Comparing Composers

[Saul]

Saul, you have entirely failed to supply any response to Luke's invitation. Spam to the effect of Mendelssohn is the tits! is not a response here.

So, thank you for conceding that you have no musical criticism of Schoenberg.

(BTW, Schoenberg is a better composer than Mendelssohn. Just saying.)

How about giving me some time to respond?

[Saul]

Luke here's an example of Showenberg's Banality:

http://www.youtube.com/v/fy6t8yXPcSQ&feature=related

Where's the melody?
Where's the order?
Where's the harmony?
Where's the classical feeling?
It almost sounds that he is hitting the keys without any previous thought.

And Karl to suggest that the above music is in anyway supirior to this is just been blind to reality, Mendelssohn wrote this Sonata when he was only a little boy, perhaps 13 or 14, and his youthful genius overpowers anything that Showenberg had written in any time:
http://www.youtube.com/v/t2V9E6ftc5U&feature=related

[karlhenning]

How about giving me some time to respond?

Doesn't alter the fact that flogging the dead Mendelssohn fandom horse is absolutely irrelevant to the question of Schoenberg.

[Teresa]

Since the Baroque Era music has devolved and not evolved, because evolution connotes progress in craft, and clearly that was never the case. As time passed by the urge of finding a new voice and style had caused composers to break from traditional sounding classical music and its rules and began composing modern sounding music which is by every standard and by every means completely inferior to the beauty and grandeur of Classical music. This deterioration of the art of composing is most evident with the composers of the 20th century, most notably, Prokofiev, Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, Mahler and Shostakovich who wrote music that may sound appealing to some people, but don't be fooled, their music is completely banal and poorly written, and should never be included within classical music.

Breaking the rules of a given art should never be considered as progress. Those who push for this, are ignoring the fact, that just like every given art and wisdom, Classical music has rules and standards, and when you decide to depart from them, you depart from Classical music.

Thank you for condemning 99% of the Classical Music I DEARLY LOVE! 

You really are intolerant, calling the Classical Music I love not even deserving enough to be Classical Music.

I believe in freedom and inclusion, you believe just the opposite exclusion and intolerance of other peoples Classical Music choices.  As much as I hate Mozart, I would NEVER condemn anyone for loving Mozart, as that is personal choice and everyone everywhere should be free to love who they want.  PERIOD!  YOUR INTOLERANCE IS EXTREMELY RUDE!!!!

It is OK, if you hate every single composer I love, and I believe that you do since you don't like Romantic and Modern composers.  Why can you not extend this same courtesy to everyone else?  It is fine you hate composers but it is WRONG to FORCE you choices of composers on every one else and condemn the composers we love as not only crap but even worse not classical music.  Tolerance of other peoples feelings would help you a lot!

Personally I believe that Great Classical Music was born with Rimsky-Korsakov who showed us how to use the "color tones" of musical instruments for emotionally effective orchestration.  For me Classical Music didn't really get great until after 1800.

I would love for you to point me to a single work written before 1800 that is as well composed as Stravinsky's Firebird Ballet or as well orchestrated. 

NO, CLASSICAL MUSIC HAS EVOLVED NOT DE-EVOLVED.  Classical Music has not only gotten better, but considerable better by many degrees of magnitude. 

Listen to Jennifer Higdon's City Scape and Concerto for Orchestra both written in 2002 and tell me it's not Classical Music.  It is some of the most beautiful Classical Music I have ever heard in my entire long life!
Jennifer Higdon sound samples at Amazon.com

I love ancient and early Renaissance Dance and Troubadour music, and FIRMLY believe music got WORSE with the Baroque era and didn't recover until the Romantic era.  But that is only my personal opinion which applies to me.  And believe it or not your personal opinions ONLY APPLY TO YOU.  YOU CANNOT FORCE YOUR OPINIONS ON OTHERS NO MATTER HOW HARD YOU TRY. 
IT IS IMPOSSIBLE!

[Teresa]

Here's a quote from Wikipedia about Mendelssohn and his contemporaries:

Throughout his life Mendelssohn was wary of the more radical musical developments undertaken by some of his contemporaries. He was generally on friendly, if somewhat cool, terms with the likes of Hector Berlioz, Franz Liszt, and Giacomo Meyerbeer, but in his letters expresses his frank disapproval of their works. In particular, he seems to have regarded Paris and its music with the greatest of suspicion and an almost Puritanical distaste. Attempts made during his visit there to interest him in Saint-Simonianism ended in embarrassing scenes. [36]He thought the Paris style of opera vulgar, and the works of Meyerbeer insincere. It is significant that the only musician with whom he was a close personal friend, Moscheles, was of an older generation and equally conservative in outlook. Moscheles preserved this outlook at the Leipzig Conservatory.


I totally agree with Mendelssohn's approach and opinion here. Is he also a fool and an idiot according to you and your friends here?

Yes, some people including myself are against the 'radical musical developments' initiated by later composers.

This only proves why Hector Berlioz and Franz Liszt are IMHO considerably better composers than Felix Mendelssohn.  His approach was reactionary and stifling of musical growth.  And it shows plainly in how more advanced and enjoyable Berlioz's and Liszt's compositions are over Mendelssohn. 

[Saul]

Teresa,

I never force my opinion on others.

And been adventurous doesn't mean that its better.

As to providing you a work that is better composed then the Firebird there it goes:
Composed in 1788
http://www.youtube.com/v/l45DAuXYSIs&feature=related

[karlhenning]

Saul, you really just don't get it.

[Teresa]

Teresa,

I never force my opinion on others.

And been adventurous doesn't mean that its better.

