I don't even like his music, but he is perhaps the greatest composer since Beethoven... that is to say, the innovative genius Stockhausen.
Ok whilst I agree that Stockhausen was very good at composing and I particularly like his advocacy of improvisation (especially for orchestral musicians who would otherwise not get opportunities to improvise) I don't think one can simply make this claim as being 'true.'
I would be interested to read why you think it is true though.
All music hitherto was here 1..........10, this is what it looked like after Stockhausen:
-0, -44, 10000000000000000000000000000, 000000000000000000000000000000000000000, 00000000000000000000000000
32- 97-402- v 0r93548655-4023420455.
Sigh...
Mama-Drama queens always get the most attention because they are the noisiest and most obvious, lol. Ergo, "Its always Beethoven, isn't it?"
As to the OP, unlike Beethoven, there has not been near enough time to sort out who was the greatest, most innovative, etc.
As to both innovative and influential catalyst composers changing the musical landscape in a big way, I think you could toss in Elliott Carter as the forefather of 'the new school of complexity,' or Berio, Ligeti, for their trail-blazing works, and probably a good handful more who don't immediately pop into mind.
But if you are as youthfully zealous about Stockhausen, or merely a little OCD about him -- and or good ole' Luigi -- regardless of your age, then there ya go, i.e. such wholesale and absolute statements will pour forth, be said with force, and repeatedly.
I either care less about "nominating anyone for this title," and also, well, care less and am much more willing to wait.
Best regards
Quote from: Monsieur Croche on August 16, 2016, 05:50:59 PM
Sigh...
Mama-Drama queens always get the most attention because they are the noisiest and most obvious, lol. Ergo, "Its always Beethoven, isn't it?"
As to the OP, unlike Beethoven, there has not been near enough time to sort out who was the greatest, most innovative, etc.
As to both innovative and influential catalyst composers changing the musical landscape in a big way, I think you could toss in Elliott Carter as the forefather of 'the new school of complexity,' or Berio, Ligeti, for their trail-blazing works, and probably a good handful more who don't immediately pop into mind.
But if you are as youthfully zealous about Stockhausen, or merely a little OCD about him -- and or good ole' Luigi -- regardless of your age, then there ya go, i.e. such wholesale and absolute statements will pour forth, be said with force, and repeatedly.
I either care less about "nominating anyone for this title," and also, well, care less and am much more willing to wait.
Bert regards
I know it's a hard pill to swallow, but Stockhausen is the greatest composer since Beethoven.
Quote from: Thatfabulousalien on August 16, 2016, 06:25:19 PM
His music is a huge world I am immersed in, his music is innovative and forward thinking.
There you have it, greatest composer since Beethoven.
Quote from: Thatfabulousalien on August 16, 2016, 06:32:45 PM
On a side note, the idea of greatest has always seemed like a sales strategy anyway.
E.G:
"the Greatest bar of soap"
"the GREATEST seafood restaurant in town"
"the GREATEST pizza shop you'll eat at"
"the GREATEST music ever written, now half price"
"the GREATEST football league in Britain"
And so on..
In the case of Stockhausen (as greatest) there is nothing wrong with telling the truth. I don't even like his music.
Quote from: Simula on August 16, 2016, 06:10:50 PM
I know it's a hard pill to swallow, but Stockhausen is the greatest composer since Beethoven.
^^^See, I predicted this
*^^^ ... yawn.
..."But if you are as youthfully zealous about Stockhausen, or merely a little OCD about him -- and or good ole' Luigi -- regardless of your age, then there ya go, i.e. such wholesale and absolute statements will pour forth, be said with force, and repeatedly."
*P.s. you might want to look up
Argument / Proof by assertion, lol.
Quote from: Simula on August 16, 2016, 06:50:01 PM
In the case of Stockhausen (as greatest) there is nothing wrong with telling the truth. I don't even like his music.
What don't you like about his music?
Quote from: jessop on August 16, 2016, 07:22:31 PM
What don't you like about his music?
"No Harmony, Melody, Rhythm or Structure," :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
(Why anyone would think these elements could be
absent from any piece of music is totally outside my grasp :-)
Quote from: Monsieur Croche on August 16, 2016, 07:28:41 PM
"No Harmony, Melody, Rhythm or Structure,"
:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
(Why anyone would think these elements could be absent from any piece of music is totally outside my grasp :-)
Aside from quoting me, why can't you be serious for a minute and answer Jessop's question?
If you think this has 'harmony, melody, rhythm, and structure,' then I'll grant you the 'Golden Ears Award' -
https://www.youtube.com/v/hIeZTxdknLM
Since YouTube seems not to be working, it's a piece of electronic nonsense from Stockhausen. :)
Well, youtube was working just fine for me.
And, come to think of it, so was the piece. Which, far from being "nonsense," was a clearly and rather simply constructed piece. With melody (OK, maybe strictly speaking 'motifs', you know like that other German guy. Ludwig) and harmony (if by "harmony" you allow "simultaneous sounding of sounds") and rhythm--this should be indisputable--and structure (which should also be indisputable, since it's pretty simple--couple of those motifs repeated in various ways (louder, softer, different timbre).
As for being serious, are you serious? This is not a serious thread, one. And jessop's question was for Simula, not for M. Croche, so where is the compulsion for M. Croche to answer it "seriously"?
Also, three, what was not "serious" about M. Croche's answer? What's unserious is failing to recognize that melody, harmony, rhythm, and structure are present in all music, even the music that you, personally, do not like. Very frivolous of you to have chosen such essential, such basic, such ubiquitous elements as your personal without which nothing. If you had been serious, you would have chosen some elements that are present in the music you prefer but not in the music you don't.
Quote from: Mirror Image on August 16, 2016, 08:47:41 PM
electronic nonsense
Aside from it being a pioneering work in the world of tape music and also a structurally sound composition with interesting development and variation of ideas interspersed with moments of silence.......'nonsense' would be a reflection of yourself rather than of the music.
Quote from: Simula on August 16, 2016, 06:10:50 PM
I know it's a hard pill to swallow, but Stockhausen is the greatest composer since Beethoven.
Hold onto those little dreams!
Quote from: Monsieur Croche on August 16, 2016, 06:52:22 PM
^^^See, I predicted this*^^^ ... yawn.
..."But if you are as youthfully zealous about Stockhausen, or merely a little OCD about him -- and or good ole' Luigi -- regardless of your age, then there ya go, i.e. such wholesale and absolute statements will pour forth, be said with force, and repeatedly."
*P.s. you might want to look up Argument / Proof by assertion, lol.
Quite 8)
Quote from: some guy on August 17, 2016, 12:37:40 AM
Well, youtube was working just fine for me.
And, come to think of it, so was the piece. Which, far from being "nonsense," was a clearly and rather simply constructed piece. With melody (OK, maybe strictly speaking 'motifs', you know like that other German guy. Ludwig) and harmony (if by "harmony" you allow "simultaneous sounding of sounds") and rhythm--this should be indisputable--and structure (which should also be indisputable, since it's pretty simple--couple of those motifs repeated in various ways (louder, softer, different timbre).
As for being serious, are you serious? This is not a serious thread, one. And jessop's question was for Simula, not for M. Croche, so where is the compulsion for M. Croche to answer it "seriously"?
Also, three, what was not "serious" about M. Croche's answer? What's unserious is failing to recognize that melody, harmony, rhythm, and structure are present in all music, even the music that you, personally, do not like. Very frivolous of you to have chosen such essential, such basic, such ubiquitous elements as your personal without which nothing. If you had been serious, you would have chosen some elements that are present in the music you prefer but not in the music you don't.
One interesting thing about that piece is that it's a piano etude!
Quote from: Simula on August 16, 2016, 05:14:24 PMI don't even like his music, but he is perhaps the greatest composer since Beethoven... that is to say, the innovative genius Stockhausen.
Hardly. The 20th century wasn't that innovative compared to prior eras in music. The Romantic era was a time of great innovation/exploration. Start with Wagner. While Stockhausen certainly had his own very bold voice and had a deeply probing musical intellect regarding all facets of music, pushing things .. in the end, perhaps his greatest contribution to music was his development of electronic music, and his use of time & space .. as realized at a high level in his best work.
Quote from: Monsieur Croche on August 16, 2016, 05:50:59 PM
. . . But if you are as youthfully zealous about Stockhausen, or merely a little OCD about him -- and or good ole' Luigi -- regardless of your age, then there ya go, i.e. such wholesale and absolute statements will pour forth, be said with force, and repeatedly.
Truly nothing wrong with these enthusiasms, and a great many of us have, in our enthusiasm, conflated "Gosh, I am so excited by the music of
N." with "
N. is the Greatest Composer Since
Beethoven."
If the enthusiasm for
Stockhausen lasts for longer than 48 months, though, the sufferer should consider medical advice. It may indicate a more fundamental reasoning disorder 8)
Isn't there already a Stockhausen thread in the Composer section?
Unfortunately.
Quote from: karlhenning on August 17, 2016, 01:33:47 AM
Hold onto those little dreams!
Reminds me of Tim Hardins wonderful song:
"How can we hang on to a dream
How can it, will it be, the way it seems"
To be strictly fair to the OP, he did say "since the time of Beethoven". Perhaps he meant to compare Stockhausen with Hummel or Kozeluch.
In his later years, Beethoven wasn't particularly good at keeping time. So it's easy to become confused.
Quote from: Mirror Image on August 16, 2016, 08:47:41 PM
Aside from quoting me, why can't you be serious for a minute and answer Jessop's question?
If you think this has 'harmony, melody, rhythm, and structure,' then I'll grant you the 'Golden Ears Award' -
https://www.youtube.com/v/hIeZTxdknLM
Since YouTube seems not to be working, it's a piece of electronic nonsense from Stockhausen. :)
YT worked for me :( what a ghastly sound, you are right on the ball M I it is just noise as far as I am concerned, I can't imagine what it is meant to be, sounds like Pigs snorting in a pile of garbage.
What is musical about it?
Quote from: Andante on August 17, 2016, 06:40:51 PM
YT worked for me :( what a ghastly sound, you are right on the ball M I it is just noise as far as I am concerned, I can't imagine what it is meant to be, sounds like Pigs snorting in a pile of garbage.
What is musical about it?
See my post above. Reflections like this are merely reflections of the listener rather than of the composition.
Quote from: jessop on August 17, 2016, 09:42:00 PM
See my post above. Reflections like this are merely reflections of the listener rather than of the composition.
All reflections, also yours, are reflections of the listener rather than of the composition.
Quote from: The new erato on August 17, 2016, 09:45:00 PM
All reflections, also yours, are reflections of the listener rather than of the composition.
The fact that there are people who enjoy the musical content of the given piece of music should be ample reason to say that it is indeed 'musical' isn't it? A sense of musicality derived from Stockhausen's music is simply going to be different for every single person based on what they perceive to be musical or not. I mainly listen to music in a western classical tradition and I enjoy a lot of electronic music in that tradition. Needless to say, in the past I didn't because I had other prejudices which caused a hindrance in my musical appreciation. Also this isn't my favourite electronic work by Stockhausen anyway really. There are other things I find more interesting.
Quote from: jessop on August 17, 2016, 09:50:56 PM
The fact that there are people who enjoy the musical content of the given piece of music should be ample reason to say that it is indeed 'musical' isn't it?
Extremely subjective of course, birdsong is musical as well by that definition but I still don't accept birds as composers. One should reflect upon that, enjoyable sound isn't automatically a composition.
I've heard stuff from Stockhausen I like, and things I find totally rubbish, but put that down to me. But I don't accept the premise that because I don't understand some stuff automatically means it is written by a superior musical intelligence. Greatest composer afte Beethoven? Give me a break, that is just plain silly. Weirdest composer after Beethoven? Maybe that'll stick.
EDIT: I'll even grant that he may be an important composer. But as to best? I don't think anybody is in a position to judge, as you yourself say:
Quote from: jessop on August 17, 2016, 09:50:56 PM
A sense of musicality derived from Stockhausen's music is simply going to be different for every single person based on what they perceive to be musical or not.
That's why I find the whole "best" thing just silly. Lets's just say that for me he's not on my list of 50 best composers after Beethoven. But to discuss it, and hence the premise for the whole thread is meaningless. To discuss his music is quite another matter, but we already have threads for that.
Quote from: DaveF on August 17, 2016, 12:05:47 PM
To be strictly fair to the OP, he did say "since the time of Beethoven". Perhaps he meant to compare Stockhausen with Hummel or Kozeluch.
Ah, ha, haaaa, haaaa.
Thanks.
Quote from: Mirror Image on August 16, 2016, 08:47:41 PM
Aside from quoting me, why can't you be serious for a minute and answer Jessop's question?
