Composers you don't get

[Brian]

So I finally decided to jump in this thread to see what composers everybody doesn't get. Instead, as GMG's Second-Biggest Kapustin Fan, I'm just depressed.*

I want to be there when Mirror Image finally cracks Beethoven.

*though I would not consider him a member of the Beethoven class, or even to be one of the greatest living composers - just one of those I like the most

[Mirror Image]

I want to be there when Mirror Image finally cracks Beethoven.

I want to be there too.

[karlhenning]

Hard for me to imagine not liking Beethoven.

[Mirror Image]

Hard for me to imagine not liking Beethoven.

It's not that I don't like Beethoven's music it's just that I don't connect with the music.

[Mirror Image]

Anyway, does anyone disagree with what I wrote to Josquin des Prez in regards to Beethoven's genius?

[Lethevich]

as GMG's Second-Biggest Kapustin Fan, I'm just depressed.*

Can I petition to be the forum's Third-Biggest Kapustin Fan? I rather like his music, although perhaps not for the same reasons as others.

[Brian]

Can I petition to be the forum's Third-Biggest Kapustin Fan? I rather like his music, although perhaps not for the same reasons as others.

Hey, let's take this party to the Kapustin thread and hide from the haterz. 

[Mirror Image]

Hey, let's take this party to the Kapustin thread and hide from the haterz. 

I'll take my own party to the Koechlin thread where I can debate with myself. Since I am the only one who posts there.

[Cato]

Anyway, does anyone disagree with what I wrote to Josquin des Prez in regards to Beethoven's genius?

(Crickets, crickets, crickets.)

[DavidRoss]

Hard for me to imagine not liking Beethoven.

Well, yes...but you've been listening to and performing and studying and composing music for many years, Karl.

As for Kapustin (isn't that a province in Uzbekistan?), if Bri & Sar like him, he must be worth something...right? 

So now it's off to Mog to hear 24 preludes in jazz style

[Cato]

So, I have spent some time listening to music by Nikolai Kapustin.

Yes, European jazz, with occasionally a far distant memory of Scriabin now and then, but more often than not, one hears something similar to the smoky sweaty tinkling and twirbling of Oscar Levant and the MGM Symphony Orchestra, or at least that was the first thing I thought of during the opening of this piece:

From the Second Piano Concerto:

http://theory.caltech.edu/~kapustin/Nikolai/07%20Track%207.mp3

[Mirror Image]

Another composer I don't get besides the ones I've already mentioned in this thread is Igor Markevitch. Obviously influenced by Stravinsky and Neoclassicism in general, but there's nothing memorable about his music. I've made it through four volumes of his orchestral music on Naxos (originally on Marco Polo) and I don't hear anything that jumps out at me.

[ibanezmonster]

Condescending much, Karl?

Can you actually prove that Beethoven was a genius?

Complexity mixed with an individual voice mixed for his time?
(possibly the general definition of "genius?")

But I'm not extremely acquainted with his scores, so if I had to explain "genius," I could explain it with other composers whose scores I'm more familiar with (such as Mahler).

I mean, I could go on and prove Mahler was a genius, but will you understand the technical aspects of what I would say?

[Josquin des Prez]

As somebody who doesn't like Beethoven

The hell?

we're all right in telling you BEETHOVEN WAS A GENIUS!!!! Not because we say he is but because history acknowledges that he was and his influence in undeniable.

Bzzz, wrong answer. History and influence have nothing to do with the evaluation of genius. You really have no idea what this argument is about, do you.

[Luke]

See? Chickened out answer. Come on Luke, you can do better then that. I think you know what my argument is, you just don't want to admit it.

I know what your argument is, I just think it is rubbish.

Truth is, I started to write a sensible reply to your ridiculous question. A reply which discussed some of the myriad moments in Beethoven's music which are so suffused with unique insight and so forth that they indicate a mind of genius behind them. And then I thought

1) this is a waste of time, because JDP isn't even going to bother to read this. He is scared of discussing the notes themselves

2) in the end, what I was trying to say did in fact boil down to the much simpler, reductive answer I gave: Beethoven's genius is shown in his music. Weininger may tell you that there is no such thing as a genius for music, just a 'universal genius', but really, I doubt there is much genius in Beethoven's recipe for chicken soup. No, you need to look at his music to find it. Seriously. No chickening out there.

