Unpopular Opinions

[madaboutmahler]

Ok let's make a better comparison, let's assume Haydn had died at 35 like Mozart and then compare their achievements. 

Well... that would change it a lot....

Mozart's acheivement in that area is also great though and he is still among the greatest in that genre.

I agree!

[jowcol]

The scherzo from no.7 is certainly amazing. Although my favourite movement from that symphony would be m1. Love the symphony as a whole really! My absolute favourite Mahler symphonies would be no.6 and 9 definitely. After that it is difficult to choose between them!

Okay, I'll have to confess, I just sat through Mahler's 6th (Bernstein), and really enjoyed it more than I have have before.  Definitely worth a few more listens.

[The Six]

Interesting thread. Well here's (one of) mine

The true measure of a composer lies in their work for a solo instrument (whatever instrument it may be). If it is lacking, then so is that composer.

I don't think it's a measure of their worth, but with many composers their solo works are the best indicators of their style. I'd say the Op. 87 Preludes and Fugues sum up Shostakovitch much better than any symphony or string quartet of his does.

For another thought, a think there's a basic rule in music that is often derided or undervalued by classical music people: if it sounds
good, it is good. I know it's fun to try and think of different ways to praise music, but we can get too caught up in who's a genius and so and so is the most important composer of whenever. "Ravel wrote the most important piano works of the 20th Century!" What? Unless you're using "important" as a synonym for "influential," I have no idea what that means.

[DavidRoss]

"Ravel wrote the most important piano works of the 20th Century!" What? Unless you're using "important" as a synonym for "influential," I have no idea what that means.

I'll be happy to translate: "Ravel wrote the most important piano works of the 20th Century!" = "I like Ravel more than I like other 20th C. composers for piano."

[starrynight]

For another thought, a think there's a basic rule in music that is often derided or undervalued by classical music people: if it sounds
good, it is good. I know it's fun to try and think of different ways to praise music, but we can get too caught up in who's a genius and so and so is the most important composer of whenever. "Ravel wrote the most important piano works of the 20th Century!" What? Unless you're using "important" as a synonym for "influential," I have no idea what that means.

I agree.  Even really good composers wrote weak works sometimes, they are human beings not gods.  It shouldn't have to be about being a fan of someone of not, just about liking music you think is good or not.  I've never found big generalisations too helpful.  And as I always say 'influential' is never that important to me, it is no measure of worth except to someone who is more interested in the history than the music.

[canninator]

I don't think it's a measure of their worth, but with many composers their solo works are the best indicators of their style. I'd say the Op. 87 Preludes and Fugues sum up Shostakovitch much better than any symphony or string quartet of his does.

What an interesting take. Maybe this is what I am really connecting with in the solo works. Not my (flawed) appraisal of worth but my (subjective) connection with their style that I map onto their other works. Thanks for that.

[Elgarian]

I can't think that any composer has solved any philosophical problems with a symphony.

Doesn't it depend on what you consider to be a philosophical problem though, Mike?

The overwhelmingly most important reason why I immerse myself in the arts again and again is because deep engagement with works of art resolves (at least temporarily) the anxiety of nagging existential questions of the kind: 'why am I here?' 'what's the meaning of life?' etc. (I don't say that only art can do this, please note, but merely that art has the potential to do it.)

If I'm looking attentively at a painting, or listening to a symphony, to the extent that my perceptions are fully occupied and extended by that activity, philosophical questions of meaning become insignificant. The present moment becomes so enriched by what I might crudely call 'directly experienced meaning' that philosophical analysis of the experience becomes redundant. Indeed, philosophical analysis would be counterproductive - if one were foolish enough to switch from one mode to another in midstream it would be seen as a mere distraction from the real business.

I suppose what's happening is that we're moving back and forth across that boundary formed by Wittgenstein's distinction between 'what can be shown', and 'what can be said'. We can argue endlessly about the merits of this symphony compared to that one, or this composer compared to another, dealing purely with aspects of 'what can be said'. But no symphony was written with the purpose of stimulating such a discussion. It was written to show us something. And only when we're engaged with it, when we're listening to it, when we're contemplating with full attention what's being shown, is the existential issue of 'meaning' finally and properly resolved. Any philosophical outlook that doesn't acknowledge this is unsatisfactory, in my view; so in that sense I think composers are indeed solving philosophical problems when they write symphonies.

[chasmaniac]

The overwhelmingly most important reason why I immerse myself in the arts again and again is because deep engagement with works of art resolves (at least temporarily) the anxiety of nagging existential questions of the kind: 'why am I here?' 'what's the meaning of life?' etc. (I don't say that only art can do this, please note, but merely that art has the potential to do it.)

If I'm looking attentively at a painting, or listening to a symphony, to the extent that my perceptions are fully occupied and extended by that activity, philosophical questions of meaning become insignificant. The present moment becomes so enriched by what I might crudely call 'directly experienced meaning' that philosophical analysis of the experience becomes redundant. Indeed, philosophical analysis would be counterproductive - if one were foolish enough to switch from one mode to another in midstream it would be seen as a mere distraction from the real business.

I suppose what's happening is that we're moving back and forth across that boundary formed by Wittgenstein's distinction between 'what can be shown', and 'what can be said'. We can argue endlessly about the merits of this symphony compared to that one, or this composer compared to another, dealing purely with aspects of 'what can be said'. But no symphony was written with the purpose of stimulating such a discussion. It was written to show us something. And only when we're engaged with it, when we're listening to it, when we're contemplating with full attention what's being shown, is the existential issue of 'meaning' finally and properly resolved. Any philosophical outlook that doesn't acknowledge this is unsatisfactory, in my view; so in that sense I think composers are indeed solving philosophical problems when they write symphonies.

I HEART this!

