this time ask me to explain myself more clearly instead of guessing what I meant. :D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Scriptavolant on August 01, 2007, 08:13:29 AM
Quote from: DavidW on July 31, 2007, 02:13:48 PM
Yes that is the process that you would go through to determine your ranking of opinions.

Why? The distinction is plain clear and simple. Music can be investigated in its "organoleptical proprierties" (the analysis of form which musical anaysis propose with scientifical methods) and its emotional contents, in the frame of how the listener feel that music. The latter aspect is just a secondary effect. An example: the thing that people prefer the taste of apples, doesn't tell you a thing about the molecular structure of the fruit, which is exactly what I'm talking about (not the fruit, the music). To know something about the structure of a Sonata, I need such an analysis. It has nothing to do with rating opinions:
Quoteon the basis of how qualified they are,

Quoteanother might rate opinions based on how they feel about the people offering the opinions

True but insignificant, we're not interested in a social psychology inquiry on the fallacies of human beliefs.

QuoteNo, you falsely identified an opinion as an argument to make that claim.  An opinion doesn't need to be supported, unless you are trying to persuade others to agree with you.

Well, okay. By the way, I see no point in arguing something without giving a crumb of coherent explanation.

QuoteBut you answered it circularly, your answer that you thought affirmed absolutism was done in a relative frame.  It was done exclusively from your own perspective.  Unless you think that your perspective is absolute?  Or that everyone should think and judge as you do? >:D

Didn't get the first part of your sentence: "your answer that you thought affirmed absolutism was done in a relative frame". Would you mind to explain?  :)
For what concerns the second part, the universality of an opinion doesn't sanction its validity without taking into account who are the subjects involved, as I've been arguing before. So the point is not to auction a viewpoint, but to be sure it has an internal and external coeherence.


QuoteOkay, so you're saying that there is an absolute aspect of judging quality of the minuet.  Would that be asking if it follows the definition of what is a minuet?  Or is it the concept of well-doneness that you put forward?  Proceed carefully, but please proceed.

There are aesthetical canons which can be fulfilled by a composition, and this fulfilment has been occasionaly used as a measure of the greatness of a piece, by composers, analysts and listeners. That of course doesn't mean that these canons cannot be "infringed"; they're not absolute, they're not definitive, they're not eternal. Furthermore, a musical piece fulfilment of such canons (in other ways, the relation with the form, in other words, innovation or creativity) is no way the only method to rate musical qualities. It is not law.

Quote from: DavidW on August 01, 2007, 07:04:53 AM
This is a strawman, and in fact this is exactly the same strawman you used earlier.  Before I forgave you as simply misreading me, now I know that you're intentionally recasting what I said into the only form you know how to reply to.

The idea by which "there is no absolute way to rate opinions" is a multi-strawman. First, because we don't care to mantle an opinion with absoluteness, second because to do such a thing is insignificant if related with the problem, third because it is not true. By narrowing the meaning of opinion to "a likely interpretation of a matter of facts", as science do for example, you can rate opinions indeed. In other words, absoluteness is not a quality which increases the reliability of an opinion, hence I don't see the point in such a consideration.

Hope I did answer correctly the questions you were asking (or the ones I thought you were asking), the point is that not giving a univocal definition of the terms implied may lead to misuderstandings.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: quintett op.57 on August 01, 2007, 09:27:56 AM
Quote from: Scriptavolant on July 31, 2007, 11:15:08 AM
Because as I've said artistic aims are not only to please or satisfy the auditorium, this is just a modern degeneration of the idea of artistic value.
free online dictionary:
art 1  (ärt)
n.
The conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colors, forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty

beau·ty  (byt)
n. pl. beau·ties
1. The quality that gives pleasure to the mind or senses and is associated with such properties as harmony of form or color, excellence of artistry, truthfulness, and originality.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: quintett op.57 on August 01, 2007, 09:36:47 AM
But, as art is not only music, we could consider music is not only art.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Scriptavolant on August 01, 2007, 11:44:07 AM
Quote from: quintett op.57 on August 01, 2007, 09:27:56 AM
free online dictionary:
art 1  (ärt)
n.
The conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colors, forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty

My friend, I truly cringe before such definitions. They don't even come close to a general definition of Art.
I've looked else where and found something like "On the whole, the human activity which modifies reality in order to achieve some goals [...] every spontaneous expression of the inner world.." which sounds much more neutral and complete to me. What does it mean to affect the sense of beauty? It fits Renaissance but what about modern art, for example? Even kitsch art can affect the sense of beauty.

Perhaps Art may evoke a sense of beauty in the observer, but not every sense of beauty evoked in the observer is Art.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: quintett op.57 on August 02, 2007, 12:39:38 PM
Quote from: Scriptavolant on July 31, 2007, 11:15:08 AM
Because as I've said artistic aims are not only to please or satisfy the auditorium, this is just a modern degeneration of the idea of artistic value.
Quote from: Scriptavolant on August 01, 2007, 11:44:07 AM
What does it mean to affect the sense of beauty? It fits Renaissance but what about modern art, for example?
It was exactly my point : the satisfaction of the auditorium is the original meaning of art, the idea that the word "art" should imply more is "a degeneration" of it.


Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Scriptavolant on August 02, 2007, 12:57:03 PM
Ok, I see your point and I someway agree. The idea by which art should imply more than mere pleasing is quite modern. That said, I think one can look for something more even looking back at ancient forms; the idea of Art as mere entertainment, to me, is terribly reductive, passive, let's say middle-classed. Art is not only supposed to divert, but to make you think. The "Cappella Sistina" doesn't exist to please visitors, for instance. There's much more.
Nietzsche wrote that the aim of great Art is to better humanity, that's a viewpoint I'm much more disposed to accept.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: quintett op.57 on August 02, 2007, 12:59:59 PM
The cause of this degeneration of this definition are probably the following ways of thinking : "what an artist creates is necessarily artistic" or "if it's a piece of art, everything in it is artistic". 

Now, if the word had to evolve this way, I would accept it, it's only a word. The important is that the definition be the same for both interlocutors.

Isn't there a standard dictionary in english, is it on the net?

I'm going a bit far from the topic, but my point is that what we're talking about is not necessarily only art.
Why everything great in music should be related to art?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Novi on August 02, 2007, 01:14:52 PM
Quote from: quintett op.57 on August 02, 2007, 12:59:59 PM
Isn't there a standard dictionary in english, is it on the net?

Here you go: from the OED, the definition of art (noun). It's long, but also has what you're looking for, the evolutions of its meanings in history. I'll add my 2p to the discussion in a moment :).

Quote
    I. Skill; its display or application. Sing. art (abstractly); no plural.

    1. gen. Skill in doing anything as the result of knowledge and practice.

c1225 St. Margarete 194 Telle me of oure art..Whi werrie e cristene men. 1340 HAMPOLE Pr. Consc. 7434 Couth never telle, bi clergy, ne arte..e thowsand parte. 1539 TAVERNER Erasm. Prov. (1552) 23 Arte or cunninge euerye countrey nourysheth. Yt is to saye, cunnynge men, & such as haue anye facultie or science, whether so euer they goo, shall lacke no lyuynge. 1611 BIBLE Acts xvii. 29 Golde, or siluer, or stone grauen by arte, and mans deuice. 1663 BUTLER Hud. I. i. 87 Else when with greatest art he spoke, You'd think he talk'd like other folk. 1718 POPE Iliad III. 285 The copious accents fall with easy art. 1849 MACAULAY Hist. Eng. II. 129 The potato, a root which can be cultivated with scarcely any art.
    2. a. Human skill as an agent, human workmanship. Opposed to nature.

c1386 CHAUCER Sqr.'s T. 189 Nature ne Art ne koude hym nat amende. 1573 G. HARVEY Common-pl. Bk. (1884) 87 Nature herself is changeable..and arte, after a sorte her ape, conformith herself to the like mutabilitye. 1592 SHAKES. Rom. & Jul. II. iv. 94 Romeo: now art thou what thou art, by Art as well as by Nature. 1643 SIR T. BROWNE Relig. Med. I. §16 Now nature is not at variance with art, nor art with nature: they being both the servants of his providence. Art is the perfecttion of Nature..Nature hath made one World, and Art another. In briefe, all things are artificiall, for Nature is the Art of God. 1699 DRYDEN Cock & Fox 452 Art may err, but nature cannot miss. 1742 COLLINS Ode to Pity 23 Youth's soft notes unspoil'd by art. 1839 LONGFELLOW Hyperion III. v. (1865) 165 Nature is a revelation of God; Art, a revelation of man..Art pre-exists in Nature, and Nature is reproduced in Art.
    b. Artifice, artificial expedient. (Cf. 12.) Obs.

1667 OLDENBURG in Phil Trans. II. 415 That some of the Natives there can stay under Water half an hour without any art.
    3. The learning of the schools; see 7.    a. spec. The trivium, or one of its subjects, grammar, logic, rhetoric; dialectics. Obs.

c1305 St. Edmund 220 in E.E.P. (1862) 77 Of art he radde six er: contynuelliche ynour, & sie for beo more profound: to arsmetrike he drou. 1330 R. BRUNNE Chron. 336 (R.) Of arte he had the maistrie. c1430 Freemasonry 567 Gramer forsothe ys the rote..But art passeth yn hys degre, As the fryte does the rote of the tre. 1573 G. HARVEY Common-pl. Bk. (1884) 76 It makith no matter howe a man wrytith untoe his frends..Præceptes of arte and stile and decorum..ar to be reservid for an other place.
    b. gen. Scholarship, learning, science. arch.

1588 SHAKES. L.L.L. IV. ii. 113 Where all those pleasures liue, that Art would comprehend. 1675 R. BARCLAY Apol. Quakers ii. §15. 64 A Mathematician can infallibly know, by the Rules of Art, that the three Angles of a right Triangle, are equal to two right Angles. 1709 POPE Ess. Crit. 61 So vast is art, so narrow human wit. c1840 LONGFELLOW Psalm of Life, Art is long, and time is fleeting.
    c. words or terms of art: words peculiar to, or having a peculiar use in, a particular art or pursuit; technical terms.

1628 COKE On Litt. Pref., The Termes and Words of Art. 1701 SWIFT Cont. Nobles, etc. Wks. 1755 II. I. 22 By which he brought many of them, as the term of art was then, to Philippize. 1754 EDWARDS Freed. Will I. §3. 15 If we use the Words, as Terms of Art, in another sense. 1807 MORRIS & KENDRICK (title) Explanation of the Terms of Art in Anatomy. 1816 SCOTT Antiq. (1852) 256 A few thumping blustering terms of art.
    4. spec. Skill in applying the principles of a special science; technical or professional skill. Obs.

c1300 K. Alis. 737 Thyn erbes failith and thyn art! 1393 LANGL. P. Pl. C. XVIII. 96 Astronomyens al day · in here art faillen. 1605 SHAKES. Macb. IV. i. 101 Tell me, if your Art Can tell so much. 1656 H. PHILLIPS Purch. Patt. (1676) 31 Without sufficient knowledge in point of art. 1677 MOXON Mech. Exerc. (1703) 253 Work, in which they have taken a great deal of pains, and used a great deal of Art.
    5. The application of skill to subjects of taste, as poetry, music, dancing, the drama, oratory, literary composition, and the like; esp. in mod. use: Skill displaying itself in perfection of workmanship, perfection of execution as an object in itself. Phr. art for art's sake. Hence in many allusive phrases (see quots.).

1620 J. TAYLOR in Shaks. C. Praise 133 Spencer and Shakespeare did in art excell. 1675 TRAHERNE Chr. Ethics iii. 25 Art..more frequently appears in fiddling and dancing, then in noble deeds. 1711 SHAFTESBURY Charac. (1737) I. 244 Remarking what this mighty Genius and Judg of Art declares concerning tragedy. [1836 V. COUSIN Cours de Philosophie 1818 224 Il faut de la religion pour la religion, de la morale pour la morale, comme de l'art pour l'art.] 1840 H. ROGERS Ess. II. v. 259 It is just such art as this that we ask of the preacher..that he shall take diligent heed to do what he has to do as well as he can. 1867 MILL Inaug. Add. St. Andrews 46 If I were to define Art, I should be inclined to call it the endeavour after perfection in execution. 1872 SWINBURNE Ess. & Stud. (1875) 41 The well-known formula of art for art's sake..has, like other doctrines, a true side to it, and an untrue. 1879 M. ARNOLD Guide Eng. Lit. in Mixed Ess. 193 We mean by art, not merely an aim to please, but also a law of pure and flawless workmanship. 1920 B. RUSSELL Pract. & Theory Bolshevism iv. 48 There it stands, this old art, the purest monument to the nullity of the art-for-art's-sake doctrine. 1925 A. HUXLEY Those Barren Leaves II. i. 86, I was not an art-for-arter. 1928  Point Counter Point xvi. 291 We're frankly missionaries, not an art for art concern. 1937 'G. ORWELL' Road to Wigan Pier xii. 243 Our leading writers, who a dozen years ago were art for art's saking for all they were worth..are now taking a definite political standpoint. 1942 Burlington Mag. May 115/1 The first exponents of 'art for art' did not, as do their descendants, uphold the claims of the senses abstractly and in isolation. 1948 J. W. ALDRIDGE in Penguin New Writing XXXV. 115 Ulysses represents the extreme of the art-for-art's-sake doctrine. 1950 E. C. PETTET in Essays & Studies III. 45 The advocate of the 'practical' Shakespeare, allied on this occasion with the art-for-art's-saker, says [etc.].
    6. The application of skill to the arts of imitation and design, painting, engraving, sculpture, architecture; the cultivation of these in its principles, practice, and results; the skilful production of the beautiful in visible forms.
  This is the most usual modern sense of art, when used without any qualification. It does not occur in any English Dictionary before 1880, and seems to have been chiefly used by painters and writers on painting, until the present century.

1668 J. E[VELYN] (title) An Idea of the Perfection of Painting demonstrated from the Principles of Art. a1700 DRYDEN To Kneller, From hence the rudiments of art began, A coal or chalk first imitated man. c1777 J. BARRY in Cunningham Brit. Painters II. 96 A solid manly taste for real art, in place of our contemptible passion for daubing. 1801 FUSELI Lect. Art i. 8 Greek Art had her infancy. 1834 Prospectus of Edin. Art Union, It is proposed to form an Association for the purchase of works of art. 1848 A. JAMESON (title) Sacred and Legendary Art. 1856 RUSKIN Mod. Paint. III. IV. iii. §12 note, High art differs from low art in possessing an excess of beauty in addition to its truth, not in possessing excess of beauty inconsistent with truth. 1869 GLADSTONE Juv. Mundi xv. §2. 520 By the term Art, I understand the production of beauty in material forms palpable; whether associated with industrial purposes or not. 1876 H. N. HUMPHREY Coin Coll. Man. i. 4 The coins of Greece and Rome form in themselves a complete history of Art.
    II. Anything wherein skill may be attained or displayed. Sing. an art; pl. arts.

    7. a. chiefly in pl. Certain branches of learning which are of the nature of intellectual instruments or apparatus for more advanced studies, or for the work of life; their main principles having been already investigated and established, they are in the position of subjects requiring only to be acquired and practised. Applied in the Middle Ages to 'the trivium and quadrivium, a course of seven sciences, introduced in the sixth century...the trivium contained grammar, logic, and rhetoric; the quadrivium arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy' (Hallam); called also the free or liberal arts. Hence the 'faculty' of arts, and arts 'curriculum,' embracing the portions of these, with subsequent additions and alterations, still studied at the Universities, and the degrees of 'Bachelor' and 'Master of Arts' conferred upon students who attain to a prescribed standard of proficiency in these branches of knowledge, or, as it is called, 'graduate in arts.'

c1300 K. Alis. 665 The sevethen maister taught his pars, And the wit of the seoven ars. c1305 St. Kath. 4 in E.E.P. (1862) 90 ere nas non of e soue artz at heo gret clerk of nas. c1320 Seuyn Sages (W.) 182 And eke alle the seven ars. 1377 LANGL. P. Pl. B. x. 150 He hath wedded a wyf..Is sybbe to e seuene artz. c1400 Destr. Troy IV. 1497 Cassandra..enfourmet was faire of e fre artis. c1425 WYNTOUN Cron. VIII. iv. 9 Mayster of Art. 1503 HAWES Examp. Virtue vii. 103, I am grounde of the artes seuen. 1557 N. T. (Genev.) Epist. iiij, They..beat their wittes night and daie in the artes liberall or other sciences. 1579 FULKE Refut. Rastel 751 He being a Master in all the seuen liberall Arts, is not so ignorant in grammer. 1594 CAREW Huarte's Exam. Wits (1616) 7 Moreouer, mans life is very short, and the arts long and toilsome. 1608 SHAKES. Per. II. iii. 82 My education been in arts and arms. 1795 GIBBON Autobiog. 29 How many [professors] are stationed to the three faculties, and how many are left for the liberal arts? 1794 REID Acc. Univ. Glasgow Wks. II, 723/1 Four [Faculties]..Theology, Canon Law, Civil Law, and the Arts... The Arts, under which was comprehended logic, physics, and morals, were considered as a necessary introduction to the learned professions. Ibid. 724/1 In some universities, Masters of Arts are called Doctors of Philosophy. Ibid. 725/2 The dean conferred the degree of Bachelor of Arts. 1868 M. PATTISON Academ. Org. §5. 191 The first seven years..were employed on studies, which varying in their nature in various periods of the university history went under the common name of 'Arts.'
attrib. 1912 W. OWEN Let. 12 June (1967) 141, I definitely abandon the thought of Divinity Training till at least an Arts Degree is won. 1946 Universities Quarterly I. 52 The Arts faculties ought to include sufficient knowledge of general science to provide a general appreciation of science and the scientific method as applied to the problems of daily life. 1960 Guardian 20 Apr. 8/3 It should be possible to make scientists literate and arts men 'numerate'. 1967 J. PHILIP et al. Best of Granta 104 Granta's characteristic role in the 'sixties has been as an avant-garde arts magazine.
    b. sing. Any one of the above-mentioned subjects.

c1300 K. Alis. 72 Barounes..That this ars [astrology] wel undurstode..Wis in this ars, and malicious. c1450 Merlin v. 86 An arte that is cleped astronomye.
    8. A practical application of any science; a body or system of rules serving to facilitate the carrying out of certain principles. In this sense often contrasted with science.

1489 CAXTON Faytes of Armes I. i. 2 Emonge thother noble artes and sciences. c1538 STARKEY England II. i. 160 Scholes in euery Arte, syence and craft. 1588 FRAUNCE Lawiers Log. I. i. 1b, An art is a methodicall disposition of true and coherent preceptes, for the more easie perceiving and better remembring of the same. 1599 SHAKES. Hen. V, I. i. 51 So that the Arte and Practique part of Life must be the Mistresse to this Theorique. 1724 WATTS Logic II. ii. §9 This is the most remarkable distinction between an art and a science, viz. the one refers chiefly to practice, the other to speculation. 1825 BENTHAM Ration. Reward 204 Correspondent..to every art, there is at least one branch of science; correspondent to every branch of science, there is at least one branch of art. 1852 MCCULLOCH Dict. Comm. 449 Agriculture is little known as a science in any part of America, and but imperfectly understood as an art. 1870 JEVONS Elem. Logic i. 7 A science teaches us to know and an art to do.
    9. a. esp. An industrial pursuit or employment of a skilled nature; a craft, business, profession.

1393 GOWER Conf. III. 142 Artificers Whiche vsen craftes and mestiers, Whose art is cleped mechanique. 1557 SEAGER Sch. Vertue in Babees Bk. 353 Ye seruauntes, applie your busines and arte. 1660 STANLEY Hist. Philos. 165 Arts of three kinds. The first diggeth out Metals, and fells Wood. 1705 ADDISON Italy 6 The Fisher-men can't employ their Art with so much success in so troubled a Sea. 1745 DE FOE Eng. Tradesm. I. i. 8 To be taught the art and mystery which his master engages to learn him. 1851 D. WILSON Preh. Ann. (1863) I. II. ii. 358 Aboriginal learners slowly acquiring the new art.
    b. A guild, or company of craftsmen. Cf. Florio: 'Arte..a whole company of any trade in any city or corporation town.'

1832 SISMONDI Ital. Rep. viii. 184 These men, belonging to the woollen art. 1872 YEATS Growth Comm. 107 The industry of the free republic was controlled by guilds or arts.
    10. A pursuit or occupation in which skill is directed towards the gratification of taste or production of what is beautiful. Hence the Arts: (specifically) = the fine arts; see next sense. (Cf. 5, 6.)

1597 [see 11b]. 1769 SIR J. REYNOLDS Disc. i. Wks. 1870 I. 306 There is a general desire among our Nobility to be distinguished as lovers and judges of the Arts. 1778  ibid. vii. I. 426 All arts having the same general end, which is to please. 1827 Continental Advent. li. III. 243 The true Italian feeling for the Arts. 1842 PARKER Baptistery Pref. xii, The sister Art that speaks in stone. 1884 Punch 3 May 210/2 You will speak only of music, extolling this Art above all others.
    11. In prec. senses, but particularized:    a. by an adjective, as magic art (or the black art), military art, the healing art. industrial, mechanical, useful arts: those in which the hands and body are more concerned than the mind. fine arts: those in which the mind and imagination are chiefly concerned.

1393 GOWER III. 80 Thexperience Of art magique. 1611 BIBLE Wisd. xvii. 7 The illusions of arte Magicke. 1667 MOXON Mech. Exerc. (1703) 1 Smithing is an Art-Manual. 1697 DRYDEN Virg. Georg. IV. 178 My song to flowery Gardens might extend, To teach the Vegetable Arts. 1711 ADDISON Spect. No. 5 4 How an Amazon should be versed in the Black Art. 1734 tr. Rollin's Rom. Hist. (1827) III. 96 A treatise..upon the art military. 1767 FORDYCE Serm. Yng. Wom. I. vi. 250 They..wanted instruction in the principles of the Fine Arts. 1785 REID Int. Powers VI. vi, The fine arts are very properly called the arts of taste. 1854 RUSKIN Two Paths ii, Fine art is that in which the hand, the head, and the heart of man go together. 1884 GLADSTONE Sp. in Parl. 28 Apr., The Reform Bill of 1866 was defeated by obstruction, though at that period the art of obstruction was not so much of a fine art as it was now. Mod. A professor of the healing art.
    b. by a genitive or genitive phrase, as 'the painter's art,' 'the art of painting.'

1509 HAWES Past. Pleas. 189 Set with magykes arte. 1560 BIBLE (Genev.) 2 Chron. xvi. 14 Spices made by the arte [WYCLIF, TINDALE, craft] of the Apoticarie. 1611 Ibid., Apothecaries arte. 1597 MORLEY Introd. Mus. 181 The arte of dauncing being come to that perfection. 1691 T. H[ALE] New Invent. 29 The art of making gold. 1774 T. JEFFERSON Autobiog. Wks. 1859 I. App. 141 The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest. 1821 J. BAILLIE Met. Leg., Wallace lxiii. 6 The soldier's dext'rous art. 1849 MACAULAY Hist. Eng. I. 301 The rapid improvement, both of the art of war and of the art of navigation. 1875 FORTNUM Maiolica iii. 34 To have encouraged the potter's art.
    12. An acquired faculty of any kind; a power of doing anything wherein skill is attainable by study and practice; a knack.

1637 RUTHERFORD Lett. 120 (1862) I. 299, I thought the guiding of grace had been no art. I thought it wd come of will. 1781 COWPER Convers. 4 Conversation..may be esteemed a gift, and not an art. 1849 MACAULAY Hist. Eng. II. 201 The art of saying things well is useless to a man who has nothing to say. 1876 HAMERTON Intell. Life III. iii. 91 The delicate art of verbal selection.
    III. Skilful, crafty, or artificial conduct.

    13. Studied conduct or action, especially such as seeks to attain its ends by artificial, indirect, or covert means; address; cunning, artfulness.

c1600 SHAKES. Sonn. 139 Use power with power and slay me not by art..What need'st thou wound with cunning when thy might Is more, etc. 1738 POPE Epil. Sat. i. 32 Smile without Art, and win without a Bribe. a1762 LADY MONTAGUE Lett. lxxiv. 122, I am incapable of art. 1801 M. EDGEWORTH Belinda I. xvi. 300 Her art and falsehood operated against her own views.
    14. An artifice, contrivance, stratagem, wile, trick, cunning device. Chiefly in pl.

1597 SHAKES. Lover's Compl. 295 His passion, but an art of craft, Even there resolved my reason into tears. 1625 BACON Simul., Ess. (Arb.) 506 Attributing Arts or Policy to Augustus, and Dissimulation to Tiberius. 1681 DRYDEN Abs. & Achit. I. 402 The next successor..My Arts have made obnoxious to the State. 1712 STEELE Spect. No. 510 4 All the little arts imaginable are used to soften a man's heart. 1769 ROBERTSON Chas. V, V. I. 172 All the arts of address and policy. 1813 JANE AUSTEN Pride & Prej. (1833) 34 The arts which ladies sometimes condescend to employ for captivation. 1849 MACAULAY Hist. Eng. I. 536 No art was spared which could draw Monmouth from retreat.
    IV. Phrases.

    15. art-of-memory: an old game at cards. (Described in the Compleat Gamester (1709) 101.)

1674 COTTON Compl. Gamester (1680) 99 This Art of Memory is a sport at which men may play for money, but it is most commonly the way to play the drunkard.
    16. art and part (Sc. Law and gen.):    a. orig. in such expressions as to be concerned in (either) by art or part, either by art in contriving it, or by the part taken in actually executing it; whence, to have art or (and) part in: to have a share in, either by contrivance or participation;    b. (corruptly) to be art or part in (be for have, or perh. for 'to be of art or part in'): to be concerned either in the contrivance or the execution of; to be art and part in: to be accessary both by contrivance and participation, often used loosely, as a mere jingling phrase for 'accessary, participating, sharing' (the sense of art being merged in that of part).

a. c1425 WYNTOUN Cron. VII. ix. 539 All a at (oir) be art or part or swike Gert bryn..is erle Patryke. 1582-8 Hist. James VI (1804) 60 Thame that has bein foirfaltit for airt and pairt of the slauchter. 1609 SKENE Rej. Maj. 118 Thou thy selfe full airt had, and parte in harming and skaithing of me. a1670 HACKET Abp. Williams II. 86 (D.) The old man which is corrupt (Eph. iv. 22), who had art and part, as the Scottish indictment runs, in all our Bishop's persecutions. 1767 H. BROOKE Fool of Qual. i. 6 (D.) He had neither art nor part in this frightful discomfiture. 1864 Spectator 529 He has no further art or part in the matter.
b. 1515 Acts Jas. V (1597) §2 He salbe halden airt & partaker of his evill deedis. 1536 BELLENDENE Cron. Scot. XII. viii. (Jam.) Gif evir I wes othir art or part of Alarudis slauchter. 1691 BLOUNT Law Dict., Art and Part is a Term used in Scotland and the North of England. When one is charged with a Crime they say, He was Art and Part in committing the same..He was both a contriver, and acted his Part in it. 1753 Stewart's Trial 283 Find unanimously, the pannel James Stewart guilty, art and part, of the murder of Colin Campbell. c1876 Nat. Encycl. I. 105 The law of Scotland makes no distinction between the accessory to any crime (called art and part) and the principal. 1878 TENNYSON Q. Mary III. iv, You are art and part with us In purging heresy.
    17. arts and crafts: the arts of decorative design and handicraft; spec. work done by or under the auspices of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, founded in London in 1888, or similar later work; also attrib. Hence (colloq.) art-and-crafty, arts-and-craftsy adjs., pertaining to or characteristic of the arts and crafts or of the 'arts and crafts' movement, esp. its more pretentious side. Cf. ARTY-AND-CRAFTY a.

1888 Times 29 Sept. 6/1 The Arts and Crafts Exhibition at the New Gallery..may best be described as an exhibition with a purpose. 1894 Studio 48/1 The impression..on the mind of a person who had previously had little experience of collective 'Arts and Crafts' may not be without practical value. 1899 J. W. MACKAIL Life W. Morris II. xviii. 200 The newly-formed association was at first known by the name of the Combined Arts. The name of the Arts and Crafts was the invention of Mr. Cobden-Sanderson. He was also..responsible for another of the new departures made in the first Arts and Crafts Exhibition. 1902 [see ARTY-AND-CRAFTY a.]. 1909 Westm. Gaz. 24 Dec. 2/2 An art and crafty tea-table. 1939 O. LANCASTER Homes Sweet Homes 44 The fervent mediaevalism..found its final expression in the Arts-and-Crafts movement. 1943 G. GREENE Min. Fear I. i. 8 Short blunt fingers prickly with big art-and-crafty rings. 1957 R. CAMPBELL Portugal vi. 202 The arts-and-craftsy, self-conscious supervision, patronage, and spurious jollity given to morris dancing..in England.
    V. 18. Comb. chiefly attrib. from sense 6, as art-activity, -appreciation, -collecting vbl. n., -collection, -collector, -connoisseur, -correspondent, -critic (hence art-critical adj., -critically adv., -criticism), -dealer, -furniture, -instinct, -lover (hence -loving ppl. a.), -magazine, -manufacture, -monger, -product, -sale, -school, -student, -style, -teacher, -teaching vbl. n., world; or instrumental, as art-spun, etc. Also art centre (see CENTRE n. 6a); art director, one who is responsible for the décor, properties, scene-painting, etc., in a theatre or in cinematographic films; art editor, one who is responsible for the illustrations or the section devoted to the arts in a book, magazine, etc.; hence art-edit v. trans. (rare); art-educate v. trans., to educate in the arts of design; art-form [cf. G. kunstform], (a) an established form taken by a work of art, e.g. a dialogue, novel, sonata, sonnet, triptych, madrigal; (b) a theme or motif constituting a traditional subject of works of art, e.g. the Madonna and Child; (c) a medium of artistic expression; art gallery [GALLERY n. 6], a building or portion of a building devoted to the exhibition of works of art; formerly also art museum; art history [cf. G. kunstgeschichte], the history of art, esp. as an academic study; hence art-historian, art-historical adj.; art object, an object of artistic value; = OBJET D'ART; art paper, paper coated on one or both sides with china clay or the like to give a smooth surface; coated paper (see COATED ppl. a. 3); Arts Council: in full Arts Council of Great Britain, an organization established by Royal Charter in 1946 to promote and support (esp. financially) the development and appreciation of the arts in Britain; art square, a patterned square of carpet woven in a single piece; art-union, a union of persons for the purpose of promoting art (in sense 6), chiefly by purchasing the works of artists, and distributing them among their members, which is usually done by lottery; in Australia and New Zealand, a lottery with cash prizes.

