Where have the Great Composers gone?

[Mahlerian]

Am I correct in assuming you've not eaten a lot of sandwiches produced by the crushed dung as seasoning school, and likewise not later chefs influenced by it?
Abe is arguing this is just an artificial culture, propped up by non-musical resources. He doesn't need familiarity with the "later composers" to make that argument.

Crushed dung, pedophilia...why can't you and Abe argue on the basis of what's there rather than making up irrelevant and inflammatory analogies?

The problem is not that he has looked at the content of the works of the Second Viennese School and judged them deficient on that basis, it's that he encountered an unfamiliar language and decided that because he can't follow it, it's nonsense.  He is not in a position to judge because he doesn't know what he's judging.

All the canards about being propped up by academia are laughably false.  Academics have little to no power to determine what gets played and recorded.  The power lies primarily in the hands of musicians and secondarily in the hands of record producers, who are notoriously profit-driven, though naturally not all records are released in order to make a profit.

[Monsieur Croche]

I feel more justified in my distaste because it's distaste that's still widely shared after a hundred years. History is on my side. The 2nd Viennese school and their acolytes wouldn't be anywhere without being ensconced in academia or being supported by government grants. Perhaps the reason the 2nd Viennese school stuff is still "avant-garde" after all this time -- still not part of the canon the same way Bach, Mozart, LvB, et al -- is because audiences are in fact too "simple minded" for it. Yes, it's special music, for a special breed of human beings, with certain neurological properties possibly unique to themselves. What they want to communicate can be perceived only by people who share their possibly autism-related mental properties. This theory has explanatory power in why the music is appealing to a minority but still found unacceptable by the public at large after a hundred years.

Seriously, how much time and space should any forum member expect to be taken up with "I don't care for the music of this era or that composer."?

"...special music, for a special breed of human beings, with certain neurological properties possibly unique to themselves. What they want to communicate can be perceived only by people who share their possibly autism-related mental properties."

There are classical fans who don't at all like (or 'get') Mozart / Bach / Wagner / Berlioz/ Brahms / Bruckner / Mahler / Debussy -- and yea -- even Beethoven, for example.  Does that mean all those who do like those composers have minds that 'share possibly autism-related mental properties" in order to enjoy those above named composers?  Of Course NOT.

I've never read such a complete rationale for "Why I Don't Get Or Care About This Music."  It is utterly fallacious, fatuous, and nothing but an illogical and irrational excuse to validate your current personal taste.

The general music loving public, to present, are about 50-50 strongly divided on Wagner.  He is a terrible composer who wrote seriously ugly music; he is a great composer who wrote divinely beautiful music.  If you love him, you have then 50% back-up, and 50% anti back up.

I've read statements on music fora like:
"Prokofiev is atonal," (he never wrote an atonal piece.) 
"Ravel is really modern, weird and dissonant, but if you give it a chance you might like it,"  etc. 
All these types of statements say everything about the listener who wrote them and nothing at all factual about the music.

We get it.  You don't like composers of the Second Viennese School.  I guess Berg's soaring late romantic-lyric fiddle concerto just isn't for you, etc.

I wonder too at the heat of so many similar 'complaints' about this type of music, i.e. on a board such as this, so many plainly love this music and the sound it makes that anyone, after a few days of familiarity looking at those fan's posts, will soon see the modern fans also love tons of the older repertoire from many of the earlier eras of music, going all the way back to the beginning of the now over 1000 years of classical repertoire. 

I can not help but think something like this really gets under the skin of those who find modern-contemporary some sort of barrier.  "Those people like this, but they also love what I love."  I.e. the listener who does not like the more modern and contemporary is made aware of the fact "they do not get" something about that music, and I believe that an intellectual vanity about their knowing and loving the classical they do like has them feeling out of it, or somehow lacking or inferior, in that they do not get or like the more modern repertoire while others who seem to know and love a lot of music do -- ergo rationales positing that those who do get and like this repertoire have exceptional mental qualities akin to some clinical neurological disorder.  Sour Grapes, as Aesop told it, is more of what I think is going on in such instances.

Why go at the matter hammer and tongs when there is such a vast repertoire from the past 1000 years that you can enjoy, unless you feel particularly 'left out'?

It sure is a lot of flap to say what is more truthfully, "I don't get it and I don't care for it."  If you 'got it,' and did not care for it, I am certain you would not have felt the need to say to listen to it requires a neurologically disordered mind.

