Comparing Composers

[karlhenning]

But once again you are AVOIDING the real issue of personal freedom and the RIGHT to choose what music one likes and which composers one thinks are Great, Good, Poor or Bad.  This is a BASIC human right YOU can not take away from anyone no matter how hard you try.   

The louder you proclaim from that soap-box, Teresa, the more ridiculous you sound, please.

Everyone here, whether they agree with your tastes or not, acknowledges your freedom to like what you please, for whatever reasons it may please you.

Your dislike of Mozart does not make Mozart a bad composer.  Your statements that "Mozart is a bad composer" are pure piffle.  Rail against the universe, if you like, but you have the freedom to dislike Mozart;  you do not have the 'power' to pronounce a great composer "bad," merely by virtue of your not liking the music.

Say! Should have known that Luke would put it much better:

Teresa, do you think anything is a fact, or is everything just a matter of opinion? If I said, ooh, I don't know, 'it's my opinion that Usain Bolt is not actually the holder of the 100 metres world record', would you say, 'that's OK, Luke, it's your opinion and I know it is true for you'? I'd rather you didn't, I'd rather you said to me, 'look, Luke, here are the facts, you are wrong'. OTOH if I said, 'Bolt may be the fastest, but I prefer to watch Asafa Powell', well, you could say that your tastes were not the same, but no more. Facts are not the same as opinions, and there are facts in music, like it or not.

So, though we may agree or disagree about the artistic merits of a composer, some things are not open to dispute, because they are measurable and down on paper - provided, of course, that you accept that to a certain degree musical competence can be measured, as an aspect of pure Craft rather than as the more ellusive and indefinable Art. Most people do accept this. By those purely technical, craft-based criteria, could Rachmaninov write music better than Saul, technically speaking? Of course he could, it's provable, demonstrable fact. And a gazillion posts on youtube proclaiming Saul as the new Bach would never alter the fact that he can't compose as well as Rachmaninov, even if we can't say that the gazillion posters' artistic tastes are wrong*

(*we can't, but we should!  )

[(poco) Sforzando]

JoshLilly, I do agree with a lot of what you say, though I have learned a great deal over the years from people here; specifically for example, to value Boulez. When I joined I was loud, though sparing, in my negative opinion of him and all he did. But people were patient and opened my ears.

This is the one thing that Teresa's apparently tidy theory cannot allow for - the possibility that we can learn from each other and keep an open mind about music we may have been all too ready to dismiss.

But if people are intransigent, there's nothing much to be done with them. Our late friend Mel Merkel, aka Iago, went to his grave braying his contempt for Mozart, whose music he never listened to because it was far more important to him to puff his chest up with pride as a Rebel. And that's the tragedy, of course, because if you're going to adopt that kind of a stance, you may be the only one losing out in the end once you're six feet under.

[karlhenning]

It is simple I do not like "hard" "ugly" dissonance that SOUNDS dissonant, it is the excellent skill of my favorite composers to use limited dissonance that does not SOUND dissonant.  Great for them, I am sure they use it to increase excitement on a sub-conscience level.

Mozart had a great talent (to borrow your phrase) for using dissonance that didn't SOUND dissonant. (Just saying.)

But this has nothing whatsoever to do with my firm conviction of the composition skills of mozart, nothing!

My dear, you have no basis to judge his compositional skills. You just don't like his music. (A dislike to which, for the hundredth time, you are welcome.)

Likewise, the fact that you like a couple of works attributed to Leopold does not make Leopold a composer "100 years before his time."

It isn't all about you, Teresa.

[mikkeljs]

Teresa, do you think anything is a fact, or is everything just a matter of opinion? If I said, ooh, I don't know, 'it's my opinion that Usain Bolt is not actually the holder of the 100 metres world record', would you say, 'that's OK, Luke, it's your opinion and I know it is true for you'? I'd rather you didn't, I'd rather you said to me, 'look, Luke, here are the facts, you are wrong'. OTOH if I said, 'Bolt may be the fastest, but I prefer to watch Asafa Powell', well, you could say that your tastes were not the same, but no more. Facts are not the same as opinions, and there are facts in music, like it or not.

So, though we may agree or disagree about the artistic merits of a composer, some things are not open to dispute, because they are measurable and down on paper - provided, of course, that you accept that to a certain degree musical competence can be measured, as an aspect of pure Craft rather than as the more ellusive and indefinable Art. Most people do accept this. By those purely technical, craft-based criteria, could Rachmaninov write music better than Saul, technically speaking? Of course he could, it's provable, demonstrable fact. And a gazillion posts on youtube proclaiming Saul as the new Bach would never alter the fact that he can't compose as well as Rachmaninov, even if we can't say that the gazillion posters' artistic tastes are wrong*

(*we can't, but we should!  )

Great post!