1923 D. H. LAWRENCE Stud. Classic Amer. Lit. vi. 93 The rhythm of American art-activity is dual.
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1896 Peterson Mag. VI. 225/2 Art-appreciation, like art-creation, is a slow evolution. 1937 Burlington Mag. June 310/1 General hints on art-appreciation for the ordinary public.
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1908 A. BENNETT Buried Alive vii. 176 London, the acknowledged art-centre of the world. 1967 Listener 20 July 76/2 One of those exclusive civic centres or art centres in the South Kensington or South Bank tradition.
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1902 Encycl. Brit. XXV. 683/2 They acted as a most healthy stimulus to art collecting. Ibid., The first really important art collection to come under the hammer. 1936 Burlington Mag. July 46/2 The Veronese art-collector Bendetto Maffei.
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1904 W. JAMES Let. 30 June (1920) II. 206 The bulk of 'Modern Painters' and the other artistic writings..have made us take him [sc. Ruskin] primarily as an art-connoisseur and critic.
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1882 WILDE Let. 19 Feb. (1962) 96, I would undertake to be your art-correspondent for London and Paristwo articles a month.
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1865 ROSSETTI Let. 15 Nov. (1965) II. 580 The Art-critic's original dicta. 1866 Argosy (Midsummer) 61, I should certainly have liked to consult our great modern art-critic before making so daring a statement. 1879 HIBBS in Cassell's Techn. Educ. IV. 263/2 As desirous of improving the style of their work as any art-critic could possibly wish them to be. 1944 H. TREECE Herbert Read 53 Read has always been more artist than art critic.
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1936 Burlington Mag. June 303/1 Extensive art-historical and art-critical work.
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1880 SWINBURNE Let. 17 May (1960) IV. 143 A sample of the 'first manner' (to speak art-critically) of the poem.
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1867 Fine Arts Q. Rev. II. 174 We must recognize an immense advance in the tone and character of art-criticism, especially in..leading journals. 1891 WILDE Intentions 258 It is only in art-criticism, and through it, that we can apprehend the Platonic theory of ideas. 1935 Burlington Mag. Nov. 202/1 The merciless scrutiny of modern art-criticism.
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1934 A. WOOLLCOTT While Rome Burns 11 The young art-dealer was not precisely what would have been called pro-Ally.
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1933 Archit. Rev. LXXIII. 127 The newest and most satisfactory examples of decoration in the world of the movie art-director. 1933 P. GODFREY Back-Stage xiii. 160 The first art director to do so.
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1923 T. E. LAWRENCE Let. 13 Dec. (1938) 443 Hogarth will literary-edit the proofs for me: & Kennington art-edit the blocks.
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1877 Harper's Mag. Dec. 53/2 The day editor [puts]..news relating to art in the hands of the art editor. 1941 Oxoniensia VI. 93 The art-editors of the Commission are not entirely aware why a good photograph is good, or a bad one not good.
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1880 POYNTER Lect. Art I. 16 It has never been thought worth while to art-educate the workman.
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1868 G. M. HOPKINS Notebks. (1937) 97 An intellectual attraction for very sharp and pure dialectic or, in other matter, hard and telling art-forms. 1887 Magazine of Art 135/2 Some such accidental juxtaposition of decorative bird-woman and galleys..suggested the art-form or myth of Odysseus and the Sirens. 1894 World 21 Feb. 23/1 This type of musical farce is not an elevating or intellectual art-form. 1928 H. READ Phases of Eng. Poetry i. 11 Anglo-Saxon poetry is already a highly developed art-form. 1929 H. G. WELLS King who was King i. 8 (heading) The Film, the Art Form of the Future. 1952 D. T. RICE Eng. Art 871-1100 V. 132 Before the crosses were finally eclipsed as an art-form, a very wide repertory of different types of decoration was to appear on their shafts and heads.
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1870 Athenæum 21 May 681 Little more than a pretty piece of art-furniture.
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[1845 DISRAELI Sybil III. V. i. 14 Something of the splendour or the rarities of the metropolis; its public buildings, museums, and galleries of art. 1860 Birmingham Council Proc. 15 May 195 The scheme..should comprise a central Reference Library.., a Museum and Gallery of Art. 1863 Ibid. 5 May 198 The Fine Art Gallery now being erected in connection with the Central Free Library.] 1865 Ibid. 28 Nov. 37 An offer..to deposit in the Art Gallery several valuable pictures belonging to the Society. 1885 M. DAVITT Prison Diary II. xxiv. 46 Every public library in all towns of say 5000 inhabitants should have in connection with it a museum and an art gallery. 1946 Ann. Reg. 1945 333 This year of victory saw the gradual resumption of their normal functions by most of our public art galleries and museums.
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1890 WILDE Critic as Artist in Wks. (1948) 958 The Greeks..wrote essays on art, and produced their art-historians. 1907 Daily Chron. 5 June 6/4 In its way the most thorough piece of art-historian work that was ever produced. 1957 Times Lit. Suppl. 27 Dec. 790/1 The writer is an archaeologist and historian of art, not an 'art-historian', so those interested in this unfamiliar aspect of Greek art are better referred not to the text but to the plates.
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1933 R. FRY Art History as Acad. Study 11 The whole tendency of their [sc. the Germans'] art-historical studies has been to regard works of art almost entirely from a chronological point of view..without reference to their aesthetic significance.
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1874 Temple Bar XLII. 204 Incidentally may here be mentioned, though not strictly within the limits of art history, the wonderful power which was exercised this year by a portrait of the period. 1876 Mind I. 477 Hasty inductions drawn from a narrow area of art-history are erected into general principles. 1927 R. H. WILENSKY Mod. Movement in Art I. 51 The genius is so rare in art history.
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1891 WILDE Pict. Dorian Gray iv, She has not merely art, consummate art-instinct, in her, but she has personality also.
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1857 RUSKIN Pol. Econ. Art 30 A certain quantity of Art-intellect is born annually in every nation.
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1862 THORNBURY Turner I. 13 The very starting-point of the boy's art life. 1876 GLADSTONE Relig. Th. in Contemp. Rev. June 23 The splendid and elaborate art-life of the people.
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1874 Daily Tel. 4 May 5/6 This is..what artists and art-lovers will thank him for.
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1861 TROLLOPE Tales of all Countries Ser. II (1863) 52 The haunts in Rome which are best loved by art-loving strangers. 1934 Burlington Mag. Oct. 146/2 The English might have a reputable art magazine.
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1928 A. HUXLEY Point Counter Point v. 71, I envy you art-mongers your success.
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1856 Art-Jrnl. 2nd Ser. II. 93/1 If the money spent in the Art-museums of France was taken into consideration, it would be found that the assistance..was on a..liberal scale. 1857 Ibid. 239/1 As a national Art-museum it [sc. the South Kensington Museum]..is a success.
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1904 Westm. Gaz. 20 Oct. 1/2 Everyone..remarked how very flat the picture market has been, compared with that of 'art objects'. 1913 T. E. LAWRENCE Let. 16 Oct. (1954) 269 Arab glass..is the rarest art object in the world. 1962 W. NOWOTTNY Lang. Poets Use vi. 137 Different ways of looking at a house..as an art-object.
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1905 Jrnl. Soc. Chem. Industry XXIV. 771/2 The unpleasantness and fatigue caused by the reflection of light from the surface of high-glazed art papers. 1958 Times Lit. Suppl. 3 Oct. 567/4 To print both illustrations and text on coated paper (that is, so-called art paper).
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1904 W. JAMES in Atlantic Monthly July 102/2 All his [sc. Spencer's] dealings with the art-products of mankind.
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1882 W. F. POOLE Index Period. Lit. (ed. 3) 64/1 Art and Art Sales in England, in the 18th Century. 1902 Encycl. Brit. XXV. 684/1 The greatest art sale in the annals of Great Britain.
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1866 Once a Week 3 Feb. 134/1 The Universities do not teach art, the Art-schools do not teach anything else. 1935 Discovery Jan. 17/2 Groups drawn from art schools.
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1945 Times 13 June 2/4 The Government have decided that..the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts is to continue after the war under a new name. The new body will be known as the Arts Council of Great Britain. 1951 Oxf. Compan. Theatre 36/1 The defined purposes of the Arts Council..are 'to develop a greater knowledge, understanding and practice of the Fine Arts, to increase their accessibility to the public and to improve their standard of execution'. 1957 Times Lit. Suppl. 1 Nov. 652/3 The Hallé's experience with an Arts Council grant. 1967 New Charter of Incorporation of Arts Council of Gt. Britain 7 Feb., The objects for which the Council are established..(a) to develop and improve the knowledge, understanding and practice of the arts; (b) to increase the accessibility of the arts. 1984 Listener 26 Apr. 3/3 When the Arts Council came to launch its new initiative towards the regions, those funds were inviolate.
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1902 Encycl. Brit. XXVI. 605/1 The products of these two processes are well known under the trade-names of 'Parquet Carpets' and 'Art Squares'.
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1849 Art-Jrnl. XI. 107/3 In ordinary times there resides at Paris a numerous body of artists and Art-students 1934 R. BENEDICT Patterns Cult. (1935) iii. 48 What has happened in the great art-styles happens also in cultures as a whole.
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1872 RUSKIN Eagle's Nest i. §3 The least part of the work of any sound art-teacher must be his talking.
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1857  Pol. Econ. Art ii. 101 The most singular concentration of art-teaching and art-treasure.
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1857 Ibid. i. 41 The picture which most truly deserves the name of an art-treasure.
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1837 (title) Art Union of Scotland. 1839 DICKENS Let. 18 Feb. (1965) I. 509 All good fortune to the Art Union. 1849 Sydney Morning Herald 27 Nov. 1/4 The undersigned guarantees the..sums of £50 and £40 to the drawers of the 1st and 2nd Prizes, in his Art Union. 1851 ROSSETTI Let. 30 Aug. (1965) I. 103 A Notice about an Art-Union print. 1868 CHAMBERS Encycl. I. 446 Scotland preceded England in the establishment of Art Unions. 1931 Dominion (Wellington) 26 Dec. 13/7 Here we have art unions freely sanctioned..for every conceivable object from sports of every kind to first aid. 1948 D. BALLANTYNE Cunninghams 148 But it would be a long, long time before she got a new dressunless her ship came home and she won an art union. 1966 Courier-Mail (Brisbane) 5 May 3/11 A Scottish couple..yesterday won first prize in a Queensland consultation, the Scarborough art union.
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1880 POYNTER Lect. Art I. 16 The Art-workmen who have studied in our schools of design.
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1890 Atlantic Monthly Dec. 753/1 January and February, 1890, saw the culmination of a new movement in the art world of Paris.
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    19. a. Designed to produce an artistic effect, as art furniture, needlework, pottery, etc.

1868 Building News 25 Dec. 869/3 (heading) Messrs. Walford and Donkin's art furniture. 1870 Art-furniture [see sense 18]. 1879 M. E. BRADDON Vixen I. xvii. 327 Your last piece of art needlework. 1880 L. HIGGIN Handbk. Embroidery 98 The School was founded in 1872... It was first established, under the title of School of Art-Needlework, in Sloane Street; but in 1875 was removed to the present premises in the Exhibition Road. 1881 C. C. HARRISON Woman's Handiwork 47 Canton flannel,..a soft downy fabric,..comes in all the 'art' shades. 1885 C. M. YONGE Two Sides of Shield I. v. 75 'Don't you love art needlework?' 'Maude Sefton has been working Goosey Goosey Gander on a toilet-cover.' 1887 G. B. SHAW Don Giovanni Explains in Wks. (1932) VI. 99 Some exquisitely fine fabric in an 'art shade' of Indian red. 1887 Trade Marks Jrnl. 9 Feb., 'Liberty' Art Fabrics. 1893 YONGE & COLERIDGE Strolling Players x. 77 What she called 'an art-frock' in Liberty silk. 1894 MRS. H. WARD Marcella I. vii. 61 Marcella wore 'art serges' and velveteens. 1895 British Warehouseman Feb. 17/2 Chintzes, Art Blinds, Window Hollands,..Art Serges. Ibid. 38/2 A new..shade-card, comprising all the newest art tints. 1897 Daily News 23 Mar. 7/1 Great art-pottery establishments..are busy in the preparation of vases and other articles. 1900 J. K. JEROME Three Men on Bummel viii. 171 A yard or so of art muslin. 1930 W. S. MAUGHAM Cakes & Ale xii. 151 Curtains of art serge and a bilious green.
    b. [cf. G. kunstlied, -musik.] Produced by an artist, composed with conscious artistry: said of poetry and music, opp. to popular or folk, as art ballad, music, song.

1890 A. B. BACH (title) The Art Ballad. Loewe and Schubert. Ibid. 19 Schubert was the creator of the art song, Loewe the creator of the art ballad. 1934 WEBSTER, Art music. 1940 [see ARTIFY v.]. 1950 M. J. C. HODGART Ballads iii. 49 Ballad music, like other folk music, sounds strange to anyone familiar only with 'art' music. Ibid. 57 Folksong is at variance with modern 'art' song, in which the practice is to make the musical stresses correspond to the speech-stresses. 1959 L. BERNSTEIN Joy of Music (1960) 172 The songs of these shows are closer to art songs than they are to Tin Pan Alley.
    c. Applied spec. to a theatre, cinema, etc., specializing in consciously artistic productions, opp. to commercial, popular, etc.; hence art film.

1929 S. W. CHENEY Theatre xxiii. 520 Georg Fuchs of the Munich Art Theatre. 1932 W. ROTHENSTEIN Men & Memories II. xix. 154 Rumours of Craig's success at the Moscow Art Theatre reached London. 1933 P. GODFREY Back-stage xiii. 160 The studio or art theatre exists..to prevent dramatic art from being wiped out by the commercially minded. 1944 L. MACNEICE Columbus 15 The radio play..is competing with the Soviet art-cinema rather than with Hollywood. 1959 Encounter XIII. 52 The most the art-house circuit can do is $600,000. 1960 Guardian 15 Dec. 6/3 French art film makers..spin romantic webs around works of art. 1962 Listener 8 Mar. 448/2 Films as sheer entertainment..are slowly being ousted by these art-films. 1967 Guardian 5 Aug. 7/8 The Latin Quarter is rich in art cinemas.
    VI. art (ar), the French equivalent, occurring in certain phrases used in English contexts, as:    a. art autre [lit. 'other art']= TACHISM(E.

1959 Vogue June 115 Art autre makes painting a truly visual art. 1963 Times 17 May 18/4 Official taste remains complacently becalmed at action-painting and art autre.
    b. art brut [lit. 'raw art'], primitive or unsophisticated art.

1955 A. C. RITCHIE New Decade 21 Jean Dubuffet..intensified interest in l'Art brut, the work of prisoners, mediums, the insane and other non-professionals. 1960 Times 10 Oct. 7/2 A certain aestheticism, under the obligatory roughnesses of art brut, is discernible.
    c. art deco [abbrev. of art décoratif, lit. 'decorative art' (from the name of the exhibition L'Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes held in Paris in 1925)] (often with capital initials), the name applied subsequently to a style of interior design (furniture, textiles, ceramics, etc.) popular in the 1920s and 1930s, characterized by geometrical shapes and harsh colours.

1966 Times 2 Nov. 15/1 Earlier this year the Musée des Arts Decoratifs in Paris staged a fascinating exhibition..which highlighted the style now known by connoisseurs as Art Deco. 1968 B. HILLIER Art Deco 13 Art Deco can be held to cover the Ballet Russe fripperies of Erté as well as the 'architectural nudism' of Le Corbusier. 1972 T. MENTEN Art Deco Style Introd., Art Deco..might best be characterized as an attempt to unite arts with industry, embracing the machine age and repudiating the old antithesis of 'fine' and 'industrial' art. 1979 E. H. GOMBRICH Sense of Order v. 118 Where Art Nouveau relished the sinuous line, Art Deco went in for angularity. 1983 Y. BRUNHAMMER (title) The art deco style. 1985 Daily Tel. 23 Jan. 16/2 Our former consulate [in Shanghai]..is now a..travel agency. However, a rather splendid art-deco house has been found as a replacement.
    d. art mobilier [lit. 'portable art'], a term applied to prehistoric decorated or carved objects.

1946 Proc. Prehist. Soc. XII. 153 Engraved plaques of clay-slate from the Bann diatomite indicate..that the art mobilier of the Iberian Peninsula has, to some extent, its counterpart in Ireland also. 1959 J. D. CLARK Prehist. S. Afr. x. 259 The famous art mobilier which is found together with the implements and other occupation material.
    e. art moderne, modern art.

1934 D. PARKER After Such Pleasures 97 There was no tallying the gifts of Charvet handkerchiefs, art moderne ash-trays, etc. 1937 L. BROMFIELD Rains Came I. xxiii. 115 Atrocious bits of art moderne.
    f. art nouveau (ar nuvo) [lit. 'new art'] (often with capital initials), a style of art developed in the last decade of the 19th century, characterized by the free use of ornament based on organic or foliate forms and by its flowing (i.e. non-geometrical) lines and curves. (Called 'Jugendstil' in Germany.)

[1899 Studio XVII. 44 Jewellery..executed at Mr. Bing's establishment 'l'Art Nouveau'.] 1901 Times 15 July 12/5 It is much to be regretted that the authorities of South Kensington have introduced into the Museum specimens of the work styled, 'L'Art nouveau'. 1908 G. B. SHAW Lett. to G. Barker (1956) 137 A model cemetery with Art Nouveau tombstones. 1909 J. THORP Æsthetic Conversion (Heal & Son) 10 The art nouveau, with its meandering tulips and inconsequent squirms and dots. 1928 J. BUCHAN Runagates Club 103 A new plate of gun-metal and oxidised silver, lettered in the best style of art nouveau. 1939 O. LANCASTER Homes Sweet Homes 54 A recurrent passion for tortuous curves and sinuous lines..which..finds expression in..the flamboyant Gothic of the later Middle Ages, mid-eighteenth century rococo and, most deplorably, in Art Nouveau. 1939 A. THIRKELL Before Lunch iv, An oxidized silver stand representing the Three Graces in Art Nouveau style.

Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Novi on August 02, 2007, 01:28:45 PM
Quote from: Scriptavolant on August 02, 2007, 12:57:03 PM
Ok, I see your point and I someway agree. The idea by which art should imply more than mere pleasing is quite modern. That said, I think one can look for something more even looking back at ancient forms; the idea of Art as mere entertainment, to me, is terribly reductive, passive, let's say middle-classed. Art is not only supposed to divert, but to make you think. The "Cappella Sistina" doesn't exist to please visitors, for instance. There's much more.
Nietzsche wrote that the aim of great Art is to better humanity, that's a viewpoint I'm much more disposed to accept.

I'm not so sure that that's the case. That Plato, for example, found art and poetry to be so dangerous surely attests, long before modernity, to a perception of art beyond that of mere entertainment or sensory pleasure.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: quintett op.57 on August 02, 2007, 01:51:05 PM
you've got a point.
But it does not change my opinion : it's not because one expresses opinions or feelings through a piece of music that the fact of expressing these particular opinions or feelings become art.
I think it's a confusion.

Anyway, in music, you can express things greatly. Kind of a greatness in music, isn't it?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on August 03, 2007, 04:58:04 AM
Quote from: Scriptavolant on August 02, 2007, 12:57:03 PM
Ok, I see your point and I someway agree. The idea by which art should imply more than mere pleasing is quite modern.

No, not so modern as you may think (though maybe, you are using "modern" more liberally than it seems?)

Consider Shakespeare's great tragedies, for only a start.  All the corpses strewn on the stage at the end of Hamlet are not "pleasing," are they?  Yet, we take pleasure in Hamlet.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on August 03, 2007, 05:04:07 AM
Quote from: quintett op.57 on August 02, 2007, 01:51:05 PM
Anyway, in music, you can express things greatly. Kind of a greatness in music, isn't it?

Quote from: StravinskyMusic is powerless to express anything.

What did he mean?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: DavidW on August 03, 2007, 09:06:13 AM
Quote from: Scriptavolant on July 31, 2007, 11:15:08 AM
DavidW wrote:

No, I would see it in different terms. I'm interested in the structure of that hypothetical Sonata (first contextualization: we're talking about musical properties), given that artistic merit implies a relationship with the form, a relation which is a commistio of historical and individual elements. I would ask what the Wyoming housewife insight tells me about the objective property of that sonata, and what Schumann – or say, a musical analyst – would tell, and decide that the former tells me nothing.

You're equating two different issues.  If I said "this apple has value because it is red" would the apple's value now be objective because I equated an attribute of the apple to it's value?  And what makes my definition of apple value objective in the first place?  Maybe you judge apples by how they taste, and won't accept my definition.  Maybe you completely dismiss my opinion on apple's value because you are blind and don't judge apples that way.  And if you don't accept my criterion for value, does that mean that you deny that the apple I was talking about is red?  Would you need to?  Denying the criterion does not deny the attribute, so you can't claim that they are entangled as you have done.

I can say that I trust people who can see more than the blind on judging apples, and by silly criterion that would be consistent.  But there's nothing that transcends my subjective outlook on apples here.  This is the same as what you've said about Schumann vs the wife from Wyoming.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: quintett op.57 on August 03, 2007, 01:39:33 PM
Quote from: karlhenning on August 03, 2007, 05:04:07 AM
What did he mean?
seems that he was more influenced by Liszt's music than by Liszt's thoughts
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Scriptavolant on August 03, 2007, 02:05:35 PM
Quote from: karlhenning on August 03, 2007, 05:04:07 AM
What did he mean?

Music is powerless to express anything but itself.

The reason why I've added a part is that I think Stravinsky was arguing against other positions, the ultra-romantic ones, the practice to judge music exclusevely by its alleged emotional content. Hence his words should be considered as an answer; if we miss that context, we miss the meaning of the statement.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on August 04, 2007, 09:45:40 AM
Quote from: Scriptavolant on August 03, 2007, 02:05:35 PM
Music is powerless to express anything but itself.

The reason why I've added a part is that I think Stravinsky was arguing against other positions, the ultra-romantic ones, the practice to judge music exclusevely by its alleged emotional content.

Indeed.  What is the "emotional content" of the C Major Fugue from Book I of the WTC?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Scriptavolant on August 05, 2007, 08:05:08 AM
Quote from: DavidW on August 03, 2007, 09:06:13 AM
You're equating two different issues.  If I said "this apple has value because it is red" would the apple's value now be objective because I equated an attribute of the apple to it's value?  And what makes my definition of apple value objective in the first place?  Maybe you judge apples by how they taste, and won't accept my definition.  Maybe you completely dismiss my opinion on apple's value because you are blind and don't judge apples that way.  And if you don't accept my criterion for value, does that mean that you deny that the apple I was talking about is red?  Would you need to?  Denying the criterion does not deny the attribute, so you can't claim that they are entangled as you have done.

I can say that I trust people who can see more than the blind on judging apples, and by silly criterion that would be consistent.  But there's nothing that transcends my subjective outlook on apples here.  This is the same as what you've said about Schumann vs the wife from Wyoming.

But as I was trying to point out, there's no need to find absolute parameters, or to affirm their superiority. The problem is quite simple, if it's true that musical Art is, among other things, the treatment of form and expressive means, then by assumpion an analytical investigation of such elements can tell you something more.
The assertion that "there's nothing that trascends my subjective view" should not be denied, but dribbled instead. Same things is true in the most rigorous fields of human knowledge, including science and mathematics. Though usually the inter-subjective chance to verify observations make up for the non-trascendence of principles.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: DavidW on August 05, 2007, 09:42:04 AM
QuoteThe problem is quite simple, if it's true that musical Art is, among other things, the treatment of form and expressive means, then by assumpion an analytical investigation of such elements can tell you something more.

You miss my point, I'm not disagreeing with you here.  I'm disagreeing with you connecting that with quality.

QuoteThe assertion that "there's nothing that trascends my subjective view" should not be denied, but dribbled instead.

I disagree, there certainly are things that transcend subjective view.  I'm saying that the value of music is not one of them.  What the heck do you mean by dribbled?  Skip the metaphors, explain directly what you mean please.

You were trying to make the case that you that there is an objective way to assess art.  You have kind of deviated off that.  You're now nearly in the realm of equating opinion of art with scientific fact on the basis of saying everything is subjective so everything is of equal value.  That is fallacious reasoning.  And it's also opposite the view that started with and were arguing for! :D

Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Scriptavolant on August 05, 2007, 10:20:57 AM
By "dribbled" I meant "avoided".
And I've never argued that opinion on art are equal to scientific facts, I was precisely trying to distinguish the two things.
What infact I was saying is that looking for absolute values is both impossible and worthless in each human discipline, and I even added that the search for absoluteness has no bearing on the value of whatever observation. But it looks like you're constantly bringing this issue as a valid argument to say that in Art everything is up to the onthological level.

But at this level of misunderstanding, I wonder if there's a reason to go on. Prior to that, I would like you to show me an example of a thing that trascends subjective view, without taking into account theological arguments, please  :D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on August 06, 2007, 05:48:53 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on August 03, 2007, 04:58:04 AM
Consider Shakespeare's great tragedies, for only a start.  All the corpses strewn on the stage at the end of Hamlet are not "pleasing," are they?  Yet, we take pleasure in Hamlet.
well, stuff like that can be for dramatic purposes, and good drama = beauty = pleasing.
another example- gory horror movies or war movies....


Quotefree online dictionary:
art 1  (ärt)
n.
The conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colors, forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty

beau·ty  (byt)
n. pl. beau·ties
1. The quality that gives pleasure to the mind or senses and is associated with such properties as harmony of form or color, excellence of artistry, truthfulness, and originality.
with this definition, I can say anything that isn't beautiful to me isn't art. So I can say Beethoven's 9th isn't art. But that wouldn't be right, would it?

my definition of art/music is pretty simple, and it's pretty much the way I heard that Frank Zappa described it- "anything intended to be art/music IS art/music".... but of course, you have to be a little more precise. I can't go and look at the painting of The Last Supper and call it music, because it has no sound.

so yeah, you could do a recording of armpit farts and call it the "Armpit Fart Symphony", and it'll be music. But I don't think anyone will want to listen (me included).  ;D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on August 06, 2007, 06:27:44 AM
Quote from: greg on August 06, 2007, 05:48:53 AM
so yeah, you could do a recording of armpit farts and call it the "Armpit Fart Symphony", and it'll be music. But I don't think anyone will want to listen (me included).  ;D

Cannot help feeling that John Cage would somehow approve, though  ;D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on August 06, 2007, 06:30:07 AM
Quote from: greg on August 06, 2007, 05:48:53 AM
well, stuff like that can be for dramatic purposes, and good drama = beauty = pleasing.

That's the idea, but (to pick a nit) you want to be careful of those equal-signs.  Good drama is one kind of beauty, to be sure;  but it doesn't work as an 'equation'.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Novi on August 06, 2007, 06:39:48 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on August 06, 2007, 06:30:07 AM
That's the idea, but (to pick a nit) you want to be careful of those equal-signs.  Good drama is one kind of beauty, to be sure;  but it doesn't work as an 'equation'.

Absolutely - beauty can be terrible, pace Mr Yeats 8).
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: quintett op.57 on August 06, 2007, 08:46:16 AM
Quote from: greg on August 06, 2007, 05:48:53 AM
well, stuff like that can be for dramatic purposes, and good drama = beauty = pleasing.
another example- gory horror movies or war movies....
I approve Karl's comment
Quote
with this definition, I can say anything that isn't beautiful to me isn't art. So I can say Beethoven's 9th isn't art. But that wouldn't be right, would it?

my definition of art/music is pretty simple, and it's pretty much the way I heard that Frank Zappa described it- "anything intended to be art/music IS art/music".... but of course, you have to be a little more precise. I can't go and look at the painting of The Last Supper and call it music, because it has no sound.

so yeah, you could do a recording of armpit farts and call it the "Armpit Fart Symphony", and it'll be music. But I don't think anyone will want to listen (me included).  ;D
You're right, the definition I gave is not good because it implied beauty. The definition Novitiate provided is much better as it implied only an attempt to achieve beautiful works.

You can't come with your personal definition or everyone will be speaking in his own language.

Zappa's sentence is not really a definition. It's aan opinion about art.

Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on August 07, 2007, 09:28:09 AM
Quote from: quintett op.57 on August 06, 2007, 08:46:16 AM
I approve Karl's comment You're right, the definition I gave is not good because it implied beauty. The definition Novitiate provided is much better as it implied only an attempt to achieve beautiful works.


:)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: jochanaan on August 07, 2007, 06:45:07 PM
Quote from: karlhenning on August 04, 2007, 09:45:40 AM
Indeed.  What is the "emotional content" of the C Major Fugue from Book I of the WTC?
That would appear to be The Unanswered Question ;D--at least, I can't answer it in words.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Scriptavolant on August 07, 2007, 07:08:04 PM
Quote from: karlhenning on August 04, 2007, 09:45:40 AM
Indeed.  What is the "emotional content" of the C Major Fugue from Book I of the WTC?

I don't know if Prof. Henning was being sarcastically argumentative. If yes, he might have misunderstood what I was saying, and I just must resign to the idea I don't get his anglosaxon humour, and I have problems in making myself comprehensible in english.
If no, I think I can argue that even if the emotional content in Bach is not definable by words, it is definable by contrast: it has very little to do with emotional contents one usually finds in Romantic music.
Reading Hanslick essays, or considering what all the "Neue Sachlichkeit" idea was about, explains partly Stravinskij's aphorism and the historical/aesthetical perspective to which it belongs, that is - basically - a reaction against the sentimental poetics of the Romantic Period, in which music became a much more syncretic language, and lost the great deal of pureness and independency of other expressive means. Renowned is infact the almost rough contempt with which Stravinskij looked at Bayreuth and its pretension to turn music into a religious cult (you find something on the subject in his "Memories" if I remember well).
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on August 08, 2007, 03:45:39 AM
Quote from: Scriptavolant on August 07, 2007, 07:08:04 PM
I don't know if Prof. Henning was being sarcastically argumentative.

No, there was a simple but important point to my one sentence (a model, though I am the one who says it, of economy).
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: not edward on August 08, 2007, 07:21:12 AM
I've always thought that Stravinsky's comment was true in as much as that though music has no emotional content, it can suggest emotional content to the listener (hence the tendency of many, but not all, listeners to react to the same music in the same way).
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on August 08, 2007, 07:48:41 AM
Pithy and apt, Edward.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on August 24, 2007, 10:40:43 AM
Delius greater than Elgar!?!!? (http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,2885.msg73223.html#msg73223)  :o

8)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Guido on August 25, 2007, 06:34:53 AM
Having just read (most of) this thread, I think a lot of it falls beside the point. Really there are more fundamental questions  that I think need to be addressed before we can make any sense of this.

Let me first say that I really want there to be greatness in music, I really want to be able to say that Bach was a better composer than Andrew Lloyd Webber, or whichever other mediocrity you could wish to mention. But I am still doubtful about how much sense it makes to discuss it (even although I 'know' it to be 'true' within my own mind). Is this just an arrogance? It seems like alot of (not all) of the objections to the relativism that people have argued for here, are just that it is unnapealing to think that Bach is not greater than _____. Alot of the time the response is something about Bach's incredible marrying of the intelectual, the emotional and the spiritual, some vague notions of complexity etc. etc. I agree with the view, but I'm not sure that I could justify it - the typical answers just seem unsatisfactory to me (Just a case of restating assertions about greatness, and perhaps subtly undermining the other person, by saying that they just need to listen again, and eventually they'll get it (perhaps not literally but by implication)).

Really I think there are more fundamental problems which I think need to be considered before attempting to answer the greatness question. Whether these questions actually do have an answer is for me highly doubtful, but I am optimistic!

First - why do we listen to music? Is just saying 'pleasure' enough, considering that most people seem to claim that there are so many more lofty achievements in Bach and Beethoven other than that they just 'sound nice'. If it is just pleasure, then why not just stay tanked up on morphine (I'm being flippant here, but hopefully you will intuit my point).

Why do some sounds please us more than others?

"Why do you like that piece of music"
"It sounds nice"
"Why does it sound nice"
"I don't know. The suspensions?"
"But why do suspensions sound nice"
etc. etc.

This question of music being great - I think the 'great at what?' question is a valid one.

How does music really produce emotions? (either in the music, or in us?) Why does some music (eg bach) seem spiritual and deep?

If these questions have already been answered in this thread, I apologise, and no doubt I'll be flamed.

Few people here would argue that musical works have a value outside of culture or humanity, i.e. if everyone on Earth was killed, it would seem bizarre to talk about (hypothetically of course!) the value of a piece of music. It probably doesn't make sense to think of an art work without some some sort of human appreciation of it (even if that doesn't mean an audience - may be just the composer himself, whatever - I'm blathering - you see my point).

Being an athiest, I find it very difficult to rationalise any intrinsic worth in humanity itself. I don't think there's a real purpose to life, and I don;t think that value exists outside of human culture. What is the point in it all? Why does suffering and pleasure matter other than motivational goals to aid evolution, which is also purposeless - it just happens, I'm sure most people have had these thoughts, and I know some that it makes some people very depressed. This isn't my general experience of life I should hasten to add, as my life would just be an empty quagmire of depression  and emptiness, which is actually not my experience of it at all - I take great pleasure in music, arts, science, nature, people. But am I just deluding myself, so that I can function?<---(this may be biological).
How different am I really from a worm?

I know that sort of ground has been covered hundreds of times before, but is there really an answer? Please don't resort to calling me a sad individual. Or that I'm spouting immature ramblings. I'm not really interested in people making judgemental comments, as so often happens when people truly ask questions which matter to them on this forum.

