Audiences hate modern classical music because their brains cannot cope

[Florestan]

Actual experience playing music doesn't count. Duly noted.

You haven't paid attention (another pun) to what I wrote, have you?

His early violin sonatas, for instance, are as fine as any written by adult composers of the time. So is Galimathias Musicum. So is Bastien und Bastienne. So are the early church sonatas. So are the early piano concertos and symphonies.

[Madiel]

You haven't paid attention (another pun) to what I wrote, have you?

Well, if you had asked whether I had an opinion about those specific pieces, I would've said that no, I didn't. Your question didn't come across as asking me whether I had an opinion on the particular pieces, it came across as a more general question about Mozart's childhood compositions.

I believe I've heard some of the early piano concertos at some point, but as I don't actually own recordings of them I wouldn't claim enough familiarity to have much of an opinion.

[Florestan]

You are under no obligation to get acquainted with them, much less to like them. My point is that they are of a much higher quality than one would think judging solely by Mozart's age when composing them. Of course they are not masterpieces on a par with his late stuff but for a child of 14 or less it's pretty damn good music.

[Madiel]

You are under no obligation to get acquainted with them, much less to like them. My point is that they are of a much higher quality than one would think judging solely by Mozart's age when composing them. Of course they are not masterpieces on a par with his late stuff but for a child of 14 or less it's pretty damn good music.

I'm not disputing that they're good "for a child of 14 or less". But as soon as you add that qualifier you're moving away from the claim that he was writing good music for an adult.

And that's where this all started. It in fact started with a remark about Emily Bear, and fundamentally it's about whether one should judge the music of a 14-year-old on the grounds that it's good for a 14-year-old, or whether one should simply judge whether it's good. And a statement that the music of Mozart as a child is "not on a par with his late stuff" is immediately saying that it's not, actually, full-on adult quality music.

Which is exactly what I said before you decided to jump in and disagree. So now you've reversed to agree with my original point.

[Florestan]

I'm not disputing that they're good "for a child of 14 or less". But as soon as you add that qualifier you're moving away from the claim that he was writing good music for an adult.

What I said, and I stand by it, is that Mozart composed at 14 music which stands any comparison with similar music written by adult composers of that time, ie around 1760. If you get it right, fine, if you don't, fine too.

[Madiel]

*shrug* There are very few adult composers from around 1760 that anyone listens to in the broad scheme of things, either.

[Florestan]

*shrug* There are very few adult composers from around 1760 that anyone listens to in the broad scheme of things, either.

Oh boy! I am a contrarian myself but I humbly bow before you and acknowledge you as prince, king and emperor of the contrarians.

Over and done.

[Madiel]

I'm not trying to be obtuse, I'm trying to understand just what your point was. And if your point was that Mozart was producing some of the best music of the 1760s, then fine, but that simply wasn't a topic I had in mind. I've never set out to specifically consider music of the 1760s, and in my head 1760s Mozart isn't competing with other 1760s music, it's competing with other Mozart and/or other classical music generally.

In other words, the claim you seem to have been wanting to make in responding to my original remark just isn't a claim I had on my radar or wanted to dispute.

[Karl Henning]

Yes, which is why I am happy to let the listener find his own relations (as it were) in (for instance) the 10-wind piece I'm finishing up (The Young Lady Holding a Phone in Her Teeth).  The background to some of my recent comments here includes my mild discomfort at having "[my] version of the story" requested of me;  and also a rather unnecessarily unpleasant meeting at which two fellow composers played at being inquisitors, because they adjudged my Thoreau in Concord Jail guilty of the impardonable sin of being "abstract."  I could practically hear the shade of Khrennikov whisper the noun Formalism.

And this morning I recall that the soprano who withdrew from performing the Op.129 challenged me (of course, her emotions ran high at the time) to write music which people other than I myself might enjoy . . . .

[Elgarian]

The background to some of my recent comments here includes my mild discomfort at having "[my] version of the story" requested of me;  and also a rather unnecessarily unpleasant meeting at which two fellow composers played at being inquisitors, because they adjudged my Thoreau in Concord Jail guilty of the impardonable sin of being "abstract."  I could practically hear the shade of Khrennikov whisper the noun Formalism.

