Why do you like your favorite composers?

[marvinbrown]

Italics above, mine.

Different types/styles/&c. of music have subtly different effects, which is (I think) why the Art of Music is ever expanding.  (And, of course, as we have had occasion to observe here at GMG, the same music may not exert quite the same effect on two different listeners.)

  Fair enough Karl and a very good point too. But for me the late romantic progressive movement has the most emotional (sometimes even detrimentally emotional) effect on my psyche. To each his own i guess.

  marvin

[Karl Henning]

If I were in the mood for rhetoric, I could say because they affect my intellect, emotions and feelings in a way that others doesn't. But I am not in that mood so I will just say: honestly, I don't know --- thus answering the question begged by the rhetoric, too. 

Honestly, I don't entirely know, either.

Do I know, at all?  I sometimes wonder . . . .

  Fair enough Karl and a very good point too. But for me the late romantic progressive movement has the most emotional (sometimes even detrimentally emotional) effect on my psyche. To each his own i guess.

There can be something rather . . . commanding in that era, Marvin, for which I admit I need to be in the right humor.

Mybe that's why I've been preferring Bruckner to Mahler, for instance . . . I seem to find the former a more genial musical host . . . .

(I say that, and maybe later this year I'll go back into a Mahler symphony phase . . . one never know, do one?)

[Florestan]

Actually, the more I think about it, the more I am convinced that any preference (musical, literary, philosophical, political even) cannot be explained except as a post factum rationalization. We like X and dislike Y because we were built that way. Struggling with a composer's music and going all the way from "I hate it" to "He's now one of my favorites" (not an infrequent occurrence, it seems, although personally I have never experienced it) is like struggling to find one's way home.

[Karl Henning]

... We like X and dislike Y because we were built that way.

How does this model account for acquired tastes?

[marvinbrown]

Hmm. Bruckner's music is rather different compared to the others you mention, Marvin -  to me, anyway. There are the proto-minimalism and chorales that influenced Sibelius, another composer who didn't exactly fit together with Mahler or Strauss, after Kullervo anyway.

  You are right. Each of these composers Mahler, Bruckner, Wagner and even Richard Strauss had their own style or rather signature.  But to me they were operating within the context of what I like to call late romanticism or progressive romanticism.  The use of large orchestras to play impregnable motifs that bear heavily on the listener's ears, mind and eventually  soul is what I find to be the common link between these composers. If I may be allowed to give an example, listen to R. Strauss' Elektra. The music at the beginning.is chaotic, unsettled totally in line with the modern era of music then suddenly Elektra appears and calls out to her father at that moment the music shifts to this dark, impregnable late romantic motif echoing Aga-mem-non! The effect is quite startling. This is the style of music that I love the most.

[Florestan]

How does this model account for acquired tastes?

I quote myself from the same post: Struggling with a composer's music and going all the way from "I hate it" to "He's now one of my favorites" (not an infrequent occurrence, it seems, although personally I have never experienced it) is like struggling to find one's way home. "Acquired taste" is the model which describes the whole process. 

EDIT: For instance, if some day I will come to love Wagner it means that deep down in my soul that love was always there, patiently waiting the right moment to pop up.

[Karl Henning]

You are most discreet, even when saying in essence, If you had read what I wrote....     0:)   

[Florestan]

You are most discreet, even when saying in essence, If you had read what I wrote....     0:)   

[Karl Henning]

Thank you for graciously receiving my jest!

[Florestan]

Thank you for graciously receiving my jest!

Now I wonder whether I should stick to just one sentence per post... 

[Cato]

If I were in the mood for rhetoric, I could say because they affect my intellect, emotions and feelings in a way that others doesn't. But I am not in that mood so I will just say: honestly, I don't know --- thus answering the question begged by the rhetoric, too. 

  Fair enough Karl and a very good point too. But for me the late romantic progressive movement has the most emotional (sometimes even detrimentally emotional) effect on my psyche. To each his own i guess.

  marvin

I am reminded of the story of why the glass harmonica (a.k.a. armonica) fell out of favor.  According to some, a belief arose that the instrument caused "melancholy," with persistent players eventually falling victim to deep depression.

