What is "quality music"?

[AB68]

Can someone give me arguments why Beethoven, Mozart and Haydn (and other "classical" composers) made greater music than Bob Dylan, Beatles and The Cure?
Some friends of mine who are not into classical music at all, are claiming these artists made some of the greatest music ever, and that classical composer's are boring to them, and therefor their music is of lesser quality.
I need arguments why Beethoven and other great composer's music are of higher quality. I know I LIKE classical music much more than popular music, but I am not able to give qualified arguments why the classical composer's best compositions are superior in quality. 
Can someone help me?

[DavidRoss]

The burden is not on you, but on them.  No one is qualified to evaluate what he cannot appreciate.  Until they become open-minded enough to remedy their deficiency, your efforts will be as wasted as if you were offering pearls to pigs.  Don't worry about defending your tastes to your lunk-headed friends; instead, just thank God that you're able to enjoy a variety of good music and be grateful for your blessings.

And don't judge your friends harshly, either.  They're just too ignorant to know how ignorant they are--and that's perfectly normal in adolescence.  And they seek to define themselves by putting down what's different because they are afraid.  They feel threatened by what they don't understand, so they disparage it rather than face their fears that it might be beyond them.  Their claim that classical music doesn't measure up to them is really a cover for their fear that they don't measure up to it.  [Edit:  See, for purposes of illustration, any of the threads that pop up here repeatedly claiming that modern music or modern art doesn't measure up to its predecessors.]  Try to have compassion for them, let their kidding slide off you like water off a duck's back, don't try to cram your tastes down their throats, and accept that you cannot share everything with everyone.  Listen to the music you love and share that with others who can appreciate it, like the members here!

Cheers, dude!

[schweitzeralan]

The burden is not on you, but on them.  No one is qualified to evaluate what he cannot appreciate.  Until they become open-minded enough to remedy their deficiency, your efforts will be as wasted as if you were offering pearls to pigs.  Don't worry about defending your tastes to your lunk-headed friends; instead, just thank God that you're able to enjoy a variety of good music and be grateful for your blessings.

And don't judge your friends harshly, either.  They're just too ignorant to know how ignorant they are--and that's perfectly normal in adolescence.  And they seek to define themselves by putting down what's different because they are afraid.  They feel threatened by what they don't understand, so they disparage it rather than face their fears that it might be beyond them.  Their claim that classical music doesn't measure up to them is really a cover for their fear that they don't measure up to it.  Try to have compassion for them, let their kidding slide off you like water off a duck's back, don't try to cram your tastes down their throats, and accept that you cannot share everything with everyone.  Listen to the music you love and share that with others who can appreciate it, like the member here!

Cheers, dude!

Good answer.  I'm sure this has been a problem for many over the years, inndeed, the decades.  The Sixties were a watershed in establishing a "revamping," or major perspectival acknowledgement of a variety of cultural matters on so many distinct levels; music's being a major  force in the strenghening and ubiquity of what has been acknowledged as the ultimate victory of pop culture.  In my view some good things emerged from the sixties, but the divinization of "Pop Music" has been nothing short of disasterous in terms of the importance and continuation of higer learning and the appreciation of great literature, art, and music.  Popular culture has always existed in the Euro-cultures; however, serious music has always prevailed in the past. Music was just that: it was Bach, Beethoven, Chopn, Brahms, Sibelius, Rachmaninof.  When I used to go to music stores, the front aisles were the main source to purchase (real) music.  Any popular styles were always available but were never situated on the "front rows," as it were. Admittedly, classical music is still taken seriously by many whom I desigate as "los cultos," to say it with Jose Ortega Y Gasset.  By no means do I acknowledge lack of intelligence among the Pop oriented" masses who once perhaps unknowingly believed that Brittany Spears was a mental giant within the Pop culture" nigtmare.  To be sure conservatories and universities will continue to teach and to train serious, talented musicians.  I don't worry, like some who have published in various sources, that classical music will die.  There are now and will continue to be a significant lessing, or diminution within the general public, particularly in the U.S.,of much serious music. Those who do appreciate, indeed, who love "real" music (my own prejudice) will survive at ever smaller numbers. I suppose it's not unlike my. or a few others' attempting to inculcate an ideology among the aesthetically deprived heathen.  Like religion, it's difficult to change or alter a person's perspective, or ideology; that is, one's view, or feeling, or love of something which is for some of us  overwhelmingly significant, indeed, something that suggests a spiritual feeling of sorts.  Feelings and ideas about music vary even among the "cultos." To attempt to get the masses intensely involved  in, let's say, say, Carter, Robert Ward, Arnold Bax, Madetoja, Joseph Marx, et. al., is a difficult if not impossible mission to realize. All I say to myself, listening to music is my own private, insular, subjective venture into what is almost a parallel world; a world in which I avoid anything which smacks of criticism, or of ideological fixations. It simply comes down to a personal,  private, subjective experience. Perhaps not unlike those who once perhaps cannonized "The Beatles." 

