Composers on GMG - Who's currently hot....and who's not?

[Luke]

Sforzando, as he explains, borrows 'resentment' from Harold Bloom (I have (read) several books by him). Perhaps the word is simply not apt for what happens on this board. Bloom uses it for groups trying to establish their own alternative canons, and who resent and envy the prestige accorded to 'the' Canon. I don't see that here on GMG.

Yes, I understand that - I've read the Bloom book he is borrowing from too. And I think the term is applicable there because Bloom is positing the idea not of rejection of individual canonic authors but of (to use your neat description) 'groups trying to establish their own alternative canons...who resent and envy the prestige accorded to 'the' Canon'. IOW, not saying 'I hate Dickens' but instead retaliating against the predominance of dead white males in 'the' Canon and arguing that living black females ought to be there too. That, it seems to me, is possibly indicative of resentment - I tend to agree with Bloom, and Sfz on this. But as you say, it's not really what happens at GMG, except in a few very specific and unobjectionable cases (Ten Thumbs, for instance, who is a champion of female composers as a specific group, an approach I don't really understand - I'm more interested in composers as individuals than in groups of composers, disparate in time and place, whose link is based on a fact of anatomy, though of course there are interesting sociological issues about the opportunities given to female composers historically. But that's another discussion....)

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Oh, but I do agree with Bloom, Sforzando and you on the 'resentment' felt by people who define themselves as a group in rivalry with the elect who have been favoured by the verdict of history. Though even 'the' Canon isn't as airtight as they think. As someone already said (MI?), a few deserving individuals are sometimes admitted, belatedly. Mahler is a case in point. And in another century (the 19th) someone like Johannes Vermeer, who suddenly came to be seen as Rembrandt's equal. I think every country can point to cases of belated recognition.

[karlhenning]

Fine discussion, gents, thank you.

[Cato]

Oh, but I do agree with Bloom, Sforzando and you on the 'resentment' felt by people who define themselves as a group in rivalry with the elect who have been favoured by the verdict of history. Though even 'the' Canon isn't as airtight as they think. As someone already said (MI?), a few deserving individuals are sometimes admitted, belatedly. Mahler is a case in point. And in another century (the 19th) someone like Johannes Vermeer, who suddenly came to be seen as Rembrandt's equal. I think every country can point to cases of belated recognition.

Ultimately you have a mystery: how is it that the eyes, ears, and souls of a later generation suddenly sense something great in a creative person's output?  Being "ahead of one's time" is no explanation, except to say that the tyranny of the status quo prevented a new idea from spreading.  Why was the status quo not maintained, and why did a new generation accept something rejected, or at least not completely accepted in earlier days? 

One thinks of Bach's reputation as an obscure mathematical composer in the early 19th century.  He was not part of the canon at that time.

Perhaps the awakening comes from the assertion of "generational personalities" and the willful galling of parents and grandparents, or from a combination of other factors.  "My parents' generation was blind, but I SEE what they have missed!"

As far as women artists/composers/creators are concerned, one considers the works: Artemisia Gentileschi certainly convinced her patriarchal society that she was a great artist, despite their prejudices.  Cecile Chaminade's works, however, prove she was a minor leaguer.

In the 90's I received a copy of a book and CD's from the German government.  Dripping with sweat, the book hoped to convince the reader that the "female composer" had been locked in the fruit cellar of a Male Society's Mansion, and offered examples of contemporary compositions by German women composers, every one of them professors of music, and every one of them demonstrating why, as a general statement, professors should not be composers.

Composers, of course, can also be professors (Rimsky, Bruckner) but the equation is not commutative.   0:)

[(poco) Sforzando]

Yes, I understand that - I've read the Bloom book he is borrowing from too. And I think the term is applicable there because Bloom is positing the idea not of rejection of individual canonic authors but of (to use your neat description) 'groups trying to establish their own alternative canons...who resent and envy the prestige accorded to 'the' Canon'. IOW, not saying 'I hate Dickens' but instead retaliating against the predominance of dead white males in 'the' Canon and arguing that living black females ought to be there too. That, it seems to me, is possibly indicative of resentment - I tend to agree with Bloom, and Sfz on this. But as you say, it's not really what happens at GMG, except in a few very specific and unobjectionable cases (Ten Thumbs, for instance, who is a champion of female composers as a specific group, an approach I don't really understand - I'm more interested in composers as individuals than in groups of composers, disparate in time and place, whose link is based on a fact of anatomy, though of course there are interesting sociological issues about the opportunities given to female composers historically. But that's another discussion....)

