Where have the Great Composers gone?

[Monsieur Croche]

I take it that you mean Double Bass I have never heard a Bass player refer to it as Upright Bass, just a comment that's all..

Lol.  Context of what one played first and was most familiar with, and within a community aware of both...
Bass Guitar being 'horizontal,' The string bass is 'upright.' 

I've never thought of grand pianos as horizontal, but there are upright pianos.

Makes uprights sound like very respectable citizens, dunnit? ;-)

[Mandryka]

how well-crafted the harmonies & melodies were,
the interesting, meaningful rhythms
the relationships
the instrumentation and how it suited the material and how balanced it was.
how a composer (or song-writer or even improviser) would build a vibrant composition from just a few small germ ideas.
They would illustrate the simplicity or complexity of it and
how a musician found the right way to say something.
Highlighting the clarity and intelligibility of the expression because it's so well designed.
They would talk about how some musicians authentically seek out new ideas in order to heroically express themselves, exploring imagination etc.
And historical context; dates, times, events .. and how the musician found their place within the established conventions for the type of work, adding their own voice and enriching tradition etc.

Well done! These are indeed good candidates for criteria for application of the idea of "greatness"

Many of them are framed using evaluative concepts aren't they?  I have highlighted some of them.

People may disagree about how to apply qualitative concepts.

I wonder how we would decide whether the evaluative criteria have been correctly applied. Is it really interesting, meaningful, suited, vibrant, authentic, right, well designed , , ,? Answering these questions may involve some sort of subjectivity. The disagreement may not be resolvable by reference to ideas like truth, fact. What one person finds the right way to say something another person finds misleading or obscure, what one person finds vibrant another person finds tawdry. what one person finds well designed another finds coventional and unimaginative and repetitive. What one person finds meaningful another finds shallow. And there is no fact about the composition or context or anything else which can be appealed to to resolve the dispute.

I can well imagine this sort of difference in taste here -- about middle period Beethoven or Cage or Vivaldi. So I wonder what exactly these criteria achieve. They certainly focus the debate in the composition and its context; but their relation to a more objective conception of "greatness" needs a bit more thinking I think.


What to do when the criteria clash, when a work satisfies some but not all?

[Jo498]

All of this kind of analysis comes well after the fact, after the work has been accepted as great and has entered the classical music canon.  This great work is dissected and analysed with commentators looking for the elements that contribute to its greatness. But this is all a speculative process. Often times these same works were criticized at the time of their composition and certainly not seen as great.

If this was true it would be either mysterious how works are considered as candidates for "great" or "canonic" in the first place because how could this be decided without hindsight? Or it would not be founded in their musical qualities but in "mob rule" and we would only later rationalize their recognition by post-hoc criteria. (In the latter case we would expect to find far more 180 degree revisions of judgement. We find revisions but they are usually not so many and not so extreme.)
In real musical history pieces had to get accepted very quickly, otherwise they would usually be forgotten. So there must be some "mechanism" how this works and not only dissective analysis in hindsight. And it is highly unlikely that the mechanism was "external" or "accidental", i.e. not closely connected to the music.

If we look at notorious cases like Beethoven, many of his works were criticized but still regarded as important by those critics. Most but a few were accepted very quickly as great after some early irritations.

Similarly, the negative remarks about and obscurity of JS Bach are often exaggerated. Even by those who found his music too complicated or old-fashioned he was regarded as an important composer and there were also vocal defenders of his style. (It's mainly because we now regard Bach as towering over all contemporaries that we are scandalized that he was "only" regarded among the 5-10 best composers of his time not as the one and only supercomposer.)

[Karl Henning]

Well done! These are indeed good candidates for criteria for application of the idea of "greatness"

Many of them are framed using evaluative concepts aren't they?  I have highlighted some of them.

People may disagree about how to apply qualitative concepts.

Good.

It isn't that there is nothing to the talking points James lists.

It's just that he uses them as a recursive loop.  Which is not of very much interest to anyone who isn't in the exercise wheel with him;  and which forms a kind of bubble so that he can simply go on and on, certain of his inarguable rightness . . . that, too, not of very much interest to anyone who isn't in the exercise wheel with him.

