# I am Not a Modernist



## Mahlerian

I have loved much of the time I have spent at Talk Classical these last several years. It has been a pleasure to share with and learn from the many posters here, and I have found that my experience of this wonderful tradition has been much enriched by the opportunities this forum affords.

In the best times, my tastes and ideas have been challenged and expanded as others encouraged me to discover and learn, to treat the understanding of classical music as a process, not a finish line to be passed. Even if I felt internal resistance to these challenges, it was broken down by the patient advocacy and boundless appreciation for art and for music shown daily by many here.

But my equally heartfelt convictions have in some cases been met with derision, ridicule, and dismissal of the worst kind. The frustration I have felt at seeing my arguments dismissed with the most blatant fallacies, all to the sound of cheers and encouragement, has been at times unbearable.

Since I began posting here, I have been compared to: Stalin, murderer George Zimmerman, a communist, a fascist, a racist, an academic, and Donald Trump. (Take your pick of any two completely contradictory figures from this list.)

I am in favor of civil debate. But civil debate cannot take place without a common acknowledgement of the rules of logic, the goal of understanding, and the respect for truth. I have seen all of these trampled in a firestorm of nonsense, often masquerading as common sense. Civil debate should not lead to insults, and it cannot trade in ridicule.

And all of this brings me to another thing I have been called which I am not: a modernist.

To be sure, there is much modern music that I like, and some that I love. I have composed music myself in a contemporary style. When I find that the music I care about dearly is the subject of misrepresentations, misconceptions, or outright falsehoods, whether intentional or otherwise, I have seen fit to correct them. This has merited me a reputation as a defender of modernism qua modernism, and while it is true that as I conceive the modern style, I think it was a great part of this magnificent tradition, I do not believe in defending modernism qua modernism any more than one would defend Baroque qua Baroque or Romantic qua Romantic, as if the music were superfluous and the style paramount.

I am not a defender of modernism, much less a modernist myself, as I see no merit in doing this. Modernism as an aesthetic and a style of music is no more intrinsically valuable than any other aesthetic or style. We do not listen to a Classical piano concerto, we listen to specific Piano Concertos by Mozart. We do not listen to a Romantic symphony, we listen to the Symphony No. 3 by Brahms. Both of these are appreciated not for their style or their time period, but rather for the qualities of the music itself. Likewise, if I will vouch for the merits of a piece of Modernist music, say the Lyric Suite by Berg, it will be only related to the merits of that specific work and not to those of, for an example, the Pieces for Orchestra of Theodor Adorno.

Some may insist, all the same, that because I, unlike many others, not only listen to modernist music such as that by Berg and Stravinsky and Ligeti, but do so with pleasure, then I am for that reason alone a modernist. In a weak, limited sense this may be true, but it is only in the sense that someone who enjoys Baroque music is a Baroquist and Classical music a Classicist, terms which are never used specifically because those periods have been assimilated into the general tradition with more fluency. Some even contend that, because this music has been more difficult (though far from impossible) to assimilate for that tradition, those who enjoy it consider themselves in some way superior by means of their distinctive tastes. But it does not follow that a minority taste arises from a minority outlook, much less an elitist one.

What do I love in music? Beauty of tone, depth of emotion, melody and harmony, rich polyphonic and contrapuntal fabric, and so forth. If I appreciate a work, it is because I have found something there to admire and to enjoy. These are not different from the criteria of those who profess to abhor much that I love. They are neither inherently elitist nor populist, and they may be equally employed to any end.

In fact, not only are the roots of my taste similar to everyone else's, but so are my formative experiences: Baroque records, the symphonies of Beethoven, and the ballet music of Tchaikovsky played a role in my early exposure to classical music, as they did for many others. I did not knowingly encounter any modernism outside of early Stravinsky until High School. When I finally did, my response was resistance. This resistance I encountered again and again for each new discovery, but a good faith in the efforts of composers led me to acceptance, not rejection.