Well yes, the parallels are not exact. But they're suggestive nonetheless. Take also the always entertaining Teresa, who established a personal canon where the use of percussion was the dominant factor in her enjoyment of a work, vs. all those old percussionless bores from the Classical period. And GMG is only a microcosm of a larger phenomenon.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Yes, I understand that - I've read the Bloom book he is borrowing from too. And I think the term is applicable there because Bloom is positing the idea not of rejection of individual canonic authors but of (to use your neat description) 'groups trying to establish their own alternative canons...who resent and envy the prestige accorded to 'the' Canon'. IOW, not saying 'I hate Dickens' but instead retaliating against the predominance of dead white males in 'the' Canon and arguing that living black females ought to be there too. That, it seems to me, is possibly indicative of resentment - I tend to agree with Bloom, and Sfz on this. But as you say, it's not really what happens at GMG, except in a few very specific and unobjectionable cases

Yeah, Bloom's usage relates to the so-called "culture wars," i.e. certain authors should get more "points" because they are (black, female, disabled, lesbian, or [fill in the blank]). I don't see that going on here. When cases are made for obscure composers, they are done either on the basis of quality (they're "underrated"), or simple affinity ("hey, I just like it").

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

Take also the always entertaining Teresa, who established a personal canon where the use of percussion was the dominant factor in her enjoyment of a work, vs. all those old percussionless bores from the Classical period.

On the other hand, there's nothing wrong with being upfront about one's personal tastes and biases. If Teresa really can't stand percussionless music, I don't see how the great composers of the world are going to be negatively affected by her preferences.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Only recently has Koechlin's music hit me. I hope that someday you will explore this composer as I think he would be right up your alley. That is, if you can let down your guard long enough to listen to the music.

One minute you're deriding composers who wrote in a late-Romantic style, but now, all of a sudden, you're praising them? Make up your damn mind.

Why such anger towards this guy? One minute you want him to make his own damn mind, the next you'll taunting him for being close-minded towards a composer you've only recently discovered.

And yet if there's any suggestion that you yourself are being similarly close-minded, you become belligerent: "You may not agree with my stance on this composer or that composer, but I'm not changing my mind about them anytime soon." Now look, I've pretty much given up on trying to get you to listen to composers you've already decided you've "hated." But at least be intellectually honest enough to recognize there's a real pot-kettle-black situation here.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Oh, but I do agree with Bloom, Sforzando and you on the 'resentment' felt by people who define themselves as a group in rivalry with the elect who have been favoured by the verdict of history. Though even 'the' Canon isn't as airtight as they think. As someone already said (MI?), a few deserving individuals are sometimes admitted, belatedly. Mahler is a case in point. And in another century (the 19th) someone like Johannes Vermeer, who suddenly came to be seen as Rembrandt's equal. I think every country can point to cases of belated recognition.

Herman Melville.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Ultimately you have a mystery: how is it that the eyes, ears, and souls of a later generation suddenly sense something great in a creative person's output?  Being "ahead of one's time" is no explanation, except to say that the tyranny of the status quo prevented a new idea from spreading.  Why was the status quo not maintained, and why did a new generation accept something rejected, or at least not completely accepted in earlier days? 

One thinks of Bach's reputation as an obscure mathematical composer in the early 19th century.  He was not part of the canon at that time.

Perhaps the awakening comes from the assertion of "generational personalities" and the willful galling of parents and grandparents, or from a combination of other factors.  "My parents' generation was blind, but I SEE what they have missed!"

The reasons why an artist's contemporaries may be blind to his qualities, while a new generation appreciates them are many and complex. One reason - a new historical experience, like war, artistic change, technological advances... People, artists, want to make sense of life and a dead artist may be retro-actively 'activated', because he seems to partly solve the puzzle or can help in its expression. Bach's reappraisal, for example, came as the Romantics freed up harmony and saw a sea of possibilities in his work. They needed him.

[Florestan]

Sforzando, Luke, Cato, Johann --- thank you gentlemen for a very thoughtful, interesting and civil debate. For the record, in matters "Canonical" I'm with Sforzando all the way; and Spontini rocks. 

Mirror Image --- to dislike Bach, Mozart and Beethoven is your "damn" right and I don't object to it in the least; but why "hate"? What damage has their music done to you personally or to someone you love to elicit such a strong abhorrence?