If you think this has 'harmony, melody, rhythm, and structure,' then I'll grant you the 'Golden Ears Award' -
https://www.youtube.com/v/hIeZTxdknLM
Since YouTube seems not to be working, it's a piece of electronic music from Stockhausen.
Haul out that "Golden Ear Award" and get ready to send it to me, then.
Harmony / Melody / Rhythm / Structure ~
are neutral terms naming those elements present in just about every piece of (western) music there is. You may, if you wish, give each of those elements your personal qualifications, while if you do, you
must accept that you have qualified them within the parameters of what you think or feel those elements to be
while having instantly departed from usage of the actual meaning of each term as defined.Even then, (J'accuse!) you've been using them like a bludgeon against -- you
did say that Steve Reich's
Music for 18 Musicians lacked harmony, melody, rhythm and form -- (oh, irony of ironies) works which are transparently abundant in all four elements.
Music for 18 Musicians is teeming with a multitude of confluent melodies which produce a constant stream of harmony; it is driven by dramatically clear and unmuddied pulsed rhythms, and it also has a very transparently clear structure.
Within the
definitions of melody and bass line, and as applied in music theory and analysis, melody and bass lines can be those collected series of pitches phrased and set so the ear perceives them as melody, bass line.
Either can be prominent in a structure where the melody is not necessarily 'on top,' and the bass line not always the lowest sounding pitches.
However, the ultimate default setting meaning of each is -- get this:
Melody is simply whatever uppermost pitches are sounding at the moment;
bass line is whatever the lowermost pitches are sounding at the moment. (That Mahler Symphonic movement where the final sounding low pitch is the Tam-tam?
indeterminate pitch though that gong is, that is the last note of the bass line.)
That said, the Stockhausen piece you've nominated as another poster boy lacking all those elements (after having so completely failed to hang that laundry on Reich's
Music for 18) meets all the requirements of having all four elements you claimed it lacks, '
struth!Harmony: more than one pitch sounding = Harmony, as per the definition of the term.
Melody: whatever is sounding on the top, throughout = melody.; it has melody.
Rhythm: rhythm is nothing more than
two or more sound events occurring in sequence through linear time: it is not exclusively only about a steady pulse, sounding 'measured,' metric, etc. The Stockhausen has two or more sounds occurring over linear time; it has rhythm.
Form: The piece is an electronic one on tape, playback will be identical each time, there are
a series of sonic events, these
have a shape, ergo,
= form.Whatever other qualifications you choose to add to those terms which conflict with the actual and
neutral definitions of those four terms
are yours, based on your personal preferences. Listing these elements, or claiming there is an absence of any one of them in order to put down a piece you don't care for
just does not fly. The more I hear these four little soldiers of neutral terms repeatedly used in this manner
virtually always as an offensive against music someone does not care for, (you are far from alone in using this 'tactic') it sounds like a mindlessly parroted phrase as used by someone who learned those four terms in the most basic of music appreciation classes where, sadly, the teacher never went properly into fully explaining what those terms actually mean. Ergo, people who tend to use this list to claim the offensive object lacks those elements also tend to think a melody is always a hummable tune, harmony is something conservative and later harmony isn't - uh - harmony, and form means only the older forms the average person on the street recognizes or vaguely recognizes.
This critique-cudgel of "no harmony, melody, rhythm or form", is at least as limp as a wet rag, but a virtual one, carrying no weight, having no striking force
at all. Maybe it would be way moh better to refrain from the high dudgeon tones of the offended 17th, or 18th, or 19th century (even the early 20th century) ~ take your pick, and for those who parrot this phrase at every opportunity to instead just man/woman up and say, "I don't get it," or "I don't care for this." .... and get on with what they do like.
...or, well, if not, at least they
are being consistent ;-)
Best regards.
Analysing that Stockhausen piece for harmony and melody might not be the most useful analysis to make in terms of its composition. Of course, we can talk about indefinite pitch in the piece and we can talk about contour, but I do believe that one would be able to make a much deeper analysis when thinking more about the 'how' and the 'why' aspects of electronic composition.
We can analyse specific events of silence and sound, how specific sounds were created and how they contrast with one another and why Stockhausen made the decisions he made in the composition.
M. Croche is absolutely right when he mentions 'melody, harmony, rhythm and structure' as neutral terms. Thinking about music only on this level will give us only the shallowest of analyses because it will only answer the question of 'what is happening in the music.' Once we investigate the 'how' and the 'why' then we begin to understand what makes this composition unique and what Stockhausen may have been thinking about whilst composing it and also the reasons as to why we may find the piece of music 'musical.'
Re: Jessop and Mr. Croche
You see, gentlemen, this is perhaps the biggest difference between "reactionaries" like Mirror Image or yours truly, and you. For you, apparently, music is all about analysis and the how and the why: intellectual game to the boot. For we of the respectful opposition, knowing the how and the why of a work, or analyzing it until the end of times, is absolutely irrelevant. When all the how and the why of, say, Mozart's Clarinet Concerto, or Schubert's String Quintet, or Beethoven's Appassionata, or Brahms' Piano Trio op. 8 is said and done, all such analyses don't even begin to grasp, let alone explain, the how and the why of their concrete and real appeal, charm and beauty, the how and the why of millions of people's deriving indescribable joy and delight at hearing those works, be it for the first time or for the zillionth.
I don't think the linked Stockhausen piece is about analysis. Very few of us are old enough (I certainly am not) to remember or simply imagine how different those electronic sounds must have appeared to almost everyone in the early 1950s and how exciting the possibilities were for youngish composers.
Note that those early electronics were almost the opposite of "dadaist" painting or readymades or something like that. With early 1950s technology it was a HUGE amount of work and required quite a bit of technical expertise to create these purely electronic pieces.
True, they also had a somewhat dubious program of treating all elements "serially" but I think the main point why it is sometimes hard for us who almost grew up with synthesizer sounds from computers and electronic toys is that we simply don't get how special those sounds were 60 years ago.
(Note that this observation is quite independent from any evaluation of this music, whether it has become obsolete really fast etc.)
Quote from: Florestan on August 18, 2016, 03:13:45 AM
[...] For you, apparently, music is all about analysis and the how and the why: intellectual game to the boot. For we of the respectful opposition, knowing the how and the why of a work, or analyzing it until the end of times, is absolutely irrelevant.
Now, dear fellow, you
know you are luxuriating in a false dichotomy here.
You report that the how and the why of a work is
absolutely irrelevant to you; I don't believe it is, but let us concede the point for discussion. "...analyzing it until the end of times" is a scornful rhetorical exaggeration, but let that pass.
In the first place, you have to expect (should probably demand) that musicians engage in some of that analyzing of the how and what, that that is a significant part of how (how!) they become (become what?) fine artists.
In the second, musicians don't have a toggle, which now is set to "just gonna enjoy the music now" but which when needed we switch to "not gonna do any of that enjoying stuff, it's time to analyze! analyze!" The mental engagement with
the how and why is part of the musician's enjoyment of the music. (Really, I believe that is true of practically every listener, as well, and it is more a matter of the degree to which that mental engagement is in, or portable towards, the foreground.)
So, if you wish rhetorically to claim that for you as the listener, no analysis is relevant, that's fine. (I do not entirely credit the claim, but claim away!) But is an error to project onto any musician the fallacy that his practice of analysis is any hermetical removal from the experience of musical enjoyment.
Quote from: Florestan on August 18, 2016, 03:13:45 AM
Re: Jessop and Mr. Croche
You see, gentlemen, this is perhaps the biggest difference between "reactionaries" like Mirror Image or yours truly, and you. For you, apparently, music is all about analysis and the how and the why: intellectual game to the boot. For we of the respectful opposition, knowing the how and the why of a work, or analyzing it until the end of times, is absolutely irrelevant. When all the how and the why of, say, Mozart's Clarinet Concerto, or Schubert's String Quintet, or Beethoven's Appassionata, or Brahms' Piano Trio op. 8 is said and done, all such analyses don't even begin to grasp, let alone explain, the how and the why of their concrete and real appeal, charm and beauty, the how and the why of millions of people's deriving indescribable joy and delight at hearing those works, be it for the first time or for the zillionth.
Do you know I spent an afternoon once tracing the key relationships in the scherzo from Beethoven's first Rasumovsky Quartet. It's this wonderful, kaleidoscopic piece where Beethoven is juggling six, seven themes in the air, and I found that even though it touches almost every key center, the one key it never uses is the simple, basic subdominant. And I found that fascinating.
Quote from: (poco) Sforzando on August 18, 2016, 04:18:23 AM
Do you know I spent an afternoon once tracing the key relationships in the scherzo from Beethoven's first Rasumovsky Quartet. It's this wonderful, kaleidoscopic piece where Beethoven is juggling six, seven themes in the air, and I found that even though it touches almost every key center, the one key it never uses is the simple, basic subdominant. And I found that fascinating.
No I don't know that but greatness is when in music of such complexity and craft it is always musical, all the themes balance one another out and the whole is much more than the sum of its parts.
Overall, a fine discussion of the points (and in this, fulfilling
John's request). It does not materially alter the
res, but . . . .
Quote from: Monsieur Croche on August 17, 2016, 11:54:35 PM
[ snip ]
Melody is simply whatever uppermost pitches are sounding at the moment;
bass line is whatever the lowermost pitches are sounding at the moment. (That Mahler Symphonic movement where the final sounding low pitch is the Tam-tam? indeterminate pitch though that gong is, that is the last note of the bass line.)
[ snip ]
Of course, the melody is sometimes in an inner voice; and at times, the melody is in the bass (and therefore doubles as the harmonic foundation). But as a generalization, it is certainly reasonable to call the melody the highest voice.
Quote from: PerfectWagnerite on August 18, 2016, 04:50:07 AM
No I don't know that but greatness is when in music of such complexity and craft it is always musical [...]
Fine, as far as it goes.
It is worth pointing out that much of the audience of
Beethoven's day, and of the following generation, protested that
Beethoven's complexity and craft were not especially
musical.
(Hint: They were completely mistaken.)
Quote from: Florestan on August 18, 2016, 03:13:45 AM
Re: Jessop and Mr. Croche
You see, gentlemen, this is perhaps the biggest difference between "reactionaries" like Mirror Image or yours truly, and you. For you, apparently, music is all about analysis and the how and the why: intellectual game to the boot. For we of the respectful opposition, knowing the how and the why of a work, or analyzing it until the end of times, is absolutely irrelevant. When all the how and the why of, say, Mozart's Clarinet Concerto, or Schubert's String Quintet, or Beethoven's Appassionata, or Brahms' Piano Trio op. 8 is said and done, all such analyses don't even begin to grasp, let alone explain, the how and the why of their concrete and real appeal, charm and beauty, the how and the why of millions of people's deriving indescribable joy and delight at hearing those works, be it for the first time or for the zillionth.
Music isnt just about analysis. I analyse music to learn from it. I listen to music to enjoy it. Of course, analysis can be an enjoyable and enlightening process but it is absolutely not the way I enjoy music at all. I love to go witu the flow and see where music takes me when i listen to it. I love the aesthetics and diversity of music. There is so much stuff to listen to that in reality i prefer not to get bogged down in analysis unless i am trying to work out some composition technique that would be useful for me to know.
Quote from: karlhenning on August 18, 2016, 04:08:43 AM
Now, dear fellow, you know you are luxuriating in a false dichotomy here.
You report that the how and the why of a work is absolutely irrelevant to you; I don't believe it is, but let us concede the point for discussion. "...analyzing it until the end of times" is a scornful rhetorical exaggeration, but let that pass.
In the first place, you have to expect (should probably demand) that musicians engage in some of that analyzing of the how and what, that that is a significant part of how (how!) they become (become what?) fine artists.
In the second, musicians don't have a toggle, which now is set to "just gonna enjoy the music now" but which when needed we switch to "not gonna do any of that enjoying stuff, it's time to analyze! analyze!" The mental engagement with the how and why is part of the musician's enjoyment of the music. (Really, I believe that is true of practically every listener, as well, and it is more a matter of the degree to which that mental engagement is in, or portable towards, the foreground.)
So, if you wish rhetorically to claim that for you as the listener, no analysis is relevant, that's fine. (I do not entirely credit the claim, but claim away!) But is an error to project onto any musician the fallacy that his practice of analysis is any hermetical removal from the experience of musical enjoyment.
An example of a perfect post explaining something perfectly (rather than my defensive post which is a tad more argumentative in tone i admit)
When all is said and done the basics of music being melody and rhythm are essential for the vast majority of music lovers and this holds true for all music of any country that I know of (some one will now be frantically searching to show I am wrong) we can add harmony and of course structure.
In the example given by Mirror Image I find none of these so to me and I would suggest the majority this is not worthy of the name "Music" and to say " Its music Jim but not as we know it " does not in any way justify it.
