Is It Music or Gibberish ?

Started by Operahaven, April 24, 2008, 06:54:40 PM

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(poco) Sforzando

#40
Quote from: DavidRoss on April 25, 2008, 05:21:31 AM
Yes, of course.  But do you mean that Mr. Operahaven's irony is not intentional?

I would never accuse Mr. Operahaven of intentional irony of any kind. However, I'd like to respond to this remark by "ACD":

QuoteFor however harmonically outrageous or disregarding of received or established form [Mozart's or Beethoven's] mature works might have gratingly struck contemporary ears, no-one — except his rhetoric get the better of his common sense, or he be literally tone deaf — could have accused either composer of composing works absent a perceptible and coherent musical narrative.

But in fact, the charge of "incoherence" is precisely what was levelled at Beethoven's music by some of his contemporaries. As a poster at rmcr stated:

QuoteAfter all, we've come a long way since the day when Berlioz wondered if there was something wrong with his ears because the C# minor quartet left him trembling with emotion when he heard it performed in Paris while most people in the audience regarded it as the incoherent ravings of a deaf old lunatic.

Berlioz himself wrote of the Beethoven symphonies:

QuoteSome thirty six or seven years ago, Beethoven's works, which at the time were completely unknown in France, were tried out at the Opéra's concerts spirituels. Today it would be hard to believe the storm of criticism from the majority of musicians that greeted this wonderful music. It was described as bizarre, incoherent, diffuse, bristling with harsh modulations and wild harmonies, bereft of melody, over the top, too noisy, and horribly difficult to play.
http://www.hberlioz.com/Predecessors/beethsym.htm

Il y a trente-six ou trente-sept ans qu'on fit, aux concerts spirituels de l'Opéra, l'essai des œuvres de Beethoven, alors parfaitement inconnues en France. On ne croirait pas aujourd'hui de quelle réprobation fut frappée immédiatement cette admirable musique par la plupart des artistes. C'était bizarre, incohérent, diffus, hérissé de modulations dures, d'harmonies sauvages, dépourvu de mélodie, d'une expression outrée, trop bruyant, et d'une difficulté horrible.

And I haven't even looked for contemporary comments on the Great Fugue. Weber was one who considered Beethoven's music chaotic. Of the 4th symphony, Weber "wrote a scathing allegorical review - a dream in which the instruments of the orchestra complain about the treatment they suffered in this new symphony. The manager of the theater threatens them with the prospect of playing Beethoven's "Eroica" Symphony (No. 3) if they will not be quiet; he then describes a new symphony full of unconnected ideas and furious effects. "At this point I woke in a dreadful fright," Weber wrote, "lest I was on the road to become either a great composer - or a lunatic."
http://www.hollywoodbowl.com/music/piece_detail.cfm?id=95

Of the introduction to this symphony, Weber wrote: "Every quarter of an hour one hears three or four notes," as if he were talking about the distinguished successor 120 years later whose name adds an "n" at the end of his own. And for Weber, the 7th symphony proved Beethoven was "ripe for the madhouse."

Obviously, saying Beethoven was incoherent to his contemporaries proves nothing about the coherence of Elliott Carter. But since ACD states with considerable confidence that the music of Beethoven and Mozart (who was also considered difficult, prolix, overly generous with his ideas) was never thought of as incoherent, his scholarship on the matter appears somewhat questionable.

Well, now I look once again at ACD's blog, where an update has been issued stating he was referring "NOT to Carter's music specifically with which music, as we've above noted, we're only glancingly familiar and, further, from that glancing exposure concluded that what we heard was indeed genuine music and NOT gibberish."

Whatever. So now we can all rest easy knowing Elliott Carter writes genuine music and NOT gibberish. And now Operhaven's statement that he finds "it interesting that two prominent writers/critics have expressed their impatience towards the music of Elliot Carter.... That's all" must be modified, since now only one such critic  . . . . you get the idea.
"I don't know what sforzando means, though it clearly means something."

eyeresist

Mozart and Beethoven's music may have been called incoherent by some, but it was also immediately (or soon after) popular (with obvious exceptions).


I'd like to know - if a work is completely atonal, and has no audible structure, how do you tell if it's good or bad?


