Are you intrigued by music that disturbs and/or challenges?

[karlhenning]

That would be 'intrigued' then. So that's a Yes.

Pfff, whatever, meathead.

[karlhenning]

Thread duty:

Some of the music which I like, other people seem to find disturbing.

[DavidW]

Thread duty:

Some of the music which I like, other people seem to find disturbing.

You like Justin Bieber!?

[Grazioso]

Pfff, whatever, meathead.

Double pfff upon you, ye wicked!   

[Superhorn]

  Unfortunately, an appalling number of people who attend orchestra concerts in America,and possibly Europe etc,though I'm not absolutely certain, want to keep on hearing their old favorites -the same old thrice familiar symphonies and con certos etc,but Beethoven,Brahms,Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Schubert,Mendelssohn,Schumann etc,what the late Virgil Thomson used to sneeringly call "50 pieces".
  They're extremely reluctant to hear works bt living or recently deceased ocmposers, even the more conservative ones.
Apparently,they'be been burned by hearing certain 20th century works by Schoenberg and other important 20th century composers.  Many would rather be waterboarded than listen to anything by Schoenberg,Berg and Webern,or Messiaen, etc. 
  It's not uncommon for some of these concertgoers to leave the concert hall when a work by any of these composers are played, and then to return when their favorite piece by Tchaikovsky or Rachmaninov is played. This music is a kind of security blanket for them.
   But I've never been like this.Sure,I love those popular works that audiences love to hear. But I've grown accustomed to the music of the second Viennese school and quite a few other important 20th century composers,and I'm very curious to hear challenging works by Carter,Boulez, Babbitt, Henze, and other important composers who are far from being easy listening.
   Last year, there was a fascinating profile on ABCs Nightline of a cultural anthropologist who is interested in food from an anthropological viewpoint; he travels the world to exotic places and regularly tries food which would make most people barf ; rats, insects, and all sorts of weird and extremely unappetizing things. 
   He doesn't like everything he tries, although he has enjoyed some of it.But he's totally unafraid to try it.
   I'm sort of like that musically; I'm very curious to try the most complex and challenging works by Boulez,Carter, et al.,and I have a fair amount of it in my CD collection.  Like the anthropologist, I don't necessarily like all these difficult works, but I'm always willing to try them, and I give recordings several hearings to try to comprehend them., and I always try to keep an open mind. 
  Recently,I boroowed a CD of the piano concerto by the late Milton Babbitt. It was certainly tough going.  Even Schoenberg's 12-tone works have recognizable melodic motifs; but there were none in the Babbitt concerto ; it seemed like a mass of disconnected notes ,and it was impossible to get my bearings. But I listened to it at least 5 or 6 times.  I still don't know what to make of it.  I  didn['t really enjoy it, but I don't  dislike it either.But I tried.
   I have a classical music program for residents at a nursing home in New Rochelle,just north of New York,and I play all kinds of works for them,ranging from baroque to contemporary on CD, and I tell them about the composers and the works before playing,and then I get their reactions.
  Most of the residents are game for whatever I play,and I sometimes do play challenging works for them,but there's one lady who hates almost anything that's more modern than Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov. Rachmaninov is her favorite composer, and she just loves his piano concertos.,and she also loves Tchaikovsky.
    But she sometimes walks out when she doesn;t like what she hears,or if she stays,she lets me no in no uncertain terms how awful that :"Modern": music by Prokofiev and Shostakovich etc is. 
   Unfortunately, too many people who attend concerts are like this.  And in opera houses, many people are horrified by masterpieces like Wozzeck and Lulu.  I've seen them do this at Met performances of Wozzecjk I've attended.  But the recent performace of this great opera at the Met with Jimmy Levine returning to the pit after so much physical difficulties was according to the critics,  a huge success with the audience.
   Several years ago, I heard a radio broadcast from the Met of Schoenberg's thorny Moses& Aron from the Met, also with Levine conducting, and some people were actually shouting "Bravo" at the end !   Hope springs eternal....
     