Quote from: Thatfabulousalien on August 16, 2016, 06:32:45 PM
On a side note, the idea of greatest has always seemed like a sales strategy anyway.
E.G:
"the Greatest bar of soap"
"the GREATEST seafood restaurant in town"
"the GREATEST pizza shop you'll eat at"
"the GREATEST music ever written, now half price"
"the GREATEST football league in Britain"
And so on..
Agree - the notion of the Greatest serves complex psycho-social and likely economic needs that I think should be explored and possibly exploded. Mostly, I think it both a form of human self-congratulation and reassurance (antidote to the
worst that humans are capable of) somewhat on the order of once thinking we were the center of the universe. Everyone else in the universe knows that the greatest composer is Spiexrom412.3 on planet Draugr. More interestingly, perhaps: is the concept of 'Greatest' or even 'Great' an inducement or disincentive for other artists? (Brahms was so dis-enabled by the Greatness of Beethoven he put off writing symphonies; how many more of his symphonies might we have today if he hadn't been so overwhelmed with LvB's 'dominance'?)
Quote from: karlhenning on August 18, 2016, 04:59:03 AM
Fine, as far as it goes.
It is worth pointing out that much of the audience of Beethoven's day, and of the following generation, protested that Beethoven's complexity and craft were not especially musical.
(Hint: They were completely mistaken.)
The above holds true for much of the audience of Bach's day, Mozart's day, and on and on, it seems, ad infinitum.
Like that saying about the poor, this type of audiences are always with us... each and every generation deeply affronted, calling those composer's works, 'not music,' and near hysterically screaming, "Melody, Harmony, Rhythm and Structure.'
This is probably nearly as old as the classical music tradition itself :laugh:
I'm not so sure that everything has melody.
Yes, everything has harmony (spectral content), rhythm (time structure of individual or group elements), and structure (long term differences/similarities in a piece).
But melody, I'm not so sure. Yes, the Stockhausen example easily has individual pitch content of all of its sounds, and therefore melody. Some of the components almost sound like an electric guitar: the pitch basis of this work should be readily hearable for everyone.
But something like Francisco Lopez's Wind https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBlx42LB5F4 I don't see having melody. Granted, I like his work 100%. But the sound components of rustling leaves, wind, rain, grass, storm, river: they emit a continuum noise distribution. Some of these distributions are weighted towards higher or lower frequencies than others, i.e. the wind is lower pitched than the leaves, but there is no definite pitch picked out, and no highest pitch (the Fourier distributions trail off, but don't sharply end) and therefore no melody.
I don't think this lack of melody is a bad thing. I think the freedom of not having to be locked onto specific pitch is what makes Lopez's Wind able to do its thing.
It is at this point when I think we must go back to basics and realise that the most fundamental elements common to all music are pitch, duration and intensity. I am sure M. Croche will be able to explain it better than I can, but 'pitch' also refers to whether something is of definite pitch or indefinite pitch.
SeptimalTritone posted a composition which has these elements.
Anyone can decide for themselves whether they find it musical or not, but the fact that it exists as music in the first place means that the composer finds these sounds musical and there is an audience who finds it musical as well.
Quote from: Florestan on August 18, 2016, 03:13:45 AM
Re: Jessop and Mr. Croche
You see, gentlemen, this is perhaps the biggest difference between "reactionaries" like Mirror Image or yours truly, and you. For you, apparently, music is all about analysis and the how and the why: intellectual game to the boot.*[/b][/color] For we of the respectful opposition, knowing the how and the why of a work, or analyzing it until the end of times, is absolutely irrelevant. When all the how and the why of, say, Mozart's Clarinet Concerto, or Schubert's String Quintet, or Beethoven's Appassionata, or Brahms' Piano Trio op. 8 is said and done, all such analyses don't even begin to grasp, let alone explain, the how and the why of their concrete and real appeal, charm and beauty, the how and the why of millions of people's deriving indescribable joy and delight at hearing those works, be it for the first time or for the zillionth.
*You couldn't be more wrong in this estimation if you worked at it as hard as you could.Speaking only for myself:
The prime, uppermost, most important thing about any piece of music is that it has a strong visceral / sensual import to me as a listener, and automatically inclusive with this is that it brings to me some emotional import as well. That, of course, is what I think you were getting at in the rest of the body of your text. Without it, there is nothing to draw anyone to music in the first place, let alone to take the time to bother to learn how to analyze it or get the non-visceral intellectual aspects.
Those intellectual aspects are but an extraneous layer of cerebral only pleasure to those who find that interesting.Analysis, on its own, has never been near enough, nor do I think it ever will come near enough, to demonstrate or prove that a piece of music is good, even, let alone that it is great. It may 'confirm' some strengths about the intellectual aspects of the piece, something interesting or ingenious about its structure or inner workings, but the most 'appealing' analysis can have a piece looking technically good on paper, showing the clever devices in play, etc. while all that analytic 'proof' is moot if the music analyzed does not come across to the listener, consciously or other, as the music is played, and without any need to look at or know what the analysis shows.
I have the impression that you think anyone trained who even begins to point out the more technical, analytical or cerebral aspects of a piece somehow believes themselves superior to the peons who listen but don't know much else about music, or at least have lost all vestiges of their humanity and instead "live only in their head."
An inverse snobbery is quite strongly implicit in what you've written. Your text sounds to me like that more visceral and emotive way of taking music in (just look at all those rhapsodic adjectives re: in what way it is appreciated) has the import of making that out as vastly superior and a contrast to the spiritually impoverished academics who 'only' go at a work technically.
This is a drastic misconception about those more academically trained, and it is more elitist and laden with snobbery than the camp so often named as being just that. The fact is, since those with the training have this other vocabulary, they use it. There is no other significance than that.
Basically, you've thrown down a gauntlet repeating in different terms this recurring nightmare of the parroted 'Harmony, Melody, Rhythm, Structure' defense, as usual put forth by those who have no idea of the full meaning as defined by those terms, a vastly reductive simplification so lacking as to be near completely false, and that is wildly distorted in order to support what is actually a non-argument. Those who take this position, use that 'defense,' have no awareness of how
completely neutral those terms and definitions are, or that they cover, and are present in, virtually just about every piece of western music yet composed, including the music they don't care for.
Too, even if I mistook it, there seems to be something about those more emotive reactions being extolled that hints at the odor of a contest of "who is more
sensitive," which I think is at best an ego contest better suited for self conceits held by tweens, and I ain't goin' there.
Reactionary (or even 'conservative') is far too flattering a term when applied to a mentality of mere stubborn bull headed resistance to openly exploring, learning the definitions of those musical elements without distorting them, Humpty-Dumpty like, "To mean whatever you wish them to mean," and experiencing a piece,
listening to it for what it is vs. listening to it while all the time being terribly busy with what it isn't -- and all that due to a shaky and shallow misunderstanding of the neutral and full meanings of "Harmony, Melody, Rhythm, Structure." That is more a door slammed shut mentality than an open door mentality.
Then too, I wonder if these so-called reactionaries find themselves in a conundrum when they hear from so many who seem to love this more current music -- those 'modernists' -- and find those modernists also tend to love truckloads of the old repertoire spanning at least as far back as the 1300's. That must throw up a very serious question and doubt, "How can they love all the old stuff and love this new stuff?" Because to some of a more limited scope, it seems it must be one or the other. If that is what makes people comfortable and feeling less self-doubt and insecurity, that's O.K.-- but that
is simply setting up a wall of defense around the parameters of their personal taste and cannot be taken as a valid general argument for or against any other kind of music.
"Going into Neutral" to understand and use terms properly, for your own understanding as well as making for intelligent discussion, does not require abandoning your feelings, or personal tastes, while it might just make some aware of what is useless (and conversely what is useful) in any kind of lively discussion involving more than one point of view.
I don't find the Stockhausen electronic etude of much any interest, while I would feel totally foolish and embarrassed if I said it was not music, not musical, or had no harmony, melody, rhythm, or structure -- because knowing the meaning of those terms and how neutral they truly are, I know better that it does.
The fact those elements are all present in that etude in no way should affect anyone's opinion of what they think of the piece itself, or convince, or -- Apollo forbid --
force them into liking it. It would have them conceding, with a little bit of grace one might hope, that whether they like it or not it is music, musical, and meets all the criteria of those four terms. Why
that should be humiliating, or skin off of anyone's nose is really beyond my imagination.
Best regards.
I am just gonna put this out there as an electroacoustic work by Stockhausen which I personally enjoy much more. It's also probably his most well known electroacoustic work.
https://www.youtube.com/v/nffOJXcJCDg
Jessop, of course there's pitch: indefinite pitch distributions, aka Fourier spectra. I never said it didn't have pitch.
I said it didn't have melody: which requires a "picking out" of pitch. Read what Monsieur wrote on page 2: melody being a picking out of pitch. He suggested the highest pitch as by default being melody, or at the very least some picked out pitch, but none of these pitch spectra have a highest upper cutoff or any pitches picked out: they trail off.
Of course it's musical. I highly recommend Lopez. It has spectral distribution and indefinite pitch distributions, but no melody. The lack of melody is, in this work's case, a good thing. For picking out any definite pitch would be a distraction.
Quote from: SeptimalTritone on August 18, 2016, 04:05:09 PM
Jessop, of course there's pitch: indefinite pitch distributions, aka Fourier spectra. I never said it didn't have pitch.
I said it didn't have melody: which requires a "picking out" of pitch. Read what Monsieur wrote on page 2: melody being a picking out of pitch. He suggested the highest pitch as by default being melody, or at the very least some picked out pitch, but none of these pitch spectra have a highest upper cutoff or any pitches picked out: they trail off.
Of course it's musical. I highly recommend Lopez. It has spectral distribution and indefinite pitch distributions, but no melody. The lack of melody is, in this work's case, a good thing. For picking out any definite pitch would be a distraction.
I agree with you on all points though
Quote from: jessop on August 18, 2016, 04:04:58 PM
I am just gonna put this out there as an electroacoustic work by Stockhausen which I personally enjoy much more. It's also probably his most well known electroacoustic work.
https://www.youtube.com/v/nffOJXcJCDg
^^60 years old, fresh as a newly opened flower, and still beautiful.
Quote from: Monsieur Croche on August 18, 2016, 09:56:45 PM
^^60 years old, fresh as a newly opened flower, and still beautiful.
Yeah but....what about the music? :P
I fail to understand what is really 'fresh' about this music. Personally I think it sounds more 'of its time' when composers began to understand more about the techniques of electronic/tape music and began to explore various aesthetic possibilities from manipulating the raw recorded material. In my opinion, it is much more developed and purposeful approach to the manipulation of recorded sound than, say, Russolo's futurist musical presentations of recorded sounds decades earlier.
Quote from: Monsieur Croche on August 18, 2016, 03:57:35 PM
Those intellectual aspects are but an extraneous layer of cerebral only pleasure to those who find that interesting.
Analysis, on its own, has never been near enough, nor do I think it ever will come near enough, to demonstrate or prove that a piece of music is good, even, let alone that it is great. It may 'confirm' some strengths about the intellectual aspects of the piece, something interesting or ingenious about its structure or inner workings, but the most 'appealing' analysis can have a piece looking technically good on paper, showing the clever devices in play, etc. while all that analytic 'proof' is moot if the music analyzed does not come across to the listener, consciously or other, as the music is played, and without any need to look at or know what the analysis shows.
We are then in perfect agreement. Great! 8)
The rest of your post is a furious diatribe against points I have not even implied, let alone made. Not worth replying.
I think Stockhausen is the greatest composer because I like his music the best. Greatest is a matter of opinion, and "like" is a matter of opinion, so everything matches up here. Everyone being a turd to Stockhausen... Quit being turds, yo.
Quote from: nathanb on August 19, 2016, 07:26:32 AMEveryone being a turd to Stockhausen... Quit being turds, yo.
Speaking of turds...I listened to another Stockhausen work and...ummm...yeah. :-\
Quote from: Mirror Image on August 19, 2016, 07:28:44 AM
Speaking of turds...I listened to another Stockhausen work and...ummm...yeah. :-\
I laid it out as clean as possible without stepping on any toes, and all you had to do was choose whether or not to be a turd. YOU HAD ONE JOB.
Brahms was a hard act to follow.
Quote from: karlhenning on August 17, 2016, 03:57:57 AM
Truly nothing wrong with these enthusiasms, and a great many of us have, in our enthusiasm, conflated “Gosh, I am so excited by the music of N.” with “N. is the Greatest Composer Since Beethoven.”
If the enthusiasm for Stockhausen lasts for longer than 48 months, though, the sufferer should consider medical advice. It may indicate a more fundamental reasoning disorder 8)
There is this, about which I am accountable for forgetting once in a while when interacting with people:
The human brain is not fully developed until the 25th year of life ;-)
Quote from: Simula on August 16, 2016, 05:14:24 PM
I don't even like his music, but he is perhaps the greatest composer since Beethoven... that is to say, the innovative genius Stockhausen.
