Bach vs. Beethoven!

[karlhenning]

its not ridiculous...when you think about it...

Well, one wants to be careful.

There's that trapdoor leading to where Bach's vibrational fields are superior to Beethoven's . . . .

[Larry Rinkel]

Interesting but seems to contradict things I've read (and his own output. especially in his mature years). I do remember reading his opinion about Grosse Fuge....

"This absolutely contemporary piece of music that will be contemporary forever."

Here is this ....

The public and academic confusion to which he refers might be explained by the fact that in an artistic climate dominated by emotion, drama, and ego, Stravinsky was moving towards a musical philosophy that eschewed the clamorous and imperious artist in favor of the selfless artisan. To him, the epoch that saw the dawn of European polyphony was much nearer to the essential truth – unadorned, harsh even – than the sophisticated response of a declining society's disillusioned minds. "He was stimulated by the early polyphonist's straightforward approach, hardly hampered by harmonic implications, as they were; for the emotionally conditioned harmonic style, which was evident, to a varying degree, in his earlier music, had no longer any attraction for him." (Weissman)

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canticum_Sacrum

I don't know what this has to do with Stravinsky's opinion of Beethoven. Here's what he actually wrote:

on the C# minor: "Everything ins this masterpiece is perfect, inevitable, unalterable."

on the Fugue: "The Great Fugue enlarges the meaning of Beethoven more than any other work... It breaks all our measurements, too, human no less than musical."

on the Eflat major: "The E flat and the larger and more innovatory [hear, hear!] C shapr minor are the most unified, consistent, satisfying of the late quartets."

on the Bb major: "This is the most radical of the quartets; most modern, too."

on the lates as a set:
"These quartets are my highest articles of musical belief (which is a longer word for love, whatever else), as indispensable to the ways and meanings of art, as a musician of my era thinks of art and has tried to learn it, as temperature is to life.

- from Themes and Conclusions

[Larry Rinkel]

Of course not. The ridiculous thing is that people are attempting to justify why they prefer Bach over Beethoven and vice-versa.

I cannot choose between the two myself. For the past months I've been immersing myself in the Bach sacred cantatas. A few less interesting ones here and there, but so many are just works of staggering genius.

[Gabriel]

Bach and Beethoven are in such a position that it is possible to compare, but not possible to rank. And even comparisons would be quite difficult, considering the natural difference of styles.

I cannot choose among them.

[Guido]

"This absolutely contemporary piece of music that will be contemporary forever."



I don't know what this has to do with Stravinsky's opinion of Beethoven. Here's what he actually wrote:

on the C# minor: "Everything ins this masterpiece is perfect, inevitable, unalterable."

on the Fugue: "The Great Fugue enlarges the meaning of Beethoven more than any other work... It breaks all our measurements, too, human no less than musical."

on the Eflat major: "The E flat and the larger and more innovatory [hear, hear!] C shapr minor are the most unified, consistent, satisfying of the late quartets."

on the Bb major: "This is the most radical of the quartets; most modern, too."

on the lates as a set:
"These quartets are my highest articles of musical belief (which is a longer word for love, whatever else), as indispensable to the ways and meanings of art, as a musician of my era thinks of art and has tried to learn it, as temperature is to life.

- from Themes and Conclusions

Thanks those quotations. Very interesting

[Kullervo]

so many are just works of staggering genius.

I'm in complete agreement with you there. My preference for Beethoven over Bach is for entirely personal reasons, and has nothing to do with any kind of notion of a "universal indicator" of greatness. Perhaps my choice is influenced by extra-musical associations — so be it. Is Bach's music immune from these attachments?

[Larry Rinkel]

this is an mildly amusing discourse....last reply for today

ive read some of his things about the last few quartets (of LvB's output) and his fascination with them  but it doesnt really conclusively state or illustrate that he revered LvB over all others....with the bit I posted Beethoven was the epitomy of the self artisan, its what he represented...and Stravinsky's whole artistic philosophy (and music) especially as he matured seemed to respresent the diametric opposite of LvB....and I just don't hear to a large or substantial degree the influence too much, and I hear more of the Baroque model in lots of the neo-classical stuff... and as he went along he was more stimulated by the unadorned early polyphonist's straightforward approach which he felt was closer to the "essential truth", unhampered with harmonic implications, more austere etc ... that's NOT Beethoven to me....and that philosophy Igor grew to prefer and adopt, I DO in fact hear in the music....so the "Towards the middle and later years he came to revere Beethoven above all other composers" as you say seems a bit spurious & contradictory to how he really felt....

I'm not talking about the influence on Beethoven in Stravinsky's music, though that most definitely can be traced; I'm talking about Stravinsky's declared attitude towards Beethoven's music, and if the quotations I've provided don't prove my point, kindly explain what they do prove. If you want to call Stravinsky's comments "spurious," be my guest. But you might read Stephen Walsh's biography on Stravinsky, volume 2, and look up Stravinsky's attitude towards Beethoven, how he sided "against the stupidity and drivel of fools who think it up to date to giggle as they amuse themselves by running [Beethoven] down." And in the later years, when Stravinsky spent most of his evenings with Robert Craft listening to recordings, the Beethoven quartets were always among his first choices.