Schoenberg's music, Berg's music, Webern's music may have had little play early on; it never went out of circulation, and currently it is gaining a wider and wider audience and more play on concert venues.  History, dude, is not "on your side."  Personal taste is only justifiable as personal taste, not justifiable because the herd has tastes similar to yours.  We are men and women, not cows or sheep... so let us not moo like cows or bleat like sheep ;-)


Best regards.

[kishnevi]

"autism-related mental properties"?!

Look, I actually am autistic and I don't particularly care for much of the Second Viennese, and even less for many of its successors, assigns, heirs, etc .

Which is of course more about me than about the music.  But does suggest the music has nothing to do with neurotypicality and the lack thereof.

[Ken B]

Crushed dung, pedophilia...why can't you and Abe argue on the basis of what's there rather than making up irrelevant and inflammatory analogies?

The problem is not that he has looked at the content of the works of the Second Viennese School and judged them deficient on that basis, it's that he encountered an unfamiliar language and decided that because he can't follow it, it's nonsense.  He is not in a position to judge because he doesn't know what he's judging.

All the canards about being propped up by academia are laughably false.  Academics have little to no power to determine what gets played and recorded.  The power lies primarily in the hands of musicians and secondarily in the hands of record producers, who are notoriously profit-driven, though naturally not all records are released in order to make a profit.

Mahlerian: See Turner's comment, where he responds to what I actually argue.
Turner: Fair enough about not being able to judge popularity if he cannot judge influence.

[Jo498]

The 2nd Viennese school was not more strongly tied to academia than conservative late romantic composers of the early/mid 20th century (like e.g. Joseph Marx). In the whole of music history few composers lived from selling compositions. They were usually employed as musicians (which often included composition, not always though, e.g. Mahler's conducting position had nothing to do with his symphonies) or as composition teachers/professors or had independent means or relied on sponsors (e.g. Wagner). This aspect  (being propped up by public money) is really not a salient difference between avantgarde and "conservative" (or simply older) classical music.

[Mahlerian]

Mahlerian: See Turner's comment, where he responds to what I actually argue.
Turner: Fair enough about not being able to judge popularity if he cannot judge influence.

I did respond to what you argued.  Your argument assumed several premises that I couldn't accept.  Breaking them apart is in fact responding to your argument.

Look, if Abe were in a position to make any kind of argument, it would be one thing, but as I said, he's proudly ignorant of the works he's denigrating, and he's been impervious so far to any factual information that contradicts his hypotheses regarding performance, recording, etc. that are directly relevant to the issue of popularity.

[San Antone]

Yes, it would appear that this nonsense...


...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cfahDk3YqY

...lives up more to the "classical tradition" than this splendid album:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0epS8qh9aJg

I am guessing this point has been made before?  But, anyway ...

Who appointed you, -abe-, the arbiter of the "classical tradition"?  So, you don't like Babbitt and Schoenberg, and it appears much of what has been composed in the  20th/21st century.  Just leave it at that.  Your taste is what it is and there is absolutely nothing wrong with not liking certain composers' music.  But your taste is not a yardstick to be used to measure the worth of music you don't happen to like.

[Ken B]

I am guessing this point has been made before?  But, anyway ...

Who appointed you, -abe-, the arbiter of the "classical tradition"?  So, you don't like Babbitt and Schoenberg, and it appears much of what has been composed in the  20th/21st century.  Just leave it at that.  Your taste us what it is and there is absolutely nothing wrong with not liking certain composers' music.  But your taste is not a yardstick to be used to measure the worth of music you don't happen to like.

Well I am always struck by such certain pronouncements. Does anyone's taste have anything to do with the worth of anyone's music? Or are the notions of worth, value, quality simply inapplicable to music? Are they applicable to anything?

I'm not attacking Schoenberg or Babbitt to forestall the usual objections. I am asking about the ambit of your relativism.

[Mirror Image]

I feel more justified in my distaste because it's distaste that's still widely shared after a hundred years. History is on my side. The 2nd Viennese school and their acolytes wouldn't be anywhere without being ensconced in academia or being supported by government grants. Perhaps the reason the 2nd Viennese school stuff is still "avant-garde" after all this time -- still not part of the canon the same way Bach, Mozart, LvB, et al -- is because audiences are in fact too "simple minded" for it. Yes, it's special music, for a special breed of human beings, with certain neurological properties possibly unique to themselves. What they want to communicate can be perceived only by people who share their possibly autism-related mental properties. This theory has explanatory power in why the music is appealing to a minority but still found unacceptable by the public at large after a hundred years.

