Is It Music or Gibberish ?

[Kullervo]

Doh!  (Ouch!)

I didn't know Operahaven's "secret identity."  That explains everything.  Forget reasoning, Corey.  Consider the gulf between rationality and rationalization.

Well I always trust people to be rational until they prove to be otherwise (and usually they do ).

[jochanaan]

Exactly right Lethe.

I truly dislike his later works  i.e. the books of piano Preludes, Etudes and especially  Jeux.

Why?

Because they are not sensual to my ears.... Because I do not hear romanticism in this music.

For me, Music is the romantic art; and it follows that the greatest music has been, is, and always will be, romantic... Passion, emotion and sentiment, it is in the expression of these things that music is supreme I believe.

This is what I find in abundance in his early String quartet in G-minor opus 10,  Prelude To The Afternoon of A Faun,  Pelleas et Melisande  and  La Mer.


 

A fair enough set of statements.  But can you accept that many of us find sensual enjoyment in non-Romantic music?  I, for example, hear great sensuality in the music of Edgard Varèse.  (And I think I've shown great restraint in not bringing his name into the discussion before now. )  True, it's a sharper sensuality than that in, say, Prélude à l'Après-Midi d'un Faune, but it's still very sensual to me.

[(poco) Sforzando]

What could be more sensual than a good string quartet by Uncle Milty Babbitt?

[lukeottevanger]

That sounds faintly creepy.....   

[(poco) Sforzando]

That sounds faintly creepy.....   

It was intended to be.

[Operahaven]

What could be more sensual than a good string quartet by Uncle Milty Babbitt?

Are you talking about this gentleman ?

[Operahaven]

Many of us truly like those works, Eric, and do in fact hear aspects of Romanticism in them. 

I don't doubt that for a moment Karl... But I don't like it when the "experts" say that  Jeux  is Debussy's greatest orchestral masterpiece just because it is one of the most "advanced" in its harmonic language.

La Mer  is much, much better in my opinion.

[karlhenning]

But I don't like it when the "experts" say that  Jeux  is Debussy's greatest orchestral masterpiece just because it is one of the most "advanced" in its harmonic language.

Bit of a strawman, Eric.  That is scarcely the sole (or primary) reason why we expert guys rate Jeux very highly.

Though there's no reason why you should not be entitled to like La mer better, of course.

[Kullervo]

It figures, my favorite Debussy is En Blanc et Noir.

[lukeottevanger]

I don't doubt that for a moment Karl... But I don't like it when the "experts" say that  Jeux  is Debussy's greatest orchestral masterpiece just because it is one of the most "advanced" in its harmonic language.

La Mer  is much, much better in my opinion.

It's completely fair to prefer La Mer to Jeux, or just to feel that it is 'better', or both. But (accepting for the sake of argument your rather simplistic description of the situation) the 'experts' are working differently to you here - they recognise that in the end, whether one person prefers LM to J or vice versa doesn't really matter, and doesn't tell us much of use about anything, however important it may be to the individual person (and without denigrating the latter either). What they are doing in saying J represents Debussy at his most advanced is using a kind of quantitative, measurable method to appraise the music - to say that, regardless of matters of personal taste, J can be demonstrated to be Debussy's most advanced orchestral score in certain directions (harmonically, orchestrally...). Whether that makes it 'better' is then a matter of whether one prioritises these directions as signifying quality. But I doubt, btw, and as Karl suggests, that any 'expert' makes a judgment quite that bald.

I know that this analytical method is anathema to you, but it remains the only way to say anything more about music than simply 'I just feel x is better than y'. Contrary to Sean, who feels that academics rarely actually love music, I'd suggest that their eagerness to penetrate into the secrets of a work, to go beyond simply enjoying the sound and to try to understand it on every level - I'd suggest that this implies a deep longing to 'possess' the piece as much as possible. And thus - I'm merely trying to pre-empt here - to try to split the critical audience for, say, Debussy into those who tear his music to pieces but aren't really music-lovers, and those who really understand the music because they love its sensuous surface - I'd say that doesn't hold water at all.

[Sean]

to go beyond simply enjoying the sound and to try to understand it on every level

Well, it's more a case of never enjoying the sound, to put it that way, and just going straight to analysis- because their brains aren't wired up for anything more sophisticated than rational dissection, and thus often completely missing the point of a work and making howling misjudgements with straight faces.

Jeux is a ravishingly sophisticated masterpiece, though does indeed fall short of the 'simpler' La mer in artistic terms.

[lukeottevanger]

Well, it's more a case of never enjoying the sound, to put it that way, and just going straight to analysis- because their brains aren't wired up for anything more sophisticated than rational dissection, and thus often completely missing the point of a work and making howling misjudgements with straight faces.

I'll simply say, once again - this doesn't match a single musical academic I've ever met, all of whom were totally in love with the music they devoted their lives to (hence the willingness to endure penury etc.). I think you've just been unlucky.

[Sean]

Okay, though I do find this an odd comment of yours to read. I hope you're serious, and perhaps we can think through it a little more next time.

[lukeottevanger]

Why odd? It's nothing different to the way I've answered this accusation of yours before. I don't think we should be surprised that people who dedicate their lives to analysing music, often for very little reward, actually rather like that music. I nearly follwed that path myself, re Janacek - and I dare you to suggest that I don't love every note of his music! To suggest sweepingly that no academics actually have a feeling for the music they work with actually seems to me hugely unfair  and monstrously dismissive and disrespectful. At the same time, it's a rather clicheed, anti-academic view ('they're all out of touch with the real world'  ) which I must say  is rather a conventional for one such as you, Sean. 

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

My best friend is a musical academic. He has written a book about pitch-class set theory (Milton Babbitt figuring heavily), which will be published later this year in the US. I can vouch for his deep love of music - it's the reason we have been friends for almost 30 years...

[(poco) Sforzando]

Well, it's more a case of never enjoying the sound, to put it that way, and just going straight to analysis- because their brains aren't wired up for anything more sophisticated than rational dissection, and thus often completely missing the point of a work and making howling misjudgements with straight faces.

I love it when pots call kettles black. You really think you can speak for the brains of thousands of academics, Sean? Talk about howling misjudgements.

[Operahaven]

I know that this analytical method is anathema to you

Luke,

It's not just anathema to me, it's anathema to the great Frederick Delius.

He adored  Pelleas, Faun and  La Mer  but he remained thoroughly unimpressed by the piano music and all of the later works in which he claimed that Debussy had degenerated into a mannerist.

Delius was right. 

[(poco) Sforzando]

Luke,

It's not just anathema to me, it's anathema to the great Frederick Delius.

So what?

[The new erato]

This thread is now moving dangerously towards gibberish instead of music. It's nearly enema to me.  

[DavidRoss]

Well I always trust people to be rational until they prove to be otherwise (and usually they do ).

That was one of the hardest life adjustments for me to make, Corey.  When young I was an intellectual and proud of it.  I thought everyone wanted to behave rationally but some just had faulty data or bad mental wiring.  Life experience falsified this premise...and PDQ!

There have been some amusing comments in this thread, but still I suggest it be retitled: "Is it thoughtful analysis based on sound reasoning regarding all the relevant data, or is it pompous BS spewed by narcissistic halfwits who think they're effin' geniuses?"