[springrite]

QFT

Schumann wrote a couple of good pieces but he's probably the most overrated composer in all of music history.
Schubert wrote a few more good ones, but he's nearly as overrated as Schumann.

Statistically, composers whose name start with "sch" tend to be most over-rated.

PS: The only major exception being Schnabel!

[Christo]

PS: The only major exception being Schnabel!

And what about Schschschedrin? 

[Ten thumbs]

And what about Schschschedrin? 

Yes, and there's also Shcherbachyov, if you'll excuse the extra h, a very interesting Russian impressionist. The trouble here is not over-rating but never hearing and therefore not rating at all.

For the sake of argument, I'll say that Schubert is still the most under-rated composer of all.

[Karl Henning]

Not to dispute the genius of Mozart, but you pick a loaded example.

G'day, O Gurn!

To go back to the beginning:

Statement....
Surely Haydn was more of a genius that Mozart?

My subsequent posts were of a nature designed to encourage a sane reconsideration of this curious statement.

Where subtlety failed, the time came for the loaded example.

I don't know if reconsideration has occurred, but we certainly have oblique contradiction:

. . . And remember, I never argued or wished to argue that Mozart was not a genius! The Requiem is a perfect work to show that!

[Karl Henning]

Doesn't it depend on what you consider to be a philosophical problem though, Mike?

The overwhelmingly most important reason why I immerse myself in the arts again and again is because deep engagement with works of art resolves (at least temporarily) the anxiety of nagging existential questions of the kind: 'why am I here?' 'what's the meaning of life?' etc. (I don't say that only art can do this, please note, but merely that art has the potential to do it.)

If I'm looking attentively at a painting, or listening to a symphony, to the extent that my perceptions are fully occupied and extended by that activity, philosophical questions of meaning become insignificant. The present moment becomes so enriched by what I might crudely call 'directly experienced meaning' that philosophical analysis of the experience becomes redundant. Indeed, philosophical analysis would be counterproductive - if one were foolish enough to switch from one mode to another in midstream it would be seen as a mere distraction from the real business.

I suppose what's happening is that we're moving back and forth across that boundary formed by Wittgenstein's distinction between 'what can be shown', and 'what can be said'. We can argue endlessly about the merits of this symphony compared to that one, or this composer compared to another, dealing purely with aspects of 'what can be said'. But no symphony was written with the purpose of stimulating such a discussion. It was written to show us something. And only when we're engaged with it, when we're listening to it, when we're contemplating with full attention what's being shown, is the existential issue of 'meaning' finally and properly resolved. Any philosophical outlook that doesn't acknowledge this is unsatisfactory, in my view; so in that sense I think composers are indeed solving philosophical problems when they write symphonies.

I am not the first to observe so, but another fine, upstanding, and mentally toothsome post, Alan.

(Pardon me a moment whilst I toggle . . . .)

I wonder if in music, we compound the usefulness of Wittgenstein's distinction (what can be shown vs. what can be said) with something on the lines of how what I see relates to what is shown. I do not hereby mean to be obfuscatory, though I love the occasion to use the o. word. So – to the examples!

The cuckoo imitation in the Symphonie pastorale is perhaps typical of comparatively clear demonstration in music . . . we are probably not at any great risk of "seeing" something at wild variance from what Beethoven is "showing."

Two counter-examples, at several angles:

The oboe in Peter and the Wolf serves very neatly as the character of the Duck; yet (I think) the music alone does not show that – we rely on the spoken narration in order to perceive the oboe as a quacker, and then the subsequent narrative parallels to the changes in musical mood of the oboe line (the ways in which they underpin the developing story, such as the Duck's agitation at one point, &c.) become something clear to the listener.

Consider the opening of the Beethoven fifth (if you can manage it without a corkscrew . . . sorry!)  That famous opening gesture of the three short notes and the concluding sustained note: dramatic, yes – but, what does it mean?  Could mean any of quite a great number of things, I expect.  But then – where the rubber really meets the road – the answering gesture, a sequential repetition one step lower (and the sustained note a bit longer): what does that mean?  Here's where the eye may belong to a beholder who writes a 200-page essay on what those four notes mean, and yet it is possible that all Beethoven was "showing" was . . . something intrinsically musical.  (I do not here absolutely claim that he was;  but there is certainly the musical possibility.)

(Last week I read essentially a pop music equivalent of this: rather freighted discussion spreading out to pages, and I'm thinking, "It could just have been a riff that the bass player came up with one day when they were jamming.")

[DavidRoss]

G'day, Karl!

I admire your unfailing good humor and firm but temperate commitment to reason and the belief that everyone is capable of it.  And I listen to Haydn's quartets far more often than Mozart's.  And to Mozart's piano concertos more than anyone else's.  And I believe that those who fail to recognize the Da Ponte operas as the paradigm-shattering achievement they are thus disqualify themselves to judge such things.

[DavidRoss]

I am not the first to observe so, but another fine, upstanding, and mentally toothsome post, Alan.

Hear, hear!

[TheGSMoeller]

I have a really difficult time listening to a piece, or even wanting to listen to a piece, that was completed by someone other than the original composer (Elgar No.3, Mahler No.10...)
Maybe someone can help me diffuse this with an clearer understanding of why I should pay more attention to them.

[ibanezmonster]

Schshchnakalobovskyevikoff

[springrite]

I admire your unfailing good humor and firm but temperate commitment to reason and the belief that everyone is capable of it.

Most people aren't (though they think they are!), thus the title of the thread, NOT "Unpopular Reasons"

[springrite]

Schshchnakalobovskyevikoff

That's the most vowels I have ever seen in a Polish Russian name in a long long time!

[DavidRoss]

Most people aren't (though they think they are!), thus the title of the thread, NOT "Unpopular Reasons"