I mean, sure, I guessed correctly.
I'm just not a big fan of the Luciferian Sound... its melodies are kind of wan, and it wallows in a faux luxury of silences and extraneous sounds, and vocalizations, in a somewhat pompous and haughty manner? I hear KHS and Cage very similar here, whereas someone like James usually wants to argue the point... to me, the EFFECT of both Composers on me is about the same (in the Late Works)... ennui.
So, Cage could be argued (LISTEN TO ME!! WTF???) (Must've been the mushrooms!!!!!!)
Quote from: Mirror Image on August 16, 2016, 08:47:41 PM
Aside from quoting me, why can't you be serious for a minute and answer Jessop's question?
I didn't quote you; I cited a cliché phrase -- used in a cliché contextual response as supplied in a topic of discussion on music which has also repeated itself many times over centuries -- its author
Anon, its use so frequent in music discussions and found on classical music fora at such a high and regular frequency that one should understand it is like a penny,
a coin of the realm that has long been in circulation and passed through the hands of countless numbers of people. Tis pity 'twas not a penny; by now it would have been completely worn away by having been handled by so many previous generations.
I did not answer Jessop's question because it was not addressed to me.
Quote from: Monsieur Croche on August 19, 2016, 12:15:36 PM
I didn't quote you; I cited a cliché phrase -- used in a cliché contextual response as supplied in a topic of discussion on music which has also repeated itself many times over centuries -- its author Anon, its use so frequent in music discussions and found on classical music fora at such a high and regular frequency that one should understand it is like a penny, a coin of the realm that has long been in circulation and passed through the hands of countless numbers of people. Tis pity 'twas not a penny; by now it would have been completely worn away by having been handled by so many previous generations.
I did not answer Jessop's question because it was not addressed to me.
The first essay in the a collection of writings by Pierre Boulez called 'Orientations' pretty much addresses every single one of the clichéd responses against contemporary classical music and provides a strong argument against them. Have you read it?
That Stockhausen 1952 "music concrete" Study/Etude that MI posted was a student test piece .. nothing serious, just a document, ks was highly critical and not that pleased with the result in fact .. if we follow his evolution within the medium just a few short years later the progress/results made are quite staggering. You have to remember, it was a pretty brand new medium back in those days .. and he was finding his way within that, developing brand new techniques, a new vocabulary .. innovating. And what a painstaking process it was, back then.
Quote from: Monsieur Croche on August 19, 2016, 09:23:09 AM
There is this, about which I am accountable for forgetting once in a while when interacting with people:
The human brain is not fully developed until the 25th year of life ;-)
That is the male brain, as you should know the female brain matures much earlier.
Quote from: Andante on August 19, 2016, 08:38:44 PM
That is the male brain, as you should know the female brain matures much earlier.
One more good reason (apart from the differential in average life spans) for women to choose for their spouse a man about ten years older than they are....
Yes, I knew that,
'dear.' :laugh:
Quote from: James on August 19, 2016, 04:18:04 PM
That Stockhausen 1952 "music concrete" Study/Etude that MI posted was a student test piece .. nothing serious, just a document, ks was highly critical and not that pleased with the result in fact .. if we follow his evolution within the medium just a few short years later the progress/results made are quite staggering. You have to remember, it was a pretty brand new medium back in those days .. and he was finding his way within that, developing brand new techniques, a new vocabulary .. innovating. And what a painstaking process it was, back then.
At the time, Stockhausen was a bit of an arsehole towards the other composers who were presenting their respective tape compositions along with this one I believe.....
Somehow I actually prefer this piece to some other pieces he composed in other mediums. Maybe because it isn't very long. I can listen to it if I simply have a little urge to listen to some early tape music and it'll be satisfying to hear for the short time that it lasts. But honestly there are so many more interesting electronic works composed a bit later on which I would rather hear.
Quote from: Monsieur Croche on August 19, 2016, 09:13:18 PM
One more good reason (apart from the differential in average life spans) for women to choose for their spouse a man about ten years older than they are....
Yes, I knew that, 'dear.' :laugh:
For some reason I have always preferred to be the younger one in a relationship am I normal
If we are to equate Stockhausen with Beethoven at all, it would be his pioneering work within the field of electroacoustics & spatial composition. He really was at the vanguard and led the way, and his best pieces are really well put together and broke new ground. No other composer came close during that time (or since imo). Most of his work utilitizes electronic media. Just a few short years after that rather crude & primitive student musique concrete piece (not really an official part of his canon which starts with kontra-punkte) he put forth the Song of the Youths (1955-56), a 13 minute piece that took him like 2 years to put together, seamlessly blending purely electronic sound with real sound .. it's one of the first, if not the first to effectively utilize surround sound (common ground today) .. originally 5 channels, but there wasn't the technology then to support 5, so he mixed the 5th channel of music with the 4th .. and had the music projected around the audience in a precise manor. Then we get the monumental Kontakte (1958-60) for electronic sounds, percussion and piano, then Mikrophonie I & II (1964/65), Mixtur (1964/67/2003), Telemusik (1966), Hymnen (1966-67, 69). Mantra (1970) etc.
Quote from: Monsieur Croche on August 19, 2016, 09:13:18 PM
Yes, I knew that, 'dear.' :laugh:
Yes, of course you did :-\
Quote from: James on August 20, 2016, 02:12:23 AM
If we are to equate Stockhausen with Beethoven at all, it would be his pioneering work within the field of electroacoustics & spatial composition. He really was at the vanguard and led the way, and his best pieces are really well put together and broke new ground. No other composer came close during that time (or since imo). Most of his work utilitizes electronic media. Just a few short years after that rather crude & primitive student musique concrete piece (not really an official part of his canon which starts with kontra-punkte) he put forth the Song of the Youths (1955-56), a 13 minute piece that took him like 2 years to put together, seamlessly blending purely electronic sound with real sound .. it's one of the first, if not the first to effectively utilize surround sound (common ground today) .. originally 5 channels, but there wasn't the technology then to support 5, so he mixed the 5th channel of music with the 4th .. and had the music projected around the audience in a precise manor. Then we get the monumental Kontakte (1958-60) for electronic sounds, percussion and piano, then Mikrophonie I & II (1964/65), Mixtur (1964/67/2003), Telemusik (1966), Hymnen (1966-67, 69). Mantra (1970) etc.
So, here's my thing. "Stockhausen" isn't what's up for consideration- it's the Ideal of some New Religious Music... and he happens to be the "vessel"... it would have been someone... and, prophetically speaking, I suppose they would have HAD to come from Germany.- isn't this more about Wagner than LvB????? i should just go somewhere else.......
Point of information:
The thesis (still under consideration) that Stockhausen is "the greatest composer since Beethoven" is not the same as "equating Stockhausen with Beethoven." But one sees how an irrational enthusiast would make that leap of illogic.
Quote from: Thatfabulousalien on August 21, 2016, 07:54:31 PM
Hypothetically, a few hundred years ago, would you be saying that Beethoven is the greatest composer since:
Bach?
Mozart?
Or
Haydn?
:P
To make the parallel more accurate, think of asking that question a decade after Beethoven died...KHS died nine years ago.
But then define greatness. Greatness as a measure of quality achieved in current musical forms... Mozart was the greatest since Bach
Greatness as a measure of developing new musical forms and language...Beethoven was the greatest since Haydn, who was the greatest since Monteverdi.
I think it will require a couple of decades more to decide who qualifies for greatness in either sense among those composers who flourished in the last half of the 20th century.
Quote from: Simula on August 16, 2016, 05:14:24 PM
I don't even like his music, but he is perhaps the greatest composer since Beethoven... that is to say, the innovative genius Stockhausen.
I'd larf, but this is just so sad . . .
Quote from: Thatfabulousalien on August 21, 2016, 08:50:38 PM
I don't like the idea of "greatest", it doesn't sit right with me because it's subjective.
A Better thread would be looking at influence, popularity (not that it indicates anything), output (prolific vs small catalogue) but most importantly: innovation.
I do think it is a bit sickening honestly though to think of one single composer as the only thing that matters essentially, treating them like gods. :-X
One thing I've noticed is that some people who enjoy music think of it as very pure, timeless, eternal, abstract. As if it gets its value, its importance, from something which transcends the hurly burly of reception, influence, popularity and innovation.
In my opinion people sometimes take this stance because they think they can perceive musical value.
Quote from: Thatfabulousalien on August 21, 2016, 08:50:38 PM
I don't like the idea of "greatest", it doesn't sit right with me because it's subjective.
A Better thread would be looking at influence, popularity (not that it indicates anything), output (prolific vs small catalogue) but most importantly: innovation.
I do think it is a bit sickening honestly though to think of one single composer as the only thing that matters essentially, treating them like gods. :-X
Quote from: Thatfabulousalien on August 21, 2016, 08:50:38 PM
I don't like the idea of "greatest", it doesn't sit right with me because it's subjective.
A Better thread would be looking at influence, popularity (not that it indicates anything), output (prolific vs small catalogue) but most importantly: innovation.
I do think it is a bit sickening honestly though to think of one single composer as the only thing that matters essentially, treating them like gods. :-X
I'm sure you will have found already, if not here then elsewhere, that some people seem to near detest that innovation is one of the prime criteria for who is generally considered great. Yet, undeniably, of all the rather great and very good composers of the past, it is those who innovated, (not only innovate, because there is a subset list of many who have done that, to one degree or another) while also writing what most consider superb music. and their influence on music which came thereafter, the general direction it took -- those altogether are THE qualities of all those from the past who are 'in all the books' singled out as the greatest of any era.
By that 'rating' system, Prokofiev, much of whose music I love and admire, is barely of no real importance when it comes to changing or influencing much of anything in the general musical landscape. Ditto goes for the likes of Sibelius, Shostakovich, and many another
entirely worthwhile also 'great' composers whose music we still listen to.
Those rigorous and demanding criteria are why Debussy, Stravinsky, Schoenberg and Webern are in those top ranks of composers from the first half of the 20th century and other composers are not, and general public opinion will not really change that.
John Cage, with a lot of pieces less than really good, has had at least as much wide-ranging influence as Stockhausen, if not more. Your boy, Xenakis, I think has had negligible influence, at least not enough to eventually qualify for the Laurel Crown.
Questions of the type are of interest; it is if not really interesting at least fun to speculate.
To expect any more of a concrete general consensus, even from the experts and 'cognoscenti' who eventually carve those names in stone, and so soon after the era, well... dream on.
Best regards.
Quote from: Monsieur Croche on August 22, 2016, 05:11:12 AM
I'm sure you will have found already, if not here then elsewhere, that some people seem to near detest that innovation is one of the prime criteria for who is generally considered great. Yet, undeniably, of all the rather great and very good composers of the past, it is those who innovated, (not only innovate, because there is a subset list of many who have done that, to one degree or another) while also writing what most consider superb music. and their influence on music which came thereafter, the general direction it took -- those altogether are THE qualities of all those from the past who are 'in all the books' singled out as the greatest of any era.
By that 'rating' system, Prokofiev, much of whose music I love and admire, is barely of no real importance when it comes to changing or influencing much of anything in the general musical landscape. Ditto goes for the likes of Sibelius, Shostakovich, and many another entirely worthwhile also 'great' composers whose music we still listen to.
Those rigorous and demanding criteria are why Debussy, Stravinsky, Schoenberg and Webern are in those top ranks of composers from the first half of the 20th century and other composers are not, and general public opinion will not really change that.
How may this align with (say) Adorno and Leibowitz heaping scorn upon
Sibelius? (The question is as rhetorical as one may wish.)
Harold Truscott's defense of Sibelius
here (http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,26113.msg991407.html#msg991407) at one point characterizes
Sibelius's achievement as "enlarging normal speech." Music which says something which no music had before, ought perhaps to be "innovation" enough. (Writing superb music, ought to be enough.)
One could argue that mere innovation is trivial. Sure, we are all grateful that we have hot and cold running water, this was an important innovation. But the important thing is the life we lead, a life made easier by the technical innovation.
We should consider any individual who praises the innovation as The Thing That Matters, rather a narrow-viewed eccentric, I should think. (
Oh, look! A string quartet with helicopters!)
Quote from: Monsieur Croche on August 22, 2016, 05:11:12 AM
I'm sure you will have found already, if not here then elsewhere, that some people seem to near detest that innovation is one of the prime criteria for who is generally considered great. Yet, undeniably, of all the rather great and very good composers of the past, it is those who innovated, (not only innovate, because there is a subset list of many who have done that, to one degree or another) while also writing what most consider superb music. and their influence on music which came thereafter, the general direction it took -- those altogether are THE qualities of all those from the past who are 'in all the books' singled out as the greatest of any era.
