Schonberg on Sibelius

[Guido]

Cheers. The CD has been ordered.

[karlhenning]

Leibowitz is wrong.  Sibelius is not the world's worst composer.  Chostakovich is the world's worst composer, the falsest, most artificious fake imitator the world has seen.

Sibelius is the world's second worst composer. He tried to fill in the shoes Richard Wagner had worn down. No more shoes to fill & not enough feet to fill them.

Well, those are curious opinions, though you are welcome to them.

[Kullervo]

Yes, everyone is entitled to their opinion, even if it's dead-wrong.

[Josquin des Prez]

Chostakovich is the world's worst composer, the falsest, most artificious fake imitator the world has seen.

Imitator of whom?

The world's third worst composer?  Penderecki

Then we are truly in deep shit, considering Penderecki is arguably one of the greatest living composers.

[Catison]

And we thought the forum was going to get boring without certain members?

I am afraid that these opinions show more about the opinioner than the opinionee.

[karlhenning]

Can I just say, I love the phrase a confirmed serialist . . . ?

[greg]

Leibowitz is wrong.  Sibelius is not the world's worst composer.  Chostakovich is the world's worst composer, the falsest, most artificious fake imitator the world has seen.

Sibelius is the world's second worst composer. He tried to fill in the shoes Richard Wagner had worn down. No more shoes to fill & not enough feet to fill them.

The world's third worst composer?  Penderecki, as of the Second Symphony, that litteral imitation of Bruckner, musical academism at its worst. Or third worst, I should have said... 

Lol

[ChamberNut]

Chostakovich is the world's worst composer, the falsest, most artificious fake imitator the world has seen.

Two-tone,

Could you please elobarate on why you believe this, or feel this way?

[Bulldog]

Leibowitz is wrong.  Sibelius is not the world's worst composer.  Chostakovich is the world's worst composer, the falsest, most artificious fake imitator the world has seen.

Sibelius is the world's second worst composer. He tried to fill in the shoes Richard Wagner had worn down. No more shoes to fill & not enough feet to fill them.

The world's third worst composer?  Penderecki, as of the Second Symphony, that litteral imitation of Bruckner, musical academism at its worst. Or third worst, I should have said... 

With your negatives out of the way, who are your favorite composers?

[drogulus]

     Sibelius is not just popular, he's respected by other composers, including some ideologues who in their foolish youth said stupid things about composers who didn't follow the authoritarian line.

     And M said this, with which I agree:

Review and renewal against the opposition of conservative irrationalism in many forms was an essential attitude for many people, and artists like Sibelius or Rachmaninoff who followed no quantifiable, rationally defineable, "logical" paths but their own, deep intuition and personal logic were simply "red flags" for such "intellectuals" for whom the critical review and rejection of *any* form of historic subjectivism was the No.1 priority - understandable against the historical backgrounds of the times they lived in and the conclusions they had to draw from that.

I think the vehemence with with such composers as Sibelius or Rachmaninoff were opposed by some "modernistic" critics testifies to the compelling individuality and persuasiveness of their music - if it hadn't been that impressive, it could easily have been ignored - and that sharp criticism is mostly a "desperate" reaction against that compellingness which defied intellectual understanding and therefore everything that was important to some thinkers at that time.

    Composers are individuals even when they don't want to be. All the various collectivisms break down under the pressure of the imagination, which can't be contained by dogma.

[Josquin des Prez]

Composers are individuals even when they don't want to be. All the various collectivisms break down under the pressure of the imagination, which can't be contained by dogma.

Finally something uttered in this forum that i can agree on. Too bad most people don't see it this way, which is why we no longer have "geniuses", or rather, they aren't being recognized anymore. Our PC society promotes unabashed collectivism while the outstanding individualities of our times are marginalized and seen with suspicion at best.

[drogulus]

Finally something uttered in this forum that i can agree on. Too bad most people don't see it this way, which is why we no longer have "geniuses", or rather, they aren't being recognized anymore. Our PC society promotes unabashed collectivism while the outstanding individualities of our times are marginalized and seen with suspicion at best.

     Most people are not dogmatic about what they like. The dogmatists are a minority. If they were the majority they'd have to be against themselves.

[Mark G. Simon]

All the great 20th century composers, as do composers of the previous centuries, had a distinctive personality.

Shostakovich always resembles Shostakovich. Sibelius always resembles Sibelius. Stravinsky always resembles Stravsinky (even when he uses Webern's methods). That's why these composers continue to be played.

[drogulus]

    The composers who flocked under banners don't seem to be doing as well as those who just made music according to their inclinations.

Why is that I don't know but music that is not in sink with the defining style of a time just does not seem to hold up.

     You mean the defining orthodoxy, don't you? 

     Do you ever wonder why progressives seem so concerned with what's approved of? Why should it matter? Or, to be more realistic, why has it actually mattered so little? 

     

[Kullervo]

Debussy, Scriabin, Bartok, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Messiaen, Dutilleux, Lutoslawski, Kurtag, Boulez...

The best music of the twentieth-century was modernist, just like the best music of the nineteenth was romantic, classic in the eighteenth century, baroque in the seventeenth, etc.  Why is that I don't know but music that is not in sink with the defining style of a time just does not seem to hold up.

Why artificious, imitative and false, Chostakovich?  Because when his music does not resemble Prokofiev it resembles a degraded Mahler and when it resembles neither Prokofiev nor Mahler it resembles what synthetic, scholastically reinterpreted image of nineteenth-century music Chostakovitch had in mind and reproduced when he composed.

We are in deep shit whether or not Penderecki is a great composer since no really new and original talent is emerging among the younger generations of composers.

And shit is indeed an accurate description of the music of Guillaume Connesson... 

Eerily reminiscent of a time and place when modernism was dismissed as bolchevistic and degenerative...   

Your moniker is very apt; you seem to see everything in black-and-white.

[karlhenning]

. . . Sibelius was a belated romantic at a time when romanticism was a spent force, Shostakovich had little to offer save a synthetic rehash of the century preceding his appearance on this earth and what a pompous ass Penderecki must be . . . .

You'd better take this to the What Are You Drinking thread.

[greg]

Why artificious, imitative and false, Chostakovich?  Because when his music does not resemble Prokofiev it resembles a degraded Mahler and when it resembles neither Prokofiev nor Mahler it resembles what synthetic, scholastically reinterpreted image of nineteenth-century music Chostakovitch had in mind and reproduced when he composed.

Now, I like how you say that his music is a mix of my two favorite composers, but at the same time, saying he had no original stylistic ideas at all is pushing it.

[Kullervo]

Sibelius was a belated romantic at a time when romanticism was a spent force

Let us know when you actually listen to Sibelius.

[greg]

Let us know when you actually listen to Sibelius.

[Josquin des Prez]

I suppose Two-Tone doesn't listen to Bach, Handel or even Brahms for that matter. Their music just doesn't hold up.