All my sympathies old chap. My humble feelings towards those who insist that THIS is the way someone else should create, and that THAT is not, are best expressed by, say, imagining filling their socks with mashed potato, and then writing a sonnet to celebrate the incident.

May you always have a dish of mashed potato at hand, for such future emergencies. I tip m'hat to you, Sir, as ever!

[Karl Henning]

I'm always open to a variety of responses from listeners (up to and including The worst Viola Sonata in the world).  But fellow composers telling me I'd committed sins against the audience, was a bit thick.

[Monsieur Croche]

And yet so many composers and listeners seem to think so. A large number of people associate (say) Sibelius's 1st symphony with snow, ice, cold wind, fir trees, and frozen landscapes, whether or not it's been suggested that any such link was intended. And there are very many titled pieces where the composer deliberately invites the listener to make 'extramusical narrative' associations: Enigma Variations, The Wood Nymph, Scheherazade, The Planets, to name but four. Then we have anecdotes like Elgar the conductor inviting his orchestra to 'play this like something you heard down by the river.'

Not denying or arguing this, but you do know the majority of pieces with titles like Enigma Variations, The Wood Nymph, Scheherazade, The Planets [whether the literal intent of the composer, or an idea more tangential which helped the composer find both the tenor and form of their piece] was a vogue during the mid to late romantic era, along with the 'genre' most associated with like titles, the tone poem. That particular style of title and supposed context or contextual associations were a fashion that waxed and waned through the era, with some of that sensibility trickling into the 20th century.

After the romantic, with titles like those you listed, we get a return to pieces titled by form, Symphony in c, and a huge shift of the nature of the 'alleged' titled subject the likes of wood nymph to things like Pithoprakta; Adjustable Wrench, Music for Eighteen Musicians, Common Tones in Simple Time, Dharma at Big Sur, In Vain, Piano and String Quartet, Blue Cathedral, Fearful Symmetries etc. Some titles from the post romantic eras I think are near arbitrary as given by the composer because the piece can not be readily named after any particular form, and / or the title is somewhat of a tongue-in-cheek red herring as a block to someone other than the composer naming the piece, that intent being a sort of preemptive, "If I don't name it someone else will."

I often detect a hint (sometimes more than a hint) that the bringing of such associations to music is somehow lowbrow, perhaps even an insult to the purity of the music. But why? Human beings are very very good at relating things that may seem unrelatable (whether as creators or receivers), and imaginatively combining different arts to make composite art. How else would we get songs, operas, illustrated books, ballet, (and indeed) movie soundtracks), etc.?

If we did not know Sibelius lived in Finland, would a lot of listeners still think it so specifically evoked nordic landscapes and weather? Toscanini, rehearsing a Debussy piece and becoming that the players were not getting the feeling he wanted in a particular passage no matter what he said, ultimately took his pocket handkerchief from his pocket, tossed it high up in the air, pointed to it as it wafted to the floor, and then said, "play it like that."

These types of directives, like the Elgar anecdote, are common enough when talking about music and how to render it; these analogues are used because music itself is not a language. This brings up the great dichotomy and irony; we often have to use what we have that is not music to talk about music. I believe when it comes to titling, that is very much the case; we can never fully be sure if the composer given title is really what the piece is about. [I would confidently add, "even if the composer said that was what they had in mind."]

The fact you used the word, "lowbrow," is enough to drive me up the wall while grinding my teeth. It is simultaneously demeaning and / or reeks of a very negative sort of condescension, neither of which I am declaring that you bear, while I do think it a virulent endemic as used when discussing 'art.' I am vehemently agin it, because even in casual usage, the word is freighted with an implicit and highly unattractive social one-upsmanship of which one party is either the dispenser or the recipient. I advocate eliminating it from the vocabulary altogether 

My thoughts on a composer providing a program for a piece is that it could rather presume the audience is so 'lowbrow,' that they need a little help to simply listen to the music unfold, and that carries the implicit sub-text that the listener is, indeed, too thick to receive the music without first being given a floor plan, so to speak.