As to providing you a work that is better composed then the Firebird there it goes:

http://www.youtube.com/v/l45DAuXYSIs&feature=related

No way dude that is a horrible piece of music, STRAVINSKY'S FIREBIRD is easily 1,000,000,000,000 times better!

By calling the music we love banal and not even deserving the designation of "Classical Music" you are indeed trying to force your opinion on others, big time!  I am saying your tricks will not work, we will continue to love the Classical music we love no matter how loud you claim it is not Classical music.  You do not have the power you think you do.

[Saul]

No way dude that is a horrible piece of music, STRAVINSKY'S FIREBIRD is easily 1,000,000,000,000 times better!

By calling the music we love banal and not even deserving the designation of "Classical Music" you are indeed trying to force your opinion on others, big time!  I am saying your tricks will not work, we will continue to love the Classical music we love no matter how loud you claim it is not Classical music.  You do not have the power you think you do.

How is it a billion times better, care to explain?

[Franco]

Let me explain to you why Stravinsky is not a Great composer.

[snipped]

I wish you wouldn't - but I know you can't help yourself.

[Saul]

I wish you wouldn't - but I know you can't help yourself.

Haha! 

[(poco) Sforzando]

Very good post. As you say, there are so many holes in Saul's line of thinking, such as it is discernible, that it's hard to know where to start, but you make a very good point. I love how Saul sees eveything from Bach to Brahms as some kind of monolithic mass of sameness, music that followed 'the rules' (whatever they are, haven't had a cogent response on that one yet) without deviation or exploration!

You know, Luke, without (needless to say) realizing it, Saul is simply proposing a diluted version of Schenker theory, where all music basically follows the same I-V-I "deep structure" exemplified in the period from Bach through Brahms, and any music that does not suit his theory is ipso facto denied the status of music.

Please, everyone, continue your most entertaining discussion.

[Teresa]

How is it a billion times better, care to explain?

All you have to do is actually listen to a good performance though a good stereo to hear for yourself.

The Firebird's Orchestration alone is light years ahead, not to mention the actual notes themselves and the interplay with the instrument's voices and tone colors.  Melody and harmony have seldom been matched by any composition before or after.  The Firebird IMHO is one of those rare perfect works. 

[Gurn Blanston]

Golly gee, I'm so pleased that I stopped in for instant edification...  

Even in the remote possibility that either of you is right (and I reserve the right to not concede that point), you are presenting your arguments like schoolchildren at a show and tell. Kindly make some attempt to rein in your emotions a bit. 

[Saul]

All you have to do is actually listen to a good performance though a good stereo to hear for yourself.

The Firebird's Orchestration alone is light years ahead, not to mention the actual notes themselves and the interplay with the instrument's voices and tone colors.  Melody and harmony have seldom been matched by any composition before or after.  The Firebird IMHO is one of those rare perfect works.

Its a roast chicken compared to real music.

Anyways, this is for Sforzando: not that I agree that German traditional music form is better then the French or the Dutch or any other Europan country.

Wikipedia:


Schenker's goals

Schenker's primary theoretic aims were to prove the superiority of German music of the common practice period (especially the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, and Johannes Brahms) over more modern music such as that of Richard Wagner, Igor Stravinsky, and Arnold Schoenberg, and to show that most of the established music theory teaching of the time, with an emphasis on the theories of his contemporary Hugo Riemann, was misleading and useless for an understanding of the "masterworks."[citation needed] These premises led Schenker to seek the key to an understanding of music in the traditional discipline of counterpoint, since this is the type of theory the "German Masters" themselves had studied. While Schenker's theory has been tremendously influential, particularly in North America thanks in part to his emigre students Oswald Jonas and Felix Salzer, most "Schenkerians" do not share his exceedingly narrow and nationalistic view of musical excellence, and his ideas and methods have been applied to a wide range of composers.[citation needed]

Schenker's project, thus, was to show that free composition (freier Satz) was an elaboration of strict composition (strenger Satz), by which Schenker meant species counterpoint. He did this by developing a theory of hierarchically organized reductional levels, called prolongational levels, voice-leading levels (Stimmführungsschichten), or transformations (Verwandlungen), the idea being that at higher levels in the structure the musical materials conform more closely to those of strict composition. A primary goal in constructing these levels therefore is to show linear connections between notes that may be separated by many measures on the musical surface (since linearity or step-wise motion is the most important characteristic of good voice leading).

The basic components of Schenkerian theory and analysis therefore are the nature of the background—that is, the highest voice leading level—and the ways in which the background may be prolonged (elaborated, transformed) to arrive at the foreground—i. e. the musical composition.

[karlhenning]

Very good post. As you say, there are so many holes in Saul's line of thinking, such as it is discernible, that it's hard to know where to start, but you make a very good point. I love how Saul sees eveything from Bach to Brahms as some kind of monolithic mass of sameness, music that followed 'the rules' (whatever they are, haven't had a cogent response on that one yet) without deviation or exploration!

And, as if "following the rules" were The Greatest Thing ; )

[karlhenning]

Its a roast chicken compared to real music.

On the lines of you just don't get it, Saul . . . scornful assertion is not an argument.

Thank you for conceding that you have no musical criticism of L'oiseau de feu.

[Saul]

On the lines of you just don't get it, Saul . . . scornful assertion is not an argument.

Thank you for conceding that you have no musical criticism of L'oiseau de feu.

Yes like Teresa saying that the Firebird (roast chicken) is 1 million times better then Mozart's music?

Do you see what you want to see Karl?

[Saul]

And, as if "following the rules" were The Greatest Thing ; )

Following the rules is the greatest thing when it comes to writing Great Classical music, yes.

[Saul]

Oh and by the way, next time I will be having some roast chicken, I would know what music to listen to on the background.