Everything is relative but so are the obvious, which is that personal projection which is confirmed by the majority, and then again majority is highly relative, since it has nothing to do with democracy. This also means that one should accept a few verbal knocks once in a while and be tolerant. 

[JoshLilly]

JoshLilly, I do agree with a lot of what you say, though I have learned a great deal over the years from people here; specifically for example, to value Boulez. When I joined I was loud, though sparing, in my negative opinion of him and all he did. But people were patient and opened my ears.

Yes, I'm interested in that same thing also. The number of works that I've discovered and grown to like, or even passionately love, has grown tremendously because of websites like this one. Someone's typed description of something persuaded me to give something a chance. This even includes works that I'd heard and disliked at first. A good example would be to continue with Rachmaninov: I used to work with someone years ago that loved his Piano Concerto #2, and would play it at work in our cubicle area. I never complained, but I hated the bizarre (to my 18th-century attuned ears) sound of it. Several years later, I was reading someone's description on some other website, and I gave it another shot, and for some reason I found enough there that (just like Dvořák does for me) there were enough appealing melodic lines and various other elements that it overcame the late 19th century "harshness" and became worth it to me. Now, Rach's #2 is one of my favourites ever, and Dvořák is one of my favourite composers ever. Almost entirely because of reading opinions of others!

So I didn't mean to sound like I was implying it wasn't valuable. After all, I check at least one of these sorts of music sites almost every day, and I enjoy reading threads on composers unliked or unknown by myself. I know finding new works to like has not ended with me, and I hunt for the next one eagerly; I think it's a fantastic, enjoyable, sometimes nearly life-changing experience.

My bank account hates this expanding musical experience.

[Scarpia]

Teresa, do you think anything is a fact, or is everything just a matter of opinion? If I said, ooh, I don't know, 'it's my opinion that Usain Bolt is not actually the holder of the 100 metres world record', would you say, 'that's OK, Luke, it's your opinion and I know it is true for you'? I'd rather you didn't, I'd rather you said to me, 'look, Luke, here are the facts, you are wrong'. OTOH if I said, 'Bolt may be the fastest, but I prefer to watch Asafa Powell', well, you could say that your tastes were not the same, but no more. Facts are not the same as opinions, and there are facts in music, like it or not.

That first line is the crux of it.  Although admittedly in music the criteria for "greatness" are more problematic to define than in athletics. 

In Mozart's case I would point to some passages which are considered to show consummate skill, such as the finale of the 41th symphony (particularly the coda).  How many composers could managed that level of contrapuntal complexity and make it sound so open and appealing?   Certainly the counterpoint is not beyond what Bach could and did write, but there is a certain quality to it that is Mozart's own.   Another gem I always bring up is the Kyrie from the Requiem.  In some sense it is an example of strict counterpoint, but Mozart colors it with a post-baroque sense of drama.  A step along the way to the breathtaking fugato that follows the Turkish march in the finale of Beethoven's 9th.  (I often like to wonder, what would Bach think if he heard that fugato?  Would he consider it a terrifying tornado of sound from hell itself, or would be arch his eyebrow for a moment, then incorporate it in his style, as he did innovations he found in Vivaldi?)

But in the end, it is the undefinable things, the most seemingly insignificant details, that leave me most stunned in Mozart's music.  I can be listening to a string quartet and be getting a bit bored with the main melody coming around again, then notice something of indescribable cleverness and felicity happening in the second violin or viola part.  Or it can be a dissonance, or wisp of alien harmony, that brings a tint of sadness to what would ostensibly be a naive melody.  (The slow movement of the 23rd piano concerto comes to mind.)  That is not quantifiable, except in terms of the number of people through the centuries who have found something to fascinate them in Mozart's music.

[Lethevich]

This matter of opinion thing is awesome. I can be just as right as a qualified musicologist or orchestra member

Let's try... okay, Ferde Grofé is the greatest composer.

[knight66]

Let's try... okay, Ferde Grofé is the greatest composer.

I thought we had all already agreed on that one.

Mike

[jowcol]

Although I am of the hard core relativists, it still seems pretty much to me:

"I don't care for Mozart  (or Henning...)"-- Valid Opinion.
"I don't think that Mozart (or Henning) is a good composer"-- Valid Opinion
"Mozart was (Henning is) a composer." - Fact.
"Mozart (or Henning) is a bad composer" -- valid opinion misrepresented as fact. (It is, in my book, unprovable.  ).


The Fourth example is the one that causes the majority of the heated debates, stress, and hurt feelings in any forum like GMG.   


