Is classical music merely self-aggrandizing?

[karlhenning]

Very Good point, Karl. However, it still requires explanation to say why we participate in the first place!

There are number of reasons, and I am not at all convinced that we will get at all of them.

Still a worthwhile question, to be sure.

On the other hand, it is not beyond reason to get deep emotional satisfaction from athletic endeavors or modes of transportation.

Yes, Don!  I was thinking of adding a postscript to that.  If one makes the effort over time to achieve excellence in any sport, achievement can indeed be emotionally rewarding, and defeat can be emotionally jarring.

And, in a way very different to classical music, of course, I am indeed emotionally satisfied that I can take the bus in to work rather than having to drive, myself.

[Michel]

If you really don't know what "wonderfully uplifting spiritual content" means, you have my sympathies.   

Explain to me where the wonderfully uplifting spiritual content is in Scarlatti's keyboard music, or in the thousands of other recorded hours of decorative boring triviality that exists particularly during this period.

And explain to me why spiritual experiences, whatever they are, cannot be achieved during a Metallica concert?

Do you not realize that the whole concept of spiritual experience is self-aggrandizement? Have you read Feuerbach? Ie, the idea of spirituality, of god, etc is an idea born out of our own ego? Your comment seems to prove my point - you are deluded when you hear your exalted music that you're experiencing something "deeper", and you're pompous to suggest its superior to Metallica.

[Sergeant Rock]

You keep contending that other folks have the same feelings and thoughts as you do.  Why don't you cut it out and admit that YOU have a problem you're dealing with. 

Don, I've come to the conclusion that Michel doesn't really like classical music. The only reason for his limited interest is because he thought it would make him look superior to his chums. (It explains his lack of emotional connection and response to the music, and his accusation that the rest of us are frauds.) But it didn't work. Now he turns around and accuses us of the same motive. He just doesn't get it (i.e., classical music). I don't see any point in further discussion.

Sarge

[MishaK]

Explain to me where the wonderfully uplifting spiritual content is in Scarlatti's keyboard music, or in the thousands of other recorded hours of decorative boring triviality that exists particularly during this period.

I can't explain that. What lifts your spirits is a personal matter. There is no scientific method for analyzing it that I'm aware of. Personally, I find Scarlatti massively satisfying (and, surprisingly, quite a b!tch to play). I'm sorry those joys seem to elude you.

[Que]

Explain to me where the wonderfully uplifting spiritual content is in Scarlatti's keyboard music

You'd be surprised and I bet you are not familar with it at all?
It's just an easy target: "555 sonatas - MUST be boring...." We'll see about that!

Q

[Mozart]

I know I listen to Mozart only for the status. I had a dozen tee shirts that say "I listen to Mozart, worship me" made last month and they have been quite the hit! Im in the process of building my burial place which I totally deserve right next to the pyramids of egypt, because hell, I am a Mozart fan!

[PSmith08]

He actually changed it, it used to say PHD, I didn't look at it close enough. I remember the good old fights that Herman used to have with that broadcast. That was only an example anyway, of which there are many more.

Karl's CV, while interesting and illuminating, isn't finally my point. That was: classical music wouldn't do much for most people in most of their social contexts.

[sidoze]

And explain to me why spiritual experiences, whatever they are, cannot be achieved during a Metallica concert?

I'm sure they could. I've had some of my most intense musical experiences during Primus and certain punk gigs.

I don't understand what you're talking about Michel. People like music because they like it. Someone likes house and trance; someone likes classical. You either get it or you don't. All this talk is just intellectual masturbation.

[Mark]

I know I listen to Mozart only for the status. I had a dozen tee shirts that say "I listen to Mozart, worship me" made last month and they have been quite the hit! Im in the process of building my burial place which I totally deserve right next to the pyramids of egypt, because hell, I am a Mozart fan!

Oh, God! That was funny! Thank you for seeing all of this for the self-aggrandising nonsense it so transparently is. I'll add only this:

People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls. They will practice Indian Yoga in all its exercises, observe a strict regimen of diet, learn theosophy by heart, or mechanically repeat mystic texts from the literature of the whole world - all because they cannot get on with themselves and have not the slightest faith that anything useful could ever come out of their own souls. Carl Jung

[MishaK]

Karl's CV, while interesting and illuminating, isn't finally my point. That was: classical music wouldn't do much for most people in most of their social contexts.

I can attest to a childhood of abuse at the hands of my peers for preferring die Zauberflöte over 99 Luftballons.

[Scriptavolant]

Explain to me where the wonderfully uplifting spiritual content is in Scarlatti's keyboard music, or in the thousands of other recorded hours of decorative boring triviality that exists particularly during this period.

And explain to me why spiritual experiences, whatever they are, cannot be achieved during a Metallica concert?