[karlhenning]

To try to answer Luke, as he has given the most thoughtful response: I can't quantify how "many" people here seem to embody attitudes of resentment towards canonical composers, but (without mentioning names) I can easily remember being told here that Bach wrote "Muzak," that the St. Matthew is "appallingly mundane," Mozart is a "sissy" and Beethoven a "bombastic bore," "I often feel I will go mad if I hear any more Mozart. It just drives me crazy all the Mozart mania and people assuming he was the greatest," "I don't like opera [or chamber music, or piano music, or sacred music, or the moderns, or the Renaissance - take your pick] - and this is just a small sampling. Obviously this is not always a black and white thing. I'm not pretending that the board is rife with a majority of people who are totally out to jettison the accepted canon. But the attitudes quoted above do exist, and if this is not resentment towards some of the most admired names in musical history, then how would you describe it?

I absolutely agree too that there are any number of composers who have been unjustly neglected, and too much emphasis on a small body of names. This is the essential problem with a canon of any sort. Before the turn of the 19th century or so, composers were primarily expected to produce new work, and the idea of preserving a corpus of music for posterity was largely unknown. Now we've gone to the other extreme where new music is often reviled, and what we get are endless performances and recordings of a very limited repertoire always of music of the past (and a very limited past at that, overwhelmingly concentrating on 19th century orchestral music). This is hardly a healthy situation, above all not a good one for living composers, and to that degree it is extremely valuable that we get to hear less familiar names who have much good music to offer.

But to my mind there is a major difference between expanding one's horizons beyond the generally accepted canon and to some degree or other rejecting it. Most of you will not like me for saying this - not that I really care - but it seems to me that if one does not know very well the touchstones of the canonical literature - such as (but not limited to) the B minor Mass, the Goldbergs, the Art of Fugue, the major Mozart operas and concertos, the Eroica, the Grosse Fuge and the other late Beethoven quartets, Tristan, Meistersinger, and the Ring, Falstaff, the Chopin ballades, the songs of Schubert and Schumann, the chamber music of Brahms and Bartok, La Mer, Le Sacre, Erwartung, Pierrot, Wozzeck - that one is in a less secure position to assess work that is not part of the canon. The core repertoire is not just some arbitrary collection of pieces that some mean person selected in order to keep other worthy music from being heard. Works like those I named are the essence of the art, and if somebody is going to go off on the "Bach is overrated" or "Wagner is a snooze" tangent, then I'm going to fight back.

And that's why if someone who truly does appreciate this core literature says to me, "listen also to Brian, or Pettersson, or Farrenc, or Vorisek," then I am more likely to take that person seriously than I am someone who displays some degree of resentment towards major periods, genres, or composers.

I think, in the end, we like what we like. [snip]

Entirely orthogonal, i.e., in the end, this remark does not address at all (poco) Sfz's post.  We like what we like, huzzah, hail and well met, but one of the core ideas in this thread is the fact of the Canon, the historical and artistic values reflected in the Canon, and (a shadow of the main res) how one's personal taste is a separate question, to whatever degree one's personal taste and the historical and artistic v. reflected in the C. may or may not overlap.

To illustrate, personally, I may not find Handel all that interesting to listen to, but that does not affect at all (a) his historical importance, and by extension (b) the reasonable requisite that anyone pursuing an education in music must (1) cultivate a familiarity with significant samples of his work, and (2) acquire an objective understanding of his musical characteristics, style, &c.

(And I still have a good time singing the Hallelujah Chorus.)

[not edward]

To illustrate, personally, I may not find Handel all that interesting to listen to, but that does not affect at all (a) his historical importance, and by extension (b) the reasonable requisite that anyone pursuing an education in music must (1) cultivate a familiarity with significant samples of his work, and (2) acquire an objective understanding of his musical characteristics, style, &c.[/font]

Exactly, and I would say the same thing for, say, Schumann. But he is part of the established canon, and whether I find his music worth listening to or not isn't going to make the slightest difference to that. However, and I expect this does happen to many people, it did probably take me until my late 20s to come to accept the established canon (after a violently anti-art-music period followed by a "the only music worth listening to is Beethoven, Mahler and atonal crap" phase). No doubt I now have some other dogmatic views now that I fail at this point to recognize.

It does seem to me that an acceptance and knowledge of the canon gives one a big advantage in appreciating non-canon works, too. One only needs to think of, say, Henze's 7th symphony or Tippett's 3rd, and ponder "would these works make anything like as much sense to someone who's never heard Beethoven's symphonies?"

