why do some composers dismiss other composers?

[Ephemerid]

There were music professors during the time when Debussy's was first getting big who threatened to expel students with copies of the scores to Debussy's work!  he was "breaking the law"!   

[(poco) Sforzando]

But then, I didn't think about what Sforzando is saying-- basically something like Harold Bloom's "anxiety of influence."  

Funny you should mention that.

[karlhenning]

Funny you should mention that.

Say on!

[(poco) Sforzando]

Debussy's relationship to Wagner's music is peculiar-- Pelleas et Melisande doesn't sound like Wagner, but it could not have existed without Wagner's influence.  Debussy later came to dislike Wagner and claimed to not owe him anything.  

A claim revealed to be untrue throughout Pelleas et Melisande, the opening of which couldn't have existed without Siegfried's forest murmurs, and much more.

[lukeottevanger]

First of all, Brahms did admire Wagner (although the feeling was not reciprocated, except in a grudging way: when Wagner heard Brahms's Haydn Variations, he offered the left-handed compliment that "there are still things to be done with the old forms in the hands of someone who knows how to use them"). But the point is not that "composers are just as narrow-minded as other people." Composers, especially strong composers, are not just "other people." They are impelled by an inner fire to pursue their own artistic visions, and if other composers get in their way, watch out! The ability of a strong composer to be a critic is sharply circumscribed by the composer's primary need to forge their own styles. Hence the antipathy of a Debussy to Beethoven. Debussy wasn't stupid, and he knew perfectly well that Beethoven was a mighty creative figure. But the firm Austro-Germanic logic of Beethoven's sonata forms, and their enormous influence on 19th-century composition from Schubert to Mendelssohn to Brahms to Wagner to Mahler and more, represented exactly the antithesis of the more fluid and sensuous style Debussy was forging for the first time in musical history. Hence Debussy not only wasn't fair to Beethoven, he couldn't be fair to Beethoven while being true to himself. We as mere listeners are not similarly obligated; we have the luxury of being as fair as we can to a wide variety of deserving composers.

That is bang on all the way through - and it should be read right to the end - and beautifully written too. The composer (or any composer worth talking about) is in a different position to the listener and is obliged, almost aginst his will, to take up strong positions in order to find his own way, and to carve out something worth the while. This isn't a political matter of positioning oneself in the 'market' or of 'camps' - a term Paul loves to bandy about as if music (sorry, CM) is only a matter of open warfare! - but a deep-seated necessity for the serious musician. Finding what works for you entails rejecting what doesn't, at least in some respects. So, Boulez hates Britten, and Britten hated Brahms (though he played him a lot as a young man, he came to think of it as 'indoors music'). But these are aesthetic matters, not technical ones.

Paul should be aware, too, that composers' views are more complex than mere like or dislike. The Debussy who praised Wagner to Ravel was not the Debussy who agonised over ridding Pelleas of all pernicious traces of 'Klingsor' (we have textual records and even IIRC scribblings on the manuscript proving this). But then again, as Sfz said, it is possible adore Wagner whilst rejecting everyone of his techniques for one's own music. (Just seen your latest post, Sfz - Debussy would have hated that you see the forest murmurs in P+M!)

BTW, the 'sauerkraut' was Satie, not Debussy - part of one of his great pomposity pinpricks which Debussy adopted. Another - 'We should see to it that the orchestra does not grimace when the characters enter on the stage. Look here: do the trees and scenery grimace? We should make a musical scenery, create a musical climate where personages move and speak - not in couplets, not in leit-motifs: but by the use of a certain atmosphere of Puvis de Chavannes'

[karlhenning]

Bravi, sforzando & Luke!

[(poco) Sforzando]

(Just seen your latest post, Sfz - Debussy would have hated that you see the forest murmurs in P+M!)

BTW, the 'sauerkraut' was Satie, not Debussy - part of one of his great pomposity pinpricks which Debussy adopted. Another - 'We should see to it that the orchestra does not grimace when the characters enter on the stage. Look here: do the trees and scenery grimace? We should make a musical scenery, create a musical climate where personages move and speak - not in couplets, not in leit-motifs: but by the use of a certain atmosphere of Puvis de Chavannes'

Of course in Pelleas, which is full of Wagnerian Leitmotivs, the trees and scenery grimace all evening long. Thank you for the nice words, Luke and Karl.