I think you're projecting your distaste for Beethoven onto Stravinsky.

[BachQ]

Which doesn't change the fact that I prefer to listen to Bach's music.

And when I'm in the mood for the best of Bach fused with the best of Beethoven ....... I opt for Brahms .......

[Kullervo]

And when I'm in the mood for the best of Bach fused with the best of Beethoven ....... I opt for Brahms .......

Nicely done 

[Larry Rinkel]

whoa got dragged back in ...
i was calling your comment about how he revered Beethoven above  all others etc to be a bit spurious, as it seems to be based on these few comments on some quartets

Wrong. I've merely excerpted a few passages from several lengthy sections of the conversation books with Craft. There's more evidence; for example, in a documentary released in 1980, Charles Rosen drew a comparison between IS's piano sonata and Beethoven's sonata Op. 54. You claim "contradictory" evidence but have produced none. I take Stravinsky at his word, I can document all my claims, and unless anyone produces reliable evidence otherwise, I see no reason to alter my position.

[Bogey]

Bach all the way - it's a preference, not an indication of one being better than the other.

Beethoven all the way - it's a preference, not an indication of one being better than the other. 

(Hope you do not mind me borrowing you response here Don and adding my viewpoint, but it was so well put, that I could not help it.) 

[BachQ]

(Hope you do not mind me borrowing you response here Don and adding my viewpoint, but it was so well put, that I could not help it.) 

((( .....Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery .....)))

[max]

When it comes down to the epochal genius of both the vs. simply does NOT apply only your preferences and even that is subject to your moods!

There is a dimension in Beethoven which does not exist in Bach. Call it the Enlightenment, the Kantian revolution or the incipience of an Existential philosophy. Beethoven certainly, according to his life and times, had more reason to be existential than most.

Bach was the Aquinas of music, a mystic, a theorist, whose definitive summation of Technique and Belief was not unlike that of Bruckner in the 19th century whose genius too was completely dedicated to the greater glory of God.

...at least these perceptions of God are good for something!

Obviously these kinds of sound expressions grant different perspectives...so when is this drivel going to end??

[BachQ]

so when is this drivel going to end??

You want drivel?  Have I got a thread for you .........

[Larry Rinkel]

You want drivel?  Have I got a thread for you .........

[max]

You want drivel?  Have I got a thread for you .........

...oh please show me! Drivel has always been my magnum opus and I wish to make a contribution!

I thought this was the one.

[BachQ]

...oh please show me! Drivel has always been my magnum opus and I wish to make a contribution!

I thought this was the one.

Trust me: you're much, much better off to never set foot into the noisome waters of that murky quagmire ........

[karlhenning]

Interesting but seems to contradict things I've read (and his own output. especially in his mature years).

In the first place, James, Stravinsky was always ready with a bon mot, he delighted in witty and sharp comment (and learnt at an early stage that they make good press, as well).  So it is not difficult to find two Stravinsky comments which appear to contradict one another.

Also, an artist such as Stravinsky on the one hand necessarily forms sharp aesthetic opinions;  on the other hand, over the course of a long career, a man with an active mind will not hold onto the same opinion etched in stone for all time.

At any rate, you here should resist such easy judgments as "Stravinsky didn't think much of Beethoven. Period."  It could be, James, that you simply are not well read enough to latch onto such a dictum for a Procrustean bed.

I am surprised you haven't heard Stravinsky's report of an exchange he had once in (I think Paris) . . . I paraphrase, since my sources are at home:

"Beethoven?"
--"Rubbish!"
"But, the late quartets?"
--"Worst things he ever wrote!"

-- Actually, I should normally have agreed with him, only praising the Beethoven late quartets was such a commonplace among intellectuals at the time.

[karlhenning]

I'm not talking about the influence on Beethoven in Stravinsky's music, though that most definitely can be traced; I'm talking about Stravinsky's declared attitude towards Beethoven's music, and if the quotations I've provided don't prove my point, kindly explain what they do prove. If you want to call Stravinsky's comments "spurious," be my guest. But you might read Stephen Walsh's biography on Stravinsky, volume 2, and look up Stravinsky's attitude towards Beethoven, how he sided "against the stupidity and drivel of fools who think it up to date to giggle as they amuse themselves by running [Beethoven] down." And in the later years, when Stravinsky spent most of his evenings with Robert Craft listening to recordings, the Beethoven quartets were always among his first choices.

I think you're projecting your distaste for Beethoven onto Stravinsky.

Wrong. I've merely excerpted a few passages from several lengthy sections of the conversation books with Craft. There's more evidence; for example, in a documentary released in 1980, Charles Rosen drew a comparison between IS's piano sonata and Beethoven's sonata Op. 54. You claim "contradictory" evidence but have produced none. I take Stravinsky at his word, I can document all my claims, and unless anyone produces reliable evidence otherwise, I see no reason to alter my position.

All this entirely to the point.

[Haffner]

Beethoven banged loudly 45% more often than Bach.

OOOooooOOOOooo NOW I get it !