Whatever the composer's inspiration and whether or not that intent was fully realized, for the listener, that piece may be something completely different, ergo, specificity about the extramusical can close doors of the imagination.

Every piece of music is an aural Rorschach blot [save music with sung text, and even that can be as open-ended if the listener doesn't pay attention to, or doesn't know, the language.] If the piece has in any way a coherence or its episodes make a kind of sense to the listener then the listener, if so inclined, will have and make their own associations - story - imagery, and to them those stories, images, etc. will also be cohesive and make a kind of sense.

Essentially, I 'feel' and think that a piece titled Woodland Nymph really needs no title, and that the listener is better off hearing that piece without it, maybe because I have more faith in 'John and Jane Q. listeners than what many might credit them with other than being 'lowbrow' and simple-minded. I know that is an opinion only, that others, both composers and listeners, feel the same, while others do not

[Monsieur Croche]

And this morning I recall that the soprano who withdrew from performing the Op.129 challenged me (of course, her emotions ran high at the time) to write music which people other than I myself might enjoy . . . .

Well, we all know about some singers, and for some reasons sopranos are more like this than singers with another Fach.

To steal directly from Anna Russell 'speaking to one such soprano,'
"That's all right dear. You are a singer because you have resonance where your brain ought to be."

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Excellent post M. Croche. Reminds me of Takashi Murakami, and amazing Japanese artist, who even wrote quite a bit on the topic of 'meaninglessness' in art—something which can be directly translated to the world of music. He repeatedly titles his artworks things that purposely have no relation to the art itself, until someone else comes along and tries to work out a connection. I've been doing this for years with my own compositions before discovering Murakami, so I guess it could be common knowledge in the art world!

[Monsieur Croche]

Excellent post M. Croche. Reminds me of Takashi Murakami, and amazing Japanese artist, who even wrote quite a bit on the topic of 'meaninglessness' in art—something which can be directly translated to the world of music. He repeatedly titles his artworks things that purposely have no relation to the art itself, until someone else comes along and tries to work out a connection. I've been doing this for years with my own compositions before discovering Murakami, so I guess it could be common knowledge in the art world!

If you are the composer, and would really like to know what the listener gets from your work, then you will omit making known anything remotely like specificity of title, explanation of intent [the ghastly, "Artist's Statement,"] or voicing out loud or in print any musings on your particular aesthetic, etc.

Currently in art galleries, an exhibiting artist is expected / required to also post an 'artist's statement,' defining the meaning of their work, intent, and their aesthetic. The statement is usually up on the wall, alongside the actual pieces on exhibit.
But hey, and, Doh! The artist's "statement" is already up and hanging on those walls -- and so it is, I think, when a piece of music is the 'artwork.'

The sculptor Rodin had a routine shtick bit of business whenever someone asked him "what he meant" about a particular piece. He would counter their question with, "What do you think it means?" He would then listen and at least appear to be highly attentive.

When the person was through talking about what they thought the meaning of the piece was, Rodin would remain silent, look pensive while stroking his long beard a few times, and after a few beats say,
"You may be right."

[Wakefield]

If you are the composer, and would really like to know what the listener gets from your work, then you will omit making known anything remotely like specificity of title, explanation of intent [the ghastly, "Artist's Statement,"] or voicing out loud or in print any musings on your particular aesthetic, etc.

Currently in art galleries, an exhibiting artist is expected / required to also post an 'artist's statement,' defining the meaning of their work, intent, and their aesthetic. The statement is usually up on the wall, alongside the actual pieces on exhibit.
But hey, and, Doh! The artist's "statement" is already up and hanging on those walls -- and so it is, I think, when a piece of music is the 'artwork.'

The sculptor Rodin had a routine shtick bit of business whenever someone asked him "what he meant" about a particular piece. He would counter their question with, "What do you think it means?" He would then listen and at least appear to be highly attentive.

When the person was through talking about what they thought the meaning of the piece was, Rodin would remain silent, look pensive while stroking his long beard a few times, and after a few beats say,
"You may be right."

Was Kipling who said: A writer may be allowed to invent a fable, but he is not allowed to know its moral? I recall this quote translated into Spanish, so it is not remotely close of being literal... 