(poco) Sforzando

Quote from: eyeresist on April 28, 2008, 10:35:38 PM
Mozart and Beethoven's music may have been called incoherent by some, but it was also immediately (or soon after) popular (with obvious exceptions).

It wasn't until the 20th century that the late music of Beethoven assumed the popularity it now has. Performances of the late quartets were few and far between in the 19th century.
"I don't know what sforzando means, though it clearly means something."

karlhenning

Quote from: MN Brahms on April 28, 2008, 01:32:35 PM
"Music is the universal language of mankind." -- Longfellow

So, either you understand it or you don't, right?

Longfellow was being poetical rather than . . . quite sensible  8)

Mark G. Simon

Quote from: eyeresist on April 28, 2008, 10:35:38 PM

I'd like to know - if a work is completely atonal, and has no audible structure, how do you tell if it's good or bad?

These are two different issues, of course. It may take time to deduce a work's structure or lack thereof, so one should proceed with caution before levelling such a charge. Many pieces in the last 50 years have been composed according to schemes which can never be heard by a listener, but there may be larger, more basic organizational principles at work which can be heard. Carter's music is always very clear in this regard. There may not be themes, but there are gestural types, similar and recognizable types of figures which keep coming back, and which function like themes. Carter generally leads his music up to a definite climax shortly before the end on his larger pieces.

There is some music where I truly cannot hear any structure. I have no interest in such music, but others seem satisfied to listen from moment to moment.


DavidRoss

Quote from: eyeresist on April 28, 2008, 10:35:38 PM
I'd like to know - if a work is completely atonal, and has no audible structure, how do you tell if it's good or bad?
"It's good" means "I like it" (or "I recommend it").  "It's bad" means "I don't like it" (or "I don't recommend it").  All the other gibberish is just rationalization.
"Maybe the problem most of you have ... is that you're not listening to Barbirolli." ~Sarge

"The problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people's money." ~Margaret Thatcher

DavidRoss

Quote from: Sforzando on April 28, 2008, 02:10:33 PM
You can never say you've read a poem. You can say only you're at a certain point in your reading of a poem.
Thanks for sharing this.  It's a wonderful lesson in humility, without which idiots like ACD mistake their superficial reactions for profound understanding. 
"Maybe the problem most of you have ... is that you're not listening to Barbirolli." ~Sarge

"The problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people's money." ~Margaret Thatcher

MN Dave

Quote from: DavidRoss on April 29, 2008, 05:48:22 AM
Thanks for sharing this.  It's a wonderful lesson in humility, without which idiots like ACD mistake their superficial reactions for profound understanding. 

I think we should stop comparing music to words.

karlhenning

Quote from: MN Brahms on April 29, 2008, 05:50:00 AM
I think we should stop comparing music to words.

Thank you for the pertinent reminder that music is not bound to the same organizational principles that words are (which is another reason the "Objection by Non-Narrative" is a non-starter).

(poco) Sforzando

#49
Quote from: MN Brahms on April 29, 2008, 05:50:00 AM
I think we should stop comparing music to words.

No, the analogy I stated works very well and applies to any art form - music, art, dance, literature. You can never say you've thoroughly heard or understood or grasped any piece of music, because your hearing of the piece is always shaped by your experiences in hearing the piece multiple times (perhaps in multiple performances), by your hearing of other music, by the conversations you have on this board and in real life with other people, etc. These things are always fluid and have the potential for growth. The danger is in taking a rigid or intransigent attitude towards any piece of music and saying, often on the basis of a snap judgment, that "I've made up my mind, and nothing is going to change it!"

Quote from: karlhenning on April 29, 2008, 06:07:42 AM
Thank you for the pertinent reminder that music is not bound to the same organizational principles that words are (which is another reason the "Objection by Non-Narrative" is a non-starter).

It doesn't have to be for my analogy to work.
"I don't know what sforzando means, though it clearly means something."

karlhenning

Quote from: Sforzando on April 29, 2008, 06:44:03 AM
It doesn't have to be for my analogy to work.

The poem bit?  Quite right.  The instructor's interruption ("No, you're always still reading the poem") is a little poetical (and why not?) but the notion that our relation to any great work of art is a process, not a fixed point, is well taken.

