Understanding music?

[Larry Rinkel]

Incidentally Rosen is a man, so he can hardly be said to be objective.

To give us a better sense of your own objectivity, are you male or female?

[karlhenning]

Point Larry.

[Ten thumbs]

Point Larry.

Indeed I confess to being male, an attribute that does not apply to music. I just like uncompromisingly dissonant music. I like music with flair and invention combined with beautiful melody. I like genius.

[jochanaan]

Indeed I confess to being male, an attribute that does not apply to music. I just like uncompromisingly dissonant music. I like music with flair and invention combined with beautiful melody. I like genius.

Joan Tower?

[Ten thumbs]

See The Romantic Generation, 659-660. Rosen's point is that Clara Wieck was potentially a major talent, but Schumann discouraged her composing (as Mahler did with Alma), and Clara herself decided to renounce composing before her marriage. Brahms did nothing to encourage her either.

True, lost potential cannot be created. There are some myths in the above that need clarification. Clara continued publishing until around 1850, long after her marriage. Robert discouraged her playing because it disturbed his own creativity. She gave up composing because she had a home and family to support and the only way she could do this was through her concert career, which was very time consuming when one considers travelling conditions in those times. However, her small oevre deserves a place in your collections and her Piano Concerto is no worse than Chopin's, in spite of being written in her teens.

[EmpNapoleon]

and her Piano Concerto is no worse than Chopin's, in spite of being written in her teens.

What's wrong with Chopin's piano concertos???

[Bonehelm]

What's wrong with Chopin's piano concertos???

Lousy orchestration, too piano-oriented.

[karlhenning]

Lousy orchestration, too piano-oriented.

Yes, just like that mediocrity, Mozart.

[Ten thumbs]

Joan Tower?

Very interesting but as a pianist, maybe Rakhmaninov instead. We seem to be a bit off topic except that someone made the ludicrous suggestion that music was a male thing. It is interesting though that original, individual and ground-breaking music can become disregarded when its context is ignored.

What's wrong with Chopin's piano concertos???

Nothing much wrong with Clara's either - gorgeous slow movement.

[Renfield]

Yes, just like that mediocrity, Mozart.

Hah! Why thank you, Mr Henning. Much better than any response my slightly(?) sleep-deprived mind of the current moment could come up with, when I saw this comment earlier.

(And I do realise I am essentially dipping into this thread for a comment every few pages, but I have resolved not to take part in this argument unless I feel it necessary. And not due to considering myself above it; quite the contrary. )

[Don]

Lousy orchestration, too piano-oriented.

Chopin's a "piano man" so I expect a concerto from him to be dominated by his favorite instrument.  FWIW, I find his orchestration good enough and even appealing in many spots.

[longears]

I just heard Chopin #2 last night and it bored me to tears.  Orchestral muzak by the numbers for expected filler.  I don't blame Chopin for the mushy piano--pedal to the metal all the way--Ingrid Fliter did not favorably impress.

On the other hand, Luca Francesconi's Cobalt, Scarlet: Two Colors of Dawn was terrific: polyrhythmic color that wouldn't quit.  Did I understand it?  Does a penguin understand the sunset?

[Florestan]

Yes, just like that mediocrity, Mozart.

Bravissimo, maestro Karl!

[Ten thumbs]

I just heard Chopin #2 last night and it bored me to tears.  Orchestral muzak by the numbers for expected filler.  I don't blame Chopin for the mushy piano--pedal to the metal all the way--Ingrid Fliter did not favorably impress.

It looks as though you did understand this because Chopin needs light pedalling on the modern piano.

[zamyrabyrd]

When Romantic composers and theorists talk about "masculine" and "feminine" elements in great symphonies; when Fanny Mendelssohn could write a trio that's as great as anything her brother Felix ever wrote; when Nadia Boulanger taught many 20th-century composers their craft; when Evelyn Glennie, deaf from birth, can play percussion parts that blow the audience into the back wall--I think we can safely opine that you don't need an overbalance of testosterone to understand music.  But let's propose an experiment.  Let's take a great woman musician and put her in a head-to-head competition with men.  Will she win?