I realise that posting this is a risk, and could make me look like a fool, but know that everything I ask here is a sincere question, and none of it is argument for the sake of argument (another thing that I have no interest in.) It may seem besides the point to some, but I see it as very relevant to the discussion.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on August 26, 2007, 05:59:58 AM
Fine post, indeed, Guido.

Just briefly for this morning (I must yield the room to Maria as she works at her painting):

Quote from: Guido on August 25, 2007, 06:34:53 AM
How does music really produce emotions? (either in the music, or in us?) Why does some music (eg bach) seem spiritual and deep?

If these questions have already been answered in this thread, I apologise, and no doubt I'll be flamed.

Oh, I don't think any sensible person would flame you (though perhaps that's your point);  at any rate, it should not surprise you that those questions have not been answered, not here anyway.

The phrasing of the question How does music really produce emotions? (either in the music, or in us?) is itself part of the question.  I don't think that "produce" is the right verb, where music is the subject and emotion(s) the object.  And my thinking at press-time is that the emotion 'resides' not in the music, but in us.  As I see it, the question(s) may be more on the order of "How does music cause emotions to resonate within us? Why these emotions? How is it that the same music/recording evokes different emotion(s) in different listeners?"

Great post, again, Guido! (Great at what?, you may ask . . . .)

:)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on August 26, 2007, 06:13:01 AM
Your post is terrific also, Karl.

I read a quote a long time back (during my obsession with "phenomenology"), where a man (I think it was Edmund Husserl) stated that music is one of the most affirmative proofs of both temporality and a "world outside the inner". Though I'm not sure I'm fully in agreement with his assertions, they are interesting, nicht wahr?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Ten thumbs on August 26, 2007, 01:59:33 PM
The content of music is either stasis or interval. These are merely physical attributes but when we hear them they have an emotional effect upon us. It would be rash to argue that these effects are universal but one can generalise and say that a rising phrase tends towards optimism and a falling one to sadness. Ultimately the greatness in music lies in the success of the composer in exploiting this to create something that moves us to pleasure. It has to be pleasure that makes one want to hear a work again and again unless one is a masochist.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: btpaul674 on August 26, 2007, 07:57:18 PM
After typing for an hour about music and emotion, I hereby rescind my post. Trying to answer why music and emotion from my standpoint on this forum is futile.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: max on August 26, 2007, 11:38:40 PM
Guido ~

You make very interesting points. Clearly there is a great deal of intelligent analysis behind it which has implications beyond the art of music only. There are at least a half dozen of your views I would like to respond to but this would create a thread somewhat long and certainly boring to almost everyone on this forum.

Like btpaul674 wrote, which I'm in complete agreement with, Trying to answer why music and emotion from my standpoint on this forum is futile.

I'll only say that the mystery of sound though mostly organic to humans is also palpable to animals and plants as everyone knows. Why this should be is a mystery which has not yet been rendered into an equation and is unlikely to be.

Consider why movies require soundtracks, even the silent ones. Music seems to operate as the leitmotiv of emotions and events. Imagine the movie as only spoken words without the soundtrack. Will it still have the same effect or seem emotionally monochromatic? Why do we require the aura of music? Perhaps because every emotion is in itself a kind of harmony or disharmony that renders itself most proficiently in the art of sound much like smell is a catalyst to memory.

Our musical expressions would be a Mythos to any intelligent archeological alien who would obviously be more concerned with what it meant to us than what any of our values could mean to It, in short, a far more extreme version than our own understanding of ancient cultures.

Spengler's first volume of Der Untergang des Abendlandes, 'The Decline of the West' would be a good introduction to our historical relation to the arts and music in particular...music even in the form of architecture.

What you've written requires time and effort because the subject is complex. Even one's belief in God can be empowered in music and whereas I too am an atheist I thank God for the likes of those who have recreated God in sound panoramas unlikely to be surpassed. For me that's the sound of Bach and Bruckner, devout and cosmological.

...anyways! This is already much too long. Let's keep on comparing Bach to Handel, Bach to Beethoven or some such. It keeps things simple!
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Ten thumbs on August 27, 2007, 01:22:42 AM
The evocation of emotion by music is certainly a great mystery. It is something that the gifted composer probably understands intuitively and that the analyst delights in explaining.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on August 27, 2007, 04:45:38 AM
Quote from: Ten thumbs on August 26, 2007, 01:59:33 PM
. . . but one can generalise and say that a rising phrase tends towards optimism and a falling one to sadness.

Oh, no, I don't think such a generalization has any purchase at all.

For just a few things, it depends on (a) a moralizing analogy of the physical motions "going up" and "going down," (b) concretizing the iffy analogy of "high" and "low" pitch, and (c) making melodic contour the dominant emotional 'driver'.

Apart from calling the content of the generalization into question, I'd further question the need for / use of any such generalization.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: jochanaan on August 28, 2007, 11:23:21 AM
max and Guido, would it surprise you to learn that many of us who are believers/religious/theists/Christians--call us what you will--have asked the same questions?  Being a believer doesn't preclude natural curiosity nor our very human tendency to speculate and pursue knowledge.  And this question takes us almost immediately to the borderlands of human logic and reasoning and self-knowledge.  Why DO so many of us perceive, say, Bach as greater than Britney, or Mozart than Megadeth?  (I'm just citing examples; I don't want to slam pop or metal.)  If it's merely a strong wish for "more," why do we have that wish in the first place? ???
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: max on August 28, 2007, 06:25:41 PM
Quote from: jochanaan on August 28, 2007, 11:23:21 AM
max and Guido, would it surprise you to learn that many of us who are believers/religious/theists/Christians--call us what you will--have asked the same questions?  Being a believer doesn't preclude natural curiosity nor our very human tendency to speculate and pursue knowledge.  And this question takes us almost immediately to the borderlands of human logic and reasoning and self-knowledge.

...having said the opposite, and here I'm forced to quote myself, this post, quite frankly, eludes me unless there's something in it whose meaning I haven't absorbed...which is also possible.

QuoteEven one's belief in God can be empowered in music and whereas I too am an atheist I thank God for the likes of those who have recreated God in sound panoramas unlikely to be surpassed. For me that's the sound of Bach and Bruckner, devout and cosmological.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Guido on August 28, 2007, 11:58:30 PM
I suppose belief in God validates the belief in humanity beyond dispute, and means also that there is certainly is such a thing as good and bad (ethically at least) which is separate from societal norms. Presumbly since God made us in his image, we also have some sort of divine reflection of his consciousness, and therefore have an intuitive knowledge of what good and bad music is? How much of this is absolute balls?! :)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on August 29, 2007, 11:56:08 AM
great posts since my last visit!

i have had tons of thoughts about this topic but mostly can't remember them and they're unorganized so it's hard to say much, really.

remember how i say, all the time, that "quality" is a different thing besides emotion, and that while every music has some type of emotion, not all has quality.... we agreed on this, since it's pretty obvious if you compare amateurish music to something by a professional. Now here's an example, or comparison:

http://www.youtube.com/watch/v/80lLU5-yji8&mode=related&search=

i'm thinking speeches/speakers can demonstrate my point. Obviously, no one likes what Hitler had to say (or at least, hopefully very few in the world). But he WAS a good speaker. Composers can be good "speakers" but the content of the music can either be liked or disliked, or even disliked so much to be offensive, like a Hitler speech.  :o 
but i do see stuff in my comparison that i should explain too.......
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: max on August 29, 2007, 06:42:29 PM
Quote from: greg on August 29, 2007, 11:56:08 AM
great posts since my last visit!

i have had tons of thoughts about this topic but mostly can't remember them and they're unorganized so it's hard to say much, really.

remember how i say, all the time, that "quality" is a different thing besides emotion, and that while every music has some type of emotion, not all has quality.... we agreed on this, since it's pretty obvious if you compare amateurish music to something by a professional. Now here's an example, or comparison:

http://www.youtube.com/watch/v/80lLU5-yji8&mode=related&search=

i'm thinking speeches/speakers can demonstrate my point. Obviously, no one likes what Hitler had to say (or at least, hopefully very few in the world). But he WAS a good speaker. Composers can be good "speakers" but the content of the music can either be liked or disliked, or even disliked so much to be offensive, like a Hitler speech.  :o 
but i do see stuff in my comparison that i should explain too.......

...actually, I find this video in bad taste and oratory no matter how great can never be equated to music.

Hitler affirmed that in order to understand Nazism one must first understand Wagner. Easy enough to say when the person it was said of died 6 years before Hitler was born.

Wagner could be a disgusting little twerp. But as intelligent as he was his character was inverse to the music he created and find no reason why it should be used as a soundtrack to a Hitler speech.

Can't help it when I say this is not only stupid but perverse.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on August 30, 2007, 04:02:25 AM
Quote from: max on August 29, 2007, 06:42:29 PM
...actually, I find this video in bad taste and oratory no matter how great can never be equated to music.

Hitler affirmed that in order to understand Nazism one must first understand Wagner. Easy enough to say when the person it was said of died 6 years before Hitler was born.

Wagner could be a disgusting little twerp. But as intelligent as he was his character was inverse to the music he created and find no reason why it should be used as a soundtrack to a Hitler speech.

Can't help it when I say this is not only stupid but perverse.





What Hitler meant in the video is insane. I think that Greg assumed everyone knew that; he was simply pointing out that many people thought he was a charismatic speaker...it's probably the main reason he was appointed Chancellor. People in Germany must have seen something in what he said...I personally always thought that the German people were so depressed financially and overwhelmed with having had to take blame for World War I that they went kind of cuckoo.

I mean, even to look at Hitler tends to provoke a weird feeling of hilarity (his "hairdo" and that riotous mustache) and sick/sadness at the horrible things he did.

I feel Wagner was extremely irresponsible at times;  he had such a position that many people followed his example, and he could have restrained himself. He could have thought more about what it meant to be a great Composer (most knew that he was such even during his life) , and from there he could have left a better personal legacy. 
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on August 30, 2007, 05:58:48 AM
Quote from: Haffner on August 30, 2007, 04:02:25 AM
he was simply pointing out that many people thought he was a charismatic speaker...
exactly.... here's my point- put the same fire and passion and charisma in someone who actually preaches something good, like MLK:

http://youtube.com/watch/v/iEMXaTktUfA

he's another great speaker. And we all like what he has to say. It's comparable to a composer that most people like, right? Is it possible to say a "great" composer is also a "charismatic" composer, meaning that his music is charismatic in whatever way?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: jochanaan on August 30, 2007, 08:00:52 AM
Quote from: greg on August 30, 2007, 05:58:48 AM
...Is it possible to say a "great" composer is also a "charismatic" composer, meaning that his music is charismatic in whatever way?
Charisma is not the only attribute of greatness--but it is an essential one.

And your point about Hitler and Dr. King is well taken; both were charismatic speakers, yet one's speeches evoked death on an industrial scale, while the other's evoked compassion and soul-searching around the world.  (It was not Dr. King's fault that the freedom and equality he envisioned have not happened for everyone; hatred and prejudice are strong.  Sometimes it seems that negative emotions are easier to raise than positive ones...)  So they were both great speakers--yet one was great for evil, while the other was great for good.  You see this in composers as well; there's Wagner's reprehensible anti-Semitism and pro-Aryanism, and there's Beethoven's evocation of Schiller's life-affirming "Alle Menschen werden Brüder..."

Great men are not necessarily good men.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on August 30, 2007, 09:10:24 AM
Quote from: jochanaan on August 30, 2007, 08:00:52 AM
Great men are not necessarily good men.
ahhhh... sounds like a famous quote. Did you get that somewhere or write it yourself?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on August 30, 2007, 10:08:49 AM
I think we must paraphrase Ophelia, and ask, Could greatness have better commerce than with goodness?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: jochanaan on August 31, 2007, 10:43:08 AM
Quote from: greg on August 30, 2007, 09:10:24 AM
ahhhh... sounds like a famous quote. Did you get that somewhere or write it yourself?
It's possible that someone else said it, but I don't know who that someone might be...?
Quote from: karlhenning on August 30, 2007, 10:08:49 AM
I think we must paraphrase Ophelia, and ask, Could greatness have better commerce than with goodness?
I agree--but in the words of the Gershwin brothers, "It ain't necessarily so." :-\
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Ten thumbs on September 10, 2007, 08:07:25 AM
The greatness we attribute to music lies within ourselves in much the same way that emotion does.We believe that it is justified and in most cases it probably is but sometimes it is gained or missing merely due to historical accident. One can therefore assert that great music is not always good music.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on September 10, 2007, 08:24:22 AM
Quote from: Ten thumbs on September 10, 2007, 08:07:25 AM
One can therefore assert that great music is not always good music.

I don't think so, but I'd be interested to hear how you would argue it.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Cato on September 10, 2007, 09:43:02 AM
Interesting: a great artist does not necessarily have to be a great person.  (???)

One thinks of the philandering Tolstoy, plucking peasant girls at almost every opportunity.  Henri Troyat's biography of the man reads just like a Russian novel, and at times it ain't pretty!    8)

Vice versa: I earlier mentioned Solzhenitsyn under another topic: a Russian professor once remarked to me that one had to read Solzhenitsyn, not because he was a great writer (the professor thought he was fairly mediocre, especially stylistically), but because Solzhenitsyn is a great man.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on September 10, 2007, 03:48:12 PM
Quote from: Cato on September 10, 2007, 09:43:02 AM
Interesting: a great artist does not necessarily have to be a great person.

Aye, and somehow Ten Thumbs got (as I think) the wrong end (or one wrong end) of the matter, and asserts that great music may not be good music . . . I don't follow that yet, and await enlightenment  0:)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Ten thumbs on September 12, 2007, 12:44:42 PM
My thought was only a supposition. I do not presume to quote any examples. However, some music highly regarded in the past is less so today. It is easier to find extremely good music that is not generally regarded as great. Of course good here does not imply moral worth. It may imply technical merit, sheer pleasure to the listener or real genius.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on September 12, 2007, 12:47:21 PM
Well, all right, you're speaking of greatness as a matter of 'general regard';  that's another matter (or at least, a certain specific matter).
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: sonic1 on September 26, 2007, 02:08:53 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on September 12, 2007, 12:47:21 PM
Well, all right, you're speaking of greatness as a matter of 'general regard';  that's another matter (or at least, a certain specific matter).

I think the point is that "greatness" and the definition for greatness in music changes as time goes on. What we might consider great at one time changes over time. Bach was not considered the great giant he is today. He might have been regarded by a few, but nowhere near the giant he is today.

The jazz issue comes up again and again here on this site, as a good example. For some, Ellington and Coltrane and Davis are GREAT composers, for others just a 20th century novelty. There are too many people who seriously study jazz, study the specific lines over and over again just like people study Bach lines, to just toss off jazz as a popular music. People measure greatness differently, and the institutions that developed our values, the mini institutions that made us put value on Bach or Beethoven or Mozart are no less valid than the institution that puts value on Ellington, Coltrane, Davis. Symphonies are arguably much more complex devices than jazz compositions. They may take more work. But if we are talking about "greatness" we are talking about value. At least if we are using the English language here. Value is determined by the time and the people. There are many people who have reached the sublime through music as guided by jazz artists, and pop artists too (Beatles, etc). That is greatness. The Beatles have gained a lasting world-wide effect. Maybe it has only been almost half a century, but it has been great. Shostakovitch has not gained near the audience that the Beatles, but has brought a lot of people to the sublime experience with a greatly composed work. You may value Shostakovitch more.  You may put more value in the sort of training it takes to be a classical composer. But other people measure greatness putting less weight on technical skill, and more weight on the ability to bring them to a sublime place.

It is elitist to suggest that one of us owns the definition of greatness, that OUR values outweighs all others. All of us are in the minority being fans of classical music. Why should OUR elitists definitions of greatness outweigh most of the world? Most people could not give a rats ass about Bach. Maybe even most smart educated people still would not put a lot of importance on Bach. We have to remember that values are not universal.

Personally, I try to always understand the values of others, rather than try to impose some limitedly defined set onto others. Therefore I can understand why some people would define Bach as great and understand why some people would define Coltrane as great and understand why. I have let myself reach sublime places under the spell of both artists. In fact, the Beatles, especially the late Beatles, have taken me to sublime places too. Does that mean I have degraded "greatness"? I would strongly argue not. I allow myself a larger range of values than others. I don't narrowly define greatness, or rather, my values are less astringent.

Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on September 26, 2007, 03:51:12 AM
Quote from: sonic1 on September 26, 2007, 02:08:53 AM
I think the point is that "greatness" and the definition for greatness in music changes as time goes on. What we might consider great at one time changes over time.

A very important aspect of the matter . . . though there then spins off the thorny issue of the "recognition of greatness" (does greatness exist as a thing of itself apart from its recongition?)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on September 26, 2007, 03:54:57 AM
Quote from: sonic1 on September 26, 2007, 02:08:53 AM
It is elitist to suggest that one of us owns the definition of greatness, that OUR values outweighs all others. All of us are in the minority being fans of classical music. Why should OUR elitists definitions of greatness outweigh most of the world?

There is, I think, a mobile-like fluidity to some of the ideas here;  is greatness entirely a matter of my regard (my values)?  Why does the question of minority or majority signify (is greatness a question of statistical validation)?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: sonic1 on September 26, 2007, 05:24:35 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on September 26, 2007, 03:54:57 AM
There is, I think, a mobile-like fluidity to some of the ideas here;  is greatness entirely a matter of my regard (my values)?  Why does the question of minority or majority signify (is greatness a question of statistical validation)?

Yes, and this is my point: who controls language? IMO, minority, majority, it does not matter. Whatever group you associate yourself with defines what values you possess. Or at least that group helps shape those values. To me, if an artist has driven enough of an audience to the sublime, then they are great. That does not exclude the minority of us who love Bach or Beethoven, but also does not exclude, for me, Coltrane or Ellington, or the Beatles. What is behind that greatness is different, of a different nature, but the result is very similar.

As an aside, I would wager that the majority of the classical music audience could not define in musical terms why a piece moves them, or why they consider it great. Only other musicians can do that.

We have the same issues in art: Michelangelo's technique was probably much greater than Rothko, but both are considered great because of their effect on the art world and the public. Once you start getting into how much technique went behind the art, or how much the artists "worked" you get into sketchy territory (sorry for the pun). The art world does not QUITE draw the same strict lines that music does. Art is art, though the intents of Michelangelo and Rothko are different. Music is music though Bach and Coltrane had different goals.

Now, as musicians, and people steeped in music theory, history, etc. you might quantify a group of values to define greatness for yourself. But you cannot define greatness at large for the music world because the non-musicians outnumber us all, as they should. And they deserve some say in what should be considered great.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Varg on September 26, 2007, 06:17:46 AM
The greatness of a composer (his ideas, his technique...etc) must be seperated from the listener's personal taste (atmosphere, emotion...etc); there is alot of music by composers which i think are genius that i just cant stand, because the music itself just dont appeal to me, but there technique, there complexity leaves me speechless. For exemple, compare, say, a Beethoven symphony to a Pärt symphony; the first is a much more intelligent composer in my opinion, a monster of complexity, the other i find technically uninteresting, and, lets say it, just plain boring... but i cant stand a Beethoven symphony, i just cant enjoy the music, and i like Pärt's atmosphere (sometimes, at least.... Pärt is just an exemple like another).

I think the greatness of a composer can be obvious if one doesn't build an opinion on his personal taste, like:"I dont like it so it's bad" and "I like it so its genius". That's absolutely ridiculous to me.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: sonic1 on September 26, 2007, 06:20:55 AM
Quote from: Shunk_Manitu_Tanka on September 26, 2007, 06:17:46 AM
The greatness of a composer (his ideas, his technique...etc) must be seperated from the listener's personal taste (atmosphere, emotion...etc); there is alot of music by composers which i think are genius that i just cant stand, because the music itself just dont appeal to me, but there technique, there complexity leaves me speechless. For exemple, compare, say, a Beethoven symphony to a Pärt symphony; the first is a much more intelligent composer in my opinion, a monster of complexity, the other i find technically uninteresting, and, lets say it, just plain boring... but i cant stand a Beethoven symphony, i just cant enjoy the music, and i like Pärt's atmosphere (sometimes, at least.... Pärt is just an exemple like another).

I think the greatness of a composer can be obvious if one doesn't build an opinion on his personal taste, like:"I dont like it so it's bad" and "I like it so its genius". That's absolutely ridiculous to me.

Yeah, so when is it NOT personal taste. I mean, you either except the taste of the majority, of you go by the tastes of an individual or particular group. But assigning greatness is always subjective. Who is defining the greatness if you are not? You are using parameters (even in your example) that were defined by a group. Who gives that group the authority to define greatness? Why is that group's definition more important than another?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on September 26, 2007, 06:59:03 AM
The experience of music is always both unreproducibly individual, and collective, at once.  Of course, there is always a subjective element;  that fact doesn't invalidate the whole process.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: sonic1 on September 26, 2007, 08:03:36 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on September 26, 2007, 06:59:03 AM
The experience of music is always both unreproducibly individual, and collective, at once.  Of course, there is always a subjective element;  that fact doesn't invalidate the whole process.

No, it doesn't necessarily but it does suggest huge difficulties. A scan through almost any thread on this forum would suggest that. Nobody can agree on greatness here, where most listeners have a pretty good understanding, often extensive background in music. The least of us are incredibly avid classical music fans. And yet I see no consensus on greatness even here, let alone at large.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Varg on September 26, 2007, 08:42:59 AM
Quote from: sonic1 on September 26, 2007, 06:20:55 AM
Yeah, so when is it NOT personal taste. I mean, you either except the taste of the majority, of you go by the tastes of an individual or particular group. But assigning greatness is always subjective. Who is defining the greatness if you are not? You are using parameters (even in your example) that were defined by a group. Who gives that group the authority to define greatness? Why is that group's definition more important than another?


I'm not talking about a group, a mass opinion, a thread, but about individuals (me, in that case). Parameters! I'm affraid i'm just poor at english and that i use the simplest expression possible. But if i understand you, the fact that, according to you, some people might think the same as me about that makes my own opinion the fruit of some authority? What can i do if the person besides me says that the moon is white?! i certainly wont tell him that i noticed that its white before him, and therefore is my own unique discovery/opinion! (And i'm not saying either that, in music, what is "great" and what is "not great" is common knowledge)

Well, when it's not about personnal taste, as i already said, it's about the composer. What i meant is, most people seems to find comfort in convincing themselves that what they like is supreme art and that what they dont like is complete crap. This is about vanity and ego; that leads to worthless judgement. Being able to seperate those things is already alot cleaner. "I think it's amazing, it blows my mind, but i dont like it"; i bet you didnt heard that very often, contrary to "I like it it's amazing". Of course one can like a piece and think it's amazing without ego/vanity being involved, for the simple reason that, contrary to the "supremacists" ego maniacs, it's not always like that (that's pretty rare). Once again, that doesnt "proove" anything in favor of his judgement, because you cant proove such things. And who cares! It all comes down to what you like (the music) and your musical knowledge (the composer), and there's a whole world separating "no knowledge at all" and "great knowledge". It all comes down to what you like and what you understand personnaly; that means endless possibilities. To me, saying "it's great" has a background saying "to the best of my knowledge" and "i know that, as time goes by, as my knowledge increase and my taste is changing, i'll find this without interest some day, and i'll continue to talk about a new form of "greatness", reject it once again, and so on".





Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: sonic1 on September 26, 2007, 09:01:28 AM
Quote from: Shunk_Manitu_Tanka on September 26, 2007, 08:42:59 AM
I'm not talking about a group, a mass opinion, a thread, but about individuals (me, in that case). Parameters! I'm affraid i'm just poor at english and that i use the simplest expression possible. But if i understand you, the fact that, according to you, some people might think the same as me about that makes my own opinion the fruit of some authority? What can i do if the person besides me says that the moon is white?! i certainly wont tell him that i noticed that its white before him, and therefore is my own unique discovery/opinion! (And i'm not saying either that, in music, what is "great" and what is "not great" is common knowledge)

Well, when it's not about personnal taste, as i already said, it's about the composer. What i meant is, most people seems to find comfort in convincing themselves that what they like is supreme art and that what they dont like is complete crap. This is about vanity and ego; that leads to worthless judgement. Being able to seperate those things is already alot cleaner. "I think it's amazing, it blows my mind, but i dont like it"; i bet you didnt heard that very often, contrary to "I like it it's amazing". Of course one can like a piece and think it's amazing without ego/vanity being involved, for the simple reason that, contrary to the "supremacists" ego maniacs, it's not always like that (that's pretty rare). Once again, that doesnt "proove" anything in favor of his judgement, because you cant proove such things. And who cares! It all comes down to what you like (the music) and your musical knowledge (the composer), and there's a whole world separating "no knowledge at all" and "great knowledge". It all comes down to what you like and what you understand personnaly; that means endless possibilities. To me, saying "it's great" has a background saying "to the best of my knowledge" and "i know that, as time goes by, as my knowledge increase and my taste is changing, i'll find this without interest some day, and i'll continue to talk about a new form of "greatness", reject it once again, and so on".







Judging the color of the moon is assessing a fact. Judging the greatness of a composer requires a set of values set up by the institutions you adhere to. I am not saying this is a bad thing. I am suggesting that depending on what institution informs you, you might come up with different answers to the questions of greatness. There is also a smattering of "personal opinion", but I think indeed very little of our own devices inform our opinions on greatness in music. The gravity of outer influence is pretty great.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: jochanaan on September 26, 2007, 09:42:47 AM
How many people who like, say, the latest Top-40 or Nashville "artist" have studied music, formally or informally?  Compare that to the intense way most of us have studied classical music or jazz or whatever (inside or outside the classroom and practice room), and I think you have one measure of greatness.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: sonic1 on September 26, 2007, 10:19:35 AM
Quote from: jochanaan on September 26, 2007, 09:42:47 AM
How many people who like, say, the latest Top-40 or Nashville "artist" have studied music, formally or informally?  Compare that to the intense way most of us have studied classical music or jazz or whatever (inside or outside the classroom and practice room), and I think you have one measure of greatness.

Using an extreme case does not justify nor clarify the parameters for greatness. Your highlight suggests that #1 only uneducated people would have great problems with your "greatness" assignments. #2 you MUST know how much training jazz musicians undergo, how much practicing, how much skill honing, etc happens. Jazz musicians study serious music. They study theory, practice slonimsky patterns, etc. How they differ, perhaps, is that much of their composing happens during a performance (with previous learned lines worked in, etc), though some jazz artists prewrite quite a lot of material. Wayne Shorter wrote some ingenious melodies for example.

At any rate, my point is that trying to draw lines where greatness begins and ends is extremely problematic. As I said above, you all prove that here every friggin day with your bickering about whose work is great and who is not and getting offended when people don't agree. There is little consensus here regarding greatness. Even Bach has quite a few nay-sayers here. How about Mozart? Many here believe him great, some even greatest of all composers, others would not assign him any such role.

Beethoven might be a candidate for greatness, but I bet there are some here who might not agree.

And then what? Besides your obvious three, who already have issues, who is ALSO considered for the list. This is where you really get into spats with each other.

Personally it makes little sense to me to impose this hierarchy. What role does this process have? Why are we assigning greatness to a composer? If we identify that which we use to quantify this greatness will we be able to learn what makes a great work and emulate that? If it were that easy to identify and quantify would not many composers have done such and risen to their "level". So if that is not possible (considering also the world they lived in which we lack-the time, solitude, space to make great symphonies for example) why assign greatness if NOT to impose some sort of hierarchy, or impose values?

I value Bach myself. But I also value the contributions of jazz. I also value Schoenberg's influence on modern music. I don't see the need to put them on a top 40 list. What is the purpose of that? I feel like the time spent on quantifying "greatness" is better spent listening to more music, or taking apart a piece I already know to understand its structure. But assessing its "greatness"? It is ALMOST though not entirely like asking me my favorite color. Sure some colors are more appealing to me (within a given context especially), but it seems to me a waste of time, and almost immature.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on September 26, 2007, 10:55:26 AM
The difficulties are real, to be sure, Jared  :)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Mark G. Simon on September 27, 2007, 05:51:22 AM
I can't believe this thread is still carrying on when Larry Rinkel summed it up so perfectly way back on May 23:

Not at all. Implied in Steve's excellent statement is that this is the culture as a whole of people interested in classical music. And experience bears him out: the large majority of people deeply concerned with classical music tend to gravitate towards the same set of composers as being the most valued. In fact, this is not a "personal" judgment at all as some here would have it, but rather a collective groundswell of opinion that relatively few depart from, and those who do are always tilting at windmills and constructing straw man arguments about "pompous windbags" and "intellectual cultural elites" and "mistakes of history" and the like. As James very eloquently puts it in the best post on this thread, greatness "has nothing to do with my personal pleasure or taste... there is also the lifelong mastery of a craft, and use and development of the language (written and heard) harnessed with such skill and insight (that not everyone has), creating monumental or even groundbreaking works of art, that carry thru time for a number of significant reasons. the greatest composers and musical geniuses in music create those works, sometimes time and time again, which often reach the utmost expressive depths."

From this perspective, attempts to define artistic greatness as either "subjective" or "objective" are both doomed to fail. Greatness is a matter of judgment, that is, neither provable fact nor personal whim, but instead the collective response of composers, performers, listeners, and scholars. This doesn't mean either that the canon of musical greatness is ossified for all time, or that composers and works may not be reevaluated up or down, or that individuals may not depart from the generally accepted canon here and there in accordance with personal taste. But by and large, the collective judgment of musically interested people is remarkably consistent, giving the lie to the notion that we all simply respond as individuals in a purely personal and subjective manner.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on September 27, 2007, 05:57:53 AM
Hate to add such a topic ending photo:
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: sonic1 on September 27, 2007, 07:17:42 AM
Quote from: Mark G. Simon on September 27, 2007, 05:51:22 AM
I can't believe this thread is still carrying on when Larry Rinkel summed it up so perfectly way back on May 23:

Not at all. Implied in Steve's excellent statement is that this is the culture as a whole of people interested in classical music. And experience bears him out: the large majority of people deeply concerned with classical music tend to gravitate towards the same set of composers as being the most valued. In fact, this is not a "personal" judgment at all as some here would have it, but rather a collective groundswell of opinion that relatively few depart from, and those who do are always tilting at windmills and constructing straw man arguments about "pompous windbags" and "intellectual cultural elites" and "mistakes of history" and the like. As James very eloquently puts it in the best post on this thread, greatness "has nothing to do with my personal pleasure or taste... there is also the lifelong mastery of a craft, and use and development of the language (written and heard) harnessed with such skill and insight (that not everyone has), creating monumental or even groundbreaking works of art, that carry thru time for a number of significant reasons. the greatest composers and musical geniuses in music create those works, sometimes time and time again, which often reach the utmost expressive depths."

From this perspective, attempts to define artistic greatness as either "subjective" or "objective" are both doomed to fail. Greatness is a matter of judgment, that is, neither provable fact nor personal whim, but instead the collective response of composers, performers, listeners, and scholars. This doesn't mean either that the canon of musical greatness is ossified for all time, or that composers and works may not be reevaluated up or down, or that individuals may not depart from the generally accepted canon here and there in accordance with personal taste. But by and large, the collective judgment of musically interested people is remarkably consistent, giving the lie to the notion that we all simply respond as individuals in a purely personal and subjective manner.


Yeah, that pretty much does NOT sum it up for me. I think this is an issue of a particular institution. There are dominant values in an institution as they existed previously. Now, things are not so simple. Information (and thus art) is readily available to all sans the implementation of those particular institutional values. There are lots of people out there who value other things in music than this so-called intellectual gravity. I personally am not afraid of this change, nor am I afraid the hard work of the past greats doomed. I just believe that what was most valued in the past will not cut the cake for the future, and does not cut the cake for now. There are a lot of people who consider the works of Bach to be tedious and idiosyncratic.

I am able to understand the value of Bach, but have no need to raise him up over modern composers. Why compare them? They were playing totally different games. In fact I think it is weird to compare even the romantic composers with the Baroque. It really is an elitist game, and thankfully dying out with the generations who stuggle so hard to keep that game going.