MN Dave

Quote from: karlhenning on April 29, 2008, 06:51:01 AM
The poem bit?  Quite right.  The instructor's interruption ("No, you're always still reading the poem") is a little poetical (and why not?) but the notion that our relation to any great work of art is a process, not a fixed point, is well taken.

Yep.

MN Dave

Obviously, different music is created for different reasons. And obviously, Carter wasn't pissing into the void when he wrote his works. He created music for a certain audience (himself? and others like him) and he found that audience--obviously, whether you or I like it or not. So, no, it's not gibberish.

karlhenning

From a different corner of the musical world . . . comments made to Martin Williams in The Jazz Review:

Quote from: Eric DolphyI think of my playing as tonal. I play notes that would not ordinarily be said to be in a given key, but I hear them as proper. I don't think I leave the changes; every note I play has some reference to the chords of the piece. And I try to get the instrument to more or less speak.

jochanaan

Quote from: karlhenning on April 29, 2008, 07:48:47 AM
From a different corner of the musical world . . . comments made to Martin Williams in The Jazz Review:

And Dolphy, along with his colleagues Miles Davis, John Coltrane and others, was accused many times of playing nothing but chaos. :o
Quote from: eyeresist on April 28, 2008, 10:35:38 PM
I'd like to know - if a work is completely atonal, and has no audible structure, how do you tell if it's good or bad?
The structure may be inaudible at first hearing... :)
Imagination + discipline = creativity

Operahaven

Quote from: jochanaan on April 28, 2008, 09:56:48 AM
Operahaven, if I wanted to, I could easily find two "prominent critics" who would defend Carter and Perle more eloquently than your two attack them.  But what I really want to know is, what do you think? ???

As for me, I am unacquainted with the music of Perle, but I find Carter's music (what I know of it, which I confess isn't much; I have little time now for exploratory listening amid the amount of playing I do) to be fascinating, and to possess a narrative that, while having little to do with conventional notions of coherence, still evokes a desire to know "What Next?"  You don't need tonality or a conventional story to evoke a compelling musical or dramatic experience.

Jochanan,

As I see it art music is basically tonality. Without it there are only formal considerations for aesthetics to work with. It's a bit complex, but at the end that's about it I'm afraid.
I worship Debussy's gentle revolution  -  Prelude To The Afternoon of A Faun  -  for its mostly carefree mood and its rich variety of exquisite sounds.

greg

Quote from: Mark G. Simon on April 28, 2008, 12:55:21 PM
You can't really. The only way you can tell the former is retroactively: that is, you eventually discover that you like a certain piece of music you disliked before. Otherwise, you can assume the latter. You don't need to justify your dislike for a piece of music. You have the right to dislike music just because you don't like it. But it is a good idea to revisit those pieces you don't like from time to time to see if maybe your understanding has changed.

When I listen to a piece for the first time my brain performs a mental triage and places the piece in one of three categories: 1) I like it. 2) I don't like it. 3) I might like this in the future. I know my tastes pretty well now. Pieces that I assign to category 2 rarely find their way into either of the others. I dive into category 1 pieces like a child into candy. Category 3 pieces are often the most satisfying when I finally reach the point where they click.
Right now, listening to Pli Selon Pli, it's more or less 3 for me. Music that simply requires lots of relistening..... but i am enjoying it a lot more than the first few times, at least.....


Quote from: jochanaan on April 29, 2008, 03:47:11 PM
:oThe structure may be inaudible at first hearing... :)
exactly, there really isn't a such thing as structurelessness..... you can divide music up any way you like.

eyeresist

Quote from: karlhenning on April 29, 2008, 07:48:47 AM
From a different corner of the musical world . . . comments made to Martin Williams in The Jazz Review:
Quote from: Eric DolphyI think of my playing as tonal. I play notes that would not ordinarily be said to be in a given key, but I hear them as proper. I don't think I leave the changes; every note I play has some reference to the chords of the piece. And I try to get the instrument to more or less speak.

This speaks to my own experience exploring jazz recordings: the beboppers would play the tune through straight, the first time, allowing listeners to understand what the later improvisations were based on. But when progressive jazz dumped the run-through, the music became mostly inaccessible to anyone who didn't know the original material, because they couldn't understand where the notes were derived from. Of course, this helped with jazz's aspiration to be taken seriously in the academy..

BachQ

Is this a thread, or is it gibberish?

greg