Your opinion completely baffles me. Did it ever occur to you that people who like the Second Viennese School are the same people that actually will like Beethoven and Brahms? If it doesn't, then you really need to stop mouthing off about music you don't understand or get. It doesn't take a special breed to like the Second Viennese School. It takes someone with an open-mind, which, judging from the few posts you've made on this thread, is most certainly not you.

[arpeggio]

I feel more justified in my distaste because it's distaste that's still widely shared after a hundred years. History is on my side. The 2nd Viennese school and their acolytes wouldn't be anywhere without being ensconced in academia or being supported by government grants. Perhaps the reason the 2nd Viennese school stuff is still "avant-garde" after all this time -- still not part of the canon the same way Bach, Mozart, LvB, et al -- is because audiences are in fact too "simple minded" for it. Yes, it's special music, for a special breed of human beings, with certain neurological properties possibly unique to themselves. What they want to communicate can be perceived only by people who share their possibly autism-related mental properties. This theory has explanatory power in why the music is appealing to a minority but still found unacceptable by the public at large after a hundred years.

These types of remarks really concern me.

There are those who believe that tonal music is superior to all atonal music.

Then there are those that think atonal music is just as good as tonal music.

I have been involved in two forums where the tonal faction won the debate.

In the Amazon Classical Forum the atmosphere became so toxic that there was no activity in any threads concerning post-19th century music for about 18 months.  Over the past year the there has been some activity concerning modern music.

The latest forum that has been harmed by this debate is Talk Classical.  At one time about 20% of the threads were about post-19th century music.  In the past few weeks there has been activity in over 575 threads (I have been keeping track of the activity).  Only about 5% of the threads are currently about post-19th century music.  If one excludes the great tonalists like Sibelius or Shostakovich, it is only about 1%.  According to various polls that were started there, about 2/3 thirds of members like modern music as much as the music of the great masters of the 18th and 19th century.  Over the past twelve months the attacks by the traditionalist have become so toxic that many members have gotten frustrated and left.  Many have migrated to GMG.

So far I have been very impressed with GMG.

I sure hope that what happened at Amazon and Talk Classical does not happen here.

[Jo498]

As someone already said, many people have no clue what "atonal" means. I have seen Zemlinsky described as "atonal" which is obviously wrong (and this was from a person who loved R. Strauss' music... apparently not "atonal"). In another forum I read that someone's parents (middle class people in their 50s or 60s I guess) found "The Firebird" excerpts they saw on TV "unbearable, worse than the tuning of the orchestra". And this stuff is popular enough to appear on a televised New Years Eve concert! Sometimes/often these are not people who care for older classical music either, except for the most popular opera or "bonbon" repertoire. They are probably somewhat unmusical or simply not open and patient enough to give a piece a little time.

In any case I think what should be kept in mind is that most of 20th century "conservative" music (e.g. Korngold) is not more popular than the more daring music. I do not know about the statistics but while Berg's violin concerto is probably considerably less popular than Tchaikovsky's I am not sure how it fares in comparison with Korngold's. And this is a pretty good piece. If some third rate hack today composed a tonal, pseudo-romantic violin concerto I seriously doubt that people want to hear that. There are enough authentic romantic violin concertos from former times to have that repertoire covered.

[amw]

If some third rate hack today composed a tonal, pseudo-romantic violin concerto I seriously doubt that people want to hear that.

Hard to blame them. >_> I actually started a tonal, pseudo-romantic violin concerto although more to see how well I could internalise the romantic style than to have anyone hear it. There's not much value in composing in such styles for any other purpose; the person I had tutorials with at uni for my Tonal Composition class did actually compose and publish works in such a style but usually had to perform them himself and remains pretty well unknown. You can literally just put on a CD of Brahms instead.

[San Antone]

Well I am always struck by such certain pronouncements. Does anyone's taste have anything to do with the worth of anyone's music? Or are the notions of worth, value, quality simply inapplicable to music? Are they applicable to anything?

I'm not attacking Schoenberg or Babbitt to forestall the usual objections. I am asking about the ambit of your relativism.