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

If you are the composer, and would really like to know what the listener gets from your work, then you will omit making known anything remotely like specificity of title, explanation of intent [the ghastly, "Artist's Statement,"] or voicing out loud or in print any musings on your particular aesthetic, etc.

Currently in art galleries, an exhibiting artist is expected / required to also post an 'artist's statement,' defining the meaning of their work, intent, and their aesthetic. The statement is usually up on the wall, alongside the actual pieces on exhibit.
But hey, and, Doh! The artist's "statement" is already up and hanging on those walls -- and so it is, I think, when a piece of music is the 'artwork.'

The sculptor Rodin had a routine shtick bit of business whenever someone asked him "what he meant" about a particular piece. He would counter their question with, "What do you think it means?" He would then listen and at least appear to be highly attentive.

When the person was through talking about what they thought the meaning of the piece was, Rodin would remain silent, look pensive while stroking his long beard a few times, and after a few beats say,
"You may be right."

The whole 'artist's statement' is silly, which is probably what Takashi Murakami is critical of in his exhibitions and parodies in the eccentric titles of his works. The whole 'it's subjective' retort works in every situation!

For my own work it does at least help to work out what aesthetics I like in my music, what I hear in other music that I would like to learn from and implement in an original work, and stuff like that. One project I am working on is a series of 6 preludes for solo cello (they're etudes in disguise as it has turned out!) which I've written with no title in mind until each prelude is finished. The placement of the title—after the final bar line—is so that the cellist can think of the music as music first and foremost, with the title being a secondary element which she can interpret in her own way.

Another piece I wrote once for a guitar duo is called 'Please Do Not Feed The Fish,' titled that because of a sign I saw in a pond in a park once (in no way was the piece inspired by the sign or the scene). I asked my dad when listening to it what he thinks of the piece, and he tried to come up with his own non-musical interpretation of how the title is linked to the music itself. I like it when people think of music in this way because it's adds a completely subjective listener's imagination to sounds that were made by someone else. Thus, the music becomes a kind of collaborative experience in the end.....

[Monsieur Croche]

The whole 'artist's statement' is silly....

Artist's statements were formerly only a student exercise, assigned only in order to make the developing artist [especially those in the non-verbal arts] clarify for themselves their intent, and yea, their aesthetic.
I doubt 'back then' that either student or teacher would have thought those bits of laundered underwear would in another time be expected to be on public display on either gallery walls or concert programs and the liner notes of a CD.

For my own work it does at least help to work out what aesthetics I like....

As abstract as 'aesthetic' is, I think it beyond useful to know for yourself some defined manner of approach. Besides, there is always this, true of both art and life: If you don't know exactly what you want, knowing more and more what you do not want is more than useful. 

I am working on is a series of 6 preludes for solo cello... written with no title in mind until each prelude is finished. The placement of the title after the final bar line is so that the cellist can think of the music as music first... with the title being a secondary element which she can interpret in her own way.

You're replicating exactly what Debussy did with his two books of Preludes. The index lists them by number only, as is the first page of each only titled by number.

The alternate titles appear after the double bar, i.e. seen after the first read-through. This convinces me they are there as those typical analogous musical directives for those performers who do not quite get what is needed from the score, which happens ALL the time. It also means the titles are more an alternative directive than 'what the piece is about.'

I titled a piece because of a sign I saw in a pond in a park once (in no way was the piece inspired by the sign or the scene). I asked my dad when listening to it what he thinks of the piece, and he tried to come up with his own non-musical interpretation of how the title is linked to the music itself. I like it when people think of music in this way because it's adds a completely subjective listener's imagination to sounds that were made by someone else. Thus, the music becomes a kind of collaborative experience in the end.....

Music is a collaborative experience. The composer works, the performers work...
I find it rather unfortunate that some listeners are unaware they are working, too.
Some music consumers, quite remarkably, seem to think any efforts between them and art are done with when they have paid for the recording or purchased a ticket, made it to the hall, and found their seat, lol.

[Madiel]

I don't think it can ever be said that music exists in a vacuum. It's created within a culture, and we make associations with that surrounding culture whether or not the composer made explicit associations with titles and programmes and so forth.