By that 'rating' system, Prokofiev, much of whose music I love and admire, is barely of no real importance when it comes to changing or influencing much of anything in the general musical landscape. Ditto goes for the likes of Sibelius, Shostakovich, and many another entirely worthwhile also 'great' composers whose music we still listen to.
Those rigorous and demanding criteria are why Debussy, Stravinsky, Schoenberg and Webern are in those top ranks of composers from the first half of the 20th century and other composers are not, and general public opinion will not really change that.
"The people who you think are radicals might really be conservatives. The people who you think are conservative might really be radical."Quote from: Cambridge Companion to Sibelius pp. 197-198, Ch. 13, Sibelius and contemporary music (Julian Anderson)What became known as spectral music emerged at this time as a viable alternative aesthetic to serialism in France, Germany and elsewhere. Primarily initiated by Grisey and Murail, this music took as its starting point the acoustic structure of sounds and the psycho-acoustics of human perception over time - precisely those factors deemed to have been neglected by the serialists. The first fruits of this tendency - Grisey's Périodes and Partiels (1974 and 1975 respectively) - were characterised by an avoidance of sudden contrasts and abrupt juxtapositions in favour of gradually evolving processes of greater continuity and carefully measured changes of texture. They mark a sharp move away from the parametric thinking of the Darmstadt School in favour of the study of continuity and change.
This is precisely the area in which Sibelius was to prove a useful catalyst. Repeatedly in Sibelius's music, we encounter a bold and experimental attitude towards time, timbre, musical texture and form which transcends the late Romanticism of his origins and places him amongst the most innovative composers of the early twentieth century. This is especially true of the Symphonies nos. 5, 6 and 7 as well as of Tapiola and the incidental music from The Tempest. The Prelude to The Tempest consists of violent oscillations up and down a single whole-tone mode, together with occasional shifts to the adjacent mode a half-step higher. No resolution is provided by the conclusion of the piece, which consists of an augmented triad repeatedly built up note by note on sustained brass and tremolo strings - a kind of inharmonic spectrum, like the sound of a receding surf, examined partial by partial, shimmering statistically.
Tapiola features a similarly extreme storm passage near its conclusion. This latter piece has many other instances of what Hepokoski has termed 'sound sheets', many of them distinctly unconventional in spacing and sonority by the orchestration habits of the time. The oddest such passage is perhaps the complex eighteen-part string texture built up between Fig. D and Fig. F, consisting of a single major second octave-doubled through every register including the lowest. (see Ex. 13.1]) The presence here of the lowest three octaves produces very noticeable beats in performance due to the closeness of the adjacent frequencies and the relatively high dynamic indicated. The resultant sonority, which functions as a dense screen through which the woodwinds' chromatic compression of the piece's main motive can only intermittently be perceived, has a startling, almost electronic quality. Sibelius's readiness to produce deep acoustic throbbing, through the cultivation of crushed spacing in the bass register, is found in many places in mature (not just late) Sibelius, and places him at the opposite extreme from the Franco-Russian school of orchestral resonance. It is a tendency which can crop up in the most unexpected places, such as the inexplicable, shocking surge of bass dissonances found at the start of the middle section (Fig. L) in the last movement of the Fifth Symphony. There is little doubt that Sibelius connected such passages with the study of natural sonorities.
The other factor in Sibelius that attracted the spectral composers was his strangely distended timing. The passage from Tapiola cited in Ex. 13.1 lasts an abnormally long time -nearly a whole minute. The rotating chromatic storm near the end of the same work lasts even longer. The Tempest prelude lasts over three minutes. During all such textures, any clear sense of harmonic direction is virtually suspended in a manner not found in any other music prior to 1960. Furthermore, Sibelius's habit, even in supposedly developmental sections, of simply letting a melodic-rhythmic cell grow progressively by gradual changes - bypassing the dialectical tension of developing variation - also results in a sense of organic transformation through large areas of time. Whilst not static (unlike the 'sound sheets'), these passages convey to the listener a keen sense of time being stretched out as the transformations take on a life of their own, heedless of traditional symphonic rhetoric. Such passages are found very frequently in the last three symphonies and Tapiola (which, in any case, reduces all melodic activity to the curvilinear oscillation stated at its opening).
Quote from: p. 200The percussion writing in Saturne might superficially remind one of Varèse - but close listening reveals quite readily that it consists of detailed, quasi-canonic figures which are nearer in their sequential, propulsive effect to a Sibelius string tremolo texture. The harmonic substance of the music - on the electronic instruments - is crammed into the extreme treble and bass without any secure middle-range writing. Here the electronic instruments create a mixture of harmony and timbre which is strongly reminiscent of the dense screen of sound from Tapiola in Ex. 13.1.11
Such slowly transforming aural screens are common in the works of other Itinéraire composers, notably Grisey, who was also interested in Sibelius at this period.12 This can clearly be detected in the second section of Partiels (1975), which forms a very gradual transition from the extreme bass instruments of the ensemble to octave Es in the middle and high register, dominated by string harmonies (another Tapiola texture). The parallel second section in Grisey’s orchestral work Transitoires (1981) is even more radically dark in spacing and scoring, and its timing still more distended. Sibelius helped to de-gallicise the sound world of the spectralists, opening their ears to a rougher kind of orchestration as well as pointing away from the established habits of thinking in isolated blocs sonores prevalent in Messiaen and Boulez.
Murail’s orchestral work Gondwana (1980) even incorporates a substantial passage directly modeled upon a Sibelius piece [...] Lemminkäinen in Tuonela from [...] Op. 22 (1896). The principal texture of the piece consists of wave-like ascending string tremolos answered by circuitously descending woodwind lines, the two meeting in a culminating brass and drum chord in the middle register; this sequence is repeated many times with variations in the duration of each part as the piece works up to a main climax. This procedure was borrowed, with obvious differences in harmonic and orchestrational syntax, for the central development section of Gondwana, starting at bar 50, pp. 27-30 (which leads to the climax of the work). Murail took both the wave-patterning and the orchestration from Sibelius’s piece and recreated them in his own terms; the complex harmony is derived from the sum and difference tones of frequency modulation, incorporating quarter-tones, and the rhythmic language is more irregular and fluid in its details. The effect, however, is clearly analoguous, whist not superficially Sibelian to the innocent.
Quote from: p. 207
[The Spectralists'] idiosyncratic view of [Sibelius's] work helped Lindberg to see the radical aspects of Sibelius afresh, stripped of nationalist trappings. Lindberg's eloquent statements regarding this change of mind, given in interview in 1993, are worth quoting in full, as they reflect many of the views of contemporary composers on the subject:
"I have often said that it is a pity that Sibelius was Finnish! His music has been deeply misunderstood. While his language was far from modern, his thinking, as far as form and treatment of materials is concerned, was ahead of its time. While Varèse is credited with opening the way for new sonorities, Sibelius has himself pursued a profound reassessment of the formal and structural problems of composition. I do not think it is fair that he has been considered as a conservative . . His harmonies have a resonant, almost spectral quality. You find an attention to sonority in Sibelius works which is actually not so far removed from that which would appear long after in the work of Grisey or Murail . . . For me, the crucial aspect of his work remains his conception of continuity. In Tapiola, above all, the way genuine processes are created using very limited materials is pretty exceptional."
Quote from: pp. 214-15George Benjamin’s At First Light (1982) for chamber orchestra reflects his own enthusiasm for Sibelius’s bass writing by making reference to Tapiola at the violent opening of his own work’s second movement. The passage being referred to here is just before the the brief Mendelssohnian scherzo of the work, at Fig. F in Tapiola, a slow, chromatically winding progression scored for low clarinets, bass clarinet, bassoons, contrabassoons and timpani. These extremely dark chords are magnified in Benjamin’s piece into a series of crushed, harsh progressions for bass clarinet, bassoon, low horn, trombone, cello and double bass emphasizing similar intervals to the Sibelius - low tritones, fourths and fifths. The chord progressions between these are similarly a semitone apart, here emphasized by numerous glissandi between them, and at one point they almost quote the lower voice progressions of the passage in Tapiola. The effect is an exaggeration of the Sibelius, bringing it closer to the world of Varèse and, indeed, electro-acoustic music. Not coincidentally, At First Light also marks the closest Benjamin has ever come to writing spectral music.
[...]
Morton Feldman (1926-87) is more often associated with Cage and the American experimentalists. This misleading impression conceals the fact that he was a highly knowledgeable and cultured musician whose tastes extended to deep affection for Skryabin, Busoni, and both Stravinsky and Schoenberg, as well as Sibelius, whose music would have been virtually ubiquitous in the America of Feldman's youth. With the deliberate provocation in his Darmstadt lecture of 1984, Feldman spoke up for both Stravinsky and Sibelius, blaming Adorno's influence for the ignorance of young composers with regard to the former. He might well have blamed him for the ignorance of Sibelius, as well, for he recounts, 'I remember a graduate student of mine, I'm raving about the Fourth Symphony of Sibelius and he says, "You really like that?".' According to Feldman, Toru Takemitsu shared his fondness. At a dinner organized by Takemitsu's French publisher, the radio was playing the Fourth Symphony and the publisher rose to turn it off: 'Takemitsu and I jumped up, "Leave it on! leave it on!" He looked at us [in amazement], it was Sibelius.' Feldman raises this anecdote to support his important remark that 'The people who you think are radicals might really be conservatives. The people who you think are conservative might really be radical.'
Feldman raised Sibelius in connection with one specific work of his own, the orchestral piece Coptic Light (1985). His programme note explains that 'An important aspect of the composition was prompted by Sibelius's observation that the orchestra differs mainly from the piano in that it has no pedal. With this in mind, I set to work to create an orchestral pedal continually varying in nuance. [...] Thus the whole form of Coptic Light could be seen as an illustration of Hepokoski's definition of rotational forms in Sibelius as a set of varied restatements around a central material, the last of which links up with the harmonic area of the opening. At once static and continuously evolving, Coptic Light is an unexpected instance of Sibelius's effect on one of the most unusual and innovative recent works composed for orchestral in the last two decades.
Nice!
Karlheinz would have been 88 today. A moment of silence from those who sip the haterade, thanks. :)
"Give up on Beethoven .. you've got Stockhausen now." - Miles Davis
Quote from: nathanb on August 22, 2016, 09:43:56 AM
Karlheinz would have been 88 today. A moment of silence from those who sip the haterade, thanks. :)
Surely, merely arguing against the thesis that Stockhausen was "the greatest composer since
Beethoven" is not
hatred?
Quote from: North Star on August 22, 2016, 08:43:07 AM
"The people who you think are radicals might really be conservatives. The people who you think are conservative might really be radical."
I KANT REED!!!
Please, summarize and catch me up on who's hawt right now!! :-*
Quote from: karlhenning on August 23, 2016, 03:55:16 PM
Surely, merely arguing against the thesis that Stockhausen was "the greatest composer since Beethoven" is not hatred?
Duuude, don't bogart the hatred! $:)
jews-hate-sibelius.com
Quote from: karlhenning on August 23, 2016, 03:55:16 PM
Surely, merely arguing against the thesis that Stockhausen was "the greatest composer since Beethoven" is not hatred?
I was not really referring to you, to be honest.
Also, I have this sneaking suspicion that you're taking me too seriously.
Also, let the man be the greatest on his birthday, at least ;)
Quote from: nathanb on August 23, 2016, 04:27:23 PM
I was not really referring to you, to be honest.
Also, I have this sneaking suspicion that you're taking me too seriously.
Also, let the man be the greatest on his birthday, at least ;)
How you feel about 'Inori' and 'Ylem'?
Right now, the only difference between KHS and Cage is the availability of the latter's music to make its way into my listening device so that my ears may hear it. Were KHS's ouvre as available, perhaps I would... we would all... be hosting a greater regard for our protagonist?
Quote from: snyprrr on August 23, 2016, 04:37:13 PM
How you feel about 'Inori' and 'Ylem'?
Love them. However, I really want to get the Inori DVD one day, because I've always gotten the impression that the extra-musical elements of the composition are really crucial in that one. From a purely sonic standpoint, I suppose Inori takes a while to get going, so my general preference might be for Ylem.
But there are really very few Stockhausen compositions that I don't care about. And in those rare instances, I believe the fault lies with me, not with Karlheinz.
Quote from: nathanb on August 23, 2016, 04:27:23 PM
I was not really referring to you, to be honest.
Also, I have this sneaking suspicion that you're taking me too seriously.
Also, let the man be the greatest on his birthday, at least ;)
The man being
Debussy, right? 8)
Quote from: North Star on August 23, 2016, 11:27:29 PM
The man being Debussy, right? 8)
You sure have a good point there!
Miles Davis' opinions on the music of others is pretty dismal and should be dismissed.
