A different cut on beginners' classical music

[PerfectWagnerite]

PerfectWagner have you every heard a great performance of "Wellington's Victory" such as Dorati's on Mercury Living Presence or Kunzel's on Telarc?  BTW Wellington's Victory was the most popular of Beethoven's works when he was alive and the one that made him the most money, his Symphony No. 7 was his second biggest money maker.

Not the Dorati or Kunzel but I have Maazel and frankly it is dreadful. Sorry you will not find any musicologist who thinks this is anything but a very poor quality work.

[Teresa]

Not the Dorati or Kunzel but I have Maazel and frankly it is dreadful. Sorry you will not find any musicologist who thinks this is anything but a very poor quality work.

And that is the REAL problem isn't?  The musical establishment dismissing works that the public likes.  If it is not lofty and hard to understand forget it keep it elitist.  This is what I am fighting against!

[Josquin des Prez]

In the grim future of Teresa's world, the lowest common denominator will be the standard from which to judge all art. I cannot wait.

[PerfectWagnerite]

And that is the REAL problem isn't?  The musical establishment dismissing works that the public likes.  If it is not lofty and hard to understand forget it keep it elitist.  This is what I am fighting against!

The public likes??? Nobody I know LIKES Wellington's Victory. If you ask Beethoven himself he would probably admit it is a complete hackjob. As a society we lionize Beethoven. If Wellington's Victory is even halfway decent it would be viewed as a quality work already.

BTW, you still haven't told me why there is no Bruckner? Anything by Bruckner is more worthwhile than 99% of the stuff on your list. You have to understand music, especially great music, is often not easy to listen to. Look at Beethoven, works like the Op. 106 or Op. 111 will leave the most beginners scratching their heads but once you spend the time to know them will give them a lifetime of listening pleasure, which is far more fruitful than some of instant gratification pieces that are so prevalent on your list.

And for Brahms, the Hungaria Dances are probably his least interesting work. Give them the 1st or 2nd piano concerto please.

[Robert Dahm]

Teresa,

You obviously have a different taste in 'classical' music to many of the posters on this forum. And that's fine. I think Wellington's Victory is an atrocity, but you clearly like it. So go for it. That's wonderful. I also think that Night on Bald Mountain is rubbish, but I remember as a child finding it incredibly exciting, so maybe the list you have provided may well be of some value.

But I suspect that the allergic reaction a number of posters here have had to your articles boils down to a couple of issues, none of which are anything but tangentially related to the pieces on the list themselves:

1. In the body of your articles you dismiss the repertoire you dislike as being 'academic and boring'. In the compilation of a list that you assert is aimed at interesting people in this body of repertoire, it seems to me that excoriating vast tracts of the repertoire is inappropriate. Feeling the way you do about that repertoire is fine, but spouting it from a pseudo-pedagogical soapbox is both fraudulent and offensive.  

2. You equate your personal taste with 'what the public likes'. I defy you to find ten people on the street who prefer Wellington's Victory to the contemporaneous Eroica. Again, it's wonderful that you have an engagement with this music, and that you love W's V, but it's a minority view, among both enthusiasts and dabblers. Similarly, I think that there is a real use for your list (or something like it), for a particular sort of user, but your belief that all people that dislike classical music want the same things you do, along with the manner you inflict your tastes (see point 1.) makes the manner of presentation somewhat distasteful.

3. You assert that the real problem is

The musical establishment dismissing works that the public likes.

as if there were some kind of mechanism through which academics somehow tell lovers of 'classical' music which pieces to like and why they should like them. This is patently absurd. The Brahms chamber works (for example) have the place they do in the repertoire because, for nearly 150 years, the generosity of spirit with which these works are imbued has affected countless millions in a way that isn't describle with mere words (especially not words that could/should be applied to the enjoyment of good rock). Not because we're told that Brahms is good.

What we're essentially dealing with here is the difference betweeen function and art. You are seeing the Western classical tradition through a lens that requires music to 'get the bodies [sic] juices flowing'. That's all very well, and to an extent this explains the choices you have made. But most music of the Western classical tradition is intended not as something to get a crowd screaming and waving their hands up in air (oh yeah, like they just don't care... ) but rather to articulate or engage with the sublime. It is this aspect of music that speaks most strongly to the vast majority of 'classical' music enthusiasts. I think that the members of this Board have reacted (predictably) negatively to the fact that, by asserting a kind of compulsory reduction of 'classical' music to something with pounding rhythms, percussion, a good beat, good bass, etc, etc, etc, you implicitly deride the validity of this music as art.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Welcome on board, Mr. Dahm. Fine debut. But will Teresa listen?