[DavidW]

My problem with the classical music canon is that it celebrates a tradition of Western European music for the upper class.  Historical influence of other composers in the canon is both circular (why is Beethoven great? because he influenced Brahms, talk about nepotism) and subjective.  The canon seems to not be defined in terms of any kind of objective merits, and yet you people here think that it should be accepted as such.

To think that with a wealth of music around the world that some would choose a small selection of 18th and 19th century music from Germany and Italy and say that music is somehow artistically superior to the rest smacks of myopia.

[DavidW]

And btw that is exactly the problem with Bloom as well.  It's not about creating alternative canons, it's about recognizing the merits of literature around the world.

[karlhenning]

My problem with the classical music canon is that it celebrates a tradition of Western European music for the upper class.

Well, that is where the word canon, at least with its Biblical resonance is misleading: the idea that These Are Great, and Nothing Without Is Great.  It seems to me, though, that there is a consensus among us who affirm value in a canon, that its purpose is Representative, not Exclusionary.

[Florestan]

My problem with the classical music canon is that it celebrates a tradition of Western European music for the upper class. 

That's history. What we call "classical music" for lack of a better term developed and evolved under the patronage of, and with the passionate support, of the upper classes, i.e. clergy, aristocracy and bourgeoisie. This might certainly hurt some contemporary sensibilities, but it can't be neither changed nor cast aside. 

OTOH, does anybody force you to listen to the music of that lackey of the aristocracy, Haydn, to the detriment of Austrian peasant music?

Historical influence of other composers in the canon is both circular (why is Beethoven great? because he influenced Brahms, talk about nepotism) and subjective.

I don't know whoever pretended that Beethoven's greatness resides mainly in his influence on Brahms. Could you please give us a source?

The canon seems to not be defined in terms of any kind of objective merits

So basically you dismiss the countless works analysing in the minutest details the intricacies of Beethoven's or Mozart's or Haydn's music as lacking any kind of objective merit, don't you?

, and yet you people here think that it should be accepted as such.

I can't think of anyone here who ever suggested that the canon be accepted blindly and uncritically. Could you please name one?

To think that with a wealth of music around the world that some would choose a small selection of 18th and 19th century music from Germany and Italy and say that music is somehow artistically superior to the rest smacks of myopia.

And btw that is exactly the problem with Bloom as well.  It's not about creating alternative canons, it's about recognizing the merits of literature around the world.

Saul Below once attracted the rage of liberal academia upon him saying something to the effect of: "Show me the Proust and the Tolstoy of the Papuans and I'll be only too glad to read them".

I shall paraphrase him and attract your rage upon me: "Show me the Monteverdi and the Mozart of the Caribbeans and I'll be only too glad to listen to them." 

[Sergeant Rock]

And btw that is exactly the problem with Bloom as well.  It's not about creating alternative canons, it's about recognizing the merits of literature around the world.

He does recognize it. In appendix D of the The Western Canon he predicts what works may eventually enter the Canon; they include works from all over the globe. Of course it's weighted heavily towards the personal bias of an American Jew: seven books in Arabic but almost forty in Yiddish or Hebrew. Seven works in Czech but seven pages of Americans. I'm just happy he includes John Berryman and Conrad Aiken 

Sarge

[Scarpia]

My problem with the classical music canon is that it celebrates a tradition of Western European music for the upper class.  Historical influence of other composers in the canon is both circular (why is Beethoven great? because he influenced Brahms, talk about nepotism) and subjective.  The canon seems to not be defined in terms of any kind of objective merits, and yet you people here think that it should be accepted as such.

To think that with a wealth of music around the world that some would choose a small selection of 18th and 19th century music from Germany and Italy and say that music is somehow artistically superior to the rest smacks of myopia.

I do not understand this viewpoint at all.  What we are discussing is the canon of classical music, and the definition of classical music that seems most persuasive to me (from the thread) is notated music from a certain tradition leading from Monteverdi to Tippett.  Maybe some assume so, but there is no implication that it is the only worthwhile form of music, it is one form of music.  You can have a Canon of Jazz music starting from Louis Armstrong and Jellyroll Morton leading to Miles Davis.   You can have a Canon of teenybobber rock starting from the Monkeys and leading to Justin Beiber. 

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

You can have a Canon of Jazz music starting from Louis Armstrong and Jellyroll Morton leading to Miles Davis.   You can have a Canon of teenybobber rock starting from the Monkeys and leading to Justin Bieber.

Agreed.