Fortunately for us, the experiment has been done again and again, every time a woman is accepted into a major orchestra or wins a competition.

Good point about competitions. I tried jogging my memory about who was winning the Artur Rubinstein piano competitions over the past 30 years. While women were well represented, it was the guys who got the highest prizes as a rule. And they went on to make international careers. This is borne out according to one list online but it is not always clear from the names if they are masculine or feminine.

But not only in music composition but in art and architecture, men are prominent for whatever reason. There has never been an woman artist on the level of a Michelanagelo or composer on the level as Bach. While the need to care for children might have prevented women back then (although many, if not most, rich ladies had servants and nursemaids), I strongly suspect that the quality of the masculine creative impulse has something to do with it.

Now that the dust is settling on some of the sillier claims of feminism, i.e., men and women being allegedly the same in every way, I'll continue to be politically incorrect. (Some women do have courage to speak out and be different.)

ZB

[Ten thumbs]

But not only in music composition but in art and architecture, men are prominent for whatever reason. There has never been an woman artist on the level of a Michelanagelo or composer on the level as Bach. While the need to care for children might have prevented women back then (although many, if not most, rich ladies had servants and nursemaids), I strongly suspect that the quality of the masculine creative impulse has something to do with it.
ZB

There is also the question of who is the arbitor of fashion. As I noted elsewhere, Berthe Morissot was just as central and important to the Impressionist movement as, say, Renoir, but men have decreed that she is not today a household name.
Fanny Mendelssohn was a very feminine person and her creative impulse never ceased. She was undoubtedly very well off but her husband, as an artist, had no interest in domestic affairs. It was she who ran the household, managed the estate and saw to the education of her son. On top of that, she organised her in-house concerts, obtaining the necessary scores, artists etc., practised the piano for hours, rehearsed her choir for those concerts, conducted when required and undertook the endless correspondence that kept her informed of musical developments across Europe. All this in spite of suffering from the chronic hyper-tension that ultimately killed her - including several miscarriages, severe nosebleeds and attacks of dizziness. So leaving around 450 pieces of music to posterity is something of a miracle.

[jochanaan]

...While the need to care for children might have prevented women back then (although many, if not most, rich ladies had servants and nursemaids), I strongly suspect that the quality of the masculine creative impulse has something to do with it...

That's very possible.  And of course I wouldn't want to claim that women are "equal" or even equivalent to men in every way.  Vive la différence! But of course, the quality of one's impulses does not equal the quality of understanding--the real topic of this thread.

[Shrunk]

But not only in music composition but in art and architecture, men are prominent for whatever reason. There has never been an woman artist on the level of a Michelanagelo or composer on the level as Bach. While the need to care for children might have prevented women back then (although many, if not most, rich ladies had servants and nursemaids), I strongly suspect that the quality of the masculine creative impulse has something to do with it.

In an interesting twist on this idea, the psychoanalyst Karen Horney suggested that the creative impulse in men was the result of their attempts to compensate for their lesser role in the creation of life.  FWIW.

[zamyrabyrd]

In an interesting twist on this idea, the psychoanalyst Karen Horney suggested that the creative impulse in men was the result of their attempts to compensate for their lesser role in the creation of life.  FWIW.

She wasn't the first to suggest it. This is exactly what I had in mind. Also arbiters of fashion have something to with it as well. Impressionism is a softer approach to art, n'est-ce pas?

ZB

[longears]

In an interesting twist on this idea, the psychoanalyst Karen Horney suggested that the creative impulse in men was the result of their attempts to compensate for their lesser role in the creation of life. 

Certainly a different role, but lesser?  Must have been wacky tabaccy in that old cigar of Freud's she was smoking.