[DavidW]

and that classical composer's are boring to them, and therefor their music is of lesser quality.

Now c'mon fess up, did they really express themselves with exactly those words?  I know plenty of people that said that they were bored when they tried to listen to classical music, but none of them jumped to saying that classical music must then be of "lesser quality".

There's no arguing for taste, if you actually condescend to them and inform them that your taste in music is superior, then they'll rightfully think that you're a snob and a jerk.  Just leave it alone.

When someone says that they tried it and didn't like it, and wonder what I see in it, I tell them that it's an acquired taste and they need to listen to the same works several times over to get the hang for it and like it.  It's easy to forget how radically different classical music is from pop music.  It's so foreign to the uninitiated that even when they hear it, they can't listen to it (not for lack of trying) because they don't perceive the pattern. 

[DavidW]

By no means do I acknowledge lack of intelligence among the Pop oriented" masses who once perhaps unknowingly believed that Brittany Spears was a mental giant within the Pop culture" nigtmare.

There should be a Godwin's Law for classical music forums-- whenever popular music is mentioned as a thread goes on, it becomes increasingly likely that Spears, Timberlake or any other pop artist that the uninformed seem to think are as popular now as Elvis was, will be mentioned as an indication of a dieing culture.

aesthetically deprived heathen.

You feign respect but show nothing but contempt.

[nut-job]

Can someone give me arguments why Beethoven, Mozart and Haydn (and other "classical" composers) made greater music than Bob Dylan, Beatles and The Cure?

I'm not sure Bob Dylan or the Beatles really would suffer from that comparison.  Of all of the hordes that have applied themselves to the forms of popular music Dylan and the Beatles have been the very best.  Certainly the forms of popular music are more restrictive than those of classical music, but in a sense that forces the artist to make a more condensed piece of art.

[DavidRoss]

I'm not sure Bob Dylan or the Beatles really would suffer from that comparison.  Of all of the hordes that have applied themselves to the forms of popular music Dylan and the Beatles have been the very best.  Certainly the forms of popular music are more restrictive than those of classical music, but in a sense that forces the artist to make a more condensed piece of art.

When it comes to the Beatles or Dylan or David Byrne or Elvis Costello or Leonard Cohen or Joni Mitchell or Carole King or Hoagy Carmichael or Cole Porter or any of a great number of songwriters working in a contemporary pop vein, I do not see substantial differences in quality or even kind between them and revered classical songwriters like Schubert and Schumann, for instance.  One could reasonably argue that the two Schus were the Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobains of their day.  And though there may not be much, if anything, in the pop universe that can hold a candle to the intoxicating sensuousness of Strauss's Vier Letzte Lieder, there ain't much in the realm of "classical" songs that can compare, either!

Frankly, except for the Strauss songs referenced above, and Sibelius's Luonnotar, and Mahler's Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen, and damned near every moment of Cosi and a few dozen hundred thousand other songs by Gus & Wolfie & Joe & John, I'd rather listen to Annie Lennox or Tracy Chapman almost any day!

[jwinter]

Comparing Bob Dylan and Mozart is like comparing John Keats and Ernest Hemingway -- yes, they both wrote words (or music), but their times, their styles, and thus their aims were completely different.  Direct comparisons don't apply -- Dylan isn't trying to write symphonies, just as Hemingway didn't pen many lyric verses.  Steak is not better than chocolate, or vice versa -- eat both!

[Josquin des Prez]

Can someone give me arguments why Beethoven, Mozart and Haydn (and other "classical" composers) made greater music than Bob Dylan, Beatles and The Cure?

The first were geniuses (well, at least the first two, not sure about Haydn yet), while the latter were not. The problem is that, in order to accept genius, one needs to elevate ones consciousness to an higher level of understanding, by means of constant exposure and self reflection, except people today don't really have time for that, which is why popular music is so widespread. It's easily appealing, and it requires very little thought process to understand.

The reason why Mozart or Beethoven appear "boring" to them is that they haven't developed a new consciousness capable of dealing with the higher concepts present in the works of those composers. Their understanding of the music of Mozart or Beethoven is no understanding at all. It is a vague, unformed state of unconsciousness. They don't really know Mozart, they have an impression of his music based more on feeling then understanding. Weininger explains this state in terms of the henid:

http://www.theabsolute.net/ottow/henid.html

This, is essentially why they cannot seem to "enjoy" the works of the great classical composers, all of whom are indeed vastly superior to their popular counterparts.

[Josquin des Prez]

Comparing Bob Dylan and Mozart is like comparing John Keats and Ernest Hemingway

More like comparing Jack Kerouac to Goethe.

Steak is not better than chocolate, or vice versa -- eat both!

