Greatness in Music

[karlhenning]

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.

[greg]

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?

[JoshLilly]

"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.

[DavidW]

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.  

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.

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.

[DavidW]

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.

[Don]

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.

[DavidW]

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?

[DavidW]

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.

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.

[71 dB]

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! 

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!

[DavidW]

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...

[Larry Rinkel]

"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.

[Larry Rinkel]

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.

[quintett op.57]

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).

[Scriptavolant]

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.

[Bunny]

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.

[karlhenning]

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 

[greg]

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.

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

And Fux.

on a similar subject.....

[sonic1]

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.

[karlhenning]

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.

[sonic1]

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.