[Scarpia]

I don't see why you should be "appalled" that too many people like Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, etc.

[Grazioso]

I don't see why you should be "appalled" that too many people like Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, etc.

Heaven help us all if Mozart and friends are considered too facile and familiar to be worth our time anymore.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Lol...yeah Bax is definitely an acquired taste.

Yes, like coprophilia.

[Scarpia]

Yes, like coprophilia.

Ok, we get it, you don't like Bax, but you've gone to far now.   

[(poco) Sforzando]

Ok, we get it, you don't like Bax, but you've gone to far now.   

I want my lawyer.

[eyeresist]

So listening repeatedly to music you don't like makes you a better person?

[Sid]

Interesting post, Superhorn.

I actually never minded the dyed in the wool conservatives who go to concerts, listen to the traditional things in the first half & leave en masse during interval before, say, a modern work is played. This often happens quite a bit here in Sydney. It is actually great because after the interval I am able go and occupy their better seats - the ushers didn't mind this at all, many of them actually encourage it.

I was at a Australian Chamber Orchestra concert of string orchestra works with a friend in 2009. In the first half, they played some more "accessible" music - Sculthorpe, Vaughan Williams, Bartok. During the interval, quite a few people ahead of us - in rows closer to the front - left. The second half was more challenging - Xenakis' Shaar & R. Strauss' Metamorphosen. When we came back from the interval, quite a few people had left, and the ushers said we could move to seats several rows ahead. The friend & I actually enjoyed all of the works pretty much equally. I don't really "get" these people who pay for the whole concert & only stay for half of it. But it's a "win-win" situation, really, for people like me but also for the ensemble - these people pay for the whole concert, even though they stay for only half.

I was talking to an acquaintance who I bumped into a concert on the weekend, and he also said this phenomenon often happens at the opera. He said "It's great, I get to take their better seats." He had his wife with him at that concert I met him at - he said she hated Schoenberg & he was okay with his stuff, but they both stayed to listen to it after interval. I think it's better to grin and bear it, maybe you'll end up getting something out of it. But pretty much no one leaves during interval at that series I was at on the weekend - the Australia Ensemble, who play a variety of repertoire of the past 250 years. Most of the audience is in their sixties, but they obviously like what is on offer. They've been subscribing to this series for 30 years since it started...

[Mirror Image]

I was at a Australian Chamber Orchestra concert of string orchestra works with a friend in 2009. In the first half, they played some more "accessible" music - Sculthorpe, Vaughan Williams, Bartok. During the interval, quite a few people ahead of us - in rows closer to the front - left. The second half was more challenging - Xenakis' Shaar & R. Strauss' Metamorphosen.

You think Strauss' Metamorphosen is challenging? It's as accessible as Sculthorpe or Vaughan Williams. Bartok is less accessible than all of them you mentioned except Xenakis. Name a musical conservative who can sit through the string quartets, The Miraculous Mandarin, or Concerto for Two Pianos, Percussion, and Orchestra without cringing, I don't know many. Bartok still has pussies running for the door.

[Sid]

You think Strauss' Metamorphosen is challenging? It's as accessible as Sculthorpe or Vaughan Williams. Bartok is less accessible than all of them you mentioned except Xenakis. Name a musical conservative who can sit through the string quartets, The Miraculous Mandarin, or Concerto for Two Pianos, Percussion, and Orchestra without cringing, I don't know many. Bartok still has pussies running for the door.

I disagree strongly. Most of Bartok's music is quite tonal and there is a strong tonal &/or thematic resolution at the end. It's not exactly like that in R. Strauss' Metamorphosen, which for the most part is largely "atonal" and only resolves in the last minute or so, with the quote from Beethoven's funeral march theme from the Eroica symphony (If you can call even that reference a "resolution" - many listeners out there won't recognise it). I was at another earlier concert of Metamorphosen in the late 1990's and after it, a guy sitting next to me said to his wife "that simply had no point." They played Bartok's Divertimento at that same concert, and he seemed happy with that. Bartok often tends to give a dancy upbeat ending with a positive vibe. You don't get that in Metamorphosen - the dark and the light are mixed together, part of a half hour stream of consciousness, and this is why it (in my opinion) is much less "accessible" (if we want to use such an inaccurate term?) than basically almost anything by Bartok. Bartok tended to use dissonance as a highlight to spice things up a bit, whereas in Metamorphosen, dissonance and more odd harmonies are fully integrated into the freely flowing structure...