He hated Eric Dolphy, for just one example.
He detested Ornette Coleman.
So his opinions are pretty much rubbish.
Great musician for his own music, though.
Quote from: Scion7 on August 24, 2016, 03:09:36 AM
Miles Davis' opinions on the music of others is pretty dismal and should be dismissed.
He hated Eric Dolphy, for just one example.
He detested Ornette Coleman.
So his opinions are pretty much rubbish.
Great musician for his own music, though.
Personally I trust positive verdicts about music much more than negative verdicts, simply for the fact that the letter ones imo are often based on prejudices and ignorance. Positive verdicts, especially by persons that are very interested in and have a broad knowledge of music, are mostly based on a deeper occupation with the subject. Therefore I trust Miles' opinion about Stockhausen more than his opinions about Dolphy or Coleman. In addition the fact that Coleman and Dolphy were competitors in the same field of music might have biased his verdict.
Quote from: chadfeldheimer on August 24, 2016, 04:08:13 AM
Personally I trust positive verdicts about music much more than negative verdicts [...]
Indeed. Imagine someone who doesn't care for
Mozart, feeling that he was artistically justified because
Glenn Gould said something negative about
Mozart. Lame, I know, but I've seen it ;)
Quote from: karlhenning on August 24, 2016, 04:43:35 AM
Indeed. Imagine someone who doesn't care for Mozart, feeling that he was artistically justified because Glenn Gould said something negative about Mozart. Lame, I know, but I've seen it ;)
Actually I've noticed several times that someone dismisses composer/musician x because someone (often an "authority") told so. To be honest I even recognized it on myself some times. An excuse for this might be the existence of such a large quantity of music and usefulness of prejudices to keep orientation ;)
Quote from: chadfeldheimer on August 24, 2016, 04:08:13 AM
Personally I trust positive verdicts about music much more than negative verdicts, simply for the fact that the letter ones imo are often based on prejudices and ignorance. Positive verdicts, especially by persons that are very interested in and have a broad knowledge of music, are mostly based on a deeper occupation with the subject. Therefore I trust Miles' opinion about Stockhausen more than his opinions about Dolphy or Coleman. In addition the fact that Coleman and Dolphy were competitors in the same field of music might have biased his verdict.
Quote from: karlhenning on August 24, 2016, 04:43:35 AM
Indeed. Imagine someone who doesn't care for Mozart, feeling that he was artistically justified because Glenn Gould said something negative about Mozart. Lame, I know, but I've seen it ;)
It is certainly foolish to think that someone else's lack of understanding gives authority to your own.
Quote from: North Star on August 24, 2016, 05:14:35 AM
It is certainly foolish to think that someone else's lack of understanding gives authority to your own.
I agree it's foolish, but that doesn't alter the fact, that such behaviour is quite widespread.
Quote from: chadfeldheimer on August 24, 2016, 05:30:48 AM
I agree it's foolish, but that doesn't alter the fact, that such behaviour is quite widespread.
It certainly doesn't, the fact that it's widespread is just further proof of its stupidity... :blank:
Lucky can be the person, that is completely free of this foolishness.
Quote from: chadfeldheimer on August 24, 2016, 05:43:18 AM
Lucky can be the person, that is completely free of this foolishness.
I very much doubt the existence of such a person.
Quote from: North Star on August 24, 2016, 05:45:04 AM
I very much doubt the existence of such a person.
I doubt that too.
That said . . . many of us do learn better 0:)
Quote from: North Star on August 23, 2016, 11:27:29 PM
The man being Debussy, right? 8)
I was informed of this when I commanded my buddy to throw on a Stockhausen tune that day. Personally, Stockhausen ranks even higher on my list than Debussy, but it did make my argument an awful lot more complicated...
Quote from: karlhenning on August 24, 2016, 04:43:35 AM
Indeed. Imagine someone who doesn't care for Mozart, feeling that he was artistically justified because Glenn Gould said something negative about Mozart. Lame, I know, but I've seen it ;)
Pettersson comes to mind...
The Penguin Guide had no love for him, or Penderecki
Quote from: snyprrr on August 24, 2016, 07:40:05 AM
Pettersson comes to mind...
The Penguin Guide had no love for him, or Penderecki
And what does it matter if
Stravinsky had no appreciation for
Liszt or
Vivaldi?
Quote from: karlhenning on August 24, 2016, 08:45:58 AM
And what does it matter if Stravinsky had no appreciation for Liszt or Vivaldi?
nadadita
Can I start a 'Biggest Hack' Thread, Karl,... pleeeez??!!!
Get some rest first, fella.
Quote from: chadfeldheimer on August 24, 2016, 04:08:13 AM
Personally I trust positive verdicts about music much more than negative verdicts, simply for the fact that the letter ones imo are often based on prejudices and ignorance. Positive verdicts, especially by persons that are very interested in and have a broad knowledge of music, are mostly based on a deeper occupation with the subject.
I don't find this very plausible. Either s/he is an expert and then, supposing he is not dismissing something without really knowing it thoroughly (which might have been to some extent the case with Adorno about Sibelius and Stravinsky about Vivaldi) I should trust both positive and negative verdicts.
Or he is just making a flippant remark or venting a personal opinion or I don't trust the expertise, then the positive verdict should not count for much either.
I think one can often learn more about some music or literature from outrageously wrong statements by subtle and knowledgeable people than from praise by "true believers".
Quote from: karlhenning on August 23, 2016, 03:55:16 PM
Surely, merely arguing against the thesis that Stockhausen was "the greatest composer since Beethoven" is not hatred?
Is that valley boy/girl tween "Hate / Hater" slang usage from nearly a decade ago
still in circulation?
Tween slang like that is usually considered unkewl no more than ca. three years after it first became a fashion!
Quote from: Jo498 on August 24, 2016, 11:12:02 AM
I don't find this very plausible. Either s/he is an expert and then, supposing he is not dismissing something without really knowing it thoroughly (which might have been to some extent the case with Adorno about Sibelius and Stravinsky about Vivaldi) I should trust both positive and negative verdicts.
Or he is just making a flippant remark or venting a personal opinion or I don't trust the expertise, then the positive verdict should not count for much either.
I think one can often learn more about some music or literature from outrageously wrong statements by subtle and knowledgeable people than from praise by "true believers".
You make a good point: I do not think there is much to be learnt about the value of Stockhausen's music by reading what the "true believers" post.
Does
Sibelius's admiration for
Haydn make him a vacuous "true believer"? The key point, I think, is that for any artist's work to be appreciated properly, the critic must have some sympathy for the artist's viewpoint. So, no,
Stravinsky's coy dismissal of
Vivaldi does not mean much, since it was a soundworld or musical method which did not much interest him. But IMO neither is (at the risk of beating a dead horse) Layton's knowledgeable and academical detraction of
Shostakovich, based on the premise that "he's no
Sibelius."
I invite you not to take my own almost thorough disdain for Stockhausen particularly seriously. What I have heard or studied of his does not impress me enough to seek out more of his work.
I am not going to feel obliged to respect (say) Adorno's scorn for
Sibelius, simply because he spins his scorn into a scholarly article.
Quote from: Jo498 on August 24, 2016, 11:12:02 AMI don't find this very plausible. Either s/he is an expert
On what? An expert will have blind spots, and a limited range of expertise.
Quoteand then, supposing he is not dismissing something without really knowing it thoroughly (which might have been to some extent the case with Adorno about Sibelius and Stravinsky about Vivaldi) I should trust both positive and negative verdicts.
Alright, we agree that an ignorant dismissal of someone with expertise is of little worth.
QuoteOr he is just making a flippant remark or venting a personal opinion or I don't trust the expertise, then the positive verdict should not count for much either.
Sure, baseless remarks are bad. If it encourages you to to listen with your own ears instead of dismissing the artist critiqued, all the better.
QuoteI think one can often learn more about some music or literature from outrageously wrong statements by subtle and knowledgeable people than from praise by "true believers".
Sure, oohing and aahing of little substance is not worth much, while people can arrive at a negative conclusion of the merits of a work of art and say something worthwhile about the works of art, or art in general. But missing the point eloquently is still just that, if there is a point in the work of art.
Quote from: karlhenning on August 22, 2016, 05:35:42 AMMusic which says something which no music had before, ought perhaps to be "innovation" enough. (Writing superb music, ought to be enough.)
A-yep!https://www.youtube.com/v/4l0Rxc3MFHA
Earth-shaking terrain-altering innovation? Nope. Truly superb writing, that 'says something, and says it extremely well'? Yup. Not directly sounding like music of another, i.e. "His own voice?" Yup. I rest your case, lol.
Quote from: karlhenning on August 22, 2016, 05:35:42 AMOne could argue that mere innovation is trivial. Sure, we are all grateful that we have hot and cold running water, this was an important innovation. But the important thing is the life we lead, a life made easier by the technical innovation.
We should consider any individual who praises the innovation as The Thing That Matters, rather a narrow-viewed eccentric, I should think. (Oh, look! A string quartet with helicopters!)
"Oh, look, string quartet w a very eccentric fugue as its final movement!" (people walked out on this at its premiere :-)
I did not say innovation was
the only thing that matters, and that is why
I deliberately included that subset of 'innovators' who are noted, but not at all called 'great.' The distinction is more than important for the very reason you stated; innovation, all by itself, is not nearly enough to qualify a thing as great.
The greatest and great game, at least on fora, is to me trivial, a kind of sport the innate nature of which rules out reaching a solid final conclusion, or 'winning,' is not possible, period.
I.e. there are, like it or not, a collective bunch of musicians, critics, musicologists and historians who write "Those authoritarian books," wherein one finds these status of greatness rankings. To date, I don't think they have included a one name that most would disagree with, nor named as 'one of the greatest' a composer where most people would disagree with their ranking. Ergo, a lot of reasonable responses to 'Why is
composer not rated higher are, "I think he's rated just about right."
THIS IS EXACTLY WHY PROKOFIEV, SIBELIUS, RAVEL, RACHMANINOV, HONEGGER, MILHAUD, CASELLA and a host of other great composers
are also prominently listed in Groves, the Larousse Encyclopedia of Music and Musicians, The Harvard Dictionary of music, etc. -- because they were 'great' and so therein are so acknowledged.
I agree with you in that any piece which is 'successful' as a piece of music [not necessarily equating that with 'popularity', and if not but a poor imitative near replica of another composer's work, is nothing to dismiss as less than some kind of excellent, great, etc.
Where these rating games get downright emotional and silly, of course, is when all of us plebes have at it, bringing with us our emotional responses and attachments to a piece, perhaps our national pride due to the fact the composer is a 'home boy or girl,' and all the rest which is actually outside that piece.
Where it verges on the ridiculous, imo, is when one or more plebes goes at it as if their empiric opinion -- as a non-professional musician or music scholar -- will, by assertive repetition, somehow have a super-heroic force to overturn the weight and force of the collective assessments of a composer by those who write the scholarly Groves, Larousse, etc. :-)
The over-reaction to this over-reactionary polemic essay / rant contra Sibelius carries its own interior comedic irony.
While I find the phenomena of the civilized debacle this thread is as ironic and funny,
it is also quite warming that, catalyzed by an amusing and reactionary period piece essay which carries zero threat,
so many show their ardor in their love of a fine composer's music -- which is only as it should be!
B.T.W. ~ There is, and probably never will be, any clear set of criteria that allows determining what 'the greatest' is, who the greatest are, or of determining what constitutes a masterpiece. (Though people will and do try, all such threads are but exercises, futile if the expectation is for a resolve to reach anything that could be conclusive.)
Always best regards.
Quote from: snyprrr on August 24, 2016, 10:46:50 AM
Can I start a 'Biggest Hack' Thread, Karl,... pleeeez??!!!
Go right ahead with that innately negative OP; its inevitable content is going to be mostly some serious dissing, whining and bashing. Maybe that will reach a new height (or depth) of that kind of content in one thread.
For this proposed future OP, I pre-nominate John T. Williams, and Alan Hovhaness.
I predict a lot of outrage, hurt feelings and butt-hurt reactions having named just those two....
:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
Best regards
Quote from: Monsieur Croche on August 24, 2016, 01:37:27 PMI did not say innovation was the only thing that matters, and that is why I deliberately included that subset of 'innovators' who are noted, but not at all called 'great.' The distinction is more than important, for the very reason you stated; innovation, all by itself, is not nearly enough to qualify a thing as great.
The greatest and great game, at least on fora, is to me trivial, a kind of sport the innate nature of which rules out reaching a solid final conclusion, or 'winning,' as not possible, period.
I.e. there are, like it or not, a collective bunch of musicians, critics, musicologists and historians who write "Those authoritarian books," wherein one finds these status of greatness rankings. To date, I don't think they have included a one name that most would disagree with, nor named as 'one of the greatest' a composer where most people would disagree with their ranking. Ergo, a lot of reasonable responses to 'Why is composer not rated higher are, "I think he's rated just about right."