We want to put more value on Bach because his work is gargantuan, and the result of incredible skill and time...TIME which none of us will ever have again. Bach was amazing, needless to say. But he also lived in a time where you could have a ton of kids and not take care of them (leave them to your wife). He lived in a time sans cell phones, sans same sort of economy we all live under, and the music reflects a man with a lot of time to burn. So he expressed in music, very well, using methods that are complex and out of reach to a lot of people.

The modern composer lives in a totally different world. Emulating Bach's genius is stupid. Technology, you might say, has made us week...but I don't agree. It altered where we can apply our genius. At first, yes, maybe it has weakened us. But as we become accustomed to technology, genius arises.

When writing first came along, there was a lot of resistance to writing, especially in the writing down of epic stories/poems. This was because prior to writing, memory was what held stories. The old people resisted saying, "What will happen to the mind of the children if they don't have to remember anything anymore?" and did civilization fall? No. Maybe at first a lot of time was spent on learning/creating the writing system, and its technology (writing on clay tablets). But eventually people adjusted to the technology and as we all know writing is it's own beautiful art. Yet, we don't sit around and say, "well Homer is the greatest of all". In fact, in literature, there is largely NOT a heavy gravity towards just a few writers. Not even Shakespeare who used more words than any other writer, ever, even coining many terms to suffice his huge appetite for verbage. No, no few handful of writers dominate the esteem of the audience.

Music has been dominated by a tight institution, and I think it rather more embaresing than something to brag about. The immaturity I see with music fans constantly playing the "my-composer-is-greater-than-yours" game is silly and as I said, embarrassing. The general habit deemphasizes music out there that is worthy of time and over-emphasizes 3 friggin' artists. That is embarrassing. Music has always been the most conservative of the arts, resisting change more violently than any other art (within its own). It is not that other arts lack their emulated "greats" and the people who possess the same habit of throning a few artists. But compare literature with music, or art....really, three friggin composers? I know there are many here that would add a few others to the list, but I am suggesting that the list is WAY too narrow to represent the REAL music audience or reflect the amount of composing that has occurred out there. What we are basically saying with the emulation of a handful of composers is that most music is shit and that we should just bother listening to these few greats. It also over-emphasizes a narrow style of music, even within the art of classical music. This is just silly.

Sorry if I offend anyone, but I really do take issue with this subject. Maybe the history of music and church has something to do with this increbidle habit of keeping the values so strong and centralized? I don't know.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on September 27, 2007, 09:03:44 AM
Quote from: sonic1 on September 27, 2007, 07:17:42 AM


We want to put more value on Bach because his work is gargantuan, and the result of incredible skill and time...TIME which none of us will ever have again. Bach was amazing, needless to say. But he also lived in a time where you could have a ton of kids and not take care of them (leave them to your wife). He lived in a time sans cell phones, sans same sort of economy we all live under, and the music reflects a man with a lot of time to burn. So he expressed in music, very well, using methods that are complex and out of reach to a lot of people.

The modern composer lives in a totally different world. Emulating Bach's genius is stupid. Technology, you might say, has made us week...but I don't agree. It altered where we can apply our genius. At first, yes, maybe it has weakened us. But as we become accustomed to technology, genius arises.




I find these ideas to be very interesting and well thought out. I find your optimism particularly refreshing.


Quote from: sonic1 on September 27, 2007, 07:17:42 AM


When writing first came along, there was a lot of resistance to writing, especially in the writing down of epic stories/poems. This was because prior to writing, memory was what held stories. The old people resisted saying, "What will happen to the mind of the children if they don't have to remember anything anymore?" and did civilization fall? No. Maybe at first a lot of time was spent on learning/creating the writing system, and its technology (writing on clay tablets). But eventually people adjusted to the technology and as we all know writing is it's own beautiful art. Yet, we don't sit around and say, "well Homer is the greatest of all". In fact, in literature, there is largely NOT a heavy gravity towards just a few writers. Not even Shakespeare who used more words than any other writer, ever, even coining many terms to suffice his huge appetite for verbage. No, no few handful of writers dominate the esteem of the audience.

Music has been dominated by a tight institution, and I think it rather more embaresing than something to brag about. The immaturity I see with music fans constantly playing the "my-composer-is-greater-than-yours" game is silly and as I said, embarrassing. The general habit deemphasizes music out there that is worthy of time and over-emphasizes 3 friggin' artists. That is embarrassing. Music has always been the most conservative of the arts, resisting change more violently than any other art (within its own). It is not that other arts lack their emulated "greats" and the people who possess the same habit of throning a few artists. But compare literature with music, or art....really, three friggin composers? I know there are many here that would add a few others to the list, but I am suggesting that the list is WAY too narrow to represent the REAL music audience or reflect the amount of composing that has occurred out there. What we are basically saying with the emulation of a handful of composers is that most music is shit and that we should just bother listening to these few greats. It also over-emphasizes a narrow style of music, even within the art of classical music. This is just silly.

Sorry if I offend anyone, but I really do take issue with this subject. Maybe the history of music and church has something to do with this increbidle habit of keeping the values so strong and centralized? I don't know.


You aren't offensive. You are passionate, and I sympathize also with that.

I took a long journey back into Progressive Rock/Metal/Extreme Metal for the past couple of weeks. And many of those bands/musicians seemed either close-to (and sometimes just as) valid to me as many of the greats of the past. People just don't like to hold up anything fairly recent to the time-honoured. It's strange. I went through a long period where I refused for the most part to listen to anything but the Classics, and refuted my Rock/Metal backround. It's almost like, after listening to the advanced composition of the Classics, I was able to hear the complexity of Rock/Metal music today with a fairer perspective.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Mark G. Simon on September 27, 2007, 09:10:56 AM
I find sonic1's ideas so breathtakingly irrelevant, a response would be pointless.

However he is correct about this: "We want to put more value on Bach because his work is gargantuan, and the result of incredible skill and time". Yup. It takes time to develop the skills necessary to write great music. That's why we honor those who have taken the trouble to master their art. There are no short cuts
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on September 27, 2007, 09:13:48 AM
Quote from: Mark G. Simon on September 27, 2007, 09:10:56 AM
I find sonic1's ideas so breathtakingly irrelevant





I find the concept of being "breathtakingly irrelevant" to be magnificently amusing.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Mark G. Simon on September 27, 2007, 09:19:02 AM
But true.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on September 27, 2007, 09:22:09 AM
Quote from: Mark G. Simon on September 27, 2007, 09:19:02 AM
But true.




Since I probably deserve to be labeled as such more than anyone else on this board, could you please please be sure to call me "breathtakingly irrelevant" in the near future? C'mon, pleeeaaase?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: EmpNapoleon on September 27, 2007, 09:24:29 AM
MUSIC IS GREAT, period.

The problem is art criticism, the foundation of this forum.  What is the ratio of positive and negative posts here?  It seems like for every post of admiration, there are three for criticism.  And even members who like a particular peice of music go the extra distance (sometimes imaginary) to find something they don't like about it.

This conductor is too subtle, this composer is too impetuous, this pianist is too slow, this violinist is too fast, this recording is too boring, this is not art, this is not Bach...magnificently amusing, breathtakingly irrelevant... Don't people realize that every criticism has an equal and opposite affirmation.  Even a cd that skips is viewed by rappers as good music.

That's why I love threads like The Legendary Recordings Thread.  It's a great place.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: sonic1 on September 27, 2007, 09:26:37 AM
When I say what I say about these things, it is not out of disrespect for the past. For god's sake, one of my majors is in Classics. I respect the past. Aristotle was an incredible mind. Absolutely a great mind. But I have no need to hold him above many of the great minds at work today or any other period. The process of doing such is an institutional survival skill. In general people bind together under one opinion. That does not reflect how people really are. At least I hope not. People need stimulation. If we stick to the same old stimulation, the nervous system ceases to develop (neural branching which is basically learning). It is more comfortable to stick to the same old neural pathways. I am being metaphorical here, hopefully not losing everyone.


I also think music should reflect the modern need, the modern person. Just as the ideas of philosophers of the past are not always appropriate for the modern era, music of the past, no matter how "timeless" does not always meet the modern need. Therefore Bach's "greatness" seems unimportant at times. Or insufficient. There are times I really need to hear Bach. His music weighs heaviest on my shelves. But there are a LOT of times then Bach will absolutely NOT do. It is the greatness of modern composers to meet my abstract needs that I think should never be overshadowed by the past.

Therefore the practice of assigning a few composers of the past "greatness" above all others is odd to me. I get why you say so, the skill, the ability to emote and communicate using the complex system of composition (the writing, orchestration, and all else that goes into getting instrumentalists in a stand, and an audience into the seats), despite the conflicts of personal life, and producing music that reaches far into the consciousness of the public is amazing. I just believe there is more to music than that, and see little use in assessing the greatness of those which institution already directs us into. It seems a game more than anything else.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Mark G. Simon on September 27, 2007, 09:35:56 AM
Quote from: sonic1 on September 27, 2007, 09:26:37 AM


I also think music should reflect the modern need, the modern person. Just as the ideas of philosophers of the past are not always appropriate for the modern era, music of the past, no matter how "timeless" does not always meet the modern need. Therefore Bach's "greatness" seems unimportant at times. Or insufficient. There are times I really need to hear Bach. His music weighs heaviest on my shelves. But there are a LOT of times then Bach will absolutely NOT do. It is the greatness of modern composers to meet my abstract needs that I think should never be overshadowed by the past.

Library shelves are loaded with old composers who no longer seem "appropriate" (whatever that is) for the modern era. That's why guys like Schein, Scheidt, are not played except by baroque specialists. But Bach is still played and listened to, even by you. Bach still has something to say to the present time. That's part of what constitutes greatness.

No one here is saying that you should listen to nothing but Bach, or that there shouldn't be times when Bach will absolutely will not do. No one is saying there should be no new music. That is a straw man of your own invention.

QuoteI get why you say so, the skill, the ability to emote and communicate using the complex system of composition (the writing, orchestration, and all else that goes into getting instrumentalists in a stand, and an audience into the seats), despite the conflicts of personal life, and producing music that reaches far into the consciousness of the public is amazing. I just believe there is more to music than that,

Such as....



Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on September 27, 2007, 09:39:00 AM
Quote from: sonic1 on September 27, 2007, 09:26:37 AM
Therefore the practice of assigning a few composers of the past "greatness" above all others is odd to me. I get why you say so, the skill, the ability to emote and communicate using the complex system of composition (the writing, orchestration, and all else that goes into getting instrumentalists in a stand, and an audience into the seats), despite the conflicts of personal life, and producing music that reaches far into the consciousness of the public is amazing. I just believe there is more to music than that, and see little use in assessing the greatness of those which institution already directs us into. It seems a game more than anything else.

I can't answer for why it seems "a game" to you, Jared.  Is the sticking point in this key phrase: a few composers?  Neither do I quite follow your objection to "institution";  music necessarily has both (a) continuity with a respected past, and (b) a community which practices the art — the society does not exist, has never existed, where one person practiced music to the exclusion of all others;  it is an inherently communal artform.

Just as Larry pointed out that attempting to define artistic greatness as either "subjective" or "objective" is ultimately an exercise in failure, I don't think you'll get much purchase by broadly demonizing "institutions."  I, for one, would never have had any opportunity to learn the practice of music, as I now practice it, without the beneficent effect of a number of "institutions."
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on September 27, 2007, 09:44:28 AM
Quote from: EmpNapoleon on September 27, 2007, 09:24:29 AM
It seems like for every post of admiration, there are three for criticism.

Really?  It seems to me otherwise.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: sonic1 on September 27, 2007, 09:45:22 AM
Quote from: Mark G. Simon on September 27, 2007, 09:35:56 AM
Library shelves are loaded with old composers who no longer seem "appropriate" (whatever that is) for the modern era. That's why guys like Schein, Scheidt, are not played except by baroque specialists. But Bach is still played and listened to, even by you. Bach still has something to say to the present time. That's part of what constitutes greatness.

No one here is saying that you should listen to nothing but Bach, or that there shouldn't be times when Bach will absolutely will not do. No one is saying there should be no new music. That is a straw man of your own invention.

Such as....





Such as what the music is saying.

And in classical music there are three composers who are listed consistently above all others. I believe that is not due to other than institution. Bach was NOT considered one of the great ones until much later, as most of us know. He certainly would not have made it into the pantheon of greats without the PR work done much after his death. I think it is an interesting process, how as a group we decide who gets put into our various pantheons. I think these immortalized individuals do not necessarily get selected out of skill alone, but out of a sort of critical mass, guided in part by truth, and in part by the workings of fashion. In fact, I wonder how much these values have changed over the centuries-I wonder how tainted our modern perspective is.

At any rate, the holding up of three composers over all others is meaningless to me. It reflects fashion, not truth.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: EmpNapoleon on September 27, 2007, 09:46:49 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on September 27, 2007, 09:44:28 AM
Really?  It seems to me otherwise.

Yea, you're probably right.  It just seems like the critical posts are louder than the admiration posts.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on September 27, 2007, 09:55:06 AM
Quote from: sonic1 on September 27, 2007, 09:45:22 AM
At any rate, the holding up of three composers over all others is meaningless to me. It reflects fashion, not truth.

No.  In the first place, this illustration is an easily dismissable extreme;  as you must already know, neither Mark nor I (for instance) would suggest that only three composers are possessed of a supreme greatness which separates them from all other composers.

In the second, your curtain-line here seems to me fundamentally mistaken.  Admiration for Bach, a "fashion"?  And even the exaggeration of selecting three great-above-all-others composers, is a reflection of the truth.  A flawed reflection, with which much exception is to be taken, but the thing which is so imperfectly reflected there is indeed the truth.

I think that the case is much stronger, to claim that "any composer is great, as long as someone likes it," is a reflection of fashion, and not of the truth.  (Not that that accurately reflects your own thoughts, Jared.)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: dtwilbanks on September 27, 2007, 10:00:05 AM
QuoteBach was NOT considered one of the great ones until much later, as most of us know.

Not from what I've read. Anyone who looked at his music knew he was great. Maybe I'm wrong.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Mark G. Simon on September 27, 2007, 10:01:16 AM
Quote from: sonic1 on September 27, 2007, 09:45:22 AM
Such as what the music is saying.

How do you manage to separate "the ability to emote and communicate using the complex system of composition (the writing, orchestration, and all else that goes into getting instrumentalists in a stand, and an audience into the seats), ... producing music that reaches far into the consciousness of the public" from "what the music is saying"?

Quote
And in classical music there are three composers who are listed consistently above all others. I believe that is not due to other than institution. Bach was NOT considered one of the great ones until much later, as most of us know. He certainly would not have made it into the pantheon of greats without the PR work done much after his death. I think it is an interesting process, how as a group we decide who gets put into our various pantheons. I think these immortalized individuals do not necessarily get selected out of skill alone, but out of a sort of critical mass, guided in part by truth, and in part by the workings of fashion. In fact, I wonder how much these values have changed over the centuries-I wonder how tainted our modern perspective is.

If you've been to the other board, CMG, you know there is one pernicious poster there who would hold you to three or four composers and tell you all the rest are worthless. Fortunately, he's an oddity and doesn't post here any more.

As you know the modern PR industry did not exist in the past, and nobody makes PR for dead composers because dead composers don't pay. Neither Bach nor his sons paid Baron von Swieten to collect Bach manuscripts, arrange performances of Bach compositions, and turn on as many musicians as he could to Bach's music (Mozart was one of his converts) as he could. That's word of mouth, which is a legitimate way of building a reputation. 

Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on September 27, 2007, 10:02:32 AM
Quote from: dtw on September 27, 2007, 10:00:05 AM
Not from what I've read. Anyone who looked at his music knew he was great. Maybe I'm wrong.

I should hardly think that Frederick the Great would have invited "Old Bach" to Court, except that cultivated people even in Bach's lifetime recognized his greatness.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: dtwilbanks on September 27, 2007, 10:08:18 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on September 27, 2007, 10:02:32 AM
I should hardly think that Frederick the Great would have invited "Old Bach" to Court, except that cultivated people even in Bach's lifetime recognized his greatness.

Sorry. I should have said "...anyone knowledgable who looked at his music...".
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: sonic1 on September 27, 2007, 10:11:02 AM
His music was little-known until much later. Not unheard of, but not well known either. Certainly not what it is today.

BTW I am not demonizing institution: Institution is how society survives. I am just separating my own ideas from that which has been imposed upon me since birth.

I do believe Bach a fashion, or a sort. Greatness and what is considered great, changes with time. Some fashions last a lot longer, and other less so. But I believe a lot of what we consider great, we do so at the influence of institution, not our own personal values.

Art must remain current to have life. I believe in "classical" music the over-emphasis of the greatness of certain composers has HELD BACK artists. You fall into the trap of either being a traditionalist, or a tradition breaker. I believe Schoenberg would have been more interesting if he was not so bent on tradition-altering. You always ride on the artists of the past, but arguably music has had some difficulty in the modern era, struggling with assimilating its present with its past. Just look at the many arguments regarding modernity and classical.

No, I don't suggest that only 3 composers do it for you fellas. I am saying that the pantheon has a small number of composers which does not reflect the production of music over the many centuries. The vibe is impositional and I think it is an unnecessary hurdle for composers. If what you write has nothing to do with what Bach wrote, you should not have to justify your existence by pounding your head over all the Bach cantatas.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: sonic1 on September 27, 2007, 10:18:54 AM
Quote from: Mark G. Simon on September 27, 2007, 10:01:16 AM
How do you manage to separate "the ability to emote and communicate using the complex system of composition (the writing, orchestration, and all else that goes into getting instrumentalists in a stand, and an audience into the seats), ... producing music that reaches far into the consciousness of the public" from "what the music is saying"?




Easy mark. Some artists don't have a lot of depth. I have a friend who is an incredible artist. His painting very effectively communicates his ideas and feelings, his technique incredible. But he doesn't have a lot of depth and his art reflects this.

Also what I am getting at is this: what was important to people of the past is not necessarily important to people now.

Joe Satriani is a guitarist who has incredible skill in the rock world. To me his playing it totally empty because it lacks that which I most love about music, the guts. Yet, luigi nono can express so much with long sustained scraping violin strings. Anyway, I have a test to study for.  I will return to this later.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: FideLeo on September 27, 2007, 10:27:24 AM
Quote from: sonic1 on September 27, 2007, 10:11:02 AM
His music was little-known until much later. Not unheard of, but not well known either. Certainly not what it is today.

Right.  For all we know the Prussian King wasn't too keen on Bach's compositions - look at what happened to Bach's dedication copy of the Musical Offering after it was sent in (hardly used) and it even bore the so-called Royal Theme!   It is the old man's better known virtuosity as a keyboard player and contrapunctalist that was the main attraction for the audience I believe.  As for composition, the King preferred the new style of Quantz or Benda brothers or even perhaps Telemann!
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on September 27, 2007, 10:39:15 AM
Quote from: sonic1 on September 27, 2007, 10:11:02 AM
His music was little-known until much later. Not unheard of, but not well known either. Certainly not what it is today.

Sure;  but I think that Mark demonstrated that that is more sensibly attributed to changes in travel and communications over the centuries.  It isn't that Bach was "just a musical joe" in his day, but then M-G-M got hold of the rights to his catalogue . . . .

QuoteBTW I am not demonizing institution: Institution is how society survives. I am just separating my own ideas from that which has been imposed upon me since birth.

And that is on the whole a worthy process.  OTOH, you know, hardly any of the ideas we have, are not ideas which others have already been possessed of.

Quote. . . I am saying that the pantheon has a small number of composers which does not reflect the production of music over the many centuries. The vibe is impositional and I think it is an unnecessary hurdle for composers . . .

The idea that we should just dispense with the notion of greatness in art (or say that it's all great, which amounts to the same thing), is at once quixotic, and destined to provoke The "Why?" Response.  Personally, I do not feel imposed upon.  As to the hurdle . . . well, I can juggle three objects reasonably competently;  I will probably never be able to juggle four objects.  It is a hurdle which I do not care about enough to surmount.  Compositionally, this is already a flawed analogy in my experience, because I don't think I've ever considered the greatness (undeniable greatness, in my thinking) of a formidably large number of composers anything like a "hurdle" in the path of my own work.  From my perspective, I'm not feeling any "impositional vibe," and I am inclined to think that the fault is "not in one's stars but in oneself."

Quote. . . If what you write has nothing to do with what Bach wrote, you should not have to justify your existence by pounding your head over all the Bach cantatas.

QuoteAlso what I am getting at is this: what was important to people of the past is not necessarily important to people now.

I agree with both these sentiments, but I don't find them arguments tenable to the present discussion.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on September 27, 2007, 10:43:59 AM
Quote from: masolino on September 27, 2007, 10:27:24 AM
Right.  For all we know the Prussian King wasn't too keen on Bach's compositions - look at what happened to Bach's dedication copy of the Musical Offering after it was sent in (hardly used) and it even bore the so-called Royal Theme!   It is the old man's better known virtuosity as a keyboard player and contrapunctalist that was the main attraction for the audience I believe.  As for composition, the King preferred the new style of Quantz or Benda brothers or even perhaps Telemann!

You must have quite a fine blade there, so neatly to divide Bach's compositional skills from his skills as a contrapuntalist.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Mark G. Simon on September 27, 2007, 10:47:12 AM
Quote from: sonic1 on September 27, 2007, 10:18:54 AM
Easy mark. Some artists don't have a lot of depth. I have a friend who is an incredible artist. His painting very effectively communicates his ideas and feelings, his technique incredible. But he doesn't have a lot of depth and his art reflects this.

The trouble is you can't express your depth until you've got the technique. The fallacy here is that technique and depth are opposing forces. The truth is that whole purpose of technique is to allow the artist to communicate whatever ideas he (or she) has most effectively. Preferably they should be deep ideas.

But let's turn this around and imagine an artist who has all kinds of deep ideas and no technique. How can this artist possibly communicate those ideas effectively? He simply can't.

Library shelves are also littered with scores by technically gifted composers who have no deep ideas. Time sorts them out. Music is considered great when it uses a high level of craftsmanship to express deep ideas.



Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: dtwilbanks on September 27, 2007, 10:49:20 AM
Quote from: Mark G. Simon on September 27, 2007, 10:47:12 AM
Time sorts them out.

I believe this short sentence answers the question of how we know a composer is great.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: FideLeo on September 27, 2007, 11:09:32 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on September 27, 2007, 10:43:59 AM
You must have quite a fine blade there, so neatly to divide Bach's compositional skills from his skills as a contrapuntalist.

The technical aspect (can one write/improvise a six-part fugue ad hoc?) and the overall style and content of a musical work of course can mean different things.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on September 27, 2007, 11:28:54 AM
Quote from: dtw on September 27, 2007, 10:00:05 AM
Not from what I've read. Anyone who looked at his music knew he was great. Maybe I'm wrong.





The aristocracy sure seemed to know. Check out the "Musical Offering".
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on September 27, 2007, 11:30:13 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on September 27, 2007, 10:02:32 AM
I should hardly think that Frederick the Great would have invited "Old Bach" to Court, except that cultivated people even in Bach's lifetime recognized his greatness.





Arggh! Karl beat me to it!


Love the "...Offering".
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: FideLeo on September 27, 2007, 11:32:31 AM
Quote from: Haffner on September 27, 2007, 11:30:13 AM


Love the "...Offering".


Don't think the King loved it as much as you do.   ;)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on September 27, 2007, 11:33:44 AM
Quote from: masolino on September 27, 2007, 11:32:31 AM
Don't think the King loved it as much as you do.   ;)



:D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on September 27, 2007, 11:41:49 AM
Quote from: masolino on September 27, 2007, 11:32:31 AM
Don't think the King loved it as much as you do.   ;)

You're still missing the point.  Frederick's invitation demonstrates that he understood the distinction between [ what I like ] and [ what is great ].  There ought to be overlap, of course;  but it is a perceptual failure to define greatness as "what I like best."  BTW, the non-use of the dedication copy is something of a red herring that you're offering (sic) to the discussion;  that was an artifact, a regal present, it was not a delivery of workaday publication.  You seem to imply (a) that Frederick did a lot of playing (which I expect he did not, at that point;  he hired musicians to do a lot of playing -- he himself played occasionally, as a diversion), and (b) since he did not do much of this lot-of-playing from the dedicatory copy, it "means" that he had scant regard for Bach.  That is nonsense, and especially means nothing in comparison to the event of inviting Bach to court.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: sonic1 on September 27, 2007, 12:31:45 PM
Quote from: Mark G. Simon on September 27, 2007, 10:47:12 AM
The trouble is you can't express your depth until you've got the technique. The fallacy here is that technique and depth are opposing forces. The truth is that whole purpose of technique is to allow the artist to communicate whatever ideas he (or she) has most effectively. Preferably they should be deep ideas.

But let's turn this around and imagine an artist who has all kinds of deep ideas and no technique. How can this artist possibly communicate those ideas effectively? He simply can't.

Library shelves are also littered with scores by technically gifted composers who have no deep ideas. Time sorts them out. Music is considered great when it uses a high level of craftsmanship to express deep ideas.





I neither think they are opposing nor bound together (expression and technique). The point of a lot of modern (should we say post-modern?) art is that you can lack technique and make great art. Cage went as far as to disassociate himself from the process of composing. I personally don't believe high art MUST POSSESS great technique. Most often it does, but it does not always.

I am not suggesting that Bach was technically masterful but lacking ideas. I am suggesting that to use him as a measure of greatness undermines the intent of a lot of modern artists. There is a vast difference in theory between the art of Bach and the art of Luigi Nono. Yet, I would consider Luigi Nono's quartet piece Fragmente an absolute sublime masterpiece, and I know many who would agree. In my own person there is no conflict between recognizing the greatness in Bach's WTC pieces, and recognizing the sublimity of Luigi Nono's quartet piece aforementioned. But I don't put Bach into this pantheon either. In fact, I would even go as far as to arguing that doing such takes away from my ability to comprehend and enjoy his music.

What I am getting at is this: It is one thing to say, "this work is sublime. It is a masterpeice." and to state why. It is another thing to say, "this composer is one of the greatest composers ever". It is really just a more formal version of band freaks that go on and on about how the Beatles are the zenith of all rock music. It is a sort of worship that has no purpose for me.

Dispensing of the need to assign Greatness does not mean I won't recognize it. It just means I want to see the music for what it is without all the unnecessary and superfluous eulogy. I have not seen a really good reason for such exercise.

I have not seen a decent reason for such a practice. In fact, I see it as a sort of turnoff. Whether intended or not, the practice comes off as elitist diatribe. I think Bach speaks for himself in his music. Does he really need the extra worship?

The other problem I come to is that if we assign greatness to a particular composition or composer, what standards do we use. If we could all be careful enough not to extend standards from one composer to another (two who have completely different intents) and not get into using such parameters to cut down on forms we don't personally like, I could almost except this practice. However, there is no evidence that suggests that will happen any time soon. Personal tastes/prejudices will alter the purpose of such a practice (and DOES).

Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on September 27, 2007, 12:47:35 PM
Quote from: sonic1 on September 27, 2007, 12:31:45 PM
I think Bach speaks for himself in his music. Does he really need the extra worship?

Again, while I likely agree with the fact that a lot of adulation (for, say, certain operas in French and certain orchestral works about the sea) winds up being about Something Else . . . I don't see that as an argument against the issue of greatness.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: BachQ on September 27, 2007, 12:59:20 PM
Quote from: Mark G. Simon on September 27, 2007, 10:47:12 AM
Library shelves are also littered with scores by technically gifted composers who have no deep ideas.  **** Music is considered great when it uses a high level of craftsmanship to express deep ideas.

Can we have a definition of "depth" and "deep" please ........
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: sonic1 on September 27, 2007, 01:24:01 PM
Quote from: D Minor on September 27, 2007, 12:59:20 PM
Can we have a definition of "depth" and "deep" please ........

Joe Satriani vs Jimi Hendrix
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: sonic1 on September 27, 2007, 01:32:09 PM
Quote from: karlhenning on September 27, 2007, 12:47:35 PM
Again, while I likely agree with the fact that a lot of adulation (for, say, certain operas in French and certain orchestral works about the sea) winds up being about Something Else . . . I don't see that as an argument against the issue of greatness.

ok maybe I can buy that. But as often discussed, even on these pages, it is about Something Else. A need to justify one's tastes comes into play when entered is the hierarchy.

Once you attribute such greatness to such a person, then begs the question: why waste your time on all the others if they are all just lesser forms of art. That question is almost inevitable when you propose greatness. Karl, I trust you are more careful than that. But even I have been tainted by this sort of talk-when listening to a "lesser" artist than Bach I am prejudiced by the presence of Bach unless I separate him entirely. I am talking in the context of judging greatness overall rather than judging each artist by the parameters within which they work. The latter I have no issue with.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Mark G. Simon on September 27, 2007, 02:16:38 PM
Quote from: sonic1 on September 27, 2007, 12:31:45 PM
I neither think they are opposing nor bound together (expression and technique). The point of a lot of modern (should we say post-modern?) art is that you can lack technique and make great art. Cage went as far as to disassociate himself from the process of composing. I personally don't believe high art MUST POSSESS great technique. Most often it does, but it does not always.

The 20th century is going to be problematic to evaluate because of the plethora of competing theories all of which presume to overthrow the accepted ideas of what music should be. Some of them will prove to be valid, some will prove to be hooey. As I said before time will sort things out. But the burden of proof is on the new ideas to demonstrate their validity.


Quote
The other problem I come to is that if we assign greatness to a particular composition or composer, what standards do we use. If we could all be careful enough not to extend standards from one composer to another (two who have completely different intents) and not get into using such parameters to cut down on forms we don't personally like, I could almost except this practice. However, there is no evidence that suggests that will happen any time soon. Personal tastes/prejudices will alter the purpose of such a practice (and DOES).

Larry addresses the issue of personal taste in his statement that I quoted. I suggest you read it again.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Mark G. Simon on September 27, 2007, 02:17:55 PM
Quote from: D Minor on September 27, 2007, 12:59:20 PM
Can we have a definition of "depth" and "deep" please ........

No we can't.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Mark G. Simon on September 27, 2007, 02:23:55 PM
For new music I would feel fine about suspending the concept of greatness until enough time has passed that a valid consensus can be formed about it. We can't know for sure what among the music being written today is great until a century or so has passed, so let's just enjoy it and leave the judgment to another generation.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on September 27, 2007, 02:24:34 PM
Quote from: sonic1 on September 27, 2007, 01:24:01 PM
Joe Satriani vs Jimi Hendrix



For me, Hendrix= Jeff Beck overamplified and sloppily played, with some very good songwriting.
Joe Satriani= See above, but replace Eddie Van Halen with Jeff Beck

That written, I like them both a little (Hendrix almost entirely for his songwriting).

But are you saying one is "deep" and one has "depth"? Please define and assign the attributes to the appropriate individual.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Mark G. Simon on September 27, 2007, 02:26:28 PM
Quote from: sonic1 on September 27, 2007, 01:32:09 PM
Once you attribute such greatness to such a person, then begs the question: why waste your time on all the others if they are all just lesser forms of art.

Simply because you enjoy it.


Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on September 27, 2007, 02:29:42 PM
Quote from: Mark G. Simon on September 27, 2007, 02:26:28 PM
Simply because you enjoy it.








This is a really good answer.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: sonic1 on September 27, 2007, 02:56:54 PM
Quote from: Haffner on September 27, 2007, 02:24:34 PM


For me, Hendrix= Jeff Beck overamplified and sloppily played, with some very good songwriting.
Joe Satriani= See above, but replace Eddie Van Halen with Jeff Beck

That written, I like them both a little (Hendrix almost entirely for his songwriting).

But are you saying one is "deep" and one has "depth"? Please define and assign the attributes to the appropriate individual.

Satriani exemplifies, for me, mastery in technique without much depth.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on September 27, 2007, 03:01:29 PM
Quote from: sonic1 on September 27, 2007, 02:56:54 PM
Satriani exemplifies, for me, mastery in technique without much depth.


Hendrix, the opposite?