BTW, to Brian and Sara and whoever else - don't count me among the Kapustin haterz! Read my posts here and you'll see precisely my opinion of him: a skillful, gifted compoer of very interesting and enjoyable music with much to give. But not a composer with much to say, IMO

[jowcol]

Do us all a favor and stop. It's this whole forum against you. You have NO argument.

Please don't include me in that list.  I may disagree mildly on the genius thread and vehemently on the racial theories , but I fully support his right to post.    If his posts cause you discomfort, you can block them or scroll past, or look for the entertainment value in them. 

[Grazioso]

I know what your argument is, I just think it is rubbish.

Truth is, I started to write a sensible reply to your ridiculous question. A reply which discussed some of the myriad moments in Beethoven's music which are so suffused with unique insight and so forth that they indicate a mind of genius behind them. And then I thought

1) this is a waste of time, because JDP isn't even going to bother to read this. He is scared of discussing the notes themselves

That's precisely the problem with these sorts of "debates" here on GMG. On the one hand, you have a couple people who spout off about anything and everything with no logic, evidence, or even comprehensibility, much of it clearly calculated to incite discord. When someone calls "bulls--t," these posters always fall back on "It's obvious, I don't have to explain it, I don't need examples, it can't be proven but I have the proof!" Then you have the people who have actually studied and thought about the music or have a serious desire to learn about it and engage in intelligent, edifying discourse. Never the twain shall meet, it seems

Internet Recipe for Success

1 part Ignorance
1 part Arrogance
1 part Intransigence
Add Potty-Mouth Extract, to taste

Mix and half-bake as long as you want. The results will be disgusting no matter what.

[ibanezmonster]

How about we analyze why Beethoven's 7th Symphony is genius?

http://erato.uvt.nl/files/imglnks/usimg/f/f9/IMSLP57874-PMLP01600-Beethoven_Werke_Breitkopf_Serie_1_No_7_Op_92.pdf


I can make some broad points, but don't really feel like spending a lot of time dissecting the score right now.
Introduction
from pg.1 bar 1- pg.3 bar 3: keeps a forward motion while having a different harmony each bar
pg.3 bar 4: introduces second theme of introduction
pg.3 bar 10- has an interesting accompaniment rhythm

leads into the main theme in an interesting way....
anyways, there are some solid ideas here which develop in interesting ways harmonically, which provide a variety of connected ideas.

But this is all within this style. In other styles, there may be different expectations and aesthetics.

[not edward]

Asides of the very viable query as to what 'genius' really means, I'm very loath to use such metrics to try to define if a work is a work of genius or not; I'm sure you could find remarkable ideas, well executed, in many composers who stop far short of Beethoven's level.

To a sense I agree with Kurt Vonnegut's comment in Bluebeard, on how you recognize a great painting. I don't have the book to hand as I'm at work, but it was something along the lines of "Once you've looked carefully at 100,000 paintings, you can look at a new one and just know." Which doesn't cover everything, by any means, but I honestly don't think it's easy to get a better definition of greatness than that. It's simply something you intuit based on experience and knowledge.

Now of course, such a definition opens up several further cans of worms....

[And the most obvious thing of 'genius' in B7 for me is of course the use of the same rhythm repeated endlessly for so much of the second movement. But--perhaps other composers could have done this, and Beethoven's achievement was more to make it work (superlatively well, as it happens) as to come up with the idea.]

[Mirror Image]

Please don't include me in that list.  I may disagree mildly on the genius thread and vehemently on the racial theories , but I fully support his right to post.    If his posts cause you discomfort, you can block them or scroll past, or look for the entertainment value in them.

That's not what this is about, jowcol. Where did all of this come from? This is about this poster putting Beethoven and Kapustin in the same class. I'm sorry but this is pure ignorance on display.