THIS IS EXACTLY WHY PROKOFIEV, SIBELIUS, RAVEL, RACHMANINOV, HONEGGER, MILHAUD, CASELLA and a host of other great composers are also listed and prominent in Groves, the Larousse Encyclopedia of Music and Musicians, The Harvard Dictionary of music, etc. -- because they were 'great' and so therein and are so acknowledged.
So once again you try make it look like
Sibelius, while a great composer, was not an innovator or someone who altered the terrain.. As if ignoring my reply - where I quote chapter and verse demonstrating falseness of that idea - makes it disappear. $:)
Quote from: Monsieur Croche on August 24, 2016, 01:37:27 PM
The over-reaction to this over-reactionary polemic essay / rant contra Sibelius carries its own interior comedic irony.
While I find the phenomena of the civilized debacle this thread is as ironic and funny, it is also quite warming that, catalyzed by an amusing and reactionary period piece essay which carries zero threat, so many show their ardor in their love of a fine composer's music -- which is only as it should be!
I think you mean to say that you find the phenomenon that this thread is - a civilized debacle - to be ironic and funny.
Quote from: Monsieur Croche on August 24, 2016, 01:37:27 PM
A-yep!
https://www.youtube.com/v/4l0Rxc3MFHA
Earth-shaking terrain-altering innovation? Nope. Truly superb writing, that 'says something, and says it extremely well'? Yup. Not directly sounding like music of another, i.e. "His own voice?" Yup. I rest your case, lol.
Quote from: chadfeldheimer on August 24, 2016, 04:08:13 AMPersonally I trust positive verdicts about music much more than negative verdicts, simply for the fact that the letter ones imo are often based on prejudices and ignorance. Positive verdicts, especially by persons that are very interested in and have a broad knowledge of music, are mostly based on a deeper occupation with the subject. Therefore I trust Miles' opinion about Stockhausen more than his opinions about Dolphy or Coleman. In addition the fact that Coleman and Dolphy were competitors in the same field of music might have biased his verdict.
I certainly would value Miles's (or Gould's) perspective on matters of music far more than anyone on this board. No offence, but a no-brainer.
Quote from: North Star on August 24, 2016, 02:05:53 PM
So once again you try make it look like Sibelius, while a great composer, was not an innovator or someone who altered the terrain. As if ignoring my reply - where I quote chapter and verse demonstrating falseness of that idea - makes it disappear. $:)
I think the degree of personal offense you have taken has clouded your thinking. Yes, Sibelius made subtle, some say dramatic, innovations in the how and what of thematic materials treated and presented within the Sonata-Allegro Symphonic format. If he had done it first, that would be a different degree of innovation. Sibelius' innovation is a matter of degrees of variation of innovation vs. startling innovation, while I suppose it is necessary to say, once again, newness on its own not being enough to give prizes for, either.
Sibelius
altered his own terrain, and only a little bit the treatment of the presentation and variants of themes within the symphonic form. That is quite different from a seismic upheaval of the force of change Monteverdi, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Debussy, Schoenberg, Webern, et alia affected. Nielsen altered his terrain and symphonic form, especially in the first two contiguous movements of his fifth symphony, deploys progressive tonality, counterpoint and polytonality and handling of themes with more than a little aplomb, yet remains, ya know, Niesen... and another 'great' composer.
Within the context of the times Sibelius was composing, those innovative features were also not so startling to those who did notice them, unless they were staunch conservatives unaware or unwanting of other progressive developments in music going on then. Over one hundred years later, some here are making out that Sibelius' subtle innovations were actually that startling, or perhaps even influential. I think not, and that in no way dismisses his contribution in that area and certainly does not and can not diminish the value of his music.
Nothing will make Sibelius greater, or less great, than he now is. I doubt if there is anything hidden left to be later discovered in the way of innovation in his scores. This whole thread is reactionary to a post of a reactionary polemic essay (in perspective of its vintage and context), which is both a period piece and laugh riot.
I seriously doubt that even those for whom Sibelius does not do much are interested in demoting his status as a composer. Whatever anyone thinks, and following criteria Karl Henning gave earlier [8)] -- criteria with which I wholly agree -- basically as long as what is written is not a pale imitation of some other composer's work or style, 'innovative' or not, if it is superb writing, and speaks genuinely for itself -- that really ought to be great enough.
Quote from: North Star on August 24, 2016, 02:05:53 PM
I think you mean to say that you find the phenomenon that this thread is - a civilized debacle - to be ironic and funny.
It
is a quite civilized discussion, and we can collectively think GMG members and its founder and mods for setting that standard and holding to it.
What I find ironic, irony being implicit in that something is funny:
~~~Liebowitz's
rant I mean, what else would anyone in 2016 call that essay?, and that it is so clearly in a context of a period and a specific agenda -- about which no one needs any training, expertise, or researcher or detective skills to literally smell as coming off its pages -- it is that transparently dated.
~~~Once posted,
people actually took it seriously as if it was written yesterday and felt they had to DEFEND Sibelius vs. seeing the Liebowitz for exactly what it is, a period piece, now laughable as to its content, and that polemic quality of many contributors reactions is nearly equal in pitch and tone, merely in favor of vs. against. --
C'mon, that's funny.~~~That if you think about it, none of that reaction was at all necessary IF the Liebowitz essay had been seen for what it is / was (by its date and context, just about anyone would see that.) If this Liebowitz essay is not in Nicolas Slonimsky's
Lexicon of Musical Invective: Critical Assaults on Composers Since Beethoven's Time, it is certainly worthy of being included in some late edition.
~~~That even non-fans know well enough that Sibelius needs no defenders whatsoever.
1899 to 1924: Sibelius symphonies 1-7 Symphonic form or other, innovative as he was, "innovation" is also relative.
~~~1899 to 1910: Mahler symphonies 4 - 9 /
Das Lied von der Erde / the unfinished 10th symphony.
~~~1905: Debussy's La Mer, a formal symphony regardless of what the composer chose to call it.
~~~1911 - 1922: Carl Neilsen Symphonies 3 - 5
-- just to keep the innovation thingie in relative proportion :-)
Best regards.
Quote from: karlhenning on August 24, 2016, 04:43:35 AM
Indeed. Imagine someone who doesn't care for Mozart, feeling that he was artistically justified because Glenn Gould said something negative about Mozart. Lame, I know, but I've seen it ;)
Maybe more revealing of myself than I should, but, here 'tis...
"If you don't get Mozart, you don't get music."
Best regards.
Quote from: Monsieur Croche on August 24, 2016, 06:28:38 PM
Maybe more revealing of myself than I should, but, here 'tis...
"If you don't get Mozart, you don't get music."
Best regards.
I don't like Mozart, so I guess I don't 'get' music. Whatever that means.
Quote from: Mirror Image on August 24, 2016, 07:09:26 PM
I don't like Mozart, so I guess I don't 'get' music. Whatever that means.
"If you don't get Mozart, you don't get music" --
no liking mentioned, at all.You don't have to like a composer, an era, etc. in order to get it.
"Getting it" and liking it are two different things.
Best regards.
Quote from: Monsieur Croche on August 24, 2016, 07:14:30 PM
"If you don't get Mozart, you don't get music" -- no liking mentioned, at all.
You don't have to like a composer, an era, etc. in order to get it.
"Getting it" and liking it are two different things.
Best regards.
Okay, then let me rephrase,
I don't get Mozart. Is that better? :)
Maybe it's time to move this discussion back onto the topic of Lord Stockhausen.
Quote from: nathanb on August 24, 2016, 08:19:04 PM
Maybe it's time to move this discussion back onto the topic of Lord Stockhausen.
If this topic was about Stockhausen, then why don't the moderators merge it with the Stockhausen thread? Until then, this thread can go in any direction and I hope it does because Stockhausen is most definitely not a composer I want to talk about.
Quote from: Mirror Image on August 24, 2016, 08:33:15 PM
If this topic was about Stockhausen, then why don't the moderators merge it with the Stockhausen thread? Until then, this thread can go in any direction and I hope it does because Stockhausen is most definitely not a composer I want to talk about.
Moderator action does not define the topic of a thread. I agree they should've merged it, but that doesn't change the fact that the OP intends to start a Stockhausen thread.
Quote from: nathanb on August 24, 2016, 08:46:55 PM
Moderator action does not define the topic of a thread. I agree they should've merged it, but that doesn't change the fact that the OP intends to start a Stockhausen thread.
No, the moderators do not define the topic of a thread, but they can delete a useless thread such as this one if they see the thread going under or has reached its saturation point. My vote goes to putting this thread out of its misery and locking it before it gets beyond ridiculous (as we're pretty much there already).
Quote from: Mirror Image on August 24, 2016, 07:21:06 PM
Okay, then let me rephrase, I don't get Mozart. Is that better? :)
The quip is from a musician friend of mine, though I don't know if it is his or just one of those things in general circulation. It is also yet another spin, basically, on, "Gasp! How can you
not like composer X?, that is not worth caring, on your part or mine, if one or another reaction is better.
I have a large enough list of great composers whose music I get, yet just don't care for. There are more I really do care for than not. I'm alright with that as much as I'm alright with the different lists of composers others have of the composers not on their lists of the ones they like.
The fact that so many of those composers on different peoples' don't care for list are still around, are considered great by the cognoscenti as well as so many listeners, just shows how much all those differences are a matter of individual tastes.
Whether it is Stockhausen or Sibelius, Bach or Berio, for any individual, if a composer is not to their taste, whatever the experts or the general public say to the contrary is moot.
I think the truest response to "Gasp! How can you not like composer X? is
"Because I am not you." But of course, that stops it in its tracks and makes for no further dialogue :laugh:
Best regards.
Quote from: jessop on August 19, 2016, 09:16:44 PM
For some reason I have always preferred to be the younger one in a relationship am I normal
I'm not the first to have thought that where relationships are concerned, there are about as many different types of relationships as their are people having them.
"Normal" has a very wide latitude of all that falls under its aegis as well.
A friend just passed this quote to me from a romantic comedy, a book by alice Hoffmann,
Practical Magic "...when are you going to realize that being normal is not necessarily a virtue? It rather denotes a lack of courage."
There is your completely non-answer to your question. "Hope that helped." :laugh:
Quote from: Monsieur Croche on August 24, 2016, 04:27:02 PM
Yes, Sibelius made subtle, some say dramatic, innovations in the how and what of thematic materials treated and presented within the Sonata-Allegro Symphonic format. If he had done it first, that would be a different degree of innovation. Sibelius' innovation is a matter of degrees of variation of innovation vs. startling innovation, while I suppose it is necessary to say, once again, newness on its own not being enough to give prizes for, either.
Sibelius altered his own terrain, and only a little bit the treatment of the presentation and variants of themes within the symphonic form. That is quite different from a seismic upheaval of the force of change Monteverdi, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Debussy, Schoenberg, Webern, et alia affected.
If he had done 'it' first? I don't quite follow what you mean there - do you mean to say that anything presented in the context of a sonata-allegro form was not innovative by then? It's quite clear that
Sibelius indeed didn't startle so much as others who needed to colour outside the lines in order to look new. One of the chief reasons why his influence has shown mostly over half a century later, I suspect, was that he was being innovative in a different way than all the others...
QuoteWithin the context of the times Sibelius was composing, those innovative features were also not so startling to those who did notice them, unless they were staunch conservatives unaware or unwanting of other progressive developments in music going on then. Over one hundred years later, some here are making out that Sibelius' subtle innovations were actually that startling, or perhaps even influential. I think not, and that in no way dismisses his contribution in that area and certainly does not and can not diminish the value of his music.
Oh, I'm sure
Sibelius's music wasn't as startling as serialism or
Le sacre. I hope you don't really think that to be influential, you need to be startling. And it's funny how you again go around trying to make it look as if
Sibelius really wasn't influential, when I have already shown otherwise.
QuoteI seriously doubt that even those for whom Sibelius does not do much are interested in demoting his status as a composer. Whatever anyone thinks, and following criteria Karl Henning gave earlier [8)] -- criteria with which I wholly agree -- basically as long as what is written is not a pale imitation of some other composer's work or style, 'innovative' or not, if it is superb writing, and speaks genuinely for itself -- that really ought to be great enough.
Absolutely. Influence (not necessarily innovation) is just something that helps keep an artist's work fresh in the minds of younger generations.
Quote1899 to 1924: Sibelius symphonies 1-7 Symphonic form or other, innovative as he was, "innovation" is also relative.
~~~1899 to 1910: Mahler symphonies 4 - 9 / Das Lied von der Erde / the unfinished 10th symphony.
~~~1905: Debussy's La Mer, a formal symphony regardless of what the composer chose to call it.