[Teresa]

In the grim future of Teresa's world, the lower common denominator will be the standard from which to judge all art. I cannot wait.

Wrong in my world Classic Music is opened to EVERYONE not just elitists.

The public likes??? Nobody I know LIKES Wellington's Victory. If you ask Beethoven himself he would probably admit it is a complete hackjob. As a society we lionize Beethoven. If Wellington's Victory is even halfway decent it would be viewed as a quality work already.

BTW, you still haven't told me why there is no Bruckner? Anything by Bruckner is more worthwhile than 99% of the stuff on your list. You have to understand music, especially great music, is often not easy to listen to. Look at Beethoven, works like the Op. 106 or Op. 111 will leave the most beginners scratching their heads but once you spend the time to know them will give them a lifetime of listening pleasure, which is far more fruitful than some of instant gratification pieces that are so prevalent on your list.

And for Brahms, the Hungaria Dances are probably his least interesting work. Give them the 1st or 2nd piano concerto please.

Funny I don't know anyone who doesn't like Wellington's Victory!   

Bruckner's Symphony No. 9 was mentioned in "Classical Music for Everyone" The "Scherzo" from Bruckner's 9th Symphony can get the bodies juices flowing every bit as "Whole Lotta Love" by Led Zeppelin, both works induce "goose-bumps" to the max!  The reason for no Bruckner is simple I have tried Bruckner's Symphony Nos. 0, 1, 2, 4 "Romantic" and 9 and I only like the Scherzo movement from No. 9.  But I really love the Scherzo, it's raw driving powerful energy leaves me exhausted.  But in the end I didn't fill it fit for a newbie who has already rejected traditional Classical music.

I only included Brahms Hungarian Dances as that is the only work of his I really love.  I do like the Violin Concerto a little, not enough to actually keep, the Piano Concertos are OK but nothing to get excited about, I prefer the Piano Concertos of Liszt and Rachmaninov.  I abhor all 4 of Brahms Symphonies and his chamber works. 

Teresa,

I think that the members of this Board have reacted (predictably) negatively to the fact that, by asserting a kind of compulsory reduction of 'classical' music to something with pounding rhythms, percussion, a good beat, good bass, etc, etc, etc, you implicitly deride the validity of this music as art.

Nothing compulsory it's just we will not be shut out by elitists.  Classical music can be enjoyed by everyone, there is enough variety for sure!  You can have your hard to understand works and we can have our instant gratification works.  It's not one or the other!!!!!  Quote from my list: "Unlike other lists there are no "must haves" here as not everyone likes the same music.  These are recommendations for listening and thanks to the Internet you can listen to streaming audio before deciding to add music to your collection."

BTW every single person I have played "Wellington's Victory" for loved it, some even more than Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture". 

[ChamberNut]

Funny I don't know anyone who doesn't like Wellington's Victory!  

It's the only work so far by Beethoven that I don't particularly care for.  But, to each their own. 

[Ephemerid]

...in my world Classic Music is opened to EVERYONE not just elitists.

I wholeheartedly agree, Teresa, classical music doesn't belong to any elite.  But when you castigate huge swathes of classical music (90% I'd say) for being "boring" or whatever, isn't this just another form of elitism?  All classical music should be up for grabs, otherwise you present a false image of what classical music is and all its possibilities.  Beethoven, Bach & Vivaldi were my first real exposures to classical music as a teenager & I fell in love with it-- perhaps it is not your own music of preference but I would hardly call it "boring."  And it hardly stemmed from any notions of elitism (I was quite oblivious to even those silly stereotypes back then!).

Teresa, I'm not sure where you are from, but let's pretend that you are not from the United States and you are a tourist.  I'm your tour guide.  You are a foreigner with little knowledge and no experience of the US and what life is like in such a vast and varied culture and landscape.  So we begin our tour of the United States.  We go to Portland, Maine.  I drive you around town, show you various buildings, homes, we walk around & I introduce you to a few residents, we eat out at a couple fast food joints.  The next couple days I drive you out around the outlying country 50 miles outside of Portland.  As I show you around I tell you about other places in the US-- New York City sucks, its too crowded, the south is full of religious loonies, San Francisco is full of liberal loonies, there's just a lot of dirt out west, and Texas is cowboy country.  Then I take you back to the airport and you get back onto your plane to return home. 