"I think Jowcol is an idiot" - Valid opinion.
"Jowcol is an idiot"-- probably right, but if the statement is applied to other members of the GMC, this is an opinion misrepresented as fact.

[Teresa]

My dear, you have no basis to judge his compositional skills. You just don't like his music. (A dislike to which, for the hundredth time, you are welcome.)

Everyone who has listened to his music has that RIGHT not just me, every single music lover!  You cannot disenfranchise us.  Everyone is free to rate skills of a composer, a musician, a statesman, a chief, etc.  It is all personal.  I agree in some cases there is a majority that thinks something is great, and a minority that thinks it is poor.  But that DOES NOT give the right of the majority to impose it's opinion on the minority.  This is tyrannical, I am sorry you cannot see that.

I will go further and give you an example of someone who I believe is a good composer but I do not like their music: Robert Schumann. The liking and not liking of someones music IS ENTIRELY different that ones opinion of their compositional skills. 

Likewise, the fact that you like a couple of works attributed to Leopold does not make Leopold a composer "100 years before his time."[/font]

Based on those works it does to me, and of course that is my humble opinion. 

It isn't all about you, Teresa.

CORRECT, perhaps you are starting to understand. It is NOT about me but about everyones personal freedom.

[Teresa]

Teresa, do you think anything is a fact, or is everything just a matter of opinion? 

Fact: 1+1=2
Theory: Most scientific knowledge
Opinions: How one feels about external stimuli and how one rates other peoples skills and abilities.

A historical event that has happened, especially one recorded for posterity is a fact such as the example you gave of someone holding a world record.

The only thing that can be measured is ones technical competence in ones craft.  This can be done with composers who attempt to follow the rules.  However since much modern classical music is free form, how does one do this with modern composers?  The only way is the end result, the music itself, how effective they are using the arrangement of notes on paper, how effective they are at orchestration, how effective are they at timing and rhythm?  Which is more telling than strict interpretation of the rules.  Greatness can be recognized even in composers one does not like.  And of course this varies greatly from person to person. 

[Luke]

Fact: 1+1=2
Theory: Most scientific knowledge
Opinions: How one feels about external stimuli and how one rates other peoples skills and abilities.

A historical event that has happened, especially one recorded for posterity is a fact such as the example you gave of someone holding a world record.

So, to return to my example, if I gave you my opinion that Bolt is incapable as a runner, despite the Fact (as you say) that he holds world records galore, would you still argue that my opinon was as valid as anyone else's? Would not the generally-accepted principle that holding a world record in an activity suggest competence in that activity be enough to suggest as strongly as can be suggested that I am, simply, wrong?

Because the same applies in music, albeit in a less clear-cut way. This is what you seem to struggle to accept, but trust me, it's the way things are. There are generally-accepted principles of measuring sheer musical ability; they are broad and fluid, they admit a vairety of interpretations, but at a certain point they all agre, and by any of their measurement Mozart is a capable composer, regardeless of whether you like his music or not, just as Bolt is a capable runner even if I find his long stride unganly (which I don't, btw!).

[Scarpia]

Everyone who has listened to his music has that RIGHT not just me, every single music lover!  You cannot disenfranchise us.  Everyone is free to rate skills of composer, a statesman, a chief, etc.  It is all personal.  I agree in some cases there is a majority that thinks something is great, and a minority that thinks it is poor.  But that DOES NOT give the right of the majority to impose it's opinion on the minority.  This is tyrannical, I am sorry you cannot see that.

Did anyone come to your house to confiscate your computer because you expressed your "expert" opinion that Mozart is an incompetent composer?  No.  So your freedom is not at issue.  The question is whether your "expert" opinion merits respect. 

Contrary to what you may think, not every opinion merits respect.   General Petreus' opinion on Military strategy in Afghanistan merits respect.  Lady Gaga's opinion on Military strategy in Afghanistan does not merit respect.  I will leave it to you to evaluate how much respect your opinion on the technical quality of Mozart's music merits.  Here's a hint.  Your expert analysis of Rachmaninoff was that there was no dissonance in his music.  However, a quick inspection of his scores indicates there is dissonance in almost every bar.   Hmmmm.

[Teresa]

This matter of opinion thing is awesome. I can be just as right as a qualified musicologist or orchestra member

Let's try... okay, Ferde Grofé is the greatest composer.

1+
Poor underrated Grofé not only wrote tons of wonderful suites but a killer Piano Concerto as well.  His use of color tones of all the instruments of the orchestra has never been surpassed by anyone IMHO.  He is the greatest orchestrator I've ever heard and one of my 10 greatest composers of all time. 

Most people only know his Grand Canyon Suite but he wrote so much more, much of it unrecorded and neglected.  Sad. 

