Have You Ever Experienced Radical Changes in Your Musical Taste?

[Opus131]

The problem is, you don't actually understand how or why that works. It's got nothing to do with old language being inherently more lofty.

Low-class characters in Shakespeare talk in low-class language. High-class characters in Shakespeare talk in high-class language. And you can't tell the difference because to you it all sounds fancy.

I mean, the word "thou" is not fancy, it's the exact opposite. The more formal and polite word was "you", and eventually everybody habitually used the more polite word. That modern people get this wrong is a reflection on modern people, not on the English of the time.

While Shakespeare obviously had different aims than a liturgical text, the language he used still has a different quality from modern English and if the argument is that his English sounded to his contemporaries like modern England sounds to us i would vehemently disagree.

If there is one thing i find truly objectionable is how many modern people want to try to make the ancient artists as "vulgar" as the men of today. I remember encountering some truly appalling translations of the works of Homer years ago that attempted to do just that. And the argument is always the same "he was vulgar in his time".

No, he was not. That is a complete projection.

[AnotherSpin]

Right. And Rachmaninoff gave birth to Lenin.

Wrong, it was Tchaikovsky 

[Madiel]

if the argument is that his English sounded to his contemporaries like modern England sounds to us i would vehemently disagree.

You can disagree all you like. You're still wrong. Because fundamentally you're confused about the difference between good quality writing and the general register of the language being used in it.

Shakespeare's plays would never have been popular with his contemporary audiences if it was hard work understanding them.

[Florestan]

Just listen:

Don't you see that such "evidence" is completely anecdotal? You happen to find an Ockegem mass more devotionally powerful than a Mozart mass, therefore the Ockeghem mass must have more devotional power than the Mozart mass, for everybody and always.

[Opus131]

Wrong, it was Tchaikovsky 

There's actually some merit to this line of thinking in that extremism on one side tends to breed an extremist counter reaction.

It's the "God and Magog" of modernism, the devil playing both sides against each other. You could make a similar argument in reguards to Islamic fundamentalism as a reaction to the secularism of the west.

[Florestan]

Wrong, it was Tchaikovsky 

Tchaikovsky could not have have engendered anybody, for obvious reasons. 

[Opus131]

Don't you see that such "evidence" is completely anecdotal? You happen to find an Ockegem mass more devotionally powerful than a Mozart mass, therefore the Ockeghem mass must have more devotional power than the Mozart mass, for everybody and always.

But the Ockegem masses are all like that.

[Florestan]

While Shakespeare obviously had different aims than a liturgical text, the language he used still has a different quality from modern English and if the argument is that his English sounded to his contemporaries like modern England sounds to us i would vehemently disagree.

Right. The drunkards and prostitutes in an Elizabethan tavern had a much more elevated language than their modern counterparts. The cursed in a nobler, more aristocratic way --- almost liturgically.

[Florestan]

But the Ockegem masses are all like that.

Yes, and the Mozart masses are all like that. My argument still stands: you have only your personal experience to offer as "evidence", ie you have no evidence at all.

[Opus131]

Right. The drunkards and prostitutes in an Elizabethan tavern had a much more elevated language than their modern counterparts. The cursed in a nobler, more aristocratic way --- almost liturgically.

I think ancient peasants were more noble than todays proles, yes.

I'm not saying the ancients were somehow beyond being human, that every one of them was a saint and that vuglar or crass people did not exist. I'm making a general statement about the culture in the main. Obviously you can find very questionable individuals in any time and any civilization, since human beings are just what they are.

[ritter]

This thread is straying further and further off-topic. Just sayin'.

[Opus131]

Yes, and the Mozart masses are all like that. My argument still stands: you have only your personal experience to offer as "evidence", ie you have no evidence at all.

This falls squarely to what i just argued against previously. It's not that i don't have "evidence", it's that i don't have the kind of evidence you would accept (tangible, rational or discursive). The problem is that no such "evicence" can possibly ever be presented when it comes to "invisible" realities. If your answer is that no such thing as "invisible" realities exist, i would warn that would lead to a complete negation of the intellect as by that point nothing can be said about anything. For starters, where is your "evidence" that invisible objective realities don't exist? And so forth like this.

It's like people who argue "there is no truth". Right, and what makes this claim true?

[Madiel]

I have nothing else to say to you

Committing to follow through on this.

[Florestan]

This falls squarely to what i just argued against previously. It's not that i don't have "evidence", it's that i don't have the kind of evidence you would accept (tangible, rational or discursive). The problem is that no such "evicence" can possibly ever be presented when it comes to "invisible" realities.

In order to prove your claim that Ockeghem's masses have more devotional power than the Mozart's masses, you must simply prove that, of all the people who have ever heard or will ever hear Ockeghem's masses, a larger percentage were or will be inspired to devotion / had or will have mystical experiences / converted or will convert to Christianity / reacted or will react in whatever way you define as being the effect of devotional power, by listening to them, than the corresponding percentage of all the people who have ever heard, or will ever hear, Mozart's masses. That you can't do that has got nothing to do with whether invisible realities exist or not.