As I've said, maybe in this thread or maybe it was in different thread, but I think it is futile verging on impossible to establish objective criteria in order to judge the worth of "anyone's music".  For me, the only determinant for selecting which musical works are great is over time: certain works will resonate with audiences across periods and generations more than other works.  Call it a universal quality that is in the music.  But, individually, imo, we respond to music subjectively.  We all have our favorite works/composers. 

There is nothing wrong with disliking Schoenberg, or any composer.  But to go from there to deciding that because you don't like it, then the music must be bad.

[Karl Henning]

These types of remarks really concern me.

There are those who believe that believe tonal music is superior to all atonal music.

Then there are those that like atonal music is just as good as tonal music.

I have been involved in two forums where the tonal faction won the debate.

In the Amazon Classical Forum the atmosphere became so toxic that there was no activity in any threads concerning post-19th century music for about 18 months.  Over the past year the there has been some activity concerning modern music.

The latest forum that has been harmed by this debate is Talk Classical.  At one time about 20% of the threads were about post-19th century music.  In the past few weeks there has been activity in over 575 threads (I have been keeping track of the activity).  Only about 5% of the threads are currently about post-19th century music.  If one excludes the great tonalists like Sibelius or Shostakovich, it is only about 1%.  According to various polls that were started there, about 2/3 thirds of members like modern music as much as the music of the great masters of the 18th and 19th century.  Over the past twelve months the attacks by the traditionalist have become so toxic that many members have gotten frustrated and left.  Many have migrated to GMG.

So far I have been very impressed with GMG.

I sure hope that what happened at Amazon and Talk Classical does not happen here.

Worry not;  this is a conversation which crops up now and again.

There used to be a daft fellow here who felt that anything more modern than La mer was irredeemably ugly, and I pointed out to him more than once that, if in fact he had lived in Debussy's time, he would have found anything more modern than Gluck irredeemably ugly.

[San Antone]

Worry not;  this is a conversation which crops up now and again.

There used to be a daft fellow here who felt that anything more modern than La mer was irredeemably ugly, and I pointed out to him more than once that, if in fact he had lived in Debussy's time, he would have found anything more modern than Gluck irredeemably ugly.

Then, there's the fellow who thinks La mer is trash.

[Karl Henning]

I feel more justified in my distaste because it's distaste that's still widely shared after a hundred years.

By that reasoning, the alt-righters feel justified in their prejudices, because they remain virulent at the sesquicentennial of the Civil War.

I am not saying that dislike of modern music is anything like racism, to be clear.  Only pointing out how thoroughly useless that argument is.

[Karl Henning]

Then, there's the fellow who thinks La mer is trash.

Really? Nooooooo!!!

[GioCar]

The latest forum that has been harmed by this debate is Talk Classical.  At one time about 20% of the threads were about post-19th century music.  In the past few weeks there has been activity in over 575 threads (I have been keeping track of the activity).  Only about 5% of the threads are currently about post-19th century music.  If one excludes the great tonalists like Sibelius or Shostakovich, it is only about 1%.  According to various polls that were started there, about 2/3 thirds of members like modern music as much as the music of the great masters of the 18th and 19th century.  Over the past twelve months the attacks by the traditionalist have become so toxic that many members have gotten frustrated and left.  Many have migrated to GMG.

Is the Great Dane a traditionalist or a modernist? 
(for those unaware the Great Dane is the owner of that forum)

[James]

The 2nd Viennese school and their acolytes wouldn't be anywhere without being ensconced in academia or being supported by government grants.

Plus a lot of advocacy and lip service from a lot of really great musicians. Composers, conductors, players .. 

Perhaps the reason the 2nd Viennese school stuff is still "avant-garde" after all this time -- still not part of the canon the same way Bach, Mozart, LvB, et al -- is because audiences are in fact too "simple minded" for it.

Well, this logic can apply to other arts & sciences too.

One of the main reasons why the 2nd Viennese is uneasy for a lot of people is because of the really restless & ambiguous nature of the harmony. Creates an unsettled, tense & unstable feeling. This isn't to say that the music doesn't have polarity, or any gravity, it does, but it's more subverted/democratic. And if we look at the history and evolution of music since Wagner's Tristan, some folks were bound to take things implied there even further. Enter Schoenberg & others who confronted that and came up with their own language & solutions.

[Florestan]

Schoenberg is actually VERY similar to Brahms

I often encounter this statement but never are any examples offered or discussed. So, with the best intentions, in all earnest and really interested in learning, I ask: what Schoenberg work is very similar to what Brahms work and what are the similarities?