Is the composer obsolete?

[(poco) Sforzando]

I thought for a while that I was being put in the unenviable position of agreeing with Josquin for the first time ever.

Resist! resist!

And where has our truculent young friend gone to? he came out swinging with both fists just a few days ago and has retreated to his lair, whether to lick his wounds or prepare his next crushing salvo I can't tell.  

[Gurn Blanston]

Resist! resist!

And where has our truculent young friend gone to? he came out swinging with both fists just a few days ago and has retreated to his lair, whether to lick his wounds or prepare his next crushing salvo I can't tell. 

I think he was done trolling this thread, he is now laying in wait to afflict us with his pomposity in some other venue...

[Mark G. Simon]

What do you think of my definition:

Art is something which can impress even those who are a master of its trade.

Well, one would have to then find a way to decide who qualifies as a master.

[Philoctetes]

Well, one would have to then find a way to decide who qualifies as a master.

Easy enough.

[orbital]

It was stated.

I'm not sure about "many composers today with [ouevres] as vast as those from ... a century ago." Is that what you meant by "diminished output"? I took it to mean "diminished overall" not "less work from each individual composer."

In any event, there are composers today with vast outputs, yes. There are composers from a century or two ago who had very small outputs, too. Not sure what can be made of that. Two extraordinarily talented composers, Varese and Berlioz, had comparatively small outputs. Leif Segerstam has to date written over two hundred symphonies.

I meant less opp per composer in average, but this was a genuine inquiry. I was under the impression that it was less, but if not, that's a good thing of course.

[Szykneij]

Hovhaness would be in the extremely large output category.

[eyeresist]

I wouldn't say it's idiotic. Wrong-headed, yes, an overreaction against the worst examples of the music which presents itself as "entertainment" these days, but not idiotic. It's wrong-headed because divides music into black and white categories, easy music and difficult music. The idea that music might have some elements which may be received without effort and others which require a good deal of effort never seems to have occurred to him*, and the idea that artistry involves finding a proper balance between "easy" ideas against "difficult" ones would be beyond his grasp (assuming one accepts his definition of art and entertainment in the first place).

Thanks for this correction.


Apparently Szell called Tchaikovsky's 1st piano concerto a "piece of sh1t". I agree with him!

[(poco) Sforzando]

Apparently Szell called Tchaikovsky's 1st piano concerto a "piece of sh1t". I agree with him!

Just to keep the ball rolling, why?

[Gurn Blanston]

Just to keep the ball rolling, why?

Why indeed? To me, it is the archetype of Late Romantic piano concertos. It may be overplayed, and Szell may just not have liked it, but it most certainly is not a piece of sh!t. I doubt that even Josquin would come out from under his bridge and agree with that... oh well, maybe he would.



----------------
Listening to:
Vivaldi Op 8 "Il cimento dell'armonia e dell'inventione" (from original manuscripts) - Europa Galante / Biondi - RV 236 Concerto in d for Violin Op 8 #09 1st mvmt - Allegro

[Dancing Divertimentian]

And where has our truculent young friend gone to?   

Simple enough: I just flung something at him he couldn't answer. Cha-ching!

[DavidRoss]

Why indeed? To me, it is the archetype of Late Romantic piano concertos. It may be overplayed, and Szell may just not have liked it, but it most certainly is not a piece of sh!t.

Agree, one of the glories of the repertoire, and only a philistine imagining himself hip for dissing something universally recognized as great would say otherwise.  Argerich/Abbado is wonderful.  Think I'll put it on later tonight!

[eyeresist]

Just to keep the ball rolling, why?

It's Tchaikovsky at his most appallingly ingratiating, everything done to curry favour with the listener. It reminds me of one of those creepy Victorian dolls in its fine detail and rich materials, an elaborate presentation completely without soul.

[Dancing Divertimentian]

It reminds me of one of those creepy Victorian dolls in its fine detail and rich materials, an elaborate presentation completely without soul.

Sounds like you're describing a hooker.

[some guy]

It's Tchaikovsky at his most appallingly ingratiating, everything done to curry favour with the listener.

And this is an appalling variant of the intentional fallacy.

Even if you were right about Tchaikovsky's intentions, there's still also what people thought of it at when it was new:

Difficult. A vast formless void. (From the Boston Evening Transcript of 1875)

Extremely difficult, strange, wild, ultra-modern. (Dwight's Journal of Music, Boston 1875)

(Hmmm. Maybe it was just Boston....

...or not.) A flop. (Novoye Vremya, St. Petersburg 1875)

Broken, incoherent. (Saturday Review, London 1899)

If he was trying to be ingratiating, these might suggest that he was not entirely successful.

It seems to you, eyeresist, as if everything is done here to curry favor, but that's entirely because you're alive in 2008, with over a hundred years of listening to this concerto, with over a hundred years of Schoenberg and Stravinsky and Stockhausen and Karkowski in between you and it. Things looked much different back then, as you've seen.

[eyeresist]

What's Russian for "flop"?

[(poco) Sforzando]

It's Tchaikovsky at his most appallingly ingratiating, everything done to curry favour with the listener.

Even if so, this is rather ironic considering how many complaints against modern music are based upon its supposed indifference to the audience.

[karlhenning]

It's Tchaikovsky at his most appallingly ingratiating . . . .

The pianist for whom he wrote it did not find it so, and demanding many passages re-written. Which the composer refused.

[karlhenning]

. . . an elaborate presentation completely without soul.

I think this is the first time ever I have seen anyone suggest that Tchaikovsky's music "lacks soul."

You do understand that, as a complaint, this is nonsense?  Insofar as we can determine soul content of the music, there is a broad consensus in space and time that the Concerto is amply supplied with soul.  If you don't get it, that's your look-out.

It is funny the rhetorical excesses people go to to denigrate a piece of music they don't like.

[jochanaan]

Good question, Karl. To condemn a piece of art, the only thing that can be needed and put forth might be complete lack of aesthetics, perhaps. That's the only thing I can think of.

And that's only after you define "aesthetics" to the satisfaction of everyone concerned... And even then the condemnation is constantly subjected to judicial review, without a statute of limitations.  (If you don't believe that, just consider the changing reputation of Carlo Gesualdo, considered a "madman" for three hundred-plus years but now recognized as one of the most original and masterful of the late Renaissance composers. )

[Renfield]

I am tempted to ask whether this thread is not obsolete itself, yet; but doing so would technically be trolling.

Still, has not the original topic completely become lost in the haze of tangents already? Or was that the intention?