Have you ever heard the recording "Stargazer" by the band Rainbow?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: lukeottevanger on September 27, 2007, 03:45:26 PM
Quote from: Mark G. Simon on September 27, 2007, 10:47:12 AM
The trouble is you can't express your depth until you've got the technique. The fallacy here is that technique and depth are opposing forces. The truth is that whole purpose of technique is to allow the artist to communicate whatever ideas he (or she) has most effectively. Preferably they should be deep ideas.

But let's turn this around and imagine an artist who has all kinds of deep ideas and no technique. How can this artist possibly communicate those ideas effectively? He simply can't.

Library shelves are also littered with scores by technically gifted composers who have no deep ideas. Time sorts them out. Music is considered great when it uses a high level of craftsmanship to express deep ideas.


Don't want to intrude into this interesting thread at this late stage (so far I've only lurked) but I think that's Mark's pithy summing-up here - 'Music is considered great when it uses a high level of craftsmanship to express deep ideas' - whilst convincing to an extent, could do, IMO, with a little modification. There are plenty of 'great' composers with deficient technique in one or more areas (and when I say 'great' I mean 'generally admitted to the pantheon of important figures'). My own favourite, Janacek, had flaws in certain technical respects (which usually meant he either didn't venture into those areas or he exploited them with understanding); according to some, Satie, one of the most original figures of 20th century music, had one of the most deficient techniques of all; Tippett, a deeply original musical figure, had problems handling large structures. And so on and on - I could multiply these examples many times over, as this is an area which interests me deeply. To be sure, the three I mention are not Bach or Mozart, but they are not negligible figures either. I would even say that one reason a composer like Janacek speaks to me so deeply is because the deep ideas are not expressed smoothly, through a refined technique, but have to burn their way through to the surface. Same goes for Mussorgsky, even - dare I say it - for some points in late Beethoven....It makes the music all the more human to me - because humans aren't meant to be perfect, and I, personally, don't always know where to put myself when faced with 'perfection'. Which is why, BTW, I love the Musical Offering more than the Art of Fugue - it bears more traces of humanity, is less rarified and objective...

To me, Mark's statement would be more accurate, if less concise, if it read:

'Music is considered great when it express deep ideas using a technique appropriate to the implications of those ideas'

in which case - and sorry in advance for huge generalisations! - music whose concern is psychological penetration, human fallibility and raw truth can, to those ends, have a fallible but honest technique (Janacek); music concerned with the ultimate integration of the personality can have moments when the integration fails and the vision is lost (Tippett) and so on. And of course, it goes without saying that, whatever one sums up the 'concern' of Bach's music as being (glorifying his God, creating forms and structures of perfect balance, whatever) it requires and gets a perfect technique. In all cases this correlation of expressive/aesthetic ends and technique quirks/specificities just makes the music truer to its creator.

Or am I gabbling again?

Now I will beat a retreat....
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: BachQ on September 27, 2007, 04:15:46 PM
Quote from: Mark G. Simon on September 27, 2007, 02:17:55 PM
No we can't.

Please?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Mark G. Simon on September 27, 2007, 04:20:25 PM
Quote from: lukeottevanger on September 27, 2007, 03:45:26 PM
Don't want to intrude into this interesting thread at this late stage (so far I've only lurked) but I think that's Mark's pithy summing-up here - 'Music is considered great when it uses a high level of craftsmanship to express deep ideas' - whilst convincing to an extent, could do, IMO, with a little modification. There are plenty of 'great' composers with deficient technique in one or more areas (and when I say 'great' I mean 'generally admitted to the pantheon of important figures'). My own favourite, Janacek, had flaws in certain technical respects (which usually meant he either didn't venture into those areas or he exploited them with understanding); according to some, Satie, one of the most original figures of 20th century music, had one of the most deficient techniques of all; Tippett, a deeply original musical figure, had problems handling large structures. And so on and on - I could multiply these examples many times over, as this is an area which interests me deeply. To be sure, the three I mention are not Bach or Mozart, but they are not negligible figures either. I would even say that one reason a composer like Janacek speaks to me so deeply is because the deep ideas are not expressed smoothly, through a refined technique, but have to burn their way through to the surface. Same goes for Mussorgsky, even - dare I say it - for some points in late Beethoven....It makes the music all the more human to me - because humans aren't meant to be perfect, and I, personally, don't always know where to put myself when faced with 'perfection'. Which is why, BTW, I love the Musical Offering more than the Art of Fugue - it bears more traces of humanity, is less rarified and objective...

The down side of pithiness is that blanket statements never cover everything. Nothing is as tidy as we'd like it to be. Tippett is a personal favorite of mine, even though some of his works, especially the vocal ones, have really infuriating flaws. I don't know if posterity will count him among the greats although there are a bunch of scores that in my opinion ought to qualify. Janacek is a composer I'm just starting to love. I know a lot of people who would not have any reservations in counting him among the greats, especially as an operatic composer. I have no objections to your revision of my statement.

Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Mark G. Simon on September 27, 2007, 04:21:56 PM
Quote from: Mark G SimonNo we can't
Quote from: D Minor on September 27, 2007, 04:15:46 PM
Please?

It's a deep subject.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: BachQ on September 27, 2007, 04:50:13 PM
Quote from: Mark G. Simon on September 27, 2007, 04:21:56 PM
It's a deep subject.

When referring to "deep subjects," what do you mean by "deep" ?



(let's try this from another angle .........)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Varg on September 27, 2007, 05:05:03 PM
Quote from: D Minor on September 27, 2007, 04:50:13 PM
When referring to "deep subjects," what do you mean by "deep" ?



(let's try this from another angle .........)
That's exactly what i'm talking about. Ridiculous, isnt it?! We could do this with every single word; and mister sonic-something has contradicted himself by following the path "You can think anything about anything, but greatness! So many things are coming to my mind right now, but i'll stop here, since i dont like to bash or ridiculise people.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Varg on September 27, 2007, 05:56:20 PM
That short reply (Joe Satriani vs Jimi Hendrix) makes all you previous posts on that topic useless. What's the difference between depth and superficiality, greatness or lack of, black and white? Are you saying that you can attribute a "greatness" opinion to anything, but doing it with clasical music is idiotic? You denie the "greatness" judgement notion as soon as others speak in it's favor, but you keep talking about it yourself. "Greatness doesnt exist... but, wait, let me tell you what i think is great..."

Personnaly, i dont give a shit about neither of these guitarists, but that doesnt make your own personnal (or maybe you were influenced by a group?!) judgement "false", lame or idiotic, right?

As i said earlier, it all comes down to individuals. What is great to a person is great to that person. That's it. No need to preach and try to convince and convert anyone to our own taste and understanding or to embrace the ones from others. "The whole world must know and agree!!!". What the fuck is that? Why always speaking of time and recognition? Do you think that popularity means or prove the superior value of something? You really base your idea of "greatness" on that? A bunch of people must say "he is great" before you began to believe it (and succeding the test of time means nothing else)?

In closing, the moon image i gave you was misunderstood, as you should've understood it yourself by reading the parenthesis following it. It was an example of a unity and the judgements of others towards it. Obviously, if 20 thousands people have listened to the same composer, there will be alot of "group" forming, but not because they all open they're ears to hear what others have said about him. Every one of them would have make an opinion in solitude; if they ended in a group, it was beyond they're control, because a unity is a unity, and those who are looking at the same unity are multiple; you cant avoid "opinion sharing" in these cases. If one wants to have a unique opinion about something, one must find a unique unity and be the only one looking at it, not looking at a unity that everyone is looking at. But that's another story...


From a man who honored Socrate as a great spirit, some things that you said (the whole foundation, in fact) are pretty disappointing. Havent you heard what Socrate told to Platon about beauty (which is just an example on the matter of perception, which is related to pretty much everything)? How far we, as individuals, are able to understand, our level of intelligence, our body, which is the most busy, honest and conscience free (that should ring a major bell) part of our constitution... you want to put a ruler on this, you want to measure the judgement of individuals by using mass-or-group-or-circle-or-whatever judgement? But you cant even measure unity with unity! You just cant get all the things that happens in a body alone (instincts, nerves...etc), and that's different from person to person. Now try to blend together what is conscient in us and what is unconscient! You cant even do it with your own self, how could you do it with someone you know nothing about? You seem to like the word "impossible"; i just describe a thing that is truly impossible, and that makes everything you said... impossible
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: FideLeo on September 27, 2007, 07:48:56 PM
Quote from: karlhenning on September 27, 2007, 11:41:49 AM
You're still missing the point.  Frederick's invitation demonstrates that he understood the distinction between [ what I like ] and [ what is great ].  There ought to be overlap, of course;  but it is a perceptual failure to define greatness as "what I like best."  BTW, the non-use of the dedication copy is something of a red herring that you're offering (sic) to the discussion;  that was an artifact, a regal present, it was not a delivery of workaday publication.  You seem to imply (a) that Frederick did a lot of playing (which I expect he did not, at that point;  he hired musicians to do a lot of playing -- he himself played occasionally, as a diversion), and (b) since he did not do much of this lot-of-playing from the dedicatory copy, it "means" that he had scant regard for Bach.  That is nonsense, and especially means nothing in comparison to the event of inviting Bach to court.

What did Frederick consider "great" in Bach?   I still don't think it's his merits as a composer.  It is clear that Bach was better known in his days as a keyboard virtuoso, and a look at his activities at the court confirms that to true rather than contradicts it.  Most of the time Bach was asked to do there is try out instruments here and there, or improvise on a given theme (much like what young Mozart was asked to do in those "showoff" events).  True, the king would have high regards for Bach as a technician (and a contrapunctalist), but that is hardly the same as our reason for ranking him among the greatest composers ever.  We have no evidence of the "royal gift" of Musical Offering ever receiving any attention it deserved (and the King actually did a lot of playing and composing himself at this time) and is not unlike the other dozens of works dedicated to the monarch in that it was soon delegated to storage in one of the royal libraries. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_Offering#Reception (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_Offering#Reception))
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: sonic1 on September 27, 2007, 08:37:00 PM
Quote from: Shunk_Manitu_Tanka on September 27, 2007, 05:56:20 PM
That short reply (Joe Satriani vs Jimi Hendrix) makes all you previous posts on that topic useless. What's the difference between depth and superficiality, greatness or lack of, black and white? Are you saying that you can attribute a "greatness" opinion to anything, but doing it with clasical music is idiotic? You denie the "greatness" judgement notion as soon as others speak in it's favor, but you keep talking about it yourself. "Greatness doesnt exist... but, wait, let me tell you what i think is great..."

Personnaly, i dont give a shit about neither of these guitarists, but that doesnt make your own personnal (or maybe you were influenced by a group?!) judgement "false", lame or idiotic, right?

As i said earlier, it all comes down to individuals. What is great to a person is great to that person. That's it. No need to preach and try to convince and convert anyone to our own taste and understanding or to embrace the ones from others. "The whole world must know and agree!!!". What the fuck is that? Why always speaking of time and recognition? Do you think that popularity means or prove the superior value of something? You really base your idea of "greatness" on that? A bunch of people must say "he is great" before you began to believe it (and succeding the test of time means nothing else)?

In closing, the moon image i gave you was misunderstood, as you should've understood it yourself by reading the parenthesis following it. It was an example of a unity and the judgements of others towards it. Obviously, if 20 thousands people have listened to the same composer, there will be alot of "group" forming, but not because they all open they're ears to hear what others have said about him. Every one of them would have make an opinion in solitude; if they ended in a group, it was beyond they're control, because a unity is a unity, and those who are looking at the same unity are multiple; you cant avoid "opinion sharing" in these cases. If one wants to have a unique opinion about something, one must find a unique unity and be the only one looking at it, not looking at a unity that everyone is looking at. But that's another story...


From a man who honored Socrate as a great spirit, some things that you said (the whole foundation, in fact) are pretty disappointing. Havent you heard what Socrate told to Platon about beauty (which is just an example on the matter of perception, which is related to pretty much everything)? How far we, as individuals, are able to understand, our level of intelligence, our body, which is the most busy, honest and conscience free (that should ring a major bell) part of our constitution... you want to put a ruler on this, you want to measure the judgement of individuals by using mass-or-group-or-circle-or-whatever judgement? But you cant even measure unity with unity! You just cant get all the things that happens in a body alone (instincts, nerves...etc), and that's different from person to person. Now try to blend together what is conscient in us and what is unconscient! You cant even do it with your own self, how could you do it with someone you know nothing about? You seem to like the word "impossible"; i just describe a thing that is truly impossible, and that makes everything you said... impossible

We are having language problems here. I am not suggesting that we don't have any sort of personal hierarchy, and I don't wish to see greatness banned from the english language. I couldn't give a rats ass whether anyone thought what I think is great, terrible. In fact, I already know that most of you would cringe at some of the stuff I listen to. I am experimenting with blasphemy, and a tearing down of idolatry within myself and doing so publicly. Bach sucks buttcrack. Ahhh...that is refreshing....

what was I saying?

Oh yeah. I think it would be incredibly healthy if, just once in a while, we let go of this ass licking of dead composers. I am being crude here, but I just get tired of it. And I really do think more than the other arts, the giants of the past overshadow the present in classical music. I don't think it is entirely healthy. I don't think it is good for music to have so few roots. Now I know that not everyone feels that all leads to Bach, Beethoven and Mozart. But you have to admit those guys weigh pretty heavily on the art, and I believe way out of proportion to their importance.

The very fact that we still call all of this music CLASSICAL music says a lot. What the hell about Luigi Nono is classical? What about George Crumb? Hell, I would even argue that Shostakovitch is far from "classical". There just seems to be this resistance to change in classical music. Look at the visual arts, and how much change has happened in the same time span as music. Look at the point that modernity hit painting, as compared to classical music. Jesus, modern art is gone to so many places in painting and accepted by the art community, while Schoenberg still upsets people. And Schoenberg just did away with one aspect (tonality). Rhythmically Schoenberg had not innovated enough to note about. Classical music whines the entire way through any innovation. I am not sure why this is, but it is incredibly different than any other art I can think of. That is not to say the innovations are not there. They are. But the resistance is great, and the importance of Bach is so great, and heavy. There is no equivalent in the visual arts. No visual artist is forced to reckon with Michelangelo or Di Vinci. Not all composers, mind you, "deal" with Bach. But Bach's gravity on the modern composer is arguably much greater than Di Vinci, or whatever artist would be Bach's equivalent. See, I can't even come up with the equivalent of Bach in art. Because it really doesn't exist that way.

Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on September 28, 2007, 04:03:00 AM
Quote from: masolino on September 27, 2007, 07:48:56 PM
True, the king would have high regards for Bach as a technician (and a contrapunctalist), but that is hardly the same as our reason for ranking him among the greatest composers ever.

There are divers quibbles I might take with your post, but they would not be much to the purpose (and would duplicate earlier attempts to refine this or that point).

This statement of yours, though, I certainly agree with.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on September 28, 2007, 04:07:19 AM
Quote from: sonic1 on September 27, 2007, 08:37:00 PM
Oh yeah. I think it would be incredibly healthy if, just once in a while, we let go of this ass licking of dead composers. I am being crude here

And, while I will not descend to crudity, I am tiring a bit of pointing out that you paint with a broad brush when you imply that any notion of artistic greatness is essentially a form of this disgusting simile of yours.

And I really don't see why any of us should show particular respect to such a blatantly insulting simplification.

I do hope I made that as plain as possible, in as few words as possible.  One wishes to avoid tiring you further, lest your remarks become yet further off-color.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on September 28, 2007, 04:08:44 AM
Quote from: sonic1 on September 27, 2007, 08:37:00 PM
The very fact that we still call all of this music CLASSICAL music says a lot.

It does;  but not all of us find it something inherently to be enraged at.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: longears on September 28, 2007, 04:20:29 AM
Quote from: sonic1 on September 27, 2007, 08:37:00 PM
...the importance of Bach is so great, and heavy. There is no equivalent in the visual arts. No visual artist is forced to reckon with Michelangelo or Di Vinci.

You are, of course, welcome to your own opinions.  This, however, is a statement of fact, and it is false.  Virtually every serious painter, for instance, wrestles with the giants of the past.  Don't confuse art with the "art world,"  which is more akin to the money-making machine of pop music.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on September 28, 2007, 05:37:46 AM
Quote from: D Minor on September 27, 2007, 04:15:46 PM
Please?





I'll give him a dollar.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on September 28, 2007, 05:42:44 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on September 28, 2007, 04:07:19 AM
And, while I will not descend to crudity, I am tiring a bit of pointing out that you paint with a broad brush when you imply that any notion of artistic greatness is essentially a form of this disgusting simile of yours.

And I really don't see why any of us should show particular respect to such a blatantly insulting simplification.





It's sad to see anyone on this forum have to use such garbage language.

For me, it's almost impossible not to gush over my favorite music.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: DavidW on September 28, 2007, 05:48:31 AM
Quote from: sonic1 on September 27, 2007, 08:37:00 PM
Now I know that not everyone feels that all leads to Bach, Beethoven and Mozart. But you have to admit those guys weigh pretty heavily on the art, and I believe way out of proportion to their importance.

I concur, especially if you listen to Karl's favorite radio station. ;D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on September 28, 2007, 05:59:05 AM
Quote from: sonic1 on September 27, 2007, 01:24:01 PM
Joe Satriani vs Jimi Hendrix
interesting comparison

Quote from: sonic1 on September 27, 2007, 02:56:54 PM
Satriani exemplifies, for me, mastery in technique without much depth.
then you must think of depth a LOT differently than i do.  ;D
i've realized the whole reason Satriani is the guy whose music caught my attention before anyone else's is because the thought process in his music is a bit deeper than just any other rock band on the radio, and the complexity is what attracted me when i was, what, 11 or so...

especially the live version of Memories on the Dreaming #11 album, with the super-long solo (possibly my favorite solo ever), sounds like a cadenza of a violin concerto in a way. And it goes all over the place, reminds me of music of Romantic composers.  ;D
But i'd say that Satriani has both technique and depth, while Hendrix has technique but not as much depth because he doesn't need to be quite as deep for the music that he wrote.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on September 28, 2007, 06:02:40 AM
Quote from: sonic1 on September 27, 2007, 08:37:00 PM
The very fact that we still call all of this music CLASSICAL music says a lot. What the hell about Luigi Nono is classical? What about George Crumb? Hell, I would even argue that Shostakovitch is far from "classical". There just seems to be this resistance to change in classical music. Look at the visual arts, and how much change has happened in the same time span as music. Look at the point that modernity hit painting, as compared to classical music. Jesus, modern art is gone to so many places in painting and accepted by the art community, while Schoenberg still upsets people. And Schoenberg just did away with one aspect (tonality). Rhythmically Schoenberg had not innovated enough to note about. Classical music whines the entire way through any innovation. I am not sure why this is, but it is incredibly different than any other art I can think of. That is not to say the innovations are not there. They are. But the resistance is great, and the importance of Bach is so great, and heavy. There is no equivalent in the visual arts. No visual artist is forced to reckon with Michelangelo or Di Vinci. Not all composers, mind you, "deal" with Bach. But Bach's gravity on the modern composer is arguably much greater than Di Vinci, or whatever artist would be Bach's equivalent. See, I can't even come up with the equivalent of Bach in art. Because it really doesn't exist that way.


i hate this fact, too, but i think the main reason is that you have to sit through music, and with art, you can just look at a picture and enjoy it. Usually, there's extra to learn about the painting, but it's usually understand in a few minutes.

just a wild guess
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on September 28, 2007, 06:03:31 AM
i was going to post my thought about defining "greatness" in music, but maybe later. i'll try to sort them out.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on September 28, 2007, 06:12:34 AM
Quote from: longears on September 28, 2007, 04:20:29 AM
You are, of course, welcome to your own opinions.  This, however, is a statement of fact, and it is false.  Virtually every serious painter, for instance, wrestles with the giants of the past.  Don't confuse art with the "art world,"  which is more akin to the money-making machine of pop music.

Of course. Manet and Picasso in their own ways each wrestled with Velázquez, for example. Other artists wrestle with the command buttons on their computer-painting software.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on September 28, 2007, 06:23:58 AM
Quote from: JaredSee, I can't even come up with the equivalent of Bach in art. Because it really doesn't exist that way.

Of course not.  It doesn't really work even within the same discipline (there is no "20th-c. musical equivalent" to Bach, either, e.g.).

Quote from: Larry Rinkel on September 28, 2007, 06:12:34 AM
Of course. Manet and Picasso in their own ways each wrestled with Velázquez, for example.

And the wrestling is one of the positives in cultural history.  It were tendentious to consider such "wrassling" only in terms of Sysiphus.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: sonic1 on September 28, 2007, 07:22:27 AM
Karl, I apologize for my crude language. My sentiments are unchanged, but it is not my hope to offend, so much as to express frustration. And I think I am NOT the only one who feels this way. I understand why you say that the very thing that frustrates me is something you value. I can understand that, even feel the same, without encountering conflict. As I have said before, I obviously love Bach.

It seems some people here DO have some trouble, however, questioning their own values. I mean, you cannot, for a second, question whether or not it is healthy for so few composers to weigh so heavily on the art? Or even to admit that it is true?

Yeah, and in reference to art: Longears, I didn't say visual artists don't wrestle with the past. I said that there is not the limited heavy gravity coming from just a few painters. Bach is, by a LOT of people, seen as the fulcrum of western music, or the base. I have taken many music theory courses and Bach is always presented as the basis for our music-we study Bach cantatas and harmonizations as primary to our learning. One man has an awful lot of gravity in the art. That is NOT true in the visual arts. While there are a lot of giants in the past to wrestle with, there are at least many to choose from, no one being the center of it all, and you choose according to your submedium.

It is this aspect of "greatness" I take issue with, the limited center of gravity. The one fulcrum. And please, if I am wrong, prove to me that classical music is NOT the most conservative of the arts. Some of you may not have any issue with this, and might even value the slow-evolving nature of music. That is fine. But for me, classical music history is too wrought with forward-looking geniuses who get utterly abused by their peers and the audience. No wonder many modern composers have to adopt such an annoying defensive, preachy nature.

I think I have a very valid point here, but some of you are afraid to admit any such thing occurs-like your art will be degraded if you admit its faults.

Karl, you have mentioned that the wresting with the past can be healthy. I agree. But do you not see what I mean about the limited center of gravity in classical music?

My point is that, fine, Bach was incredible: indispensable to western music history, father of modern harmony and counterpoint, yada yada...

But must we put all musical innovation that came before and after on some lower stratus and always keep Bach as the zenith of western music theory? And if we don't all believe that Bach is this zenith (I believe many of us do NOT think that) then can we change our rhetoric to reflect this sentiment? Because whether or not you all believe this sentiment, it is the sentiment that is communicated very strongly.

I am not speaking, of course, to the people who BELIEVE that Bach IS the zenith to be raised above all in western music. If you believe that, that is your belief to have. However, if we really believe that music theory and history is much richer than that, much more diverse, much less centered on the gravity of Bach, then can our greatness rhetoric reflect that, because that is not what is communicated by the greatness rhetoric. THEN, I can accept this concept of greatness.

Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on September 28, 2007, 12:19:14 PM
I honestly find more than a few pieces by Bach to be too numerical,  sterile. 

That written, I too am amazed by the compositional complexity of WTC and the Brandenburg Concertos (the latter is one of my favorite pieces by anyone). In fact, when a colleague of mine asserted that the D minor Toccata and Fugue by was the most impressive composition ever written, I kept my mouth shut because I could easily see how that could be.

However, I found Joseph Haydn's use of fugal finales in his String Quartets to often be more exciting; that could be because they just seemed to be a bit more fresh-sounding, less calculated for some reason. And whenever I'm reccomending spine chilling fugues to my guitar students, I mention the finale of Mozart's Jupiter at least as much as (my favorite) c# minor WTC fugue by Bach.

So I really don't see Bach as the "pinnacle" of Western Music. In fact, it could be asserted that Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven advanced music much further by seemingly freeing up the fugal form, and thus making it seem far less stuffy sounding. Wagner and Verdi applied LvB's example, incorporating fascinating free-form segments in many of their operas. I realize that Bach and Handel both laid much of the foundation, but I simply feel that the entire form was advanced powerfully in the years proceeding Bach's death by the names listed above, as well as others during the 19th century.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: BachQ on September 28, 2007, 12:33:35 PM
Quote from: greg on September 28, 2007, 06:03:31 AM
but maybe later. i'll try to sort them out.

We await your final draft, Greg ........
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Varg on September 28, 2007, 12:48:23 PM
Quote from: sonic1 on September 27, 2007, 08:37:00 PM
We are having language problems here. I am not suggesting that we don't have any sort of personal hierarchy, and I don't wish to see greatness banned from the english language. I couldn't give a rats ass whether anyone thought what I think is great, terrible. In fact, I already know that most of you would cringe at some of the stuff I listen to. I am experimenting with blasphemy, and a tearing down of idolatry within myself and doing so publicly. Bach sucks buttcrack. Ahhh...that is refreshing....

what was I saying?

Oh yeah. I think it would be incredibly healthy if, just once in a while, we let go of this ass licking of dead composers. I am being crude here, but I just get tired of it. And I really do think more than the other arts, the giants of the past overshadow the present in classical music. I don't think it is entirely healthy. I don't think it is good for music to have so few roots. Now I know that not everyone feels that all leads to Bach, Beethoven and Mozart. But you have to admit those guys weigh pretty heavily on the art, and I believe way out of proportion to their importance.

The very fact that we still call all of this music CLASSICAL music says a lot. What the hell about Luigi Nono is classical? What about George Crumb? Hell, I would even argue that Shostakovitch is far from "classical". There just seems to be this resistance to change in classical music. Look at the visual arts, and how much change has happened in the same time span as music. Look at the point that modernity hit painting, as compared to classical music. Jesus, modern art is gone to so many places in painting and accepted by the art community, while Schoenberg still upsets people. And Schoenberg just did away with one aspect (tonality). Rhythmically Schoenberg had not innovated enough to note about. Classical music whines the entire way through any innovation. I am not sure why this is, but it is incredibly different than any other art I can think of. That is not to say the innovations are not there. They are. But the resistance is great, and the importance of Bach is so great, and heavy. There is no equivalent in the visual arts. No visual artist is forced to reckon with Michelangelo or Di Vinci. Not all composers, mind you, "deal" with Bach. But Bach's gravity on the modern composer is arguably much greater than Di Vinci, or whatever artist would be Bach's equivalent. See, I can't even come up with the equivalent of Bach in art. Because it really doesn't exist that way.



I totally agree with everything you just said. The ass licking is most disgusting to me as well, among many other things in classical music (the evolution, the perception, the worshipping of the same old composers and works...). There's only one way to free yourself from all those sickness, and that is staying out from community, i mean from all the prejudices and trends it promotes.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Don on September 28, 2007, 01:26:11 PM
Quote from: sonic1 on September 28, 2007, 07:22:27 AM
As I have said before, I obviously love Bach.


Your love for Bach seems to come with a big BUT, so you don't love him enough.

Values are not something to be discarded or changed just because time marches on.  I can see where young individuals might be changing some of their values as their life experiences build up.  However, mature adults have spent decades developing their values, and changing those values adds up to what I'll generously call "confused" thinking.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: sonic1 on September 28, 2007, 02:20:01 PM
Quote from: Don on September 28, 2007, 01:26:11 PM
Your love for Bach seems to come with a big BUT, so you don't love him enough.

Values are not something to be discarded or changed just because time marches on.  I can see where young individuals might be changing some of their values as their life experiences build up.  However, mature adults have spent decades developing their values, and changing those values adds up to what I'll generously call "confused" thinking.

No. I can love Bach, appreciate his genius, and not assert him as the pinnacle of western music. I can love Bach without turning him into the standard for every  other composer out there.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on September 28, 2007, 05:53:32 PM
Quote from: Shunk_Manitu_Tanka on September 28, 2007, 12:48:23 PM
I totally agree with everything you just said. The ass licking is most disgusting to me as well, among many other things in classical music (the evolution, the perception, the worshipping of the same old composers and works...). There's only one way to free yourself from all those sickness, and that is staying out from community, i mean from all the prejudices and trends it promotes.

Exactly what kind of "ass-licking" are we talking about that "disgusts" you so much? If I decide I want to listen to the St. Matthew Passion, or the Beethoven C# minor Quartet, or Die Meistersinger, because they provide me with some of the most musically rich experiences I can imagine, is that an example of "ass-licking" in your rather scatological eyes? Or is "sickness" a more exact epithet for my musical perversions? I really look forward to your enlightening me, so I can "free myself" at the belated age of 60 while I still have a couple of good years left.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: sonic1 on September 28, 2007, 09:10:53 PM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on September 28, 2007, 05:53:32 PM
Exactly what kind of "ass-licking" are we talking about that "disgusts" you so much? If I decide I want to listen to the St. Matthew Passion, or the Beethoven C# minor Quartet, or Die Meistersinger, because they provide me with some of the most musically rich experiences I can imagine, is that an example of "ass-licking" in your rather scatological eyes? Or is "sickness" a more exact epithet for my musical perversions? I really look forward to your enlightening me, so I can "free myself" at the belated age of 60 while I still have a couple of good years left.

Jesus christ Larry, can you read? Sorry if this sounds rude, but I have nearly written a novel in this thread delineating exactly what I meant by ass-licking. I took back the crude comment later, but I think I made clear that listening to Bach was not what I meant in the least.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on September 29, 2007, 02:32:32 AM
Quote from: sonic1 on September 28, 2007, 09:10:53 PM
Jesus christ Larry, can you read? Sorry if this sounds rude, but I have nearly written a novel in this thread delineating exactly what I meant by ass-licking. I took back the crude comment later, but I think I made clear that listening to Bach was not what I meant in the least.

Jesus Christ, yerself, if you can't realize I wasn't addressing you, but rather the person who continues whole-heartedly to endorse the comment and sentiments you retracted.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Montpellier on September 29, 2007, 02:49:43 AM
I think most of this greatness comes from cultural forces, including the commercial.   There've been a few experiments showing that people generally tend to social acceptability, namely going along with shared orientations, so consensus is developed about what is great and not, unfortunately led by critics in the arts.  Some souls are individual enough to explore an art for themselves and no doubt develop individual views and two fingers to the critics.  I would argue the pros and cons of music critics who prey upon those who do the actual work rather than composers/artists.   Critics are bound to bolster the view that Beethoven is great.  Any who didn't would be branded foolish without very considerable evidence.   Besides, Bach Beethoven and Mozart still sell more than Nono, Kagel and Stockhausen.  Most listeners don't like having to work at 'understanding' and the former trio and associates produced stuff easy to assimilate intuitively. 
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Varg on September 29, 2007, 03:09:00 AM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on September 28, 2007, 05:53:32 PM
Exactly what kind of "ass-licking" are we talking about that "disgusts" you so much? If I decide I want to listen to the St. Matthew Passion, or the Beethoven C# minor Quartet, or Die Meistersinger, because they provide me with some of the most musically rich experiences I can imagine, is that an example of "ass-licking" in your rather scatological eyes? Or is "sickness" a more exact epithet for my musical perversions? I really look forward to your enlightening me, so I can "free myself" at the belated age of 60 while I still have a couple of good years left.

First of all, i was not talking to you. I was talking to a man that is deeply offended by the community's prejudice, which is obviously not your case.

No, that doesnt make you an ass-licker, it just makes you a man who satisfy his personnal taste. The "ass-lickers", to explain myself, are the countless conductors and orchestras (every single one of them!) always learning and performing the same old pieces from the old same masters, that we have heard countless times before. Of course, they are not to be forgotten, but should not always be the "highlights of the evening" neither, the one who brings people to the performances. They need to learn to let go a little, both with recordings and performances.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on September 29, 2007, 06:26:22 AM
Quote from: Shunk_Manitu_Tanka on September 29, 2007, 03:09:00 AM
First of all, i was not talking to you. I was talking to a man that is deeply offended by the community's prejudice, which is obviously not your case.