Did I give you a fair tour of the United States?  You hardly got to see even one state! 

Its OK to have certain preferences (who doesn't?) but when you claim to be showing people, "Yeah! This is what classical music is all about!" you are giving a very limited and very unrepresentative tour of what classical music is about.  And by tagging chamber music as "boring" or stating you "abhor" Brahms' symphonies, you are already trying to limit what a prospective new listener to classical music "ought" to listen to, based on a personal preference.  Historically, people have found great value in Brahms' symphonies or Beethoven's string quartets.  Don't you think you owe it as a tour guide to point out that there MIGHT be something good to be found in that, even if *you* don't?  Isn't your so-called "anti-elitism" a form of elitism as well?  The problem is quite simple: You're not being a very good tour guide. 

[(poco) Sforzando]

But will Teresa listen?

Guess not.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Its OK to have certain preferences (who doesn't?) but when you claim to be showing people, "Yeah! This is what classical music is all about!" you are giving a very limited and very unrepresentative tour of what classical music is about.  And by tagging chamber music as "boring" or stating you "abhor" Brahms' symphonies, you are already trying to limit what a prospective new listener to classical music "ought" to listen to, based on a personal preference.  Historically, people have found great value in Brahms' symphonies or Beethoven's string quartets.  Don't you think you owe it as a tour guide to point out that there MIGHT be something good to be found in that, even if *you* don't?  Isn't your so-called "anti-elitism" a form of elitism as well?  The problem is quite simple: You're not being a very good tour guide. 

The other side of this coin is that with someone as evidently stubborn and rigid as Teresa, the suggestion one might give many other listeners - such as, "a lot of people find the Brahms symphonies and Beethoven quartets among their favorite works, so why don't you (Teresa, that is), keep trying them off and on, and maybe one day they'll click with you" - would almost certainly fall on deaf ears. "I've decided what I like and what others are going to like, and damn it, nobody is ever going to open my closed mind!!!" says Teresa to herself and us. It's just another example of what we see in Paulb; only the list of works is different. But of course, if ever Teresa were to open up her soul and mind to (say) the melancholy beauty of the Mozart D minor quartet, or the graceful charm of the Allegretto to Brahms's 2nd symphony, or the wit and humor of Beethoven's 8th, or the zest of the finale to Brahms's G mnor quartet - then this whole charade of Power Orchestral Rock would crumble like the house of cards it is, and Teresa might have to join the great majority of classical music lovers who really do get what this music is all about. And then where would she be?

[Josquin des Prez]

Wrong in my world Classic Music is opened to EVERYONE not just elitists.

Actually, it seems to me in your world Classical Music is opened to everyone BUT the elitist, whoever might they be. One might want to inquire why the search for excellence and artistic truth has to step aside and give leeway to base mediocrity on account of pleasing the multitudes? What virtue is there?

Funny I don't know anyone who doesn't like Wellington's Victory!

You might want to start with Beethoven, who intentionally wrote the piece as dross in scorn for the audience he needed to appease, the very demographic which according to you should hold monopoly on art.

[Josquin des Prez]

And then where would she be?

Trapped into this fabled establishment she seems to find so disagreeable, and that just isn't free-thinking enough.

[Teresa]

None of you still get it! "The Basic Power Orchestral Repertoire or Classical music for folks who don't like Classical music" is for listeners WHO DO NOT LIKE CLASSICAL MUSIC!!!!!  I was one of those who didn't like classical music and my suggestions are based on my 26 year journey with the Classics, good and bad. 

I am not reverse elitist either. Once again from my article: "Unlike other lists there are no "must haves" here as not everyone likes the same music.  These are recommendations for listening and thanks to the Internet you can listen to streaming audio before deciding to add music to your collection."   

Do you understand NOW I am only making suggestions based on my long journey down a very difficult road full of boring and ugly music and I have scooped out 300 recommendations for those who find that traditional Classical music is not for them.  DO YOU ALL UNDERSTAND NOW???

[Josquin des Prez]

None of you still get it! "The Basic Power Orchestral Repertoire or Classical music for folks who don't like Classical music" is for listeners WHO DO NOT LIKE CLASSICAL MUSIC!!!!!  I was one of those who didn't like classical music and my suggestions are based on my 26 year journey with the Classics, good and bad. 