Anyway, what is your point, here and elsewhere? That if music had frozen to Ockeghem's time, English had frozen to Elizabethan time and society as a whole had frozen to 1300, Europe would have been a better place than it is today?

[Florestan]

Shakespeare's plays would never have been popular with his contemporary audiences if it was hard work understanding them.

Yes, but if I understand @Opus131 correctly, he claims that the Elisabethan commoners were themselves so noble and aristocratic as to be able to effortlessly understand and enjoy the talk of real nobles and aristocrats.

[Madiel]

Yes, but if I understand @Opus131 correctly, he claims that the Elisabethan commoners were themselves so noble and aristocratic as to be able to effortlessly understand and enjoy the talk of real nobles and aristocrats.

The average modern Londoner is perfectly capable of understanding King Charles.

It just bemuses me how people ever come to think that God's own language is King James English, or whatever. It requires a fundamental misunderstanding of how language actually works, or is supposed to work.

Mind you, misunderstandings are common, including when people expect dictionaries to be a rule book about the "right" way to speak when anyone who makes dictionaries will explain they're meant to record how people DO speak.

But I find it both hilarious and frustrating when people think that making language more complicated and harder to understand means it's BETTER. Whether in religion or law or in plays or in academic texts, people actively work against being understood.

That is seriously why the church fought at one time against the Bible being translated into English and other vernacular languages, and wanted it kept in Latin (ignoring that the reason it was ever PUT IN Latin was because that was the most understood language at the time). If it was in English, people might start reading it for themselves! They wouldn't have to rely on priests to tell them what it said!

Language is supposed to be for the communication of ideas. If the ideas don't come across because someone insists on using a dead language or archaic language or just stupidly flowery language, that isn't proof of skill, it's a failure. Simple, clear language is a lot harder than faffing about sounding pompous.

See also: there is an art to writing a really good 3 minute pop song.

[Florestan]

Everyday Greek for the New Testament.

And given that Jesus spoke Aramaic, the original Greek Gospels are actually translations in a sense.

[Madiel]

And given that Jesus spoke Aramaic, the original Greek Gospels are actually translations in a sense.

Correct. They were put into the language that was the most common at the time.

Some of the books are written in more sophisticated Greek than others, reflecting that many of the authors were Jewish and the amount of Greek they'd learned as a second language varied.

[Opus131]

In order to prove your claim that Ockeghem's masses have more devotional power than the Mozart's masses, you must simply prove that, of all the people who have ever heard or will ever hear Ockeghem's masses, a larger percentage were or will be inspired to devotion / had or will have mystical experiences / converted or will convert to Christianity / reacted or will react in whatever way you define as being the effect of devotional power, by listening to them, than the corresponding percentage of all the people who have ever heard, or will ever hear, Mozart's masses. That you can't do that has got nothing to do with whether invisible realities exist or not.

Anyway, what is your point, here and elsewhere? That if music had frozen to Ockeghem's time, English had frozen to Elizabethan time and society as a whole had frozen to 1300, Europe would have been a better place than it is today?

This doesn't prove anything either. Quantity and quality occupy two different ontological levels you cannot use one as a measure of the other.

I'm afraid you are going to have to use your own intelligence and determine this for youself.

I myself find the Mozart mass to be too secular and profane sounding to really justify its use in a religious context. The masses of Ockeghem by contrast have a clear sacred quality to them.

[Florestan]

The average modern Londoner is perfectly capable of understanding King Charles.

If I were @Opus131, I would reply that that's because in the sordid modern world kings have degenerated to the levels of commoners. 

It just bemuses me how people ever come to think that God's own language is King James English, or whatever. It requires a fundamental misunderstanding of how language actually works, or is supposed to work.

Mind you, misunderstandings are common, including when people expect dictionaries to be a rule book about the "right" way to speak when anyone who makes dictionaries will explain they're meant to record how people DO speak.

But I find it both hilarious and frustrating when people think that making language more complicated and harder to understand means it's BETTER. Whether in religion or law or in plays or in academic texts, people actively work against being understood.

Agreed.

That is seriously why the church fought at one time against the Bible being translated into English and other vernacular languages, and wanted it kept in Latin (ignoring that the reason it was ever PUT IN Latin was because that was the most understood language at the time).

I'm not sure I can agree with that. The lingua franca of the Roman Empire was actually the Greek, which is probably the reason why the New Testament was written in Greek.

If it was in English, people might start reading it for themselves! They wouldn't have to rely on priests to tell them what it said!

This is the good in translating the Bible into vernaculars. The bad is that, once it was thus accessible, all kind of people endowed with much zeal but little knowledge began to fancy themselves Biblic scholars and interpret the text according to their own lights and agenda, thus resulting in an extreme sectarian fragmentation and not infrequently bloodshed.

Language is supposed to be for the communication of ideas. If the ideas don't come across because someone insists on using a dead language or archaic language or just stupidly flowery language, that isn't proof of skill, it's a failure. Simple, clear language is a lot harder than faffing about sounding pompous.

Yep. Look no further than how Jesus talked: simple and clear, no philosophical dissertations, no abstruse metaphors, no arcane terminology. By @Opus131 standards His talk is prosaic and down to earth.