No, that doesnt make you an ass-licker, it just makes you a man who satisfy his personnal taste. The "ass-lickers", to explain myself, are the countless conductors and orchestras (every single one of them!) always learning and performing the same old pieces from the old same masters, that we have heard countless times before. Of course, they are not to be forgotten, but should not always be the "highlights of the evening" neither, the one who brings people to the performances. They need to learn to let go a little, both with recordings and performances.

We can all respond to whatever posts we like. But you really are painting your "ass-lickers" with far too broad a brush. Of course there are conductors and other musicians who never touch a piece of music that isn't certifiably safe. But there are as many musicians who take risks by performing and recording pieces that go beyond the standard list. Pollini for one will program Boulez and Stockhausen, and has even played Schoenberg as an encore. James Levine, whatever one may think of his musicianship, keeps the Berg operas in repertory at the Met, has programmed a Beethoven-Schoenberg series in Boston, and no one is a more enthuasistic proponent of Elliott Carter. Anne-Sophie Mutter has recorded Berg and Rihm. Abbado plays Nono and Stockhausen. I've heard Christoph von Dohnanyi program Varèse and Birtwistle. Charles Rosen in his better days played both Boulez and Carter; I see him fairly regularly at New York concerts featuring the music of those composers and other modernists like Ferneyhough. A couple of years ago I heard Tilson Thomas do Berio's Epiphanies. Lorin Maazel recently did the Carter Variations with the NY Philharmonic. Even Bernstein, who hated modern music, premiered the Carter Concerto for Orchestra and performed the Boulez Improvisations sur Mallarmé. Need I go on?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: DavidW on September 29, 2007, 08:05:58 AM
Quote from: Shunk_Manitu_Tanka on September 29, 2007, 03:09:00 AM
First of all, i was not talking to you. I was talking to a man that is deeply offended by the community's prejudice, which is obviously not your case.

If you wanted it to be a private conversation then you should have taken it to PM instead of posting it on a public forum.  The whole point of forums is to invite discussion and debate from everyone. :)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Varg on October 01, 2007, 01:42:32 AM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on September 29, 2007, 06:26:22 AM
We can all respond to whatever posts we like. But you really are painting your "ass-lickers" with far too broad a brush. Of course there are conductors and other musicians who never touch a piece of music that isn't certifiably safe. But there are as many musicians who take risks by performing and recording pieces that go beyond the standard list. Pollini for one will program Boulez and Stockhausen, and has even played Schoenberg as an encore. James Levine, whatever one may think of his musicianship, keeps the Berg operas in repertory at the Met, has programmed a Beethoven-Schoenberg series in Boston, and no one is a more enthuasistic proponent of Elliott Carter. Anne-Sophie Mutter has recorded Berg and Rihm. Abbado plays Nono and Stockhausen. I've heard Christoph von Dohnanyi program Varèse and Birtwistle. Charles Rosen in his better days played both Boulez and Carter; I see him fairly regularly at New York concerts featuring the music of those composers and other modernists like Ferneyhough. A couple of years ago I heard Tilson Thomas do Berio's Epiphanies. Lorin Maazel recently did the Carter Variations with the NY Philharmonic. Even Bernstein, who hated modern music, premiered the Carter Concerto for Orchestra and performed the Boulez Improvisations sur Mallarmé. Need I go on?
Of course there are exeptions! But is it common?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Varg on October 01, 2007, 01:46:44 AM
Quote from: DavidW on September 29, 2007, 08:05:58 AM
If you wanted it to be a private conversation then you should have taken it to PM instead of posting it on a public forum.  The whole point of forums is to invite discussion and debate from everyone. :)

I wasn't being an ass on him. I meant that what i said wasn't directed towards him, and didnt applied to him, so there was no reason for him to be offended by what i said; the ass-licking thing was misunderstood.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Mark G. Simon on October 01, 2007, 03:37:11 AM
We all feel frustrated at times about the conservatism of classical music organizations and listeners, but this has nothing to do with the concept of greatness in music.

Frankly, abandoning the concept of greatness as a way of gaining a foothold for modern music is an admission of defeat. Modern music will either prove itself the equal or superior to the old masterpieces, or it will die the death it deserves.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on October 01, 2007, 03:53:45 AM
Quote from: Shunk_Manitu_Tanka on October 01, 2007, 01:42:32 AM
Of course there are exeptions! But is it common?

Whether it is or isn't I don't know, but judging from your statements I don't believe you know either. My point is that once specifics are examined - and other examples can easily be found of conductors interested in modern music (Salonen, Rattle) - the situation is hardly as one-dimensional as you aver.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on October 01, 2007, 03:55:34 AM
Quote from: Mark G. Simon on October 01, 2007, 03:37:11 AM
We all feel frustrated at times about the conservatism of classical music organizations and listeners, but this has nothing to do with the concept of greatness in music.

Frankly, abandoning the concept of greatness as a way of gaining a foothold for modern music is an admission of defeat. Modern music will either prove itself the equal or superior to the old masterpieces, or it will die the death it deserves.

Short, and very much to the point.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on October 01, 2007, 04:03:51 AM
Quote from: Mark G. Simon on October 01, 2007, 03:37:11 AM
We all feel frustrated at times about the conservatism of classical music organizations and listeners, but this has nothing to do with the concept of greatness in music.

I think in a sense it does, but I need more time than I have right now to develop the concept in any fullness. Briefly, what I'm getting at is that the concept of a canon of great music to be preserved for all time is something that originated in the later 18th and early 19th centuries. Prior to that, and up until fairly recent times, the emphasis was always placed on composers supplying new music, and only a few antiquarians took much interest in music of the past. Today's audiences, however, alienated by the contemporary, and what's more having the medium of recording to supply their own preferences for a conservative repertory, are more likely to turn to the past as a way of escaping the musical present. And as a result, composers of today have to fight harder than ever to be heard.

Actually that says most of it.

Personally, I deplore a lack of interest in the musical past as much as I do contempt for the musical present. If anything, there is much music of the past that deserves wider dissemination than it currently receives (Dufay, anyone? Josquin? Monteverdi?)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on October 01, 2007, 04:23:30 AM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on October 01, 2007, 04:03:51 AM
Quote from: Mark G SimonWe all feel frustrated at times about the conservatism of classical music organizations and listeners, but this has nothing to do with the concept of greatness in music.
I think in a sense it does, but I need more time than I have right now to develop the concept in any fullness.

Well, one way is related to a point Mark raised earlier;  it takes rare acumen to identify greatness in music in its time, and (as Mark indicated) there is stuff out today which time will sort out into degrees of greatness.  In comparison, standing up for the greatness of that music which has already received the accolades of the past, is a pretty safe bet . . . with, likewise, a generally modest reward::risk ratio.

Quote from: LarryBriefly, what I'm getting at is that the concept of a canon of great music to be preserved for all time is something that originated in the later 18th and early 19th centuries. Prior to that, and up until fairly recent times, the emphasis was always placed on composers supplying new music, and only a few antiquarians took much interest in music of the past. Today's audiences, however, alienated by the contemporary, and what's more having the medium of recording to supply their own preferences for a conservative repertory, are more likely to turn to the past as a way of escaping the musical present. And as a result, composers of today have to fight harder than ever to be heard.

This, too, very much to the point.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on October 02, 2007, 05:32:31 AM
I still wonder how much people are invalidating musical genres like modern Rock/Metal (and of course the others) mainly by dint of their not taking a historical perspective on them. Peopl today (I mentioned this earlier in the thread) often simply dismiss out of hand modern music simply because it is modern.

When I fell back in love with Our Music (the "Classics") last year, I started out by pretty much dismissing modern music offhand. After having immersed myself in Our Music with a novice's zeal, I went back to Rock and Metal and heard many things I didn't listen to before: elaborate compositions with plenty of variation and well-developed counterpoint.

Of course, I understand that most "Popular" music is irritatingly "dumb", overly simple...but I'm wondering how "complex" a piece has to be to make it "valid" as great music.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: AnthonyAthletic on October 02, 2007, 05:47:06 AM
Quote from: Haffner on October 02, 2007, 05:32:31 AM
Of course, I understand that most "Popular" music is irritatingly "dumb", overly simple...but I'm wondering how "complex" a piece has to be to make it "valid" as great music.

It doesn't when you are talking Rock.  Just listening to the Live in Tokyo concert, Deep Purple...Smoke on the Water, each instrument entering at staggered intervals, Blackmore, Lord, Paice, Glover....Gillan.  Knocks the socks off the studio version.

Not complex, just great music and great timing!!  ;)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: dtwilbanks on October 02, 2007, 05:52:00 AM
And rock is a whole other world of tone.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on October 02, 2007, 06:28:07 AM
Quote from: AnthonyAthletic on October 02, 2007, 05:47:06 AM
It doesn't when you are talking Rock.  Just listening to the Live in Tokyo concert, Deep Purple...Smoke on the Water, each instrument entering at staggered intervals, Blackmore, Lord, Paice, Glover....Gillan.  Knocks the socks off the studio version.

Not complex, just great music and great timing!!  ;)





Hey, I don't have that Deep Purple cd yet! It's probably the only one I don't have (this situation is being remedied).
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on October 02, 2007, 06:29:09 AM
Quote from: dtw on October 02, 2007, 05:52:00 AM
And rock is a whole other world of tone.






Very interesting point, one that's clicking my brain even more "on" (this can take alot at times).
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: AnthonyAthletic on October 02, 2007, 06:54:49 AM
Quote from: Haffner on October 02, 2007, 06:28:07 AM
Hey, I don't have that Deep Purple cd yet! It's probably the only one I don't have (this situation is being remedied).

Absolute classic 2cd set, the Live in Tokyo concert. 

Live in London with MK III Purple is pretty good but for me doesn't come close to the Tokyo.  Coverdale/Hughes were a decent change after the 'first' leaving of Ian Gillan, but classic Purple is Gillan IMHO  ;D

http://rapidshare.com/files/56387131/Deep_Purple_-_Live_in_London__2CD_.rar

Disc 1

1. Burn (Live)
2. Might Just Take Your Life (Live)
3. Lay Down, Stay Down (Live)
4. Mistreated (Live)
5. Smoke On The Water (Live)

Disc 2

1. You Fool No One (Live)
2. Space Truckin' (Live)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on October 02, 2007, 07:08:30 AM
Quote from: AnthonyAthletic on October 02, 2007, 06:54:49 AM
Absolute classic 2cd set, the Live in Tokyo concert. 

Live in London with MK III Purple is pretty good but for me doesn't come close to the Tokyo.  Coverdale/Hughes were a decent change after the 'first' leaving of Ian Gillan, but classic Purple is Gillan IMHO  ;D

http://rapidshare.com/files/56387131/Deep_Purple_-_Live_in_London__2CD_.rar

Disc 1

1. Burn (Live)
2. Might Just Take Your Life (Live)
3. Lay Down, Stay Down (Live)
4. Mistreated (Live)
5. Smoke On The Water (Live)

Disc 2

1. You Fool No One (Live)
2. Space Truckin' (Live)



You are a very, very good man.

Have you ever checked out Live in Paris '75? It has the best versions of the songs from Stormbringer I've ever heard (you have to hear Gypsy off of that one). Blackmore's last show, and he smokes that Strat, trust me on this. His lead on Lady Double Dealer is blistering, and he emotes tremendously well on Gypsy.

I am a massive fan of Mark II, and Perfect Strangers as well. But several of the Mark III songs ar outstanding as well, imho.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: AnthonyAthletic on October 02, 2007, 07:17:04 AM
Quote from: Haffner on October 02, 2007, 07:08:30 AM
Have you ever checked out Live in Paris '75? It has the best versions of the songs from Stormbringer I've ever heard (you have to hear Gypsy off of that one). Blackmore's last show, and he smokes that Strat, trust me on this. His lead on Lady Double Dealer is blistering, and he emotes tremendously well on Gypsy.

No, I haven't heard the Paris '75 recordings, sound excellent.

I can upload the Tokyo concert and pass you the links... ;)  The 'Child in Time' on the concert, different middle solo from Blackmore from the studio version, I prefer the studio version of 'Child' but on the live version Gillan screams on and on for about 4 minutes.  Your ears end up bleeding after this LOL
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: dtwilbanks on October 02, 2007, 07:18:40 AM
It was only a matter of time before the Greatness in Music thread circled 'round to Deep Purple.  ;D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on October 02, 2007, 07:22:31 AM
I couldn't possibly have an opinion  0:)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: AnthonyAthletic on October 02, 2007, 07:24:13 AM
Quote from: dtw on October 02, 2007, 07:18:40 AM
It was only a matter of time before the Greatness in Music thread circled 'round to Deep Purple.  ;D

Aye, Band around at 'Right time, Right place'....there are many more  ;D

Come on Karl, surely you have smoked a joint or two listening to the In Rock album  ;D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on October 02, 2007, 07:24:43 AM
Quote from: AnthonyAthletic on October 02, 2007, 07:17:04 AM


I can upload the Tokyo concert and pass you the links... ;)  The 'Child in Time' on the concert, different middle solo from Blackmore from the studio version, I prefer the studio version of 'Child' but on the live version Gillan screams on and on for about 4 minutes.  Your ears end up bleeding after this LOL






Sounds terrific. I am a Deep Purple/Rainbow/Ritchie Blackmore fanatic (you never guessed  ;D ;)?)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on October 02, 2007, 07:26:04 AM
Quote from: AnthonyAthletic on October 02, 2007, 07:24:13 AM
Aye, Band around at 'Right time, Right place'....there are many more  ;D

Come on Karl, surely you have smoked a joint or two listening to the In Rock album  ;D





Oh the Mighty In Rock, smasher of Led Zeppelin, rival of early Black Sabbath, Holy Grail of seminal hard rock!
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on October 02, 2007, 07:26:41 AM
Quote from: dtw on October 02, 2007, 07:18:40 AM
It was only a matter of time before the Greatness in Music thread circled 'round to Deep Purple.  ;D





Most indubitably JA  ;D ;D!
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on October 02, 2007, 07:28:48 AM
Quote from: AnthonyAthletic on October 02, 2007, 07:24:13 AM
Come on Karl, surely you have smoked a joint or two listening to the In Rock album  ;D

No, we always get our joints from smokehouses in Virginia;  we haven't smoked our own hams in the family for some four generations  8)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: dtwilbanks on October 02, 2007, 07:29:36 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on October 02, 2007, 07:28:48 AM
No, we always get our joints from smokehouses in Virginia;  we haven't smoked our own hams in the family for some four generations  8)

Karl is a prog-rocker, don'tchaknow.   8)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: AnthonyAthletic on October 02, 2007, 07:30:20 AM
Quote from: Haffner on October 02, 2007, 07:26:04 AM
Oh the Mighty In Rock, smasher of Led Zeppelin, rival of early Black Sabbath, Holy Grail of seminal hard rock!

Sure was, many a night been mellowed out to the In Rock album...can't do it anymore (She won't let me) and the Brother in Law, who was my mellowing out partner, moved his ass over to Ohio, America.  

Now I sit alone with a six pack, the forum and a Mahler 6 on the weekends  ;)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: JoshLilly on October 02, 2007, 07:30:34 AM
I've often wondered whether a lot of 20th (and now 21st) century music is less popular than older music because the composers have overstepped the line of what the human ear finds "naturally" pleasing. Naturally is probably not the right word, since I'm sure it's to a large extent culture-based, but I don't know any other word to use. I've heard symphonies from the 20th century that some people consider great, and I find that I can't even stand to hear them, they grate on me so badly. From before a certain chronological point, there may be music that I dislike, or even hate, but it never has that same impact on me, where I really can't even stand to have it playing in my presence. I know people will just say it's my "fault", but I seem to be very far from alone in this. For example, I don't like anything I've ever heard by Bruckner, but it's not so that I can't even stomach it if a CD of his music is playing near me. Some of his stuff, I really border on hate for it, but I'll live if someone is listening to a recording near me. But I heard some passages of a symphony by someone named Krenek, and I really couldn't stand the sound, it was physically unbearable to me. Obviously it is liked by some, but is it only me? How come many people have similar reactions? You pick the "worst" piece you can think of from the 18th century and play it for someone completely unfamiliar with "classical" music, and their response probably won't be physical revulsion, even though they think it's worthless, but playing many works of "modern classical" for them you can get some really drastic responses.

What is that all about? Are there "natural" sounds to the Human ear after all? How would certain far eastern music fit into this? I've heard older music from, say, China, and even if I don't like a piece, it never has that same painful effect on me as that Krenek symphony did. When I have negative (borderline physically) reactions to what people call "metal music", that is often because of the electrical instruments and screaming voices and repeated banging drums, not because of the notes themselves, if that makes any sense. In other words, if those same exact notes were performed by, I don't know, a string ensemble, I might hate it, but it wouldn't impact me the same way.

Again, this is all just me, but believe me when I say that I am not alone with my responses to a ton of "modern classical" music. Why is that the case? I know people can react with almost painful loathing to music labeled "atonal". But even if they exhibit pure derision or hatred I've never, ever heard of anyone reacting the same way to a piece from before 1850, for example. Why is that?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on October 02, 2007, 07:51:53 AM
Quote from: AnthonyAthletic on October 02, 2007, 07:30:20 AM
Sure was, many a night been mellowed out to the In Rock album...can't do it anymore (She won't let me) and the Brother in Law, who was my mellowing out partner, moved his ass over to Ohio, America.  

Now I sit alone with a six pack, the forum and a Mahler 6 on the weekends  ;)





I guess I'm lucky: my girl likes Purple. As to the Mahler 6th: oh, the HvK recording! A glimpse of both Heaven and Hell!
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on October 02, 2007, 07:53:08 AM
Quote from: JoshLilly on October 02, 2007, 07:30:34 AM
I know people can react with almost painful loathing to music labeled "atonal".

And I know people who can react with almost painful loathing to a piano which is just slightly out-of-tune, which is not the same issue as atonality.

If one tries to make the case that atonality is "unnatural," what is being said, then, about the people who just plain like that music, on first hearing?  For I know this sort of people, too.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on October 02, 2007, 07:55:08 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on October 02, 2007, 07:53:08 AM
If one tries to make the case that atonality is "unnatural," what is being said, then, about the people who just plain like that music, on first hearing?  For I know this sort of people, too.



I guess I'm "unnatural"; especially if works like the mighty Pierrot Lunaire, Shostakovich's 7th String Quartet, and Schnittke's Viola Concerto are considered "atonal"
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: dtwilbanks on October 02, 2007, 07:55:54 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on October 02, 2007, 07:53:08 AM
And I know people who can react with almost painful loathing to a piano which is just slightly out-of-tune, which is not the same issue as atonality.

If one tries to make the case that atonality is "unnatural," what is being said, then, about the people who just plain like that music, on first hearing?  For I know this sort of people, too.

Some tonal pallets are wider than others.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on October 02, 2007, 07:57:16 AM
Quote from: dtw on October 02, 2007, 07:55:54 AM
Some tonal pallets are wider than others.

Very true -- though I think you mean "palates" . . . I don't deny that my variety of sonic taste could make use of a forklift, however  8)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: dtwilbanks on October 02, 2007, 07:58:01 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on October 02, 2007, 07:57:16 AM
Very true -- though I think you mean "palates" . . . I don't deny that my variety of sonic taste could make use of a forklift, however  8)

Oops. Yep. It's all spell-check's fault. ;)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on October 02, 2007, 08:04:06 AM
Quote from: Haffner on October 02, 2007, 07:55:08 AM
I guess I'm "unnatural"; especially if works like the mighty Pierrot Lunaire, Shostakovich's 7th String Quartet, and Schnittke's Viola Concerto are considered "atonal"

A slight erratum to offer . . . the Seventh Quartet isn't atonal, though.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on October 02, 2007, 08:07:39 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on October 02, 2007, 08:04:06 AM
A slight erratum to offer . . . the Seventh Quartet isn't atonal, though.





This might sound totally dumb, Karl, so please forgive in advance, but is there any twelve-tone fiddling in that one?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on October 02, 2007, 08:13:43 AM
Not dumb in the least, Andy.  He strays pretty freely from the key in ways that definitely depart from Common Practice.  That opening theme in the first violin, for instance, starts on an F# (the tonic), but even that first three-note gesture, F#-E-flat-D, does not "belong" to F# Minor, and after the theme's sinuous descent, the home key is only "established" by a closing descending triad.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on October 02, 2007, 08:15:25 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on October 02, 2007, 08:13:43 AM
Not dumb in the least, Andy.  He strays pretty freely from the key in ways that definitely depart from Common Practice.  That opening theme in the first violin, for instance, starts on an F# (the tonic), but even that first three-note gesture, F#-E-flat-D, does not "belong" to F# Minor, and after the theme's sinuous descent, the home key is only "established" by a closing descending triad.





It's just so hypnotic, eerie...I'm listening more intently now, Karl, and I am grateful for your having pointed these things out.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on October 02, 2007, 08:20:14 AM
At your service, Andy.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Don on October 02, 2007, 08:38:16 AM
Quote from: JoshLilly on October 02, 2007, 07:30:34 AM
Again, this is all just me, but believe me when I say that I am not alone with my responses to a ton of "modern classical" music. Why is that the case? I know people can react with almost painful loathing to music labeled "atonal". But even if they exhibit pure derision or hatred I've never, ever heard of anyone reacting the same way to a piece from before 1850, for example. Why is that?

I think it's just a matter of the type of musical sounds we are accustomed to hearing.  Some of the same things Josh is saying were said by folks of previous generations who couldn't tolerate music that modern-age folks now have no trouble with.

As I see it, we have available to us music from ancient up to modern times.  That certainly covers a huge range of musical styles that should satisfy each of us.  So I'm not going to get hung up on what I don't like about certain styles; I'd rather simply enjoy the styles I prefer and dabble into new styles from time to time.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on October 02, 2007, 08:46:10 AM
Quote from: Don on October 02, 2007, 08:38:16 AM
I think it's just a matter of the type of musical sounds we are accustomed to hearing.

I don't think that can tell the whole story;  I often find that I am immediately touched by music which is, in fact, very unlike what I am already sonically accustomed to.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: jochanaan on October 02, 2007, 03:25:50 PM
Quote from: sonic1 on September 26, 2007, 10:19:35 AM
...Your highlight suggests that #1 only uneducated people would have great problems with your "greatness" assignments.
Many highly educated people do not know much about classical music, or have strange ideas about it.
Quote from: sonic1 on September 26, 2007, 10:19:35 AM
#2 you MUST know how much training jazz musicians undergo, how much practicing, how much skill honing, etc happens. Jazz musicians study serious music. They study theory, practice slonimsky patterns, etc. How they differ, perhaps, is that much of their composing happens during a performance (with previous learned lines worked in, etc), though some jazz artists prewrite quite a lot of material. Wayne Shorter wrote some ingenious melodies for example.
Uh, didn't you notice that I included jazz with "great" music?  You even included my comment about jazz in the quote from my earlier post.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Don on October 02, 2007, 03:27:46 PM
Quote from: karlhenning on October 02, 2007, 08:46:10 AM
I don't think that can tell the whole story;  I often find that I am immediately touched by music which is, in fact, very unlike what I am already sonically accustomed to.

Yes, but I think folks like you are the exception.  Most people don't like change.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: jochanaan on October 02, 2007, 03:38:34 PM
Quote from: JoshLilly on October 02, 2007, 07:30:34 AM
I've often wondered whether a lot of 20th (and now 21st) century music is less popular than older music because the composers have overstepped the line of what the human ear finds "naturally" pleasing. Naturally is probably not the right word, since I'm sure it's to a large extent culture-based, but I don't know any other word to use. I've heard symphonies from the 20th century that some people consider great, and I find that I can't even stand to hear them, they grate on me so badly. From before a certain chronological point, there may be music that I dislike, or even hate, but it never has that same impact on me, where I really can't even stand to have it playing in my presence. I know people will just say it's my "fault", but I seem to be very far from alone in this. For example, I don't like anything I've ever heard by Bruckner, but it's not so that I can't even stomach it if a CD of his music is playing near me. Some of his stuff, I really border on hate for it, but I'll live if someone is listening to a recording near me. But I heard some passages of a symphony by someone named Krenek, and I really couldn't stand the sound, it was physically unbearable to me. Obviously it is liked by some, but is it only me? How come many people have similar reactions? You pick the "worst" piece you can think of from the 18th century and play it for someone completely unfamiliar with "classical" music, and their response probably won't be physical revulsion, even though they think it's worthless, but playing many works of "modern classical" for them you can get some really drastic responses.

What is that all about? Are there "natural" sounds to the Human ear after all? How would certain far eastern music fit into this? I've heard older music from, say, China, and even if I don't like a piece, it never has that same painful effect on me as that Krenek symphony did. When I have negative (borderline physically) reactions to what people call "metal music", that is often because of the electrical instruments and screaming voices and repeated banging drums, not because of the notes themselves, if that makes any sense. In other words, if those same exact notes were performed by, I don't know, a string ensemble, I might hate it, but it wouldn't impact me the same way.

Again, this is all just me, but believe me when I say that I am not alone with my responses to a ton of "modern classical" music. Why is that the case? I know people can react with almost painful loathing to music labeled "atonal". But even if they exhibit pure derision or hatred I've never, ever heard of anyone reacting the same way to a piece from before 1850, for example. Why is that?
This is a difficult question, to be sure.  Certainly Krenek and Schoenberg and Varèse and Boulez and Carter (Elliott, not Jimmy or June ;) ) wrote music that challenges its hearers.  But there are many folks like me who truly enjoy exactly this kind of music.  I can't speak for the others, but to me the enjoyment of such music can be likened to a taste for hot-spicy foods; what is repulsive to many people is exactly what we love.  And no, I'm not into BDSM! ;D  So I can't say that modern music has "departed from what is naturally pleasing," since I myself have found it naturally pleasing. :)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: BachQ on October 02, 2007, 03:56:43 PM
Quote from: Don on October 02, 2007, 03:27:46 PM
Yes, but I think folks like you are the exception. 

We've always known that Karl was a "special case" .........
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on October 02, 2007, 04:02:08 PM
Well, I sure was walked right into that one . . . .
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: jochanaan on October 02, 2007, 04:40:22 PM
Quote from: karlhenning on October 02, 2007, 04:02:08 PM
Well, I sure was walked right into that one . . . .
Welcome to Bedlam!  We're all residents; we love "our" music madly! ;D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: DavidW on October 02, 2007, 05:01:36 PM
Jo is a Schoenberg fan, it shows. ;D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: jochanaan on October 02, 2007, 05:03:16 PM
Guilty as charged!  And proud of it! ;D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: sonic1 on October 02, 2007, 06:22:11 PM
Why is modern music always labelled as tonally challenging. There were a lot of other important developments in 20th century music. Not all modern music is "atonal" or tonally challenging.

Some modern music is so tonal one can barely stand it.  ;D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: jochanaan on October 02, 2007, 06:43:25 PM
Quote from: sonic1 on October 02, 2007, 06:22:11 PM
Why is modern music always labelled as tonally challenging. There were a lot of other important developments in 20th century music. Not all modern music is "atonal" or tonally challenging.

Some modern music is so tonal one can barely stand it.  ;D
Indeed.  But those were not the composers I labeled challenging. :)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on October 02, 2007, 07:47:31 PM
Quote from: JoshLilly on October 02, 2007, 07:30:34 AM
I've often wondered whether a lot of 20th (and now 21st) century music is less popular than older music because the composers have overstepped the line of what the human ear finds "naturally" pleasing. Naturally is probably not the right word, since I'm sure it's to a large extent culture-based, but I don't know any other word to use. I've heard symphonies from the 20th century that some people consider great, and I find that I can't even stand to hear them, they grate on me so badly. From before a certain chronological point, there may be music that I dislike, or even hate, but it never has that same impact on me, where I really can't even stand to have it playing in my presence. I know people will just say it's my "fault", but I seem to be very far from alone in this. For example, I don't like anything I've ever heard by Bruckner, but it's not so that I can't even stomach it if a CD of his music is playing near me. Some of his stuff, I really border on hate for it, but I'll live if someone is listening to a recording near me. But I heard some passages of a symphony by someone named Krenek, and I really couldn't stand the sound, it was physically unbearable to me. Obviously it is liked by some, but is it only me? How come many people have similar reactions? You pick the "worst" piece you can think of from the 18th century and play it for someone completely unfamiliar with "classical" music, and their response probably won't be physical revulsion, even though they think it's worthless, but playing many works of "modern classical" for them you can get some really drastic responses.

What is that all about? Are there "natural" sounds to the Human ear after all? How would certain far eastern music fit into this? I've heard older music from, say, China, and even if I don't like a piece, it never has that same painful effect on me as that Krenek symphony did. When I have negative (borderline physically) reactions to what people call "metal music", that is often because of the electrical instruments and screaming voices and repeated banging drums, not because of the notes themselves, if that makes any sense. In other words, if those same exact notes were performed by, I don't know, a string ensemble, I might hate it, but it wouldn't impact me the same way.

Again, this is all just me, but believe me when I say that I am not alone with my responses to a ton of "modern classical" music. Why is that the case? I know people can react with almost painful loathing to music labeled "atonal". But even if they exhibit pure derision or hatred I've never, ever heard of anyone reacting the same way to a piece from before 1850, for example. Why is that?

I'm not unsympathetic to this position, or at least to parts of it. The other night, at a new dance program in NY, the music included an electric guitar making rasping noises I found painful; and I recall a passage from one of Ligeti's bagatelles for wind quintet that featured very close intervals played on several of the instruments - quite painful. In Western society we do seem conditioned to respond more to tonally based music, but even so large percentages of audiences seem indifferent to very early music such as Dufay or Josquin des Prez. Yet I find nothing physically painful in anything by Krenek, Schoenberg, Boulez, Carter, etc. I think it's a matter of accepting that different musics have to be heard in different ways, and the expectations I bring to the composers I just mentioned are different from those I bring to Mozart, which in turn differ (to varying degrees) from those I bring to Dufay, to Coltrane, to the Beatles, to an Indian raga, to Chinese opera, to Bruckner, etc.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on October 03, 2007, 03:53:20 AM
Quote from: jochanaan on October 02, 2007, 05:03:16 PM
Guilty as charged!  And proud of it! ;D




Me too! Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire and the 2nd String Quartet are fascinating pieces. I always found the 3rd String Quartet to be the music equivalent of abject terror.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on October 03, 2007, 01:18:49 PM
Quote from: sonic1 on October 02, 2007, 06:22:11 PM
Why is modern music always labelled as tonally challenging. There were a lot of other important developments in 20th century music. Not all modern music is "atonal" or tonally challenging.

Hear, hear!
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: EmpNapoleon on October 03, 2007, 02:16:20 PM
Wait a minute.  Some people think their music is great, while some think the music of others is not so great.  I think I'm getting the hang of this!

Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on October 03, 2007, 06:30:12 PM
Quote from: EmpNapoleon on October 03, 2007, 02:16:20 PM
Wait a minute.  Some people think their music is great, while some think the music of others is not so great.  I think I'm getting the hang of this!

It only took 855 posts to arrive at this pithy conclusion.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: BachQ on October 03, 2007, 06:53:43 PM
Quote from: Larry Rinkel on October 03, 2007, 06:30:12 PM
It only took 855 posts to arrive at this pithy conclusion.

854 posts (the first post merely poses the question ........ and should not be included in the final count .......)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Larry Rinkel on October 03, 2007, 07:29:51 PM
Quote from: D Minor on October 03, 2007, 06:53:43 PM
854 posts (the first post merely poses the question ........ and should not be included in the final count .......)

Pedant!
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on October 04, 2007, 04:38:11 AM
Quote from: D Minor on October 03, 2007, 06:53:43 PM
854 posts (the first post merely poses the question ........ and should not be included in the final count .......)

But . . . EmpNapoleon's post was reply No. 855 . . . .

Quote« Reply #855 on: October 03, 2007, 06:16:20 PM »
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on October 04, 2007, 04:40:11 AM
Quote from: EmpNapoleon on October 03, 2007, 02:16:20 PM
Some people think their music is great, while some think the music of others is not so great.