But none of this makes me a modernist. I am in fact simply a music lover. As I said above, I love this tradition and consider it one of the achievements of human (no longer by any means simply Western!) culture. It is _because_ I am a music lover that I find myself drawn to music, regardless of whether or not it is popular, simply for its own sake. The aesthetic and ideology of a time are immaterial to that appreciation, and they no more depend on it than the appreciation of a symphony by Brahms depends on the rejection of a symphony by Bruckner, for all that the opposition was felt to be real by critics and artists of the time.

We stand now at a remove of a century since the works of the early 20th century. The centenaries of both The Rite of Spring and Schoenberg's String Quartet No. 2 in F-sharp minor are past. The riots those works incited are remembered as a matter of history. No audience today would be able to feel the anger that was felt then. They have both passed into tradition and into established musical heritage.

If I appreciate both of them, therefore, I do so for their startling violence, their freshness of construction, and more than anything else for their ravishing beauty, which transcends labels and slogans. I do not appreciate them because I am a modernist, but because of my love for music.


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## SimonNZ

I was worried you were about to tell us you were leaving.

Glad I didn't read that because this site would really feel the loss of your intelligence and patience.

Sorry you feel you have to say all of the above to people who really should know better (and who will probably still now only see what they want to see in the above post as well)


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## Vaneyes

I skipped to the end to see if you were leaving. BTW they said you were a Moderator, not a Modernist, that's all. Glad you're staying on board aka in the line of fire.  :tiphat:


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## Guest

Is is a sad thing that You are so much offended on this forum.It is al a matter of good behaviour and intentions.I like to thank you for your Time and energy You put in this forum.We all are Music lovers that must be the central point.Play the ball and not the man.


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## Richard8655

What an incredibly nicely written and thoughtful expression of how many of us feel about classical music and our evolution of appreciation. I also agree about the need for greater civility and mutual respect here.


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## regenmusic

Maybe sometimes we just teach each other, even when at first, like teenagers, they deride us. But, without that first exposure we give, however ungratefully received, they would not eventually come round to the enlightenment that begins with our spark.


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## Guest

Vaneyes said:


> I skipped to the end to see if you were leaving. BTW they said you were a Moderator, not a Modernist, that's all. Glad you're staying on board aka in the line of fire.  :tiphat:


MODERator... MODERnist... THE PLOT THICKENS. MODER is clearly an cryptic acronym for whatever the Atonalist Cabal are planning. If we get our top guys on the case, we may be able to find coordinates of their next target.


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## mstar

nathanb said:


> MODERator... MODERnist... THE PLOT THICKENS. MODER is clearly an cryptic acronym for whatever the Atonalist Cabal are planning. If we get our top guys on the case, we may be able to find coordinates of their next target.


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## KenOC

nathanb said:


> ...MODER is clearly an cryptic acronym for whatever the Atonalist Cabal are planning.


"Moder" is an obvious anagram of "Mr. Doe" as in "John Doe," a dead giveaway that "Mahlerian" is a pseudonym intended to hide his true identity. Right-thinking people must ask: Why? What does he have to hide?


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## arpeggio

I have the exact same feelings as Mahlerian.

My co-bassoonist with the McLean Symphony along with me many would considered modernist. I frequently discuss some of the issues that we debate. In spite of our affinity for atonal/aleatoric/whatever music we spend at the most only 10% of our time listening to it. I went through the database for my CD collection and found that only about 7% of the works are modernistic. 

Mahlerian addressed the various negative waves we have to deal with. In my case I was accused of being judgmental by member I have a great deal of respect for because I challenged the approach one of the members had toward contemporary music. What is unfortunate is that the negative waves are generated by a very vocal minority. The vast majority of our members are very broad-minded in their approach to classical music and respectful of the musical tastes of other. 

One my oldest friends who has left is SomeGuy. We still keep in touch. We both have a serious disagreement concerning Bax. I love Bax and he hates him. I have recording of about 90 works of Bax in my library. In spite of this we have always been very respectful of our differences of opinions. Even though he had a reputation as a modernist, Tchaikovsky was one of his favorite composer.