Do you not realize that the whole concept of spiritual experience is self-aggrandizement? Have you read Feuerbach? Ie, the idea of spirituality, of god, etc is an idea born out of our own ego? Your comment seems to prove my point - you are deluded when you hear your exalted music that you're experiencing something "deeper", and you're pompous to suggest its superior to Metallica.

Wow! From one side you doubt what I usually consider to be one of the most used and abused Romantic cliché (that is: music considered to be exclusively a sort of mystical religious experience close to the one of the peyote's greedy Indian santons), and from the other side you buy one the biggest silliness which emerged from the same cultural entourage, that is musical craftmanship deemed to be a lower, decorative form of Art. That's weird.

[sidoze]

People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls. They will practice Indian Yoga in all its exercises, observe a strict regimen of diet, learn theosophy by heart, or mechanically repeat mystic texts from the literature of the whole world - all because they cannot get on with themselves and have not the slightest faith that anything useful could ever come out of their own souls.

Carl Jung

sorry but that quote is rubbish. People practice Indian yoga and go on strict diets like the one I'm currently on because they're interested these things or they want to do it for their body or soul. Write your own stuff and don't quote people.

[Don]

Explain to me where the wonderfully uplifting spiritual content is in Scarlatti's keyboard music, or in the thousands of other recorded hours of decorative boring triviality that exists particularly during this period.

And explain to me why spiritual experiences, whatever they are, cannot be achieved during a Metallica concert?

Do you not realize that the whole concept of spiritual experience is self-aggrandizement? Have you read Feuerbach? Ie, the idea of spirituality, of god, etc is an idea born out of our own ego? Your comment seems to prove my point - you are deluded when you hear your exalted music that you're experiencing something "deeper", and you're pompous to suggest its superior to Metallica.

Now you're talking like a drunken fool.  I have not said a word about Scarlatti or Metallica, but I will right now.  If someone has an uplifting experience listening to Scarlatti's music or attending a Metallica concert, good for them.

You have also dumped on music of the baroque period.  Perhaps you're just a music hater in addition to not being the brightest bulb on the block.  

[Mark]

Write your own stuff and don't quote people.

You really didn't see the irony in that, did you?

And as for my contribution to this psuedo-intellectual claptrap, it's back to page 2 for you. At least mine was a little better thought out ...

[Michel]

Don, I've come to the conclusion that Michel doesn't really like classical music. The only reason for his limited interest is because he thought it would make him look superior to his chums. (It explains his lack of emotional connection and response to the music, and his accusation that the rest of us are frauds.) But it didn't work. Now he turns around and accuses us of the same motive. He just doesn't get it (i.e., classical music). I don't see any point in further discussion.

Sarge

Not true, I loved it, and in particular I have often loved some of the highest expressions of this self-aggrandizement, such as Wagner or Mahler or Schumman - those daring to make the most profound statements.

Though it is far to say it no longer moves me in the way that it did; for months I have been without explanation now. Though I do still listen to classical music and enjoy it. Right now, for example, I am listening to the beauty that is Mendelssohns "Songs without words".

What emotion does an everyday person have in their life anyway? Except loving their wife, the occasional family tradegy, there is nothing. You are all speaking of the brilliant profundity in the music, etc, but what profundity do you have in our lives? You get up, you work, and you sleep - I think we layer fake emotional experiences to replace real ones, in music, film, art, to fill our time in the constant battle against boredom, which is all we have in the 21st century.

[sidoze]

You really didn't see the irony in that, did you?

And as for my contribution to this psuedo-intellectual claptrap, it's back to page 1 for you. At least mine was a little better thought out ...

nope i didn't. pat yourself on the back. you deserve it.

[Mark]

Michel, it sounds very like you've 'lost God', so to speak.

[MishaK]

Not true, I loved it, and in particular I have often loved some of the highest expressions of this self-aggrandizement, such as Wagner or Mahler or Schumman - those daring to make the most profound statements.

What makes them the "highest expressions" of the "most profound statements"?

Though it is far to say it no longer moves me in the way that it did; for months I have been without explanation now. Though I do still listen to classical music and enjoy it. Right now, for example, I am listening to the beauty that is Mendelssohns "Songs without words".

Excuse me for a moment while I ROTFL. You dump on Scarlatti as being decorative, but are enjoying Mendelssohn's Lieder ohne Worte?

[mahlertitan]

What emotion does an everyday person have in their life anyway? Except loving their wife, the occasional family tradegy, there is nothing. You get up, you work, and you sleep -

my god, you are not human, this man is a robot! Love, and Sadness? is that all the human emotion you can come up with?

[Michel]

Excuse me for a moment while I ROTFL. You dump on Scarlatti as being decorative, but are enjoying Mendelssohn's Lieder ohne Worte?

At least Mendelssohn didn't repeat everything over and over, and, as any piano expert will tell you, his songs without words are considered great works. And who said I didn't like Scarlatti? I just said it was probably devoid of spiritual experience, in that it conveys nothing significant other than decoration.