[San Antone]

If this was true it would be either mysterious how works are considered as candidates for "great" or "canonic" in the first place because how could this be decided without hindsight? Or it would not be founded in their musical qualities but in "mob rule" and we would only later rationalize their recognition by post-hoc criteria. (In the latter case we would expect to find far more 180 degree revisions of judgement. We find revisions but they are usually not so many and not so extreme.)
In real musical history pieces had to get accepted very quickly, otherwise they would usually be forgotten. So there must be some "mechanism" how this works and not only dissective analysis in hindsight. And it is highly unlikely that the mechanism was "external" or "accidental", i.e. not closely connected to the music.

If we look at notorious cases like Beethoven, many of his works were criticized but still regarded as important by those critics. Most but a few were accepted very quickly as great after some early irritations.

Similarly, the negative remarks about and obscurity of JS Bach are often exaggerated. Even by those who found his music too complicated or old-fashioned he was regarded as an important composer and there were also vocal defenders of his style. (It's mainly because we now regard Bach as towering over all contemporaries that we are scandalized that he was "only" regarded among the 5-10 best composers of his time not as the one and only supercomposer.)

Somehow I don't think a work of Beethoven's was considered great at the time of its creation because of "how well-crafted the harmonies & melodies were, the interesting, meaningful rhythms".  I think the overall effect of hearing the work was simply impressive.   Were his works really analyzed then as they have been in the 20th century with books written on his string quartets and piano sonatas, and his works taught in music schools?

My problem with all of this discussion of "what makes a work great" is how it is applied to new music.  Music written today.  I do not think anyone can use the list of attributes Mandryka quoted from James as a method of of demonstrating that a work written in the last twenty years is "great".  I mean, they could try, but plenty of people will not agree with them because they simply do not find the music that impressive upon listening to it.

To get back to the thread topic, "Where have the Great Composers gone?", I think it is premature to ask this question.  It could very well be that in 50 years a composer today will be considered great, but it will take the passage of time for his or her work to prove itself great.

[Monsieur Croche]

I have been in Nashville for the last 28 years as a professional songwriter, but would never claim to be a rockabilly.  My most recent cut

^^^ That done, to any degree of being your main thing, getting you by, even without the flamboyance associated with the genre and "American style success," is a wild success.

Congratulations. 

[lisa needs braces]

These so called "great composers" have to wait for Schoenberg, Berg and Webern et al to first become mainstream, then they will have their turn.

[Mahlerian]

These so called "great composers" have to wait for Schoenberg, Berg and Webern et al to first become mainstream, then they will have their turn.

They already are pretty much mainstream (performed and recorded regularly by top tier performers), except in the minds of people who want them not to be.

[lisa needs braces]

They already are pretty much mainstream (performed and recorded regularly by top tier performers), except in the minds of people who want them not to be.

They're performed in the same way many new compositions are performed -- sandwiched between Brahms and Beethoven so the audience can't leave.

[Mahlerian]

They're performed in the same way many new compositions are performed -- sandwiched between Brahms and Beethoven so the audience can't leave.

Tell that to the crowds who attended the multiple productions of Moses und Aron last year.

Really, if you want to make up your own facts, you should at least make sure they aren't easily demonstrably false:
https://bachtrack.com/find/category=1,2,3,4,5;composer=96;medium=1

[lisa needs braces]

Tell that to the crowds who attended the multiple productions of Moses und Aron last year.

Really, if you want to make up your own facts, you should at least make sure they aren't easily demonstrably false:
https://bachtrack.com/find/category=1,2,3,4,5;composer=96;medium=1

Here's a typical performance:

Webern, Six Pieces For Orchestra, Op.6
Schoenberg, Five Orchestral Pieces, Op.16
Berg, Three Pieces for Orchestra, Op.6
Brahms, Symphony no. 2 in D major, Op.73

We can quite clearly see what's going on. The Brahms is performed last so the audience can't duck out early.

[Mahlerian]

Here's a typical performance:

We can quite clearly see what's going on. The Brahms is performed last so the audience can't duck out early.

Or maybe it's because the works complement each other?  You realize that the front-loading results in an entire first half dominated by the Second Viennese School, right?  And that that half is the longer one?  At any rate, there will be absolutely nothing preventing those who wish only to hear the Brahms from waiting until the second half to enter the hall.