My concern is not over the substance of the anti-modernist position but the potential impact of their opinions.

In another forum the anti-modernist had generated a thread where they proposed that all discussions about atonal music should be banned from the forum. It failed but they did succeed in driving out the supposed modernists and it almost killed the forum. There were not any threads about modern music for eighteen months and the level activity there is nothing compared to Talk Classical.

I have mentioned the real life effects that conservative members have had on programing with the various groups I have been involved with.

The discourse of the anti-modernist here is identical to that of the forces I have to deal with who are against the programing of contemporary music. I should not feel this way but I am weary of the their discourse.

The bottom line is that my feelings are identical to Mahlerrian's


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## Pugg

Traverso said:


> Is is a sad thing that You are so much offended on this forum.It is al a matter of good behaviour and intentions.I like to thank you for your Time and energy You put in this forum.We all are Music lovers that must be the central point.Play the ball and not the man.


​


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## Casebearer

Forget the labels, listen to the music.


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## Guest

Casebearer said:


> Forget the labels, listen to the music.


You make an awful lot of sense. In the movies, people that make this much sense tend to be kidnapped and beaten by those who benefit from the senselessness.


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## Lukecash12

Mahlerian said:


> I have loved much of the time I have spent at Talk Classical these last several years. It has been a pleasure to share with and learn from the many posters here, and I have found that my experience of this wonderful tradition has been much enriched by the opportunities this forum affords.


First things first, I have to say that I've learned a lot from your content here.



> In the best times, my tastes and ideas have been challenged and expanded as others encouraged me to discover and learn, to treat the understanding of classical music as a process, not a finish line to be passed. Even if I felt internal resistance to these challenges, it was broken down by the patient advocacy and boundless appreciation for art and for music shown daily by many here.
> 
> But my equally heartfelt convictions have in some cases been met with derision, ridicule, and dismissal of the worst kind. The frustration I have felt at seeing my arguments dismissed with the most blatant fallacies, all to the sound of cheers and encouragement, has been at times unbearable.


I've learned a lot from them, too. That's the peculiar thing. I've seen some pretty silly appellations slung your way, even though both parties have all kinds of interesting things they can contribute.

From my vantage point it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Maybe I'm not as invested in those discussions because I really am not as educated in music theory as you guys, and I just don't have the time to follow threads the way other members do.



> I am in favor of civil debate. But civil debate cannot take place without a common acknowledgement of the rules of logic, the goal of understanding, and the respect for truth. I have seen all of these trampled in a firestorm of nonsense, often masquerading as common sense. Civil debate should not lead to insults, and it cannot trade in ridicule.


The problem is that that's a tall order. One area where I do have a ton of education is philosophy, and given the kind of broad academic exposure that naturally comes with that field, I've noticed that the rules of logic just aren't very straightforward for everyone.

As useful as logic is, you'll find every definition you could think of from people, and most of those definitions don't reflect what logic actually happens to be. It's kind of become a vague term for "smart thinking", but I'm assuming you're aware that logic has only to do with formal validity.



> And all of this brings me to another thing I have been called which I am not: a modernist.


Meh, this is more of a cliquey thing. The way I've mostly thought of you is that you're the one guy who I really like to hear from when it comes to early music. You always seem to know where the cool sources are, and I've still got a handful of sites bookmarked, it's all stuff that you mentioned at some point and I enjoyed reading what they had to say.

I'm sure I'm not the only one here who perceives you as the guy with tidbits about everything. The way you've pursued this interest reminds me a lot of myself. I love, love, love philosophy, so that means I just have to know all that I can about philosophy of science, ontology, metaphysics, ethics, the history of philosophy, like *everything* to do with epistemology, etc.