You are correct qualifications are not required for personal opinions.  Musicologist or orchestra members give expert opinions which may or may not match your own.

[Teresa]

Although I am of the hard core relativists, it still seems pretty much to me:

"I don't care for Mozart  (or Henning...)"-- Valid Opinion.
"I don't think that Mozart (or Henning) is a good composer"-- Valid Opinion
"Mozart was (Henning is) a composer." - Fact.
"Mozart (or Henning) is a bad composer" -- valid opinion misrepresented as fact. (It is, in my book, unprovable.)

Thank you for the fantastic post, I totally agree. 

[Luke]

Did anyone come to your house to confiscate your computer because you expressed your "expert" opinion that Mozart is an incompetent composer?  No.  So your freedom is not at issue.  The question is whether your "expert" opinion merits respect. 

Contrary to what you may think, not every opinion merits respect.   General Petreus' opinion on Military strategy in Afghanistan merits respect.  Lady Gaga's opinion on Military strategy in Afghanistan does not merit respect.  I will leave it to you to evaluate how much respect your opinion on the technical quality of Mozart's music merits.  Here's a hint.  Your expert analysis of Rachmaninoff was that there was no dissonance in his music.  However, a quick inspection of his scores indicates there is dissonance in almost every bar.   Hmmmm.

And further to that, this doesn't mean that Lady Gaga is not entitled to have whatever views on Afghanistan she wishes. Just that they shouldn't be received with the same degree of attention as someone who actually knows what they are talking about.

Saul was proudly showing off his number of youtube views here, and the nice things people have said about his music there. I would defend to the hilt these people's right to enjoy the sounds Saul's computer makes as much as they wish; but if they began to say that Saul is a greater composer than Mahler (for example), that's where I would have the problem, because, demonstrably, quantifiably, by all standard measures, he is not. People passing through youtube are a mixed set; to the Afghanistan that is Saul's music some will be Lady Gagas, some General Petreus; all their tastes carry the same weight, but their opinions on the competence of the technique displayed do not.  That's all

[Scarpia]

And further to that, this doesn't mean that Lady Gaga is not entitled to have whatever views on Afghanistan she wishes. Just that they shouldn't be received with the same degree of attention as someone who actually knows what they are talking about.

Absolutely correct.  And for all we know, if General McChrystal had followed Lady Gaga's advice and worn that stainless steel bustier, maybe the Taliban would have surrendered by now.   

[Scarpia]

Saul was proudly showing off his number of youtube views here, and the nice things people have said about his music there. I would defend to the hilt these people's right to enjoy the sounds Saul's computer makes as much as they wish; but if they began to say that Saul is a greater composer than Mahler (for example), that's where I would have the problem, because, demonstrably, quantifiably, by all standard measures, he is not. People passing through youtube are a mixed set; to the Afghanistan that is Saul's music some will be Lady Gagas, some General Petreus; all their tastes carry the same weight, but their opinions on the competence of the technique displayed do not.  That's all

http://xkcd.com/202/

[Teresa]

So, to return to my example, if I gave you my opinion that Bolt is incapable as a runner, despite the Fact (as you say) that he holds world records galore, would you still argue that my opinon was as valid as anyone else's?

Perhaps you believe he was undeserving to win, perhaps you believe he somehow cheated.  At any rate it is not my place to tell you, your opinion is invalid, only YOU can decide that.

Would not the generally-accepted principle that holding a world record in an activity suggest competence in that activity be enough to suggest as strongly as can be suggested that I am, simply, wrong?

Competence and greatness are not the same thing.

Because the same applies in music, albeit in a less clear-cut way. This is what you seem to struggle to accept, but trust me, it's the way things are. There are generally-accepted principles of measuring sheer musical ability; they are broad and fluid, they admit a vairety of interpretations, but at a certain point they all agre, and by any of their measurement Mozart is a capable composer, regardeless of whether you like his music or not, just as Bolt is a capable runner even if I find his long stride unganly (which I don't, btw!).

It is your personal opinion and I honor that, however I disagree strongly as the same does not apply to music and compositional skills in my life.  Someone actually has to be a good composer based on the fruit of his labour before I put forth my opinion of him or her as a good composer.  This is all highly personal opinions.  Sometimes a large number of people can hold the same opinions, but this does not magically turn opinions into facts.  Facts are indisputable, as long as their are contrasting opinions they are not facts. 

"Mozart was a bad composer who died too late rather than too early."
Glenn Gould

[Teresa]

The question is whether your "expert" opinion merits respect. 

You are missing a very important concept, personal opinions do not require respect, just exist of their own accord and will vary from person to person.  The attack on freedom is when personal opinion is presented as fact, which it is NOT.  Recognizing greatness in any form is personal opinion.