You can only see that program as evidence of some kind of forcing the music on the audience if you're squinting really hard.  I know for my part if I were attending I would go specifically for the first half, because the Brahms in the second half is heard more often.  Is it really so hard to believe that there are more people like me out there?

[arpeggio]

Is it really so hard to believe that there are more people like me out there?

And me. 

[GioCar]

^^^
and me 

[arpeggio]

There are several types of threads I really do not care for.

One of the types is the classical music is dying and one of the culprits is contemporary music.  I really do not know if it is declining.  I do know that contemporary music is more popular than some think.  I have been to several music festivals that featured contemporary music.  I attended the Tanglewood festival back about fifteen years ago when they had a contemporary music festival.  I have been to Ojai twice.  There is a nice music festival in Stanton, Virginia.  They program all sort of music from HIP performance to modern music.  At the last festival in September they performed a work by Cage that got a standing ovation.  Beyond listing some of my experiences I really do not know what to say.

[lisa needs braces]

Or maybe it's because the works complement each other?  You realize that the front-loading results in an entire first half dominated by the Second Viennese School, right?  And that that half is the longer one?  At any rate, there will be absolutely nothing preventing those who wish only to hear the Brahms from waiting until the second half to enter the hall.

You can only see that program as evidence of some kind of forcing the music on the audience if you're squinting really hard.  I know for my part if I were attending I would go specifically for the first half, because the Brahms in the second half is heard more often.  Is it really so hard to believe that there are more people like me out there?

Well no, since I haven't made the claim that the music of those composers has no following whatsoever. Obviously there are some people with a neurological makeup that allows them to see beauty in such music, but it could likewise be the case that that unique make up is missing in most people, and just as you hear beauty in dodecaphony, others can't help but hear repulsive, nonsensical claptrap. Perhaps this is why it has to be coupled with Brahms at the end of the show-- so audiences don't leave too angry. 

[Mahlerian]

Well no, since I haven't made the claim that the music of those composers has no following whatsoever. Obviously there are some people with a neurological makeup that allows them to see beauty in such music, but it could likewise be the case that that unique make up is missing in most people, and just as you hear beauty in dodecaphony, others can't help but hear repulsive, nonsensical claptrap. Perhaps this is why it has to be coupled with Brahms at the end of the show-- so audiences don't leave too angry.

That performance doesn't have any dodecaphonic pieces in it.  No one can tell the difference anyway, it's really only a matter for the composer what method was used.

There's nothing different about me, only that I have a greater amount of exposure to modernist music.  It sounds as natural as Brahms or Mozart because it is, and there's nothing that would bar you or anyone else from hearing it correctly, as music like any other music.

It doesn't HAVE to be coupled with Brahms, it was coupled with Brahms because Simon Rattle wants to show how the Second Viennese School inherited the Germanic/Austrian tradition.  At a BBC Proms performance a few years ago, he likewise played all of the same orchestral pieces at the END of a concert, and you know what?  The large crowd applauded enthusiastically.  I guess you could make up some other new rule that explains that, but really, ad hoc hypotheses are the last refuge of a crackpot.

[lisa needs braces]

That performance doesn't have any dodecaphonic pieces in it.  No one can tell the difference anyway, it's really only a matter for the composer what method was used.

There's nothing different about me, only that I have a greater amount of exposure to modernist music.  It sounds as natural as Brahms or Mozart because it is, and there's nothing that would bar you or anyone else from hearing it correctly, as music like any other music.

If it sounds as natural as Brahms and Mozart then why are orchestras still relying on Brahms and Mozart and not on Schoenberg and Berg? Audiences have been "exposed" to this music for well over a hundred years and its music still that can't be programmed by major orchestras without also putting Brahms and Mozart on the menu as to make the evening less agonizing.

[lisa needs braces]

It doesn't HAVE to be coupled with Brahms

You're right, it doesn't haven't to. Sometimes Schubert would do, or Dvorak, or Schumann.

[lisa needs braces]

It doesn't HAVE to be coupled with Brahms, it was coupled with Brahms because Simon Rattle wants to show how the Second Viennese School inherited the Germanic/Austrian tradition. 

"You like Brahms and LvB? Well these guys are their successors in that they too lived in Vienna and composed what they called music."