There are also aspects of musical style that are recognisably associated with particular places and/or times. Later composers in fact will consciously exploit those associations.

Interestingly, there's also some evidence that language affects music, thereby creating stylistic imprints so that, e.g. the music of a French-speaking composer will have certain 'French' traits. Theories as to why this might be the case vary, I suspect at least some of it has to do with the setting of vocal music will (if the setting is any good) be affected by the speech patterns of the text, and that this can influence the style even of instrumental music.  Of course, there are cases of composers who consciously and deliberately sought to have their music reflect the rhythm of their language, such as Janacek.

[Elgarian]

Not denying or arguing this [my highlight], but you do know the majority of pieces with titles like Enigma Variations, The Wood Nymph, Scheherazade, The Planets [whether the literal intent of the composer, or an idea more tangential which helped the composer find both the tenor and form of their piece] was a vogue during the mid to late romantic era, along with the 'genre' most associated with like titles, the tone poem. That particular style of title and supposed context or contextual associations were a fashion that waxed and waned through the era, with some of that sensibility trickling into the 20th century.

I take what you say about the swings of fashion, but don't see how they significantly address the issue I was raising. My point (which you seem to agree with, judging from your first few words) is that people often do make these associations (today as well as yesterday), and that this is neither a good nor a bad thing. A composer is at liberty to supply titles and/or programmes; the listener is at liberty to invent them. The frequency of this practice seems odd in the face of the suggestion that there's no objectively discernable true relation between music and non-musical things - the feeling persists for many folk that there is some relation.

If we did not know Sibelius lived in Finland, would a lot of listeners still think it so specifically evoked nordic landscapes and weather?

I don't know. I'm not proposing a scientifically testable, predictive model. I don't think the case I'm making depends on how people come to make these extramusical associations - only on the fact that they (we) do.

The fact you used the word, "lowbrow," is enough to drive me up the wall while grinding my teeth. It is simultaneously demeaning and / or reeks of a very negative sort of condescension, neither of which I am declaring that you bear, while I do think it a virulent endemic as used when discussing 'art.' I am vehemently agin it, because even in casual usage, the word is freighted with an implicit and highly unattractive social one-upsmanship of which one party is either the dispenser or the recipient.

Well I couldn't agree more. I speak not de haut en bas, but as one who has occasionally encountered suggestions that there is something intellectually weak about associating nonmusical ideas with music (something I frequently do). I'm wondering if in fact you've misunderstood the position I'm taking, here.

My thoughts on a composer providing a program for a piece is that it could rather presume the audience is so 'lowbrow,' that they need a little help to simply listen to the music unfold, and that carries the implicit sub-text that the listener is, indeed, too thick to receive the music without first being given a floor plan, so to speak.

This seems unnecessarily cynical. We know, for example, that Elgar really did make such associations himself. I'm happy to go along with that, and don't consider myself in any way condescended to by the composer.

Whatever the composer's inspiration and whether or not that intent was fully realized, for the listener, that piece may be something completely different,

Yes, certainly ...

ergo, specificity about the extramusical can close doors of the imagination.

I don't see this. It may redirect the imagination, but that's what artists do.

If the piece has in any way a coherence or its episodes make a kind of sense to the listener then the listener, if so inclined, will have and make their own associations - story - imagery, and to them those stories, images, etc. will also be cohesive and make a kind of sense.

Yes, that's what I'm saying. Listeners often do make associations between the non-musical and the musical. It's an aspect of 'the listener's share', which we'd both agree is an essential part of the encounter with the music, but I'm not at all sure about the ink blot comparison. Engagement with a work of art isn't the same as engaging with an inkblot.

Essentially, I 'feel' and think that a piece titled Woodland Nymph really needs no title, and that the listener is better off hearing that piece without it

Two things here: First the piece Sibelius called 'The Wood Nymph' does intentionally have an extra-musical component, and listening to it with the narrative in mind can provide a very rich not-entirely-musical experience. So I  disagree that we'd be better off without it. Secondly, I'm just a bit worried about promoting the idea that 'the listener would be better off without it'. I think you mean that you'd be better off without it, and that's perfectly reasonable. But I would see it as a real loss, myself.