KenOC said:


> "Moder" is an obvious anagram of "Mr. Doe" as in "John Doe," a dead giveaway that "Mahlerian" is a pseudonym intended to hide his true identity. Right-thinking people must ask: Why? What does he have to hide?


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## arpeggio

Lukecash12 said:


> I've learned a lot from them, too.


This is a very unfair observation.

The critics are extremely intelligent and I have learned a lot from them as well. There are many areas of music that the critics know a great deal more than I do. If I want to know of a good recording of the Bach _Goldberg Variations_ I would go to KenOC. His knowledge of Bach is far superior to mine.

Problems arise when they make observations were they proclaim a style of music is worthless and they have little or no knowledge of that particular genre. Like the members who discount the entire oeuvre of Cage because they are only familiar with one work: _433_. This is one of the reasons that they are difficult to interact with.


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## GioCar

Thank you for your sincere post, Mahlerian, but I really don't understand why you felt the need of putting it down on paper.
I mean, you are one of the most appreciated members of this forum and I do believe you know that. There always will be envious and mediocre people who try to distinguish themselves by insulting or ridiculizing people like you, both in an internet forum and in real life.
Who cares.

Anyway I really appreciate your post, and should you decide to leave I'm gonna miss you a lot.


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## Guest

I have grown to respect you for all the reasons you have outlined. There have been times that you have corrected my misconceptions or preconceptions, and, while my tastes may not have been changed, my reasons for those tastes were more clearly defined in my mind because of you. Thank you Mahlerian for sharing your outstanding intellect and knowledge with us.


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## Ingélou

When I joined the forum, you seemed the obvious person to introduce me to Mahler - and I always felt 'Mahlerian knows everything'. Early music & oriental music are two more things you have helped me with. Calling you a Modernist ignores your wide-ranging tastes.

Thanks, Mahlerian! :tiphat:

*PS I am a moderatist. *


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## Nereffid

Oh, Christ, we're not all going to start hugging or something, are we?


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## Guest

Nereffid said:


> Oh, Christ, we're not all going to start hugging or something, are we?


It won't get that unseemly.


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## EdwardBast

Is this really the right forum for personal testimonials that don't address music and repertoire? Usually this sort of thing is posted in the members' area, especially if one is going to characterize ones perennial opponents as logically challenged, purveyors of blatant fallacies, scribblers of inflammatory nonsense and tramplers of the truth. Otherwise it risks being taken as a provocation and a power move. I think it belongs in Area 51, doesn't it?


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## Guest

No hugging here ,Mahlerian is not a Modernist,very sad to see that it took him so long to admit that.:devil: 

Let's focus on the music .:tiphat:


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## Guest

EdwardBast said:


> Is this really the right forum for personal testimonials that don't address music and repertoire? Usually this sort of thing is posted in the members' area, especially if one is going to characterize ones perennial opponents as logically challenged, purveyors of blatant fallacies, scribblers of inflammatory nonsense and tramplers of the truth. Otherwise it risks being taken as a provocation and a power move. I think it belongs in Area 51, doesn't it?


Dammit, I think you may be right. At least the hug's definitely off.


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## Richard8655

I think it's great we can express our opinions of music performance and how it emotionally affects us. If we're not allowed to simultaneously share the personal side, than we become robotic in these discussions. And to suggest separating the two into different sub-forums is unnecessarily rule-based and misses the point.


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## schigolch

I am a modernist.


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## Guest

EdwardBast said:


> Is this really the right forum for personal testimonials that don't address music and repertoire? Usually this sort of thing is posted in the members' area, especially if one is going to characterize ones perennial opponents as logically challenged, purveyors of blatant fallacies, scribblers of inflammatory nonsense and tramplers of the truth. Otherwise it risks being taken as a provocation and a power move. I think it belongs in Area 51, doesn't it?


Most of the problem threads seeking to perpetuate blatant fallacies and so on are in this subforum though, so, as a response to those threads, I think this kind of thing may be appropriate here for a change. May even make a fine sticky.