But why would some find it a marvelous sound, and others flee from its ethereality because they found it a depressing sound?

Who knows how people will react to the same music?  Goethe according to one account could not deal with the emotions he felt when he heard Beethoven's music, and said one begins to fear "that the house will collapse."  Others shrug their shoulders and fall asleep, while others are conducting imaginary orchestras.

[marvinbrown]

I am reminded of the story of why the glass harmonica (a.k.a. armonica) fell out of favor.  According to some, a belief arose that the instrument caused "melancholy," with persistent players eventually falling victim to deep depression.

But why would some find it a marvelous sound, and others flee from its ethereality because they found it a depressing sound?

Who knows how people will react to the same music?  Goethe according to one account could not deal with the emotions he felt when he heard Beethoven's music, and said one begins to fear "that the house will collapse."  Others shrug their shoulders and fall asleep, while others are conducting imaginary orchestras.

Thank you for this post. Now we are getting somewhere. Beethoven once said that his music is from the heart to the heart.....and Beethoven's heart was no stranger to heartache, hurt loneliness and even suicide ( or so his heiligenstadt testament seems to suggest) Wagner was profoundly affected by Schopenhauer's philosophy. This idea that we are irrational beings acting on pure emotional impulses, that we are driven by desire, painful desire that can only be alleviated through death.... This is what Wagner sought to represent in his music dramas. Much of this also relates to Mahler's music. I guess in many ways I need to  feel, to stop being rational, we have too many rules in our modern western society. where can one go to let loose and feel what is instinctly in us but music?

  PS: I think a part of me needs psychiatric help.

  marvin

[Florestan]

  PS: I think a part of me needs psychiatric help.

It's not going to help you. You know, Wagner and antidepressants is like antibiotics and alcoholic drinks. 

[Karl Henning]

I am reminded of the story of why the glass harmonica (a.k.a. armonica) fell out of favor.  According to some, a belief arose that the instrument caused "melancholy," with persistent players eventually falling victim to deep depression.

But why would some find it a marvelous sound, and others flee from its ethereality because they found it a depressing sound?

Maybe I am misremembering . . . but was this frequent malady among the armonica-ringers perhaps a result of lead poisoning from the lead content in the glass?  Or is this tack entirely off beam?

[Cato]

Maybe I am misremembering . . . but was this frequent malady among the armonica-ringers perhaps a result of lead poisoning from the lead content in the glass?  Or is this tack entirely off beam?

Lead poisoning from glass has turned out to be practically impossible in this case. 

It may just have been the Age of Melancholy!   0:)

[Karl Henning]

Thanks! (I mean, I am grateful for the corrigendum)  0:)

[Florestan]

I don't know about glass harmonica, but judging from the high rate of suicides, drugs/alcohol abuse and aggressive antisocial behavior, I'd say: ban the damned electrical guitar! 

[Cato]

I don't know about glass harmonica, but judging from the high rate of suicides, drugs/alcohol abuse and aggressive antisocial behavior, I'd say: ban the damned electrical guitar! 

I do wonder about the euphoria undoubtedly experienced by these successful bands, when tens of thousands are screaming for them: that kind of excitement can easily become addictive, and when it fades (long-term or short-term), the brain wants that experience back no matter how!

Not unlike listening to one's favorite composers!     e.g.  Does lack of Wagner cause drug addiction and suicide?

[Gurn Blanston]

Now I wonder whether I should stick to just one sentence per post... 

Even that doesn't help sometimes. That one word post thread looks pretty good now, doesn't it?   

[Gurn Blanston]

I do wonder about the euphoria undoubtedly experienced by these successful bands, when tens of thousands are screaming for them: that kind of excitement excrement can easily become addictive, and when it fades (long-term or short-term), the brain wants that experience back no matter how!

Not unlike listening to one's favorite composers!     e.g.  Does lack of Wagner cause drug addiction and suicide?

Corrected.   0:)