I would most seriously argue that a good steak is in fact superior to , say, a McDonald burger. You are not making any sense, btw. Art is not a question of simple stimulation of the senses. It is not for the satisfaction of the eye, or the ear, that we expose ourselves to the great works of art. The domain of genius lies in the psychological and conceptual realm of the mind. To believe that there is not an order in the realm of conceptual thinking is akin to believe there is no right or wrong, or good and evil. That the murderer is on the same plane as the philanthropist because the thought that carries the action has no value in and of itself except that which is bestowed upon it by the individual.

[Bunny]

You really can't argue about something like this.  When someone's musical taste is very set and the personality is rigid, then anything different is usually denigrated.  There's enough great music in almost any genre to suit everyone, although my eyes start rolling when I hear someone arguing that Yanni is a great composer.

[Bunny]

[snip]

I would most seriously argue that a good steak is in fact superior to , say, a McDonald burger.  [snip]

Oh please! A Big Mac is a seriously great work of gluttony and heavenly taste.  Steaks can also be great, but only for many more dollars.

[DavidRoss]

I'm reminded of the old saw to the effect that "The more you know, the more you know how little you know."  I guess the corollary is that those who know least are most emphatic in the belief that their knowledge is complete.

[DavidRoss]

A Big Mac is a seriously great work of gluttony and heavenly taste.

For quite some time I've blithely ignored your wrong-headed assertions on virtually every subject under the sun, but this claim is so beyond the pale that I cannot let it pass.

A good hamburger is a seriously great gustatory delight easily the equal of a fine steak, yes; however, a Big Mac's relationship to a good hamburger is like the relationship of a Yugo to a Rolls Royce Phantom.

[Josquin des Prez]

Bah, what the hell do you yanks know about good food? I've been living in the states for almost a decade and i haven't found anything, anything at all that even remotely compares to what i used to eat when i lived in Rome, and even that usually isn't as great as some of the food i tasted when i found myself in rural Italy. Heathens, all of you.

[aquablob]

When it comes to the Beatles or Dylan or David Byrne or Elvis Costello or Leonard Cohen or Joni Mitchell or Carole King or Hoagy Carmichael or Cole Porter or any of a great number of songwriters working in a contemporary pop vein, I do not see substantial differences in quality or even kind between them and revered classical songwriters like Schubert and Schumann, for instance.  One could reasonably argue that the two Schus were the Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobains of their day.  And though there may not be much, if anything, in the pop universe that can hold a candle to the intoxicating sensuousness of Strauss's Vier Letzte Lieder, there ain't much in the realm of "classical" songs that can compare, either!

Word.

Comparing Bob Dylan and Mozart is like comparing John Keats and Ernest Hemingway -- yes, they both wrote words (or music), but their times, their styles, and thus their aims were completely different.  Direct comparisons don't apply -- Dylan isn't trying to write symphonies, just as Hemingway didn't pen many lyric verses.  Steak is not better than chocolate, or vice versa -- eat both!

Word.

The first were geniuses (well, at least the first two, not sure about Haydn yet), while the latter were not. The problem is that, in order to accept genius, one needs to elevate ones consciousness to an higher level of understanding, by means of constant exposure and self reflection, except people today don't really have time for that, which is why popular music is so widespread. It's easily appealing, and it requires very little thought process to understand.

The reason why Mozart or Beethoven appear "boring" to them is that they haven't developed a new consciousness capable of dealing with the higher concepts present in the works of those composers. Their understanding of the music of Mozart or Beethoven is no understanding at all. It is a vague, unformed state of unconsciousness. They don't really know Mozart, they have an impression of his music based more on feeling then understanding. Weininger explains this state in terms of the henid:

http://www.theabsolute.net/ottow/henid.html

This, is essentially why they cannot seem to "enjoy" the works of the great classical composers, all of whom are indeed vastly superior to their popular counterparts.

Not word.

[aquablob]

Music is usually a reflection of the individual, and if you truly believe a depraved buffoon like Jim Morrison is comparable to the genius of a Schubert you need therapy, ASAP.

Some geniuses write symphonies; others write strange lyrics and expose themselves on stage!

Seriously though, JdP: how ever were you convinced that you possess some supreme and objective ability to discern genius and greatness, and that those of varying opinion are simply *wrong*?

[karlhenning]

Seriously though, JdP: how ever were you convinced that you possess some supreme and objective ability to discern genius and greatness, and that those of varying opinion are simply *wrong*?

Well, and I am sure the whole musical world is holding its breath waiting for "Josquin" to determine whether or not Haydn is a genius.

[DavidRoss]

...in order to accept genius, one needs to elevate ones consciousness to an higher level of understanding....

You'd best get started then, posthaste!

[Bulldog]

I think it's a poor idea, in mixed company, to compare classical music to other types (they serve different purposes). 

Carry your musical preferences with pride, but don't dump on those who have different preferences.

JdP is convinced there is only one correct road and that he owns it - that's a mix of immaturity and arrogance.