It is you who doesn't get it. Creating a program for people who do not like classical music by positively making sure they keep not liking it is an exercise in futility.

Do you understand NOW I am only making suggestions based on my long journey down a very difficult road full of boring and ugly music and I have scooped out 300 recommendations for those who find that traditional Classical music is not for them.  DO YOU ALL UNDERSTAND NOW???

I understand that whomever finds classical music boring and ugly might have steered herself in a different direction 26 years ago.

[Teresa]

Actually, it seems to me in your world Classical Music is opened to everyone BUT the elitist, whoever might they be. One might want to inquire why the search for excellence and artistic truth has to step aside and give leeway to base mediocrity on account of pleasing the multitudes? What virtue is there?

You might want to start with Beethoven, who intentionally wrote the piece as dross in scorn for the audience he needed to appease, the very demographic which according to you should hold monopoly on art.

There is room in Classical music for both the Classical populists and the Classical elitist.  It is arrogant to assume that just because a work is exciting, likable and enjoyable it must also be lower art than absolute music.  This is wrong, very, very wrong.

Beethoven wrote Wellington's Victory to celebrate Wellington's victory over the French and to introduce Maelzel's Panharmonicon.

[(poco) Sforzando]

None of you still get it! "The Basic Power Orchestral Repertoire or Classical music for folks who don't like Classical music" is for listeners WHO DO NOT LIKE CLASSICAL MUSIC!!!!!  I was one of those who didn't like classical music and my suggestions are based on my 26 year journey with the Classics, good and bad. 

I am not reverse elitist either. Once again from my article: "Unlike other lists there are no "must haves" here as not everyone likes the same music.  These are recommendations for listening and thanks to the Internet you can listen to streaming audio before deciding to add music to your collection."   

Do you understand NOW I am only making suggestions based on my long journey down a very difficult road full of boring and ugly music and I have scooped out 300 recommendations for those who find that traditional Classical music is not for them.  DO YOU ALL UNDERSTAND NOW???

We understand all too well. Don't you think that after - what, 26 years? - it might be time to you to open your mind a little and hear what other people are trying to tell you? Did it ever occur to your arrogant little mind that if you find some of the most beloved music in the world "boring and ugly," the problem just might be you?

[Teresa]

It is you who doesn't get it. Creating a program for people who do not like classical music by positively making sure they keep not liking it is an exercise in futility.

I understand that whomever finds classical music boring and ugly might have steered herself in a different direction 26 years ago.

Wrong it is an alternative to traditional Classical music they rejected.  If they find something they like in the 300 works listed then we have a new Classical listener.  How can that be bad?

I like Classical music, Jazz, Rock, Bluegrass with percussion, Folk, World and many other types of music but I like Classical Orchestral music the best.  And I know there are millions of other listeners who would like Classical music if only the good stuff was not hidden from them!

Don't be so elitists, live a little!  

[Teresa]

We understand all too well. Don't you think that after - what, 26 years? - it might be time to you to open your mind a little and hear what other people are trying to tell you? Did it ever occur to your arrogant little mind that if you find some of the most beloved music in the world "boring and ugly," the problem just might be you?

I would never and I mean never suggest you listen to music you consider boring or ugly by the same token DO NOT DARE to suggest I listen to music I find boring or ugly.  26 Years was long enough to find all the good stuff I love and some of it is still being written today but now thanks to the Internet I can listen before I buy!

[Josquin des Prez]

It is arrogant to assume that just because a work is exciting, likable and enjoyable it must also be lower art than absolute music.

It is also arrogant to assume that just because a work is exciting, likable and enjoyable to you, it deserves to be on equal terms with real art. Your personal enjoyment and scant understanding (apparently) of the music which you do not enjoy (possibly correlated) has no bearing to any form of objective assessment of what is essentially a narrowing of the human capability for transcendence and creativity to it's absolute peak through out the span of a single civilization. You don't seem to understand the enormity of what's at stake here, and the very notion any individual can simply discard all this on account of personal preference and then encourage others to do the same is an extremely dangerous proposition in an age which is already on the verge of throwing such a monumental heritage to the confines of history.

And I know there are millions of other listeners who would like Classical music if only the good stuff was not hidden from them!

That's been our point all along.