And some think, "This whole notion of Greatness be hanged!"
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: jochanaan on October 04, 2007, 10:40:41 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on October 04, 2007, 04:40:11 AM
And some think, "This whole notion of Greatness be hanged!"
How can you hang something you can't define? ???
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on October 04, 2007, 10:46:20 AM
Hangin's too good for it, ya mean?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: dtwilbanks on October 04, 2007, 10:54:18 AM
And so on.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: jochanaan on October 04, 2007, 05:31:52 PM
Quote from: karlhenning on October 04, 2007, 10:46:20 AM
Hangin's too good for it, ya mean?
;D Well, maybe.  Until we can define it, maybe it's better ignored.  That's sometimes a fate worse than hanging. ;)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on October 07, 2007, 10:42:11 AM
Quote from: D Minor on September 28, 2007, 12:33:35 PM
We await your final draft, Greg ........
lol, my thoughts about "Greatness in Music" could never be sorted out into a single, compact little post.
last time i brought up the "charisma factor" in speakers, and said compared it to music.
of my many random thoughts that come up from time to time about this subject, i have a few more.
(warning, these thoughts are completely unorganized)

Maybe instead of trying to decide whether something is a masterpiece or not is just too limited, or even if it's just good or not. There's other adjectives you could use, such as "playful" or whatever. No matter how "good" a Haydn string quartet might be, or a short little Prokofiev piano piece, it won't have the same impact as something like a Wagner opera or Beethoven symphony on the public. The latter tend to be possible candidates for "masterpieces".

Masterpiece issue aside, what about just being "good"? uhhh i might get to that later

Also, another thought I've had is descriptions of music. Think of the same piece of music and describe it as if you liked it, and as if you hated it. You have opposite descriptions of the same thing. If you like the Rite of Spring, you can describe it as "A Powerful, adrenaline rush that really appeals to the more primitive side", if you hate it you can call it "Music that's more annoying than cats trying to sing." If you like Tchaikovsky's 6th, you can call it "Sad/Melancholy" if you hate it "sappy" or something.

So for a piece of music to be successful, you have to play it to the right audience and at the right time. Plus, it has to be "good." Maybe recognizing quality in music you don't like is just recognizing that it's likely to be liked by a lot of people, except for you. Like a percentage game or something.

anyways, i'm thinking too much now, time to watch cartoons
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Ten thumbs on October 07, 2007, 01:56:12 PM
Quote from: jochanaan on October 04, 2007, 10:40:41 AM
How can you hang something you can't define? ???
Great paintings get hung. ; ;)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: jochanaan on October 08, 2007, 10:03:22 PM
Quote from: greg on October 07, 2007, 10:42:11 AM
...So for a piece of music to be successful, you have to play it to the right audience and at the right time...
That's a definition of success.  But one aspect of greatness seems to be that the music can "succeed" with different audiences, again and again and again...
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on October 09, 2007, 01:03:51 PM
Quote from: jochanaan on October 08, 2007, 10:03:22 PM
That's a definition of success.  But one aspect of greatness seems to be that the music can "succeed" with different audiences, again and again and again...
that's a mysterious aspect.......
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: jochanaan on October 09, 2007, 04:33:26 PM
Quote from: greg on October 09, 2007, 01:03:51 PM
that's a mysterious aspect.......
Yes, indeed.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: longears on October 14, 2007, 05:23:48 AM
Quote from: jochanaan on October 08, 2007, 10:03:22 PM
That's a definition of success.  But one aspect of greatness seems to be that the music can "succeed" with different audiences, again and again and again...
And another that it can succeed with the same audience again and again and again.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on October 14, 2007, 05:29:15 AM
Quote from: longears on October 14, 2007, 05:23:48 AM
And another that it can succeed with the same audience again and again and again.




Cannibal Corpse  ;D ;)!!!
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: BachQ on October 14, 2007, 08:12:04 AM
Quote from: greg on October 07, 2007, 10:42:11 AM
Masterpiece issue aside, what about just being "good"? uhhh i might get to that later

Q: Would a composer ever deliberately write something that is NOT "good"?

IOW, if it's "good" to the composer, then who are we to judge/adjudge otherwise?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: zamyrabyrd on October 16, 2007, 02:59:11 AM
Don't know if this is the right thread, but as long as you're talking about "greatness", there is a GREAT master series by Daniel Barenboim on playing the Beethoven Piano Sonatas currently on Mezzo TV (France) . Probably this is recorded commercially somewhere or will be. (I'll buy it once I find it.) It's so interesting to hear the ideas informing his own performances (so you know why he did such and such) but more than that he shows how these works are the receptacles of Beethoven's own greatness.

Transcending experience and elevating it in art, which Beethoven was faced with in his own deafness, is true greatness. (It looks like I repeated "greatness" several times already, but I can't think of a better word. And that's why I placed this post here.)

ZB
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on October 16, 2007, 06:07:04 AM
It just plain belongs, zb.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on October 16, 2007, 06:08:01 AM
Quote from: Ten thumbs on October 07, 2007, 01:56:12 PM
Great paintings get hung.

But not hanged.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: BachQ on October 16, 2007, 06:13:27 AM
Quote from: zamyrabyrd on October 16, 2007, 02:59:11 AM
Transcending experience and elevating it in art, which Beethoven was faced with in his own deafness, is true greatness.

What does it mean to "transcend experience" ...... ?  The very act of "transcending" is itself an "experience" ........
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: zamyrabyrd on October 16, 2007, 09:11:03 AM
Quote from: D Minor on October 16, 2007, 06:13:27 AM
What does it mean to "transcend experience" ...... ?  The very act of "transcending" is itself an "experience" ........

Hello Dmitri Minor,

For the last 20 years of his Beethoven was practically shut in a stone vault of silence. However he continued to probe the spirit in music, not wallow in his misfortune. This is what one may call 'transcending experience'.

ZB
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: zamyrabyrd on October 16, 2007, 09:15:16 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on October 16, 2007, 06:07:04 AM
It just plain belongs, zb.

Thanks. While reading some of the replies here, I got the impression that the concept of greatness is not exactly agreed upon or if it exists at all. But if nothing else, it is a useful convention. Otherwise, everyone is reduced to the least common denominator (some notions of democracy or socialism).

ZB
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: quintett op.57 on October 16, 2007, 09:19:16 AM
Quote from: zamyrabyrd on October 16, 2007, 09:11:03 AM
Hello Dmitri Minor,

For the last 20 years of his Beethoven was practically shut in a stone vault of silence. However he continued to probe the spirit in music, not wallow in his misfortune. This is what one may call 'transcending experience'.

ZB
Not that transcending. The main problem for him was to manage to compose and hold his ear trumpet at the same time. Same with Smetana.
He sometimes had to play the piano with a stick he held between his teeth
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Ten thumbs on October 16, 2007, 12:34:35 PM
Quote from: karlhenning on October 16, 2007, 06:08:01 AM
But not hanged.
Well, I'll be . . . .
All music transcends our everyday experience.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Haffner on October 17, 2007, 06:39:16 AM
Quote from: D Minor on October 16, 2007, 06:13:27 AM
What does it mean to "transcend experience" ...... ?  The very act of "transcending" is itself an "experience" ........




This is a point that often confounded the Continental philosophers Sartre and Husserl. In fact, many analytical philosophers theorize that such a fact is what basically killed Phenomenology.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Guido on October 17, 2007, 06:41:35 AM
Quote from: JoshLilly on October 02, 2007, 07:30:34 AM
I've often wondered whether a lot of 20th (and now 21st) century music is less popular than older music because the composers have overstepped the line of what the human ear finds "naturally" pleasing. Naturally is probably not the right word, since I'm sure it's to a large extent culture-based, but I don't know any other word to use. I've heard symphonies from the 20th century that some people consider great, and I find that I can't even stand to hear them, they grate on me so badly. From before a certain chronological point, there may be music that I dislike, or even hate, but it never has that same impact on me, where I really can't even stand to have it playing in my presence. I know people will just say it's my "fault", but I seem to be very far from alone in this. For example, I don't like anything I've ever heard by Bruckner, but it's not so that I can't even stomach it if a CD of his music is playing near me. Some of his stuff, I really border on hate for it, but I'll live if someone is listening to a recording near me. But I heard some passages of a symphony by someone named Krenek, and I really couldn't stand the sound, it was physically unbearable to me. Obviously it is liked by some, but is it only me? How come many people have similar reactions? You pick the "worst" piece you can think of from the 18th century and play it for someone completely unfamiliar with "classical" music, and their response probably won't be physical revulsion, even though they think it's worthless, but playing many works of "modern classical" for them you can get some really drastic responses.

What is that all about? Are there "natural" sounds to the Human ear after all? How would certain far eastern music fit into this? I've heard older music from, say, China, and even if I don't like a piece, it never has that same painful effect on me as that Krenek symphony did. When I have negative (borderline physically) reactions to what people call "metal music", that is often because of the electrical instruments and screaming voices and repeated banging drums, not because of the notes themselves, if that makes any sense. In other words, if those same exact notes were performed by, I don't know, a string ensemble, I might hate it, but it wouldn't impact me the same way.

Again, this is all just me, but believe me when I say that I am not alone with my responses to a ton of "modern classical" music. Why is that the case? I know people can react with almost painful loathing to music labeled "atonal". But even if they exhibit pure derision or hatred I've never, ever heard of anyone reacting the same way to a piece from before 1850, for example. Why is that?

It might be more interesting to ask yourself why you can't stand the music so much.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: JoshLilly on October 17, 2007, 05:04:27 PM
So's your face!!  Q.E.D.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: jochanaan on October 17, 2007, 09:07:47 PM
Quote from: Ten thumbs on October 16, 2007, 12:34:35 PM
Well, I'll be . . . .
All music transcends our everyday experience.
ALL music?  Somehow I seriously doubt that. :o
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: longears on October 18, 2007, 05:01:19 AM
I experience music every day.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on October 20, 2007, 02:30:54 PM
Quote from: D Minor on October 14, 2007, 08:12:04 AM
Q: Would a composer ever deliberately write something that is NOT "good"?

IOW, if it's "good" to the composer, then who are we to judge/adjudge otherwise?
lol, let's hope they wouldn't try to  ;D
(well, there's always PDQ Bach  ;) )

i think it's more a matter of a composer trying to writing something he/she likes, but not being able to completely (it's easy to discover your own taste for harmony more than anything, but using that in combination with all the other aspects of music to make music that you like yourself isn't that easy!)

if it's "good" to the composer, it's likely to end up sounding "good" to many other people, but still the composer has to compare himself to the greats- is he even in the same league? Even if they think they're music is really good, most likely no. So their music will probably lost in the sea of "good" music instead of being recognized as great music.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: BachQ on October 20, 2007, 03:22:42 PM
Quote from: greg on October 20, 2007, 02:30:54 PM
lol, let's hope they wouldn't try to  ;D
(well, there's always PDQ Bach  ;) )

i think it's more a matter of a composer trying to writing something he/she likes, but not being able to completely

***
if it's "good" to the composer, it's likely to end up sounding "good" to many other people, but still the composer has to compare himself to the greats- is he even in the same league? Even if they think they're music is really good, most likely no. So their music will probably lost in the sea of "good" music instead of being recognized as great music.

Also, I suspect that composers may write some pieces which are "good" for certain purposes, or are "good" when viewed through certain lenses, but which may not measure up artistically in every respect or when viewed from  different lenses (e.g., Ravel's Bolero; Beethoven's Choral Fantasy or LvB's Consecration of the House; Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture; Saint-Saens' Carnival of the Animals) ...... At the same time, there are many examples of "specific-purpose" music which are "great" from any viewpoint (Handel's Water Music; Brahms Academic Festival Overture; Mozart's Haffner Serenade or Haffner Symphony; Dvorak's Slavonic Dances).
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: quintett op.57 on October 21, 2007, 10:18:07 AM
Quote from: D Minor on October 20, 2007, 03:22:42 PM
Also, I suspect that composers may write some pieces which are "good" for certain purposes, or are "good" when viewed through certain lenses, but which may not measure up artistically in every respect or when viewed from  different lenses (e.g., Ravel's Bolero; Beethoven's Choral Fantasy or LvB's Consecration of the House; Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture; Saint-Saens' Carnival of the Animals) ...... At the same time, there are many examples of "specific-purpose" music which are "great" from any viewpoint (Handel's Water Music; Brahms Academic Festival Overture; Mozart's Haffner Serenade or Haffner Symphony; Dvorak's Slavonic Dances).
Agree.
A piece like Bolero is great when you're in the mood for it. It seems to me that it's for one purpose, as you've said.
But in my opinion it's a less complete work than his quartet or his piano concerto which are rewarding in more different ways.

I believe what you've said is one of the most important ideas to be aware of in our debate.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on October 21, 2007, 10:29:30 AM
Quote from: D Minor on October 20, 2007, 03:22:42 PM
Also, I suspect that composers may write some pieces which are "good" for certain purposes, or are "good" when viewed through certain lenses, but which may not measure up artistically in every respect or when viewed from  different lenses (e.g., Ravel's Bolero; Beethoven's Choral Fantasy or LvB's Consecration of the House; Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture; Saint-Saens' Carnival of the Animals) ...... At the same time, there are many examples of "specific-purpose" music which are "great" from any viewpoint (Handel's Water Music; Brahms Academic Festival Overture; Mozart's Haffner Serenade or Haffner Symphony; Dvorak's Slavonic Dances).
yep, each piece of music serves it's purpose, that's why it's always good to at least know a little bit about the music before you listen  :)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Ten thumbs on October 23, 2007, 12:56:47 AM
Quote from: greg on October 21, 2007, 10:29:30 AM
yep, each piece of music serves it's purpose, that's why it's always good to at least know a little bit about the music before you listen  :)
The only thing is - what should one know?
If one hears for the first time a piece by a minor composer, there is a danger of prejudging it as being less than great. It is useful to know what the composer is trying to convey but beyond that one's mind should be open.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on October 23, 2007, 04:17:50 AM
Quote from: Ten thumbs on October 23, 2007, 12:56:47 AM
The only thing is - what should one know?

Volumes might be written . . . .
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Ten thumbs on October 24, 2007, 04:52:27 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on October 23, 2007, 04:17:50 AM
Volumes might be written . . . .
I think as little as possible. Perhaps just one sentence or even a single word.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: jochanaan on October 24, 2007, 03:46:10 PM
Quote from: Ten thumbs on October 24, 2007, 04:52:27 AM
I think as little as possible...
Just as well.  Thinking's a dangerous activity these days--especially if you're good at it. :o ;D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Ten thumbs on October 25, 2007, 11:52:06 AM
Quote from: jochanaan on October 24, 2007, 03:46:10 PM
Just as well.  Thinking's a dangerous activity these days--especially if you're good at it. :o ;D
Ah! Burnt out at last!
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Scriptavolant on October 25, 2007, 12:14:07 PM
Quote from: JoshLilly on October 02, 2007, 07:30:34 AM
Again, this is all just me, but believe me when I say that I am not alone with my responses to a ton of "modern classical" music. Why is that the case? I know people can react with almost painful loathing to music labeled "atonal". But even if they exhibit pure derision or hatred I've never, ever heard of anyone reacting the same way to a piece from before 1850, for example. Why is that?

Well, I've often asked myself this question too. If I think that there are people ready to cringe before a genius as Webern - only because their expectations of a fine pleasing melody are violated -, but at the same time they seem to have no problem in enjoying Alkan or Medtner or buying 10 different versions of Bax's symphonies, I'm often bewildered I admit it.
What's to say? One of the reasons is that music from the period you mentioned is usually much closer to the "natural" expectations of the average listener, which usually listens to music in search of melody, atmospheres, sentimentality and little more. Music from the past have had a lot more time to be understood.

Personally I'm with Aaron Copland when he writes that our time is characterized by a temporally narrowed interest in music. Say, music from 1810 to 1880 and that's all (almost all). he doesn't seem to accept the "atonality is unnatural" theory, instead he wrote that it is just a matter of habit. Our listeners just never listen to contemporary music, and that's why they don't like it. Pure and simple.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Ten thumbs on October 26, 2007, 01:47:53 PM
Quote from: Scriptavolant on October 25, 2007, 12:14:07 PM
Personally I'm with Aaron Copland when he writes that our time is characterized by a temporally narrowed interest in music. Say, music from 1810 to 1880 and that's all (almost all). he doesn't seem to accept the "atonality is unnatural" theory, instead he wrote that it is just a matter of habit. Our listeners just never listen to contemporary music, and that's why they don't like it. Pure and simple.
On the other hand, our interest in music has broadened because of the vast amount to be heard. I like Webern because he gets to the point. I like The Rite of Spring because its power is directed along a well defined course. Contemporary music does not have to be atonal although neither need it be tied to traditional harmonies. However, this absolute freedom leads to a contradiction. How can one create structure out of chaos? Some modern pieces seem to spend too much time lost at sea. Learn from Webern - get to the point.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Don on October 26, 2007, 02:34:15 PM
Quote from: jochanaan on October 24, 2007, 03:46:10 PM
Just as well.  Thinking's a dangerous activity these days--especially if you're good at it. :o ;D

There is a point where thinking damages getting things done - just ask Eusebius.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: DanielFullard on October 26, 2007, 05:25:22 PM
Greatness for me is in each one of our heads. Music, for me anyway, is a personal thing and the connection between the listener and the music is what counts. If one person says such and such is great then who are we to argue?

I know Im coming at it from a different angle but just thought Id add that
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: zamyrabyrd on October 26, 2007, 11:23:24 PM
Quote from: D Minor on October 20, 2007, 03:22:42 PM
Also, I suspect that composers may write some pieces which are "good" for certain purposes, or are "good" when viewed through certain lenses, but which may not measure up artistically in every respect or when viewed from  different lenses (e.g., Ravel's Bolero; Beethoven's Choral Fantasy or LvB's Consecration of the House; Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture; Saint-Saens' Carnival of the Animals) ......

I like the Carnival of the Animals, especially the "Pianists".

ZB
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: jochanaan on October 27, 2007, 06:03:43 PM
Quote from: zamyrabyrd on October 26, 2007, 11:23:24 PM
I like the Carnival of the Animals, especially the "Pianists".

ZB
"Some claim that pianists are human,
And quote the case of Mr. Truman.
Saint Saëns, upon the other hand,
Considered them a scurvy band.
Ape-like they are, he said, and simian,
Instead of normal men and wimian." --Ogden Nash ;D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: zamyrabyrd on October 27, 2007, 10:34:50 PM
Quote from: jochanaan on October 27, 2007, 06:03:43 PM
"Some claim that pianists are human,
And quote the case of Mr. Truman.
Saint Saëns, upon the other hand,
Considered them a scurvy band.
Ape-like they are, he said, and simian,
Instead of normal men and wimian." --Ogden Nash ;D

;D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: max on October 27, 2007, 11:16:45 PM
Greatness in Music...is relative to the observer/listener without whom there is NO GREATNESS period. If it doesn't 'echo' in someone's brain it becomes's a NONENTITY or not far removed!

There is no speed of light when it comes to greatness of whatever kind and when it comes down to music, these forums prove precisely that!

The value of human art in whatever manifestation is determined by humans and MOST humans don't give a crap about your 9th symphony or your b minor Mass. End of story!
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Scriptavolant on October 28, 2007, 08:57:33 AM
Quote from: Ten thumbs on October 26, 2007, 01:47:53 PM
On the other hand, our interest in music has broadened because of the vast amount to be heard. I like Webern because he gets to the point. I like The Rite of Spring because its power is directed along a well defined course. Contemporary music does not have to be atonal although neither need it be tied to traditional harmonies. However, this absolute freedom leads to a contradiction. How can one create structure out of chaos? Some modern pieces seem to spend too much time lost at sea. Learn from Webern - get to the point.

I agree on the point that contemporary music doesn't need to be necessarily atonal or cacophonic to be good music. But I don't see the point in opposing prejudicially music that is atonal, on the vague assumption that music must be melodic and agreeable in order to be music.
My impression is that many people simply cannot get the fact that greatness changes, aesthetics changes, the aim of the artist/composer changes; they simply take one fixed genre as if it were the ideal standard, sit on the chair and judge everything else from that viewpoint, not considering the fact that history of Art is - among other things - an history of renewal and innovation. That point prevent them to know a lot of great music in my opinion.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Ten thumbs on October 28, 2007, 02:10:21 PM
Quote from: Scriptavolant on October 28, 2007, 08:57:33 AM
I agree on the point that contemporary music doesn't need to be necessarily atonal or cacophonic to be good music. But I don't see the point in opposing prejudicially music that is atonal, on the vague assumption that music must be melodic and agreeable in order to be music.
My impression is that many people simply cannot get the fact that greatness changes, aesthetics changes, the aim of the artist/composer changes; they simply take one fixed genre as if it were the ideal standard, sit on the chair and judge everything else from that viewpoint, not considering the fact that history of Art is - among other things - an history of renewal and innovation. That point prevent them to know a lot of great music in my opinion.

I have nothing at all against atonality. My point is that without structure, the listener is left in a pea soup fog that only clears when the last note is played. There must be something to hang on to and I don't care whether that is agreeable or not.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: jochanaan on October 28, 2007, 04:03:01 PM
Quote from: Ten thumbs on October 28, 2007, 02:10:21 PM
I have nothing at all against atonality. My point is that without structure, the listener is left in a pea soup fog that only clears when the last note is played. There must be something to hang on to and I don't care whether that is agreeable or not.
Arnold Schoenberg felt the same way.  That's why he developed twelve-tone serialism. ;)

Many of the atonal and (especially) 12-tone pieces I know are very highly structured.  The structure doesn't always match our expectations, but it's there.  That's especially apparent in the music of the Second Viennese School (Schoenberg, Berg, Webern and their immediate pupils), Milton Babbitt, and Elliott Carter.  And in Edgard Varèse's music, although the structure is less evident, it's very strong. :D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Ten thumbs on October 29, 2007, 01:11:24 PM
I used to play some Berg from the library before they put most of the music into a stack. I tried Messiaen as well but my own music cabinet is full and I don't often buy now. I do have some quite difficult pieces such as Busoni's Sonatina Seconda and Szymanowski's Masques but nothing one could call truly modern.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on October 29, 2007, 03:37:30 PM
And the very use of the term structure carries some baggage.  Music and architecture (or other forms of civil engineering) are entirely different matters, working with entirely different materials.  Structure can be a useful simile, but let's understand at the outset that structure is a much more flexible concept in music than in the plastic arts from which we borrow the term.

Any piece whose logic a given listener doesn't twig, is apt to stand accusations of 'flaws in structure'.  But as jochanaan's remark hints, the music's "structure" reveals itself only to a receptive ear.  It is not all that long ago I read someone who felt that the Rakhmaninov piano concerti were 'structurally weak';  this does not tally at all with my own study of the Second and Third Concerti.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: jochanaan on October 29, 2007, 04:04:26 PM
Quote from: karlhenning on October 29, 2007, 03:37:30 PM
...It is not all that long ago I read someone who felt that the Rakhmaninov piano concerti were 'structurally weak';  this does not tally at all with my own study of the Second and Third Concerti.
Nor with my, shall we say, less studious acquaintance with them or any other of Rachmaninoff's works.

I'd say a good musical structure is one that works. 8)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on October 29, 2007, 04:13:41 PM
Well, and the Studies were quite a game of exploring 'structure' . . . I still have this feeling, that I kind of hope it works  8)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: jochanaan on October 29, 2007, 04:20:25 PM
It would have worked better if I could have wrapped my fingers around the notes a little more securely... :-[ ;D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on October 29, 2007, 04:21:47 PM
Well, I did write some notes which pose certain finger-wrapping challenges, no less for the clarinet than for the corno inglese . . . .  8)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: BachQ on October 29, 2007, 05:33:15 PM
Quote from: karlhenning on October 29, 2007, 03:37:30 PM
And the very use of the term structure carries some baggage.  Music and architecture (or other forms of civil engineering) are entirely different matters, working with entirely different materials.  Structure can be a useful simile, but let's understand at the outset that structure is a much more flexible concept in music than in the plastic arts from which we borrow the term.

Any piece whose logic a given listener doesn't twig, is apt to stand accusations of 'flaws in structure'.  But as jochanaan's remark hints, the music's "structure" reveals itself only to a receptive ear.  It is not all that long ago I read someone who felt that the Rakhmaninov piano concerti were 'structurally weak';  this does not tally at all with my own study of the Second and Third Concerti.

That's a well-structured post, Karl ........
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: greg on November 01, 2007, 07:24:55 AM
Quote from: Ten thumbs on October 28, 2007, 02:10:21 PM
I have nothing at all against atonality. My point is that without structure, the listener is left in a pea soup fog that only clears when the last note is played. There must be something to hang on to and I don't care whether that is agreeable or not.
i wonder if one of the things that seperates people who don't like atonal music from people who do is the ability to hear more structures- meaning it takes more of a solid form in their mind.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Ten thumbs on November 01, 2007, 09:00:42 AM
Quote from: The Poopy Flying Monkey on November 01, 2007, 07:24:55 AM
i wonder if one of the things that seperates people who don't like atonal music from people who do is the ability to hear more structures- meaning it takes more of a solid form in their mind.
There could be something in this. For instance, if one were to play eleven notes of a tone row, how many can correctly anticipate the final note? Without that ability, surprise becomes impossible.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: drogulus on November 02, 2007, 08:10:05 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on May 22, 2007, 11:06:27 AM


Can Nielsen really be as great as Bach, if I just feel that it is so?

     If you did feel that way, you might feel called upon to provide the appropriate reasoning which would be well suited to convince those who are persuadable on these points. Otherwise the answer would be no, not if you just feel it. It takes far more work than that to make a composer great. A devoted listenership over time, staunch defenders in high places, a convincing rationale based on "eternal truths", and so on. But as the philosophers say, "in principle", it could be done. :D

     Since Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart came first, they were the beneficiaries of the ideology of artistic greatness that has reigned for the past 2 centuries. It would be hard to displace them without abandoning the supporting apparatus, something that people are reluctant to do. They see greatness as a fact about the world, not something they happen to think and, uh, feel. It's an example of an idea that's very good at defending itself.

     It's a classic blind spot. We all know artistic judgments are time-bound and culture-specific, and have no trouble until we get into proximity with High Art and its defenders. Then it isn't your view that matters, but some abstract ideal outside of Space and Time. As I say, it takes a lot of work to make this plausible, and for some of us no amount of thundering from on high will suffice any more.

"Toto, get away from there...."

;)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on November 02, 2007, 08:58:44 AM
Interesting post, Ernie, thanks!
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: BachQ on November 02, 2007, 09:26:08 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on November 02, 2007, 08:58:44 AM
Interesting post, Ernie, thanks!


....... in contrast to your post, Karl .......
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on November 02, 2007, 10:29:35 AM
Sometimes one strives for just the right note of tedium, mon vieux
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: longears on November 03, 2007, 05:12:55 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on November 02, 2007, 10:29:35 AM
Sometimes one strives for just the right note of tedium, mon vieux
Are you discussing Wagner again, Karl? 
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: drogulus on November 03, 2007, 10:12:57 AM


     I have a better idea of what greatness in music isn't than I do what it is.

     It is either like the specific gravity of Mercury on the planet Krypton 10,000,000 years from now, after all intelligent life has been destroyed. That is, 13.534, just as it is here right now. Or, it's like the warm and fuzzy feeling I have for my cute little nonexistent puppy Zindeneuf, which, like a toothache, I indubitably have.

     It seems more like the latter than the former, and yet I don't give up on objective factors altogether. I just can't decide what role they play. Everyone cites them, but they don't decide things by themselves.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Papageno on December 13, 2007, 04:34:34 AM
I'm studying Kant's The Critique of Judgement right now.  Kant says that art cannot be beautiful in itself, the subject of beauty is defined by man.  Conversely there must be something of beauty in art itself so that we can say for example that Beethoven is better than the Beatles.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: longears on December 22, 2007, 06:33:29 AM
In other words, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."

Beethoven v Beatles?  Apples v ice cream.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Al Moritz on December 22, 2007, 11:12:19 AM
Quote from: Ten thumbs on November 01, 2007, 09:00:42 AM
There could be something in this. For instance, if one were to play eleven notes of a tone row, how many can correctly anticipate the final note? Without that ability, surprise becomes impossible.

Ouch, listening to twelve-tone music doesn't work that way. A twelve-tone row is just a structural construct, not necessary a "melody". Also, even if the row is used as "melody", things like shape and gestural expression become much more important in a work than the "aural searching" for each note. As Schoenberg said, "I write twelve-tone compositions, not twelve-tone compositions".

As Stockhausen once told me, "you understand my music much better than all those theorists". When I asked him what he meant, he said that "theorists are only interested in the numbers"--with "numbers" he apparently meant the serial proportions (which in his music do not just concern the pitches).
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Ten thumbs on December 24, 2007, 01:52:55 PM
Quote from: Al Moritz on December 22, 2007, 11:12:19 AM
Ouch, listening to twelve-tone music doesn't work that way. A twelve-tone row is just a structural construct, not necessary a "melody". Also, even if the row is used as "melody", things like shape and gestural expression become much more important in a work than the "aural searching" for each note. As Schoenberg said, "I write twelve-tone compositions, not twelve-tone compositions".

As Stockhausen once told me, "you understand my music much better than all those theorists". When I asked him what he meant, he said that "theorists are only interested in the numbers"--with "numbers" he apparently meant the serial proportions (which in his music do not just concern the pitches).
I'm not sure where your concept of melody comes into it. My point was that if a composer departs deliberately from a structural concept in order to surprise the listener, one would need to be very familiar with the sound of serial music to pick that up. Deviation has always been one of the prime tools of genius.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: lukeottevanger on December 24, 2007, 04:49:47 PM
Quote from: Ten thumbs on December 24, 2007, 01:52:55 PMDeviation has always been one of the prime tools of genius.

I'm sure, somewhere, Sean is reading that and feeling very flattered... >:D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: drogulus on December 27, 2007, 01:18:46 PM
Quote from: Papageno on December 13, 2007, 04:34:34 AM
I'm studying Kant's The Critique of Judgement right now.  Kant says that art cannot be beautiful in itself, the subject of beauty is defined by man.  Conversely there must be something of beauty in art itself so that we can say for example that Beethoven is better than the Beatles.

     If greatness is decided over time by audiences, how could what they decide be present all along in the music? They wouldn't be deciding anything, they would be "cringing before Webern". :D Even if you leave all such decisions in the hands of a succession of expert committees, you are still deciding something, like whether or not to pay attention to what they say.

     Incidentally, the inability to formally decide questions about modernism versus traditional understandings reveals the underlying problem, which is that any attempt to define music by criteria other than the effects it produces will break down. If it's music if it's accepted as such, than its greatness must also follow from its acceptance rather then whatever virtues it may be seen to have. I don't particularly like this, but I suppose Kant didn't either.

     Music is a form of communication that resists being categorized as either a medium for information or as information itself. If I talk about a great book I probably don't mean the cover or binding, but what is written in it. Music is the whole thing, and an overemphasis on conceptual innovation will detract from the point, which is how the music sounds to you. Questions of structure are instrumental in nature, not to be valued in themselves but rather as pass-through elements. Except, of course, by adepts like musicians and composers who sometimes are convinced that the tools are more important than what can be made with them. They are sometimes surprised to find that an audience can't be made to care.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on December 28, 2007, 09:27:43 AM
Quote from: drogulus on December 27, 2007, 01:18:46 PM
"cringing before Webern"

Brilliant!
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on December 28, 2007, 09:28:35 AM
Quote from: drogulus on December 27, 2007, 01:18:46 PM
Music is a form of communication that resists being categorized as either a medium for information or as information itself.

Yes, yes, a thousand times, yes.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: jochanaan on December 28, 2007, 07:19:16 PM
Quote from: drogulus on December 27, 2007, 01:18:46 PM
...Questions of structure are instrumental in nature, not to be valued in themselves but rather as pass-through elements. Except, of course, by adepts like musicians and composers who sometimes are convinced that the tools are more important than what can be made with them. They are sometimes surprised to find that an audience can't be made to care.
You might be surprised to learn just how few musicians (including composers) think that way. :)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: drogulus on December 29, 2007, 09:28:15 AM
Quote from: jochanaan on December 28, 2007, 07:19:16 PM
You might be surprised to learn just how few musicians (including composers) think that way. :)

      OK, how about this: Schoenberg did, Stravinsky didn't. So I don't think I would be surprised if the empiricists outnumbered the conceptualist faction, especially among performers, but even among composers they are probably the majority. They don't get no respect, no respect at all.....
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on December 29, 2007, 05:52:39 PM
Quote from: drogulus on December 29, 2007, 09:28:15 AM
      OK, how about this: Schoenberg did

You think that Schoenberg was "convinced that the tools are more important than what can be made with them"?