[paulb]

This isn't a political matter of positioning oneself in the 'market' or of 'camps' - a term Paul loves to bandy about as if music (sorry, CM) is only a matter of open warfare! -

Paul should be aware, too, that composers' views are more complex than mere like or dislike. The Debussy who praised Wagner to Ravel was not the Debussy who agonised over ridding Pelleas of all pernicious traces of 'Klingsor' (we have textual records and even IIRC scribblings on the manuscript proving this).

RE: "war camps"
Ahh you caught me at my suberfuge. Whadda you expect from a  iconoclast . Someone on amazon has tagged me as bonifide.

Wagner's operas contain some powerful gripping motifs. i can undersatnd Debussy trying to pull out of any votex that might come across as "wagnerian ' in his works. He did not want to be considered second fiddle, at least not to a  german.

The opening to Pelleas may have some ties with Wagner, but its of no consequence. that opening is on par with any of Wagner's best passages. Pelleas is a  masterpiece and so who cares what Wagner may have been to Debussy.

[Ephemerid]

Well, needless to say, I don't think anyone can cite a composer's personal dislikes or likes to prove that some other composer is somehow inferior or superior.  Composers have different agendas than listeners... 

[karlhenning]

Well, needless to say, I don't think anyone can cite a composer's personal dislikes or likes to prove that some other composer is somehow inferior or superior.

Exactly; although, actually, it is probably a good thing to point this out from time to time . . . .

[BachQ]

Exactly; although, actually, it is probably a good thing to point this out from time to time . . . .

Thanks for pointing that out, Karl ........

[karlhenning]

Al vostro servizio!

[lukeottevanger]

Of course in Pelleas, which is full of Wagnerian Leitmotivs, the trees and scenery grimace all evening long.

Yes, that's really the point - I was in a hurry and not at home before, so I couldn't write coherently, sorry! Debussy desperately wanted to keep P+M clear of Wagnerisms - I have a quotation in front of me now:

I was premature in crying 'success' over Pelleas et Melisande. After a sleepless night (the bringer of truth) I had to admit that it wouldn't do at all.....worst of all the ghost of good old Klingsor, alias R. Wagner kept appearing in a corner of a bar, so I've torn the whole thing up. I've started again and am trying to find a recipe for producing more characteristic phrases

and yet as Sfz says, the score is hardly free of Wagnerian traits. I do think that Debussy manages to avoid the 'trees and scenery grimacing' more than Sfz claims - at least most of the time - and I think the score's chief virtue lies in its restraint in these matters ('I love you's are unaccompanied, silences have more import that outbursts, etc). But nevertheless, there are pages of the score which remind one of nothing so much as Wagner - Arkel's motive, for instance, as when it appears for the first time before scene 2, reminds me of Parsifal every time I read/hear it. But it is not used in anything like the thorough-going Wagnerian way, and nor are any of the other motives in the opera - though there are certain surface similarities, there is a profound aesthetic difference, as well as an enormous difference of tone and technique etc. (Strange that we are having this discussion just after Pinky has started one of his odd Debussy-Wagner threads - 'what would Wagner have made of P+M?'!)

The quotation was taken from Jonathan Harvey's rather neat little book 'Music and Inspiration', which is really a compendium of such things from all manner of composers, smartly and revealingly categorised. The Debussy passage comes from a section on 'negative influence' (my phrase) and Harvey encapsulates this whole phenomenon well as he introduces the Debussy quotation:

In certain cases, the determination of younger composer to avoid sounding like their predecessors can be so strong that it amounts to a shaping force in their music almost despite themselves. A letter from Debussy to Ernest Chausson reveals this process in operation, applied most of all in relation to Wagner, whose influence Debussy came to despise, after his earlier adulation

I like this careful phrasing - Debussy didn't despise Wagner, he despised his influence. This is both a passionate and a pragmatic thing, concerning both Debussy's deeply-held beliefs but also his desire to find his own way. We see that pragmatism in Debussy's revealing final line: 'I am trying to find a recipe for producing more characteristic phrases'.

BTW, looking through other Debussy literature reveals quite how violent was this split in Debussy between admiring Wagner and despising him, at least at first. We see him in late 1893 writing an article 'On the Uselessness of Wagnerism' but still in early 1894 reveling in playing through Tristan at the piano. It is only later that things become more clear-cut - 'Wagner was a great literary and dramatic genius but no musician'; 'If you have any affection, my boy, for me, never play or even talk of Wagner or Beethoven to me, because it is like someone dancing on my grave' etc. etc.

[Ten thumbs]

It should be noted that Debussy was not moving into new musical territory on his own but, rather like the Impressionists, there was a group of like-minded composers. I don't think Debussy dismissed them, so why should we? On that point but rather at a distance has anyone heard any music by Nikolay Shcherbachyov?
Mendelssohn was very dismissive of Berlioz, saying that sadly he was without talent, and yet the two composers remained good friends. This seems to be merely a difference in views on how music should be constructed. From our point of view, this difference is enriching.

[paulb]

As I've been listening to Tristan and Isolde past few days, somehow I feel the music transcends the romantic era. I can sympathize with Brahms, Debussy and any other contemporary composer who may have felt some pangs of inferiority after hearing the best of Wagner. Not that Brahms was in any way less than Wagner, so do not misinterpret what i am saying. Brahms in his own right,  was a  giant in the symphonic and concerto genre.
I am so happy Debussy went forth to establish himself as a  masterful composer, and came out from that heavy spell that Wagner cast.

[knight66]

Although only partly in tune with the way the topic has developed. I would like to draw folks attention to Patrick White's novel, 'The Vivisector'. I have never read anything that so vividly encapsulates the act of an artist in creation. In this instance it is a painter. But the sheer sweat and stress of it all will read across to many other creative artists. It also brings out the complete single mindedness and self centredness of some artists.

Quote:
"Probably the most conspicuously successfully feature of the novel is the descriptions of painting - the physical act of making pictures - rather than of the finished objects. White wrote on several occasions of the physical labour and even the pain involved in writing and the psychological and physical effort of painting is astonishingly convincing. The numerous themes of the novel culminate in Hurtle's moment of death and his final painterly vision of unity"

Mike

[12tone.]

Wagner took tonal chromaticism as far as it could go.  Schoenberg took it to the next logical step.  Debussy opted instead for modes, all sorts of parallel fifths, "exotic" scales, etc.  Wagner was the crossroads in a way-- Debussy and Stravinsky (up to around 1950) taking the modified "tonal" route while Schoenberg, Berg & Webern started to push toward a lack of key centre.  That's the short version & there's a lot more nuance to that of course...

Don't you need / use 'modes' while writing a 'chromatic' work though?  You make everything sound so unrelated.  Or are they related?

[Danny]

Such as Brahms strong objections to Wagner.
And then of course the well known vehement attacks on the music of Beethoven from Debussy and Ravel.
Anyone care to share their ideas? I do not wish this topic to be locked, so please show your  virtues of restraint and tolerance. And kindness.
Another conflict of one composer upon another was that of Bartok upon his equally famous contemporary that of Shostakovich.

Havne't read the other responses, but I remember reading that Diaghilev told Prokofiev that if he didn't learn to hate and discriminate in his artistic taste that he would never be a great or original composer.  I suppose that makes sense as far as finding your own creative voice; as well, if one cannot critique the good/bad of a composition and determine what he or she like or, perhaps, think should be changed or tweaked in it to make it better than that composer might not be able to do the same in a piece written by his or herself.

[Lethevich]

Ned Rorem has been quite shitty towards numerous composers, Elliott Carter included, which has unfortunately demoted Rorem in my "to listen" list for a while. Not sure why he did it, but it makes him look silly.

[marvinbrown]

Such as Brahms strong objections to Wagner.
And then of course the well known vehement attacks on the music of Beethoven from Debussy and Ravel.
Anyone care to share their ideas? I do not wish this topic to be locked, so please show your  virtues of restraint and tolerance. And kindness.
Another conflict of one composer upon another was that of Bartok upon his equally famous contemporary that of Shostakovich.

  JEOLOUSY paulb, JEOLOUSY!

  marvin