~~~1911 - 1922: Carl Neilsen Symphonies 3 - 5
-- just to keep the innovation thingie in relative proportion :-)
Best regards.
Well, I'm not sure how that keeps 'the innovation thingie in relative proportion' - the other three composers certainly weren't without innovation, but their ideas were all quite different from each other, and from
Sibelius's.
QuoteWithin the context of the times Sibelius was composing, those innovative features were also not so startling to those who did notice them
Perhaps it is because most people did not notice them, being distracted by all the others painting with brash colours all over the place, frames and all. 0:)
Quote from: Cambridge Companion to Sibelius pp. 197-198, Ch. 13, Sibelius and contemporary music (Julian Anderson)
The other factor in Sibelius that attracted the spectral composers was his strangely distended timing. The passage from Tapiola cited in Ex. 13.1 lasts an abnormally long time -nearly a whole minute. The rotating chromatic storm near the end of the same work lasts even longer. The Tempest prelude lasts over three minutes. During all such textures, any clear sense of harmonic direction is virtually suspended in a manner not found in any other music prior to 1960.
Each time this thread pops up I'm tempted to reply:
"Yes, I too would be sorry if that was true".
To get it out of my head I just had to post it.
Quote from: Monsieur Croche on August 24, 2016, 07:14:30 PM"Getting it" and liking it are two different things.
They go hand in hand imo, one leads into the other. But also, what that individual has been exposed-to & knows as a basis of comparison leading to a judgement. Especially so when an truly experienced authority addresses it. i.e. Gould, Boulez etc. They hear it, get it, have been "under the hood", see it for what it is .. and either like it or not based on this.
Quote from: The new erato on August 25, 2016, 12:23:06 AM
Each time this thread pops up I'm tempted to reply:
"Yes, I too would be sorry if that was true".
To get it out of my head I just had to post it.
(* chortle *)
Quote from: The new erato on August 25, 2016, 12:23:06 AM
Each time this thread pops up I'm tempted to reply:
"Yes, I too would be sorry if that was true".
To get it out of my head I just had to post it.
I prefer Stockhausen to Beethoven these days, so I guess you're right about it not being wholly true.
FINZI
FINZI
FINZI
FINZI
FINZI
FINZI
FINZI
Quote from: Christo on August 25, 2016, 07:59:06 AM
Who?
I think he meant to say
Finzi. :)
Not
quite the greatest since
Beethoven, that
Gerald chap, but easily preferable to
Karlheinz..
Quote from: North Star on August 25, 2016, 08:09:46 AMI think he meant to say Finzi. :)
Not quite the greatest since Beethoven, that Gerald chap, but easily preferable to Karlheinz..
;) I'm sure he means the Italian composer Aldo Finzi (1897–1945), who's musical style has been described as somewhere between Respighi and Richard Strauss: http://www.unsungcomposers.com/forum/index.php?topic=4321.0
That Gerald chap was, of course, of Italian (Jewish) descent; hence his Italian name. Wikipedia calls him a "son of John Abraham (Jack) Finzi (of Italian Jewish descent) and Eliza Emma (Lizzie) Leverson (daughter of Montague Leverson,of German Jewish descent)."
Quote from: Christo on August 25, 2016, 09:19:16 AM
;) I'm sure he means the Italian composer Aldo Finzi (1897–1945), who's musical style has been described as somewhere between Respighi and Richard Strauss: http://www.unsungcomposers.com/forum/index.php?topic=4321.0
That Gerald chap was, of course, of Italian (Jewish) descent; hence his Italian name. Wikipedia calls him a "son of John Abraham (Jack) Finzi (of Italian Jewish descent) and Eliza Emma (Lizzie) Leverson (daughter of Montague Leverson,of German Jewish descent)."
Only if snyprrr's enchiladas were expired.
Quote from: North Star on August 25, 2016, 09:22:05 AMOnly if snyprrr's enchiladas were expired.
Yep. He likes them frozen.
Quote from: Christo on August 25, 2016, 09:24:32 AM
Yep. He likes them frozen.
So good it melts in your mouth
[
snypsss proposes a "Biggest Hack" Thread ]
Quote from: Monsieur Croche on August 24, 2016, 01:45:46 PM
For this proposed future OP, I pre-nominate John T. Williams, and Alan Hovhaness.
I predict a lot of outrage, hurt feelings and butt-hurt reactions having named just those two....
:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
They both clearly have talent. But they don't really belong in the same class. However at times good the work of the former, even the worst of his work is rationalizable by "it's what I was paid to do." The latter wrote what he did, and he wrote a great deal, because that is what he wished to do, what he was made to do.
Probably, I cannot make the case that
Hovhaness is a
great composer. But I believe he was a very good composer, and that he wrote a respectable volume of genuinely excellent music. In anticipation of the argument of the Loyal Opposition, I will say that I have a disc with three symphonies on it, and for the life of me, I cannot understand how they are
three distinct pieces; and I have a disc of music with harp, against which a similar argument could be levied.
That was the kernel of my quarrel with
Hovhaness for a number of years. On the occasion of the composer's passing, as I read eulogistic remarks of a number of "virtual friends" on line, I felt I owed it to the late composer to test drive more of his œuvre – after all, he had written so very much, I could not be so very naïf as to suppose that it
all sounded the same. And, in fact, the only piece of his which I had myself performed (an arrangement of
The Prayer of St Gregory for trumpet and organ, where I read the trumpet part on the "clarionet") is perfectly lovely in its chaste simplicity.
So, for the extreme
Hovhaness sceptic ("
you know who you are"), I offer the one score which I probably like the very best (and I do think very highly of, let's say, 15 of his works):
http://www.youtube.com/v/JlLjtie9xJk
Thread Duty:
My reservations about
Hovhaness notwithstanding, I think rather more highly of him than of
Stockhausen.
The inestimable Dr. Henning remarked in passing
QuoteI cannot understand how they are three distinct pieces
Sometimes one needs to find an alternate performance or repeat listenings to figure out the differences.
I first encountered Ligeti through his piano etudes and string quartets, which impressed me enormously. I then went out and got the Warner box set of his large scale works, and for some years, despite sporadic relistens got nothing out of them, except possibly headaches. But my initial impression of the etudes and SQs was strong enough that I felt repeated listening was of value--although I did consider the possibility that perhaps what worked for Ligeti in works with limited forces did not work on the larger scale of orchestral/choral.
It was in face getting the DG box, with different performances, which cracked open that hard nut--and going back to the Warner box, although I ultimately preferred the DG performances, I had much better reaction to what I heard there.
But I did find, on my initial hearing of the Warner box, that the concertos did sound very much of a muchness, and remarked here that the only way I could tell which concerto was which was by the solo instruments.
The key point there was that I was motivated to attempt relistens and alternate performances because my initial reaction to the composer made me feel it worth the effort. With KHS, I have no such motivation, with the result that I don't listen to him. The only piece of his I have heard which has even tempted me to a relisten is Tierkreis.
Quote from: Jeffrey Smith on August 26, 2016, 09:52:36 AM
Sometimes one needs to find an alternate performance or repeat listenings to figure out the differences.
An excellent observation. I
do like one of the three (
Mysterious Mountain); and I
have listened to the disc through a few times. It may hit me, yet! And meanwhile, there is much of his music which does strike me as (to use one of my former teacher
Judith Shatin's favorite words)
specific, so his credit is good with me.
Quote from: Thatfabulousalien on August 26, 2016, 03:34:43 PMIn fact I've had a harder time appreciating Beethoven and Mozart
Same here .. on the other hand, contemporary music, the music of my time was easier to hear and listen to than the older stuff, which well .. sounded really old and dull at first. The sounds of contemporary music sounded much, much closer to the popular music & film we were hearing and taking in ..
Quote from: Thatfabulousalien on August 26, 2016, 03:34:43 PM
Just like Schoenberg, I will always be completely obvious oblivious to why people have the negative reactions they do.
Because they don't like the music. They don't respond to it. I mean it happens and it shouldn't be any sweat off your back if someone doesn't like the same composers you like. Let's face it: Schoenberg is a hard sell. He really is, but, over time, I believe people can appreciate him as he had a deep reverence for classical's past and, in many cases, tried to uphold some of those traditions in his own music. If someone doesn't enjoy him, well that should be fine. Stockhausen is an even harder sell because of sheer amount of dissonance in his music and what appears to be complete disorganization and random sounds. I don't think much of Stockhausen's music, but it should come as no surprise to you if people are generally negative towards his music (and Schoenberg's for that matter).
Schönberg is hardly "of my time". He died more than 20 years before I was born and most of his more famous pieces were composed before either of my parents were born. And I am in my forties...
I don't know a lot of Stockhausen but I find it hard to deny that it is obviously music. It might be strange, unfamiliar music and it might sound like "random notes" but it does not sound like "random noise". I think it is far more clearly distinguishable as music in the normal sense than quite a mit of 20th century visual art is identifiable as art in the common sense. (This is nothing against such art but while one might reasonably think of Duchamps' pissoir as clever pun? or of some paintings "every child could do that", nobody would ever think every child could do Gesang der Jünglinge or Gruppen.
Quote from: Jo498 on August 27, 2016, 12:17:35 AMI don't know a lot of Stockhausen but I find it hard to deny that it is obviously music.
It certainly is and he was in complete control of what he doing, right down to performance practice, performance space and the projection of the music. Totally aware. Huge ears .. and he could sing it back to his musicians during rehearsal. The only distinct part of his career where he handed over that control was when he was briefly dabbling in totally free improvisation with a hand-picked touring electroacoustic ensemble, with nothing written or rehearsed, but he was expecting music. He had to explore this avenue, learned, then moved on quickly after not being too thrilled with the results (From the 7 Days).
Quote from: Mirror Image on August 26, 2016, 07:12:54 PM
Because they don't like the music. They don't respond to it. I mean it happens and it shouldn't be any sweat off your back if someone doesn't like the same composers you like. Let's face it: Schoenberg is a hard sell.
Well, but they
do respond, many of them, the response being "Why can't this be like the
nice music I prefer?"
And on the last point: no,
Schoenberg is not absolutely a hard sell. Many of us who like
Schoenberg, have liked his music from the very first note; no hard sell there, we were the softest of touches.
Quote from: karlhenning on August 27, 2016, 04:50:12 AM
Well, but they do respond, many of them, the response being "Why can't this be like the nice music I prefer?"
And on the last point: no, Schoenberg is not absolutely a hard sell. Many of us who like Schoenberg, have liked his music from the very first note; no hard sell there, we were the softest of touches.
I like Schoenberg a lot as well and I suppose I'm speaking more from personal experience than anything. Of course, I loved works like
Verklarte Nacht and
Pelleas und Melisande right away, but his atonal music took some time for me to process.
Well, we all do speak from personal experience, of course 8)
I actually think during his life, Stockhausen & his work has been better treated and more widely loved than what happened to the 2nd Viennese School, especially Schoenberg. Stockhausen's music has had a further reach and influence, well outside the classical world.
Quote from: karlhenning on August 27, 2016, 05:11:05 AM
Well, we all do speak from personal experience, of course 8)
Absolutely. :)
Quote from: Mirror Image on August 27, 2016, 05:03:34 AM
I like Schoenberg a lot as well and I suppose I'm speaking more from personal experience than anything. Of course, I loved works like Verklarte Nacht and Pelleas und Melisande right away, but his atonal music took some time for me to process.
And there is nothing wrong, either, with taking time to process. It may seem on the surface contradictory . . . as I say,
Schoenberg (heck, even the
Berg Kammerkonzert) hit me just right, the very first time I listened; yet, I think it a nearly moral error, to demand that music have something to say to us, in a way that we can understand it,
right now.
It is, I suppose, in fact an uneven dialogue, and the artist has, at the last, the dominant voice in the conversation.
Quote from: karlhenning on August 27, 2016, 05:28:31 AM
And there is nothing wrong, either, with taking time to process. It may seem on the surface contradictory . . . as I say, Schoenberg (heck, even the Berg Kammerkonzert) hit me just right, the very first time I listened; yet, I think it a nearly moral error, to demand that music have something to say to us, in a way that we can understand it, right now.
It is, I suppose, in fact an uneven dialogue, and the artist has, at the last, the dominant voice in the conversation.
Yes, but I can say that there was
something in that music that had me intrigued, so if I'm allured by the sound of the music, then, ultimately, I'm inclined to keep listening. This said, I
love Schoenberg's 'free atonal' period with his
Five Pieces for Orchestra being one of the most extraordinary works I've heard and a dear favorite of mine.
LOL! Noise to play at street repairs, or getting one's motorcar new tires. I'm assuming the OP was having a bit of a joke.
I don't know about Stockhausen's "greatness", just enjoy some of his stuff for its experimental ideas and innovation, bearing in mind the times when it was produced.