Greatness in Music

[BachQ]

I've PMed you to avoid being off topic.

....... but your post alerting to the PM is off-topic .......

[Scriptavolant]

....... but your post alerting to the PM is off-topic .......

So it's yours, pointing out the contradiction.

[Larry Rinkel]

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.

[sonic1]

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?

[Bogey]

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.

[Bogey]

 Can the song of a nightingale be considered a musical masterpiece?

In my world, you bet.

[max]

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!

[Scriptavolant]

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.

[sonic1]

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.

[Dancing Divertimentian]

I usually fill out my days with more this kind of thing:

Hairstyles and attitudes, are they connected? . . .

[max]

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!

[quintett op.57]

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...

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. 

[karlhenning]

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.

[karlhenning]

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:

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:

Greatness. 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.

[Ten thumbs]

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.

[karlhenning]

One idea which has gotten lost over the past few pages, is The Iconoclast and the Pantheon: or, The Noble Resistance to jbuckitis 

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?

[karlhenning]

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?

[Maciek]

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:

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...

Cheers,
Maciek

[Larry Rinkel]

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.)

[karlhenning]

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.

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.