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## starthrower

I am... ahh forget it! I dig Mahlerian. He knows what he's talking about. I have to admit, this forum can be a bit much at times. But I'm not a discussion junkie. I just want to find out about good music and listen to it. Over...


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## Morimur

I am not an animal!

Thank you.


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## starthrower

Morimur said:


> I am not an animal!
> 
> Thank you.


You're not Pete Townshend?


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## Cosmos

Great post. I don't understand what the point of stylistic labels are when talking about music we "like". Maybe just my ignorance, but whenever I see art movements given as labels, it's to the professors at my school and describe what literature they specialize in [i.e. the "Head Modernist" (1890-1930s lit basically) or a "Romantic" or "Shakespearian"]. So "Modernist" would imply the person is highly knowledgable about music of the Modern era, which would be alright if, as others said, it didn't ignore all of the other music from other eras that the person enjoys. Imagine if we had to sit here and put labels based on our music tastes? "I'm a Baroquest, Classicist, Romantic, Modernist, Serialist..." or worse, all the composers we like 

When it comes to listening tastes, labels are pointless and narrow. Best do without them


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## Guest

Morimur said:


> I am not an animal!
> 
> Thank you.


Oh yes you are!!!!!!


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## Ukko

Richard8655 said:


> What an incredibly nicely written and thoughtful expression of how many of us feel about classical music and our evolution of appreciation. I also agree about the need for greater civility and mutual respect here.


 About this 'agreement' stuff: I agree with your first sentence, but not the second. Civil discourse should happen more often here, but civil is civil. "Greater" civility must refer to the addition of other qualities, such as 'oiliness' or obsequiousness eh? _And_, mutual respect is a phenomenon that cannot be dictated.

[However this post may seem, it is not meant as an attack on you, _Richard8655_. You gave me an opening for another of my oldfashioned opinions, is all.]


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## Headphone Hermit

Mahlerian said:


> I have loved much of the time I have spent at Talk Classical these last several years.


I felt very sad when I read this opening as I thought it might be the prelude to a 'good-bye' .... I very much hope that this is not the case, Mahlerian, although I think I sense a deep feeling of frustration.

Please stay, please continue to be active - you enrich the experience of TC for many of us


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## Varick

Well Mahlerian, don't let it get to you. I know easier said than done. To me you are indispensable to this forum. I have learned boat loads from you and plan on learning more. You are one of the most knowledgeable members here on this forum. Although ultimately, you and I would disagree a lot on modern music (much from the mid 20th century on), you always state your case with a logic and eloquence that always gives me much to intellectually chew on. You have always been a gentlemen and have never stooped low to ad hominum attacks.

The only thing I don't like about you is that you always trounce me in our debates.

Other than that, I luv ya you... you.... you modernist you....

V


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## arpeggio

There have been many false perceptions generated by the critics of modernism concerning modernism.

We frequently get into meaningless argument of what it actually is.

Many critics of modernism assume that we have disdain for the music of Bach.

I have read is several places one of Stockhausen's favorite composers was Mozart. He has a son who is a clarinetist. Mozart did not write out a cadenza for his _Clarinet Concerto_. Stockhausen prepared a cadenza for him. I have heard and it is compatible with the Concerto. There is a recording of it at his website. See: http://karlheinzstockhausen.org/

Elliott Carter was a big aficionado of Schumann. I read in an interview that he felt that his symphonies were underperformed.

'some guy' first love was the music of Tchaikovsky. When he left Talk Classical we lost one of the strongest proponents of the music of Tchaikovsky.

In another post I stated that I spend less that 10% of my time listening to modernistic music and it only is about 7% of my music library. Modernistic music is only a small part of who and what we are as musicians and listeners. I normally do not participate in the current listening thread. I never understood what another person would learn about classical music if I posted what I was listening too. I think I see that it may serve a purpose.

In spite of their extensive knowledge and intelligence the anti-modernists have no idea of what it is like to be an allege modernist. This is what Mahlerian has been trying to do for years.


