Standard repertoire

[Keemun]

Right. And then one looks at your posts to see what you are actually listening to, and 95% of it are works by canonical composers. QED.

But you miss the point.  I listen to that music because I like it, not because it is considered "canonical." 

[longears]

Okay, someguy, I guess you're not swift enough to recognize the implications of your statements even when someone points them out to you.  For instance: I know you said, in essence, "fellow listeners view the concept without question."  That's the misguided statement that I'm pointing out is no more than a steaming pile of self-important horse manure.  That you "don't even acknowledge 'mainstream values' as a valid concept" is exactly what I'm addressing by parsing the cognitive content of your claims as "mainstream values differ from mine."  

Is it "so wrong" not to acknowledge that mainstream values exist?  Hell, yeah!  Unless you're happy being a solopsistic fruitcake.  The existence of such values no more presupposes that you or anyone else must share them than the existence of Fords precludes you from preferring a Chevy.

Whether a given listener can recognize quality is a completely different matter from whether a standard repertoire or canon exists.  That such discrimination seems incomprehensible to you suggests that further attempts to engage you in rational dialogue would be fruitless.

Have a nice day, and thanks for sharing.

[some guy]

Well, me dear, if "I guess you're not swift enough" and "steaming pile of self-important horse manure" and "solopsistic (sic) fruitcake" constitute what you consider legitimate elements of "rational dialogue," then I suppose that not having one of those with you won't keep me awake at night!

Just for the record, of course I acknowledge that mainstream values exist. I also acknowledge other things, some of which I value more highly than said values.

[longears]

Thanks for catching the typo...solipsistic, of course--darned fat fingers! 

[(poco) Sforzando]

But you miss the point.  I listen to that music because I like it, not because it is considered "canonical."

And you miss mine. The fact that you like certain music is not purely a solipsistic preference. It is not as if you are picking any old pieces of music arbitrarily. You have been born into a culture and there are influences on you that have helped shape your tastes and values, such as your education and personal relationships, the Internet included. You interact with that culture and the culture interacts with you to make you the listener you are.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Hmmmm. Don't know about whether you've seen false dichotomies or not. But the Feldman is not a dichotomy, false or otherwise. (Just because there are two things being contrasted doesn't mean that what we're seeing is a dichotomy.)

Sure it is. A dichotomy is any splitting of a whole into exactly two non-overlapping parts. Down with masterpieces, up with art, and the twain shall never meet. I recognize of course that what Feldman is attacking is similar to what Virgil Thomson called "the masterpiece syndrome," i.e., the big, plush, comfortable orchestral pieces of the 19th century that (in Thomson's mind) listeners attended in concert halls almost as a substitute for going to church. But to say that masterpieces can be opposed to art, which is exactly Feldman's point, is to my mind a false opposition. Er, dichotomy.

[some guy]

Sure it is. A dichotomy is any splitting of a whole into exactly two non-overlapping parts.

I don't think that's what Feldman has done, though.

to say that masterpieces can be opposed to art, which is exactly Feldman's point, is to my mind a false opposition. Er, dichotomy.

Actually, come to think of it, I think we do agree, about the falseness but not about Feldman. Here's what I get out of it. The concept of "Masterpiece," large M, can get in the way of understanding and appreciating and making "art," small a. He could have said "Down with Art; up with art," for that matter. You and I may still disagree, I don't know. I do think the concept of "Masterpiece" has replaced the idea of "art" for many people. Feldman was attempting to restore the balance. The falseness is prior to Feldman, I think. He wanted to turn away from that falseness to something true.

[Martin Lind]

I think in internet forums there is also a tendency to make oneselves interesting by choosing not the standard repertoire. But the standard repertoire is still a very wide field. For example the Haydn symphonies are standard repertoire but I can't claim to know all of them. On the other hand I have heard some of the symphonies of Rimski Korsakov and Glazunov and I was disappointed. On the other hand Mjaskovski is a composer I love, certainly not standard repertoire but quite interesting. I would like to know more of him.

[some guy]

Martin, did you read the post that started this thread?

"Is it really so that most people go for standard fare in classical music?"

"There is so much more quality to be found, yet the bulk of posters are keeping on the surface of things in their choice of composers."

On this thread there's "a tendency" to talk about "the canon," and how far from it each of us strays (or how much each of us ignores it). That's what this thread was set up to do. (Do you watch the Olympics and observe that there is a tendency for athletes to make themselves interesting by doing a lot of running and jumping? Just wonderin', dude!)

[71 dB]

If a work doesn't inspire that passion--and continue to do so--then it fails the test.

What is the test? Verdi's operas are still very popular but they fail my test, they don't appeal to me. Canonic works do well in the tests of majority while works outside the canon might do very well in the tests of minorities. Is the majority always right?

[(poco) Sforzando]

What is the test? Verdi's operas are still very popular but they fail my test, they don't appeal to me. Canonic works do well in the tests of majority while works outside the canon might do very well in the tests of minorities. Is the majority always right?

I wrote the previous comment:

It's not just the "test of time," but the passion that performers and audience bring to the work that matters.

Trust me, nobody gives a rat's tit if the operas of Verdi don't appeal to you. But of all mid-19th century Italian opera composers (that is, following the bel canto era and preceding verismo), Verdi is the one who has most decisively won over the hearts and minds of a large strata of music lovers. That being the case, I would think it behooves a genuine music-lover not to make snap judgments, to give this music a fair chance, to enlarge one's sympathies so that one can at least see and hear what are the qualities in this music that have so powerfully endeared it to its passionate devotees. There is no "brainwashing" here, to adopt your favorite caricatural epithet; rather, a wish to be part of something that has proven of great worth in the hearts and minds of those who have grasped it and love it.

[71 dB]

Trust me, nobody gives a rat's tit if the operas of Verdi don't appeal to you.

I am aware of that, of course. I was just giving one example of a person not admiring Verdi's art. Remember that most people on this planet do not care about any opera music by any composer (their loss).

But of all mid-19th century Italian opera composers (that is, following the bel canto era and preceding verismo), Verdi is the one who has most decisively won over the hearts and minds of a large strata of music lovers. That being the case, I would think it behooves a genuine music-lover not to make snap judgments, to give this music a fair chance, to enlarge one's sympathies so that one can at least see and hear what are the qualities in this music that have so powerfully endeared it to its passionate devotees. There is no "brainwashing" here, to adopt your favorite caricatural epithet; rather, a wish to be part of something that has proven of great worth in the hearts and minds of those who have grasped it and love it.

I think I have given fair chance to Verdi. Even his Requiem does not appeal to me that much. I just find his music too simple and uninteresting. I don't like his style which over-emphasizes melody over other musical dimensions.

[(poco) Sforzando]

I think I have given fair chance to Verdi. Even his Requiem does not appeal to me that much. I just find his music too simple and uninteresting. I don't like his style which over-emphasizes melody over other musical dimensions.

Depends on what constitutes "fair chance." It took me 30 years of off-and-on trying to "get" Bruckner. Of course I could've given up on him early. I am now glad I didn't. What you do is up to you.

[marvinbrown]

I wrote the previous comment:
Trust me, nobody gives a rat's tit if the operas of Verdi don't appeal to you. But of all mid-19th century Italian opera composers (that is, following the bel canto era and preceding verismo), Verdi is the one who has most decisively won over the hearts and minds of a large strata of music lovers.

  Well said and I for one find Verdi's operas to be "better" (ie: IMHO higher artistic value)  than the bel canto operas that preceded them and the verisimo operas that succeeded them.  In short Verdi's operas represent the epitome of Italian opera and it is of no surprise that they are a part of the standard repertoire!

  marvin

[(poco) Sforzando]

  Well said and I for one find Verdi's operas to be "better" (ie: IMHO higher artistic value)  than the bel canto operas that preceded them and the verisimo operas that succeeded them.  In short Verdi's operas represent the epitome of Italian opera and it is of no surprise that they are a part of the standard repertoire!

  marvin

Yes, and while some of them are centered on "melody," with relatively simple oom-pah-pah accompaniments, Verdi as he grew became far more attuned to the nuances of his texts and the use of the orchestra. The complaint of Mr 71 dB might - and I emphasize might - hold water when applied to the middle-period trio of Rigoletto, Trovatore, and Traviata, but even there Verdi is far more aware of the potential for drama in his musical texts than his forgotten contemporaries, or even his most esteemed predecessors like Bellini, Rossini, and Donizetti. (I would not disdain any of those composers, however - far from it.) But from Ballo in Maschera on, and culminating in Aida, Don Carlo, and Otello, Verdi matured at a prodigious rate. And then there's Falstaff, a quicksilver miracle of ensemble writing, orchestration, and nuance, like nothing else in Verdi or anywhere else (though Puccini did try, very successfully, to write his own version of Falstaff when he came to compose Giannni Schicchi). The Requiem Mass, however, is so far in spirit from the oom-pah-pah middle period works that I am surprised 71 dB chooses it as his example to castigate.