[Mirror Image]

I disagree strongly. Most of Bartok's music is quite tonal and there is a strong tonal &/or thematic resolution at the end. It's not exactly like that in R. Strauss' Metamorphosen, which for the most part is largely "atonal" and only resolves in the last minute or so, with the quote from Beethoven's funeral march theme from the Eroica symphony (If you can call even that reference a "resolution" - many listeners out there won't recognise it). I was at another earlier concert of Metamorphosen in the late 1990's and after it, a guy sitting next to me said to his wife "that simply had no point." They played Bartok's Divertimento at that same concert, and he seemed happy with that. Bartok often tends to give a dancy upbeat ending with a positive vibe. You don't get that in Metamorphosen - the dark and the light are mixed together, part of a half hour stream of consciousness, and this is why it (in my opinion) is much less "accessible" (if we want to use such an inaccurate term?) than basically almost anything by Bartok. Bartok tended to use dissonance as a highlight to spice things up a bit, whereas in Metamorphosen, dissonance and more odd harmonies are fully integrated into the freely flowing structure...

I disagree with your disagreement. All of Strauss' music is accessible to me and Metamorphosen being one that is quite easy to follow. If you think Bartok's music has a positive quality then you haven't listened hard enough. You're all wrong about Bartok. Like I said, let's see if somebody doesn't actually cringe during the string quartets and The Miraculous Mandarin. Like I said, a lot of Bartok's music, not all of it, has people running for their mommies.

[Sid]

Let's agree to disagree on that then. I don't know why you have to negate my actual experience, at both concerts I mentioned. Maybe I was suffering from hallucinations and the guy's comments to his wife next to me were imagined, or the people who left during interval were also fabrications of my mind  ...

[Mirror Image]

Let's agree to disagree on that then. I don't know why you have to negate my actual experience, at both concerts I mentioned. Maybe I was suffering from hallucinations and the guy's comments to his wife next to me were imagined, or the people who left during interval were also fabrications of my mind  ...

Don't be a smartass, Sid. I'm just saying that Bartok's music isn't little kids stuff and still frightens many concert goers as much as anything composed by a Xenakis or a Boulez. The only difference between Bartok and the two composers I mentioned is he wasn't afraid to show his human side every now and again. He didn't need to prove anything to anybody like these post-WWII composers think they have to do. What has happened to melody? What has happened to harmony? Why can't these composers get their heads out of the damn clouds and start composing music that means something and can connect with people? Music doesn't always have to be on the cutting edge to be enjoyable. In fact, I would rather listen to composer who knew how to compose with his heart then someone who composes music that sounds like a musical exercise.

Shit even Morton Feldman wasn't afraid to use a melody. Wake up, Sid.

[Florestan]

I'm just saying that Bartok's music isn't little kids stuff and still frightens many concert goers as much as anything composed by a Xenakis or a Boulez.

May I ask when was the last time you attended a concert where people cringed because of Bartok's music?

[DavidW]

I've never seen people cringe at Bartok's music.  I agree with Sid, R. Strauss' music is dense and hard to get into excepting a couple of well known works.  Bartok's rhythmic drive makes it easier to follow his music, and speaks more to modern ears imo.

[(poco) Sforzando]

I did attend a concert at Carnegie Hall where two old geezers walked out in the middle of Boulez's Four Notations for Orchestra and slammed the exit door quite loudly. Without turning around or missing a beat, David Robertson waved "bye-bye" from the podium in the direction of the offending door.