What an extraordinary claim, Ernie.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: jochanaan on December 29, 2007, 06:14:48 PM
Quote from: drogulus on December 29, 2007, 09:28:15 AM
      OK, how about this: Schoenberg did, Stravinsky didn't...
Wait, wait!  Are we talking about the same Schoenberg?  Arnold, who said, "A Chinese poet speaks Chinese, but what does he SAY?" :o
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on December 29, 2007, 07:49:31 PM
Ernie is mistaken both in supposing that Schoenberg "valued" tools over what can be made with them, and in supposing that Schoenberg thought of music in terms of such discrete "parts."  A mallet is obviously entirely separate from a cabinet made with it;  but music is an entirely different matter.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: longears on December 30, 2007, 05:03:06 AM
Quote from: jochanaan on December 29, 2007, 06:14:48 PM
Wait, wait!  Are we talking about the same Schoenberg?  Arnold, who said, "A Chinese poet speaks Chinese, but what does he SAY?" :o
Riposte of the day!

Ain't it grand when intellectualism doesn't poison the well of the intellect!?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: drogulus on December 30, 2007, 06:38:26 AM
    No, I'm right. By tools I mean high concepts like "the future of German music" (as well as more specifically musical concepts like the idea of "unprincipled harmony"). Thinking that composition can be governed by some form of historical necessity is exactly the kind of misplaced "intellectualism" I had in mind. Taruskins review in TNR (http://www.tnr.com/story_print.html?id=f3839c75-3724-4154-adc4-e0638e30448a) addresses this from the vantage point of critics and elite audiences who tend to drive music towards the esoteric.
   
    And yes, Schoenberg valued his conceptions more highly than how his music sounded. You must make a choice to go with the plan or follow an "unprincipled" course like most composers do, subordinating any scheme to the overall goal of making music rather than a treatise in sound. What some of you may have missed it that this is obvious to even unschooled listeners, who intuit quite correctly that the message is "stay out". And stay out is exactly what they do.

    Taruskin writes:

These values are now a little more than two centuries old, deriving from a discourse that originated with Moses Mendelssohn and Immanuel Kant in the late eighteenth century, made its first beachhead on musical terrain in the work of E.T.A. Hoffmann in the first decade of the nineteenth century, reached an apogee with Schopenhauer, and had Adorno, who died in 1969, as its last authentic apostle. Although it began as an ethnocentric creed and continues to have German epigones, its chief bastion is now the Anglophone academy. (When I vented a rather vehement anti-Adornian position, somewhat along the lines of what will follow here, before a German audience in Berlin last year and encountered surprisingly little resistance, I asked one of my hosts about it and was told, "Oh my dear, Adorno is your problem now.")

The main tenet of the creed is the defense of the autonomy of the human subject as manifested in art that is created out of a purely aesthetic, hence disinterested, impulse. Such art is without utilitarian purpose (although, as Kant famously insisted, it is "purposive"), but it serves as the symbolic embodiment of human freedom and as the vehicle of transcendent metaphysical experience. This is the most asocial definition of artistic value ever promulgated. Artists, responsible to themselves alone, provide a model of human self-realization. All social demands on the artist--whether made by church, state, or paying public--and all social or commercial mediation are inimical to the authenticity of the creative product.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on December 30, 2007, 07:01:03 AM
Quote from: drogulus on December 30, 2007, 06:38:26 AM
No, I'm right.

Naturally;  and someday when all we benighted people who disagree with you see the light, we will agree with you in your entire rightness.

Quote from: ErnieBy tools I mean high concepts like "the future of German music" (as well as more specifically musical concepts like the idea of "unprincipled harmony"). Thinking that composition can be governed by some form of historical necessity is exactly the kind of misplaced "intellectualism" I had in mind.

Ernie, you still can't make tidy statements about the composer thinking this or that more important;  for one reason, because there is no tidy mechanism which demonstrates how various theories and high concepts result in such-and-so music, and not in any other music;  nor which demonstrates how various theories and high concepts result in such-and-so music, such that no other theories (or absence/renunciation of them) can result in music of much the same profile.

Sit down, and take a deep breath, Ernieyou are the one here who is trying to bend everything to your nice, neat high theory;  you are the one losing sight of the music (though not losing sight of your distaste for the shadow of the music).
Quote from: ErnieTaruskins review in TNR addresses this from the vantage point of critics and elite audiences who tend to drive music towards the esoteric.

I'm sure that would be interesting if I read it, Ernie;  but we are not discussing "the vantage point of critics and elite audiences who tend to drive music towards the esoteric";  we are discussing Schoenberg, a man who made music.
   
Quote from: ErnieAnd yes, Schoenberg valued his conceptions more highly than how his music sounded. You must make a choice to go with the plan or follow an "unprincipled" course like most composers do, subordinating any scheme to the overall goal of making music rather than a treatise in sound. What some of you may have missed it that this is obvious to even unschooled listeners, who intuit quite correctly that the message is "stay out". And stay out is exactly what they do.

You should really get out of your bubble more, Ernie.  This is all an admirable tidy theory constructed upon your not getting this or that music.  You know better than Levine, is that it?  Levine hears/plays the music, and his understanding of its message is "come in," and he does.  Many listeners do, Ernie.  But that brute fact is inconvenient to your "high theory," isn't it?

Quote from: ErnieTaruskin writes:

These values are now a little more than two centuries old, deriving from a discourse that originated with Moses Mendelssohn and Immanuel Kant in the late eighteenth century, made its first beachhead on musical terrain in the work of E.T.A. Hoffmann in the first decade of the nineteenth century, reached an apogee with Schopenhauer, and had Adorno, who died in 1969, as its last authentic apostle. Although it began as an ethnocentric creed and continues to have German epigones, its chief bastion is now the Anglophone academy. (When I vented a rather vehement anti-Adornian position, somewhat along the lines of what will follow here, before a German audience in Berlin last year and encountered surprisingly little resistance, I asked one of my hosts about it and was told, "Oh my dear, Adorno is your problem now.")

The main tenet of the creed is the defense of the autonomy of the human subject as manifested in art that is created out of a purely aesthetic, hence disinterested, impulse. Such art is without utilitarian purpose (although, as Kant famously insisted, it is "purposive"), but it serves as the symbolic embodiment of human freedom and as the vehicle of transcendent metaphysical experience. This is the most asocial definition of artistic value ever promulgated. Artists, responsible to themselves alone, provide a model of human self-realization. All social demands on the artist--whether made by church, state, or paying public--and all social or commercial mediation are inimical to the authenticity of the creative product.


I'm a composer, and I have ideas about what I write, and ideas about various kinds of music, generally and specifically.

I might read that long disquisition you've pasted in Ernie;  only I get the message "stay out," and I will.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: (poco) Sforzando on December 30, 2007, 07:09:58 AM
Quote from: drogulus on December 30, 2007, 06:38:26 AM
    No, I'm right. By tools I mean high concepts like "the future of German music" (as well as more specifically musical concepts like the idea of "unprincipled harmony"). Thinking that composition can be governed by some form of historical necessity is exactly the kind of misplaced "intellectualism" I had in mind. Taruskins review in TNR (http://www.tnr.com/story_print.html?id=f3839c75-3724-4154-adc4-e0638e30448a) addresses this from the vantage point of critics and elite audiences who tend to drive music towards the esoteric.
   
    And yes, Schoenberg valued his conceptions more highly than how his music sounded. You must make a choice to go with the plan or follow an "unprincipled" course like most composers do, subordinating any scheme to the overall goal of making music rather than a treatise in sound. What some of you may have missed it that this is obvious to even unschooled listeners, who intuit quite correctly that the message is "stay out". And stay out is exactly what they do.

When Webern (however naively and inaccurately) hoped that someday his postman would be whistling 12-tone rows, was his message to "stay out"? When Berg wrote (and I can't find the quotation right now) that he wanted listeners to Wozzeck not to pay attention to the various technical forms but to concentrate on the tragedy of the demented and downtrodden Johann Franz Wozzeck, was his message to "stay out"? When Stockhausen wrote of his Carré that "I wish that this music could impart some inner peace, expanse, and concentration; an awareness that we have a lot of time, if we take it," was his message to "stay out"? Sounds to me as if each of these composers was most definitely "subordinating any scheme to the overall goal of making music."

But "thinking that composition can be governed by some form of historical necessity" is an accusation that can be levelled at Wagner and his contemporary advocates of "Music of the Future," no less than Schoenberg. And perhaps even of earlier composers like Machaut and Monteverdi. The issue, however, is not what the composer may have "intended," but what he achieved in his music, and while it can't be denied that the audience for Schoenberg has remained relatively small, there is a small but passionate following for his music and that of the other composers I've mentioned above.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: drogulus on December 30, 2007, 07:22:07 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on December 30, 2007, 07:01:03 AM
This is all an admirable tidy theory constructed upon your not getting this or that music.  You know better than Levine, is that it?  Levine hears/plays the music, and his understanding of its message is "come in," and he does.  Many listeners do, Ernie.  But that brute fact is inconvenient to your "high theory," isn't it?



     It's not very tidy, I admit. And there's no reason why I can't enjoy whatever music I like, whatever obsessions drive the composer. I'm noting certain trends which affect the decisions of composers, audiences and performers, and act to condition "Greatness in Music" as a general idea. There's nothing very novel in my remarks. I was glad to see Taruskin saying similar things. I don't require this, but it's good to see.

     Karl, when I say I'm right, all I mean is that I've thought about it and I'm not ready to substitute your judgment for mine. It doesn't mean I won't listen to what you say. I sometimes change my mind, too.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on December 30, 2007, 07:22:48 AM
I am also suspicious of notions of an "overall goal of making music," if those notions theorize that Webern, or Schoenberg, is 'beyond the pale.'

If Schoenberg's message, "high theory," whatever was "stay out" . . . why did Gershwin want to take lessons with him? Why did Oscar Levant commission the Piano Concerto?

Why didn't these good people, who had much warmer sense of the "overall goal of making music," apparently, have the sense to "stay out"?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on December 30, 2007, 07:35:03 AM
Quote from: drogulus on December 30, 2007, 07:22:07 AM
And there's no reason why I can't enjoy whatever music I like, whatever obsessions drive the composer.

Sure, Ernie.

Quote from: ErnieKarl, when I say I'm right, all I mean is that I've thought about it and I'm not ready to substitute your judgment for mine. It doesn't mean I won't listen to what you say. I sometimes change my mind, too.

That's quite a nuanced reading of "No, I'm right";  but now that you explain what you meant, I have no quarrel with that explanation.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: drogulus on December 30, 2007, 07:43:23 AM
Quote from: Sforzando on December 30, 2007, 07:09:58 AM
When Webern (however naively and inaccurately) hoped that someday his postman would be whistling 12-tone rows, was his message to "stay out"?

     Yes, I think so, but not as a matter of conscious intention. Thinking the postman will whistle your tunes means that you are bewitched by the same idea that you wish to promulgate. Geez, this is not that difficult! Why can't composers have unpopular ideas and labor under the misapprehension that one day the audience will catch up? And why can't they be led to this by some rather unfortunate ideas about the teleology of German music? I think that's what happened.

Quote from: karlhenning on December 30, 2007, 07:22:48 AM
I am also suspicious of notions of an "overall goal of making music," if those notions theorize that Webern, or Schoenberg, is 'beyond the pale.'


      They're not beyond the Pale for me.

      I do think that composers can fall under influences they would be better off without and still compose great music.

     
Quote from: karlhenning on December 30, 2007, 07:22:48 AM


If Schoenberg's message, "high theory," whatever was "stay out" . . . why did Gershwin want to take lessons with him? Why did Oscar Levant commission the Piano Concerto?

Why didn't these good people, who had much warmer sense of the "overall goal of making music," apparently, have the sense to "stay out"?

       The higher up the intellectual and artistic pecking order you go, the more attractive these ideas about the autonomy of Art become. They don't appeal to the general public much. Gershwin and Levant are exactly the sort of people who would respond. For them Schoenberg was the badge of cultural authority they hungered for. They had popular acceptance, now they "really wanted to direct".  :)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on December 30, 2007, 07:54:04 AM
Quote from: drogulus on December 30, 2007, 07:43:23 AM
Yes, I think so, but not as a matter of conscious intention. Thinking the postman will whistle your tunes means that you are bewitched by the same idea that you wish to promulgate. Geez, this is not that difficult! Why can't composers have unpopular ideas and labor under the misapprehension that one day the audience will catch up? And why can't they be led to this by some rather unfortunate ideas about the teleology of German music? I think that's what happened.

Mostly good thought, Ernie.  I still think you're not quite doing Webern justice with the verb promulgateWebern was a shy man, and in his lifetime, he was not much of a promulgator, not of his own music.  He wrote music pretty much from his own inner convictions;  at some of the intimate concert settings that the Society (whose exact name eludes me at the moment), he heard some of his music performed.  (I am not saying that he wrote his music, and didn't care about performance.)

We may here be taking the remark out of the writer's actual intention.  Maybe Webern saying that someday the postmen would be whistling his music, was not strictly speaking the naive pipe-dream which from the vantage-point of this discussion, it sounds.  Maybe it was a composer discovering the kind of music he wants to write, which is already a kind of work to 'determine that stage';  and maybe that remark was simply a comparatively innocent remark of the composer assuring himself that what he was doing musically, it is okay that he is doing that.

Quote from: ErnieI do think that composers can fall under influences they would be better off without and still compose great music.

I can probably agree with the principle;  I've wound up shedding various influences over the years (some of them imposed, some of them voluntarily engaged).  I'm cautious of using this as a cudgel.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: drogulus on December 30, 2007, 08:07:36 AM


      The whole business of high art ideology can be seen to proceed in 2 stages, or alternatvely as a gradual intensification, if you will. The first stage would start with Beethoven as the subject and unwitting founder of the artist-as-hero cult, with Wagner as as the successor who most consciously took up the mantle. But it would be a mistake to think this was all worked out by an individual.

      The second stage, or perhaps just the entailment that had to come (yechh!....too much Necessity! >:() would be the Vienna Circle. I see ultramodernism as an intensification of the same ideas the Late Romantics labored under using different means.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on December 30, 2007, 08:11:04 AM
Another angle on the postman remark:

One of Webern's musical activities was, he was a chorus master.  Some of the choruses he led, were not dissimilar to (say) the Tanglewood Festival Chorus.  That is, the ensemble is not composed of professional singers, not people who dedicate their vocation to vocal performance;  but people who do other work in the community (some of them postmen, perhaps) but who sing with enough ability and application, that they can take part in professional-quality performances of oratorios, &c.  (IIRC, Webern conducted the premiere of Mahler's Das klagende Lied.)

So perhaps Webern's remark is in part a matter of the comparatively conservative optimism, that his music will be performed more in future;  and when chorus members rehearse a piece a number of times, in preparing a polished performance, the music sticks in their inner ears, and they do find themselves humming it a lot.

Put in this fashion, it doesn't seem impossibly naive to have a postman singing a twelve-tone row.  The Tanglewood Festival Chorus a couple of seasons back performed Schoenberg's A Survivor from Warsaw (another work which, if its message is "stay out," I'm not getting the message, and not getting it big-time).

Schoenberg famously sets the ancient prayer, Sh'ma Yisroel, to a twelve-tone row. Really, I do not think it inconceivable, that a postman in the Boston area might have hummed that twelve-tone row.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on December 30, 2007, 08:11:55 AM
Quote from: drogulus on December 30, 2007, 08:07:36 AM
I see ultramodernism as an intensification of the same ideas the Late Romantics labored under using different means.

There is certainly something to this.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: longears on December 30, 2007, 08:46:01 AM
Quote from: drogulus on December 30, 2007, 07:43:23 AM
The higher up the intellectual and artistic pecking order you go, the more attractive these ideas about the autonomy of Art become.
(http://www.buzzlife.com/forums/images/smilies/hysterical.gif) This is the most unintentionally hilarious thing you've said in weeks, Ernie.  By the way, "the higher up the intellectual pecking order you go," the more self-impressed mediocrities you find.  I've known very few really bright people whom I would denigrate as "intellectuals," and very few intellectuals of more than high-normal intelligence--but they sure do think highly of themselves! (http://www.buzzlife.com/forums/images/smilies/hysterical.gif)

QuoteGershwin and Levant are exactly the sort of people who would respond. For them Schoenberg was the badge of cultural authority they hungered for. They had popular acceptance, now they "really wanted to direct".  :)
And this is intentionally funny, thank you very much  ;) , and possibly insightful as well! 
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: knight66 on December 30, 2007, 09:05:50 AM
I did know someone in Edinburgh who in all sincerity described himself as a philosopher. He was not gainfully employed; neither did I hear him say anything remarkable, apart from the aforementioned. I have known some seriously clever people; but I cannot recall any of them indicating directly that they were brainboxes.

Mike
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: drogulus on December 30, 2007, 09:50:26 AM
       Autonomy of Art ideas are attractive because it puts the Artist/Thinker in the drivers seat, so the Gershwins ask the Schoenbergs how to do things, rather than the other way round which Justice would demand. :)

       OK, that wasn't very unintentional.  ;)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: jochanaan on December 30, 2007, 07:54:48 PM
Quote from: drogulus on December 30, 2007, 09:50:26 AM
       Autonomy of Art ideas are attractive because it puts the Artist/Thinker in the drivers seat, so the Gershwins ask the Schoenbergs how to do things, rather than the other way round which Justice would demand...
Why would Justice demand this? ???
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on December 31, 2007, 04:40:00 AM
I think (maybe) Ernie was being a wee bit wry there, jochanaan . . . .
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: jochanaan on December 31, 2007, 08:09:39 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on December 31, 2007, 04:40:00 AM
I think (maybe) Ernie was being a wee bit wry there, jochanaan . . . .
Perhaps; but I'd like to see how he responds...
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on December 31, 2007, 09:32:44 AM
Verily, the question abideth.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on May 13, 2008, 04:23:19 AM
(* Jeevesian cough *)

This emerged from the "most intelligent composer" thread.

James makes a point about professional consensus. (http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,7504.msg182013.html#msg182013)

I slightly expand thereupon. (http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,7504.msg182016.html#msg182016)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on July 09, 2009, 07:54:26 AM
Quote[C]an you ever really understand someone else's opinion or taste if it doesn't agree with your own?

A fine question worth considering, I think.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: jochanaan on July 10, 2009, 10:43:16 AM
Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on July 09, 2009, 07:54:26 AM
A fine question worth considering, I think.
It takes being willing to set aside your own tastes for must a moment and asking yourself, "If I were this other person--had his personality and experience and preferences--would I think the same?"  Not an easy exercise even for the most self-aware among us...
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on July 10, 2009, 10:53:21 AM
No, but like many none-too-easy exercises, most worthwhile.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: drogulus on July 10, 2009, 01:35:26 PM
Quote from: longears on December 30, 2007, 08:46:01 AM
(http://www.buzzlife.com/forums/images/smilies/hysterical.gif) This is the most unintentionally hilarious thing you've said in weeks, Ernie.  By the way, "the higher up the intellectual pecking order you go," the more self-impressed mediocrities you find.  I've known very few really bright people whom I would denigrate as "intellectuals," and very few intellectuals of more than high-normal intelligence--but they sure do think highly of themselves! (http://www.buzzlife.com/forums/images/smilies/hysterical.gif)


     I was not referring to self-described intellectuals specifically. And I don't see a problem with identifying Schoenberg as an intellectual. I don't use the term in an ironic sense.

     
QuoteAutonomy of Art ideas are attractive because it puts the Artist/Thinker in the drivers seat, so the Gershwins ask the Schoenbergs how to do things, rather than the other way round which Justice would demand...

Quote from: jochanaan on December 30, 2007, 07:54:48 PM
Why would Justice demand this? ???

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on December 31, 2007, 04:40:00 AM
I think (maybe) Ernie was being a wee bit wry there, jochanaan . . . .

     Yes, that was what I was a wee bit being. :) Though the serious point can be made that Schoenberg was right in thinking that Gershwin didn't need his help. And if some composers might be led by Autonomy of Art ideas to imagine 12-tone postmen a similar use of such ideas is found among modernist listeners who classify music according to its purported progressive content. I don't see this as a problem as an exercise in personal taste-making. You can like music for whatever reason you can come up with. It does play a role when listeners try to make general rules about the kind of music one ought to listen to. Not just because the ideas are progressive, since the same problem arises with the rule-making of conservatives who say civilization will collapse if it isn't sustained by constant booster shots of 19th century tonality. Both sides think the world goes to hell with the wrong kind of art. Neither side sees change in art as organic, that is mostly not under the control of ideas.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: jochanaan on July 10, 2009, 05:34:38 PM
Quote from: drogulus on July 10, 2009, 01:35:26 PM
...the serious point can be made that Schoenberg was right in thinking that Gershwin didn't need his help.
I'd say Arnold was right.  They were two very different geniuses. :)
Quote from: drogulus on July 10, 2009, 01:35:26 PMAnd if some composers might be led by Autonomy of Art ideas to imagine 12-tone postmen a similar use of such ideas is found among modernist listeners who classify music according to its purported progressive content. I don't see this as a problem as an exercise in personal taste-making. You can like music for whatever reason you can come up with. It does play a role when listeners try to make general rules about the kind of music one ought to listen to. Not just because the ideas are progressive, since the same problem arises with the rule-making of conservatives who say civilization will collapse if it isn't sustained by constant booster shots of 19th century tonality. Both sides think the world goes to hell with the wrong kind of art. Neither side sees change in art as organic, that is mostly not under the control of ideas.
Trying to regulate taste is an exercise in futility.  All I and most other "modernists" are trying to do is to encourage people to give modern music a chance, for the art's sake.  They might be surprised at what they find if they only LISTEN! :)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: snyprrr on July 10, 2009, 06:01:53 PM
Can't I understand something without having to accept/tolerate it?
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Dancing Divertimentian on July 10, 2009, 06:24:05 PM
Quote from: snyprrr on July 10, 2009, 06:01:53 PM
Can't I understand something without having to accept/tolerate it?

Snyprrr, I don't see this as any different than the Schubert exercise you recently went through. First you held Schubert in disdain, while accusing him of all manner of vagaries; then I jumped in and forced you to actually spend time with Schubert before passing judgment; later the tide turned and Schubert seemed to open up to you; and finally you accepted Schubert on his own terms and began to praise him.

Remember?

Same thing here. Sometimes it takes effort to appreciate something. Right? :)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: DavidW on July 10, 2009, 06:36:19 PM
Well you can't blame me for thinking he was Paulb when I first got here! :D

Anyway Mr Snipper, tolerance is not the same as liking.  If you understanding something, you can tolerate it.  You don't have to like it.  I'm sure that Karl understands Mahler's music, but he dislikes it anyway.  The disliking part is a matter of taste, tolerating something is a matter of common sense. :)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Dancing Divertimentian on July 10, 2009, 07:19:27 PM
Quote from: DavidW on July 10, 2009, 06:36:19 PM
Well you can't blame me for thinking he was Paulb when I first got here! :D

;)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: jochanaan on July 12, 2009, 12:34:18 PM
Quote from: snyprrr on July 10, 2009, 06:01:53 PM
Can't I understand something without having to accept/tolerate it?
You can.  But when it's music, mere understanding often leads to greater acceptance, tolerance, and yes, sometimes love. :)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on November 24, 2009, 04:30:58 AM
Quote from: jochanaan on July 12, 2009, 12:34:18 PM
You can.  But when it's music, mere understanding often leads to greater acceptance, tolerance, and yes, sometimes love. :)

In the preface to a new (and equal parts marvelous and readable) history-cum-listening-guide of/to Jazz, the authors briefly mention the importance of empathy in evaluating music.

Quote from: George on November 23, 2009, 12:15:25 PM
If there really is no objectivity, then it must be impossible to prove it. No objectivity means that all positions are subjective and therefore no one is in a position to prove that objectivity exists.

George's post has the twin virtues of elegance and simplicity;  and as a conditional statement, its elegance and simplicity are further graced with Truth.  Remove that if, and the statement becomes an absurdity – for it is then a bald contradiction:  an attempt to claim as objective truth the statement that there is no such matter as objectivity.

Thus, I enjoy George's post for its 'containment of grace' — that is, for both the truth and beauty of its expression, and for its wise limitation.

It is also, in that sensibly limited way, an important component in the ongoing conversation about music.

Equally, I enjoyed Harry's response, "Absolutely true,"  for its subtle good humor.  George's statement is a conditional, so that its truth is dependent on that condition;  describing such a statement as absolutely true, is a mate winking over a pint.

If the sun is shining, then the light through the windows will warm the kitchen, and the morning glories will open.

This statement is true;  this statement is regularly true;  and yet (obviously) this statement is not always true.  Its truth is dependent upon a condition, although that condition is regularly dependable.

All that, is equally applicable to George's axiom.

This forum is a wonderful 'virtual place';  I treasure the variety of participants, the diversity of geography and of musical background, the lively exchange of opinion, the great good humor.  It would be an unbearably sad place, IMO, if music were in fact a field of human endeavor in which there is no objectivity.  (And of course, if this were true, that there is no objectivity in the field of music, we should all go on crusade to abolish music departments in places of higher learning, for their practice would in essence be a lie, wouldn't it?  Our love of the truth would demand action, I should think.)   To briefly repeat what has been said on this forum repeatedly and at greater depth before, there are both subjective and objective elements in the communal endeavor of evaluating cultural artifacts — I thought Jen's illustration with the two wines (one of which is definitely a 'wine' in scare-quotes) admirably apt — and the fact that we all readily identify subjective components in the process does not somehow 'nullify' the objective component.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: George on November 24, 2009, 05:01:44 AM
Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on November 24, 2009, 04:30:58 AM
George's post has the twin virtues of elegance and simplicity;  and as a conditional statement, its elegance and simplicity are further graced with Truth.  Remove that if, and the statement becomes an absurdity – for it is then a bald contradiction:  an attempt to claim as objective truth the statement that there is no such matter as objectivity.

Thus, I enjoy George's post for its 'containment of grace' — that is, for both the truth and beauty of its expression, and for its wise limitation.

Thanks very much for your kind (or at least that's how I subjectively experienced them  ;) ) words.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: jlaurson on November 24, 2009, 06:40:46 AM
Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on November 24, 2009, 04:30:58 AM
I thought Jen's Jens' [subtle, but the difference between male and female] illustration with the two wines (one of which is definitely a 'wine' in scare-quotes) apt...

...and never has the phrase 'scare quotes' been more apt. 
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on November 24, 2009, 07:04:19 AM
Sorry about the misplaced foot apostrophe.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Brahmsian on November 24, 2009, 07:46:28 AM
I remember this was one of my favorite threads.  I think I had a few dissonant chords with Karl on here.   8)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: karlhenning on November 24, 2009, 08:14:47 AM
Then, too, I know many a dissonant chord which I like mighty well : )
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: starrynight on November 30, 2009, 10:54:46 AM
Quote from: snyprrr on July 10, 2009, 06:01:53 PM
Can't I understand something without having to accept/tolerate it?

Every style has richer more inventive pieces in it alongside more average stuff, not everyone wants to keep listening to stuff which is just average (or worse).
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Catison on December 10, 2009, 08:42:58 PM
Great music is great.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: jochanaan on December 11, 2009, 04:45:08 PM
Quote from: Catison on December 10, 2009, 08:42:58 PM
Great music is great.
Ah, that begs so many questions!  Why?  Who says?  What makes it? :D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Brahmsian on September 03, 2011, 10:21:34 AM
Bump!   8)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: DavidRoss on September 03, 2011, 10:57:49 AM
Thank you, Ray, for resurrecting this thread.  Had you not, I would have missed this wonderful post by Karl:

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on November 24, 2009, 04:30:58 AM
This forum is a wonderful 'virtual place';  I treasure the variety of participants, the diversity of geography and of musical background, the lively exchange of opinion, the great good humor. It would be an unbearably sad place, IMO, if music were in fact a field of human endeavor in which there is no objectivity.  (And of course, if this were true, that there is no objectivity in the field of music, we should all go on crusade to abolish music departments in places of higher learning, for their practice would in essence be a lie, wouldn't it?  Our love of the truth would demand action, I should think.)   To briefly repeat what has been said on this forum repeatedly and at greater depth before, there are both subjective and objective elements in the communal endeavor of evaluating cultural artifacts — I thought Jens's illustration with the two wines (one of which is definitely a 'wine' in scare-quotes) admirably apt — and the fact that we all readily identify subjective components in the process does not somehow 'nullify' the objective component.[/font]

The statement I italicized perfectly captures what keeps drawing me back.  I might not know "greatness" in music, but I sure know greatness in internet forums, and its name is GMG!
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Karl Henning on April 06, 2013, 05:11:27 AM
A blogger suggests what Greatness in Music (http://www.classicaltyro.com/p/blog-page.html) is.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Ten thumbs on April 06, 2013, 02:06:38 PM
Quote from: karlhenning on April 06, 2013, 05:11:27 AM
A blogger suggests what Greatness in Music (http://www.classicaltyro.com/p/blog-page.html) is.

This is very reasonable really but it does suggest another category, viz - Might have been great music - if it had ever had the chance to enter the public consciousness.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Karl Henning on July 15, 2013, 04:56:12 AM
Quote from: Brahmsian on September 03, 2011, 10:21:34 AM
Bump!   8)

And bump some more!

An opinion piece in The New York Times, "Mozart VS. The Beatles":

But the danger for many of us is that love of popular art is so easy, so comfortable, so insisted on by our commercialized environment that the less accessible world of high art is ignored. (http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/14/mozart-vs-the-beatles/)
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Florestan on July 15, 2013, 06:44:37 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on July 15, 2013, 04:56:12 AM
And bump some more!

An opinion piece in The New York Times, "Mozart VS. The Beatles":

But the danger for many of us is that love of popular art is so easy, so comfortable, so insisted on by our commercialized environment that the less accessible world of high art is ignored. (http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/14/mozart-vs-the-beatles/)

From the above, this cartoon

(http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2013/07/14/opinion/14stone-img/14stone-img-tmagArticle.jpg)

Who's the guy, I wonder? Alfred Brendel? Maurizio Pollini? Arturo Benedetti-Michelangeli? Claudio Arrau?...  ;D
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Karl Henning on July 15, 2013, 07:05:11 AM
Not mad about the cartoon.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Florestan on July 15, 2013, 07:13:49 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on July 15, 2013, 07:05:11 AM
Not mad about the cartoon.

Yes, it's utter rubbish and rather at odd with the content of the article.

This (http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/w/woolf/virginia/w91d/chapter22.htm), instead, to which the article alludes --- is a gem.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: ibanezmonster on July 15, 2013, 07:24:21 AM
Quote from: karlhenning on July 15, 2013, 07:05:11 AM
Not mad about the cartoon.
Me, too.
And if you notice, the backgrounds don't make sense- there should be an orchestra behind him, rather than a curtain. He's driving home in the daylight, even though most concerts are at night.
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Karl Henning on July 15, 2013, 07:34:30 AM
No greatness in that cartooning . . . .
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Parsifal on July 15, 2013, 09:14:35 AM
Quote from: Greg on July 15, 2013, 07:24:21 AM
Me, too.
And if you notice, the backgrounds don't make sense- there should be an orchestra behind him, rather than a curtain. He's driving home in the daylight, even though most concerts are at night.

It should be a Niel Diamond CD, since it was Niel Diamond to stole the melody from PC21 for is pop tune, Song Sung Blue.

Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: Karl Henning on July 15, 2013, 09:36:48 AM
I can't begin to knowin'
Title: Re: Greatness in Music
Post by: 12tone. on July 15, 2013, 09:37:19 AM
What's wrong with an afternoon concert?