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## Stavrogin

Mahlerian, you realize that your opening sentence broke the heart of many posters here, do you? 

However, while I agree with you on the main point of your post, I didn't like your rant on the ridiculousness/inconsequentiality of your "opponents" opinions, which seems to imply deceit and bad faith on their part.
I don't think that's the case for anyone here (well, I may be wrong of course).
I think that when someone believes in their opinions, their strong convictions sometimes do not allow them to see fallacies or to perceive them as such. Or it may happen, on the other hand, that people see fallacies in the reasoning of others when they are just misinterpreting their thoughts, reading them from their own perspective.
Debating is a rough game


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## chesapeake bay

Mahlerian said:


> What do I love in music? Beauty of tone, depth of emotion, melody and harmony, rich polyphonic and contrapuntal fabric, and so forth. If I appreciate a work, it is because I have found something there to admire and to enjoy. These are not different from the criteria of those who profess to abhor much that I love. They are neither inherently elitist nor populist, and they may be equally employed to any end.


Excellent post Mahlerian, and well crafted as all your posts are. I highlighted that quote because to me it is the key to music appreciation of any sort. And inevitably you will find that at the core of any great piece of music be it Baroque, classical or modern. That's one of the great things on this forum is poeple post information on the pieces they love and for the most part you can check them out instantly via youtube or other streaming services and find out if you love them too. I would council to ignore a vocal minority (is that a childrens choir? lol) and keep on posting knowing that the people who may not say as much are taking your opinions to heart and hopefully expanding their scope of musical enjoyment


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## Marschallin Blair

Far be it from me to criticize a thread celebrating oneself- in fact, I positively 'embrace it' with alacrity- but demonizing one's opponents in the most dulcet of tones- is that really 'generous'?

I've seen some absolutely coruscating musicological brilliance on the other side of the analytical fence; and from posters who can hold their own with anyone, anytime.


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## chesapeake bay

Stavrogin said:


> I think that when someone believes in their opinions, their strong convictions sometimes do not allow them to see fallacies or to perceive them as such. Or it may happen, on the other hand, that people see fallacies in the reasoning of others when they are just misinterpreting their thoughts, reading them from their own perspective.
> Debating is a rough game


Just a quick defense of Mahlerian's use of the word "fallacy". He always uses it in a formal logical sense, meaning that he isn't arguing against opinions or personal feelings, he is arguing against the improper structure of the arguments. you can check them out here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies


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## Stavrogin

chesapeake bay said:


> Just a quick defense of Mahlerian's use of the word "fallacy". He always uses it in a formal logical sense, meaning that he isn't arguing against opinions or personal feelings, he is arguing against the improper structure of the arguments. you can check them out here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies


Indeed I was aware of that.


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## arpeggio

Stavrogin said:


> Mahlerian, you realize that your opening sentence broke the heart of many posters here, do you?
> 
> However, while I agree with you on the main point of your post, I didn't like your rant on the ridiculousness/inconsequentiality of your "opponents" opinions, which seems to imply deceit and bad faith on their part.
> I don't think that's the case for anyone here (well, I may be wrong of course).
> I think that when someone believes in their opinions, their strong convictions sometimes do not allow them to see fallacies or to perceive them as such. Or it may happen, on the other hand, that people see fallacies in the reasoning of others when they are just misinterpreting their thoughts, reading them from their own perspective.
> Debating is a rough game


Mahlerian was expressing a frustrations that many of us have had for years. It appears that he has the stature here to actually say it. If I had written anything like this I would have been accused of all sorts of things and thrown in front of a firing squad.


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## Ukko

EdwardBast said:


> Is this really the right forum for personal testimonials that don't address music and repertoire? Usually this sort of thing is posted in the members' area,* especially if one is going to characterize ones perennial opponents as logically challenged, purveyors of blatant fallacies, scribblers of inflammatory nonsense and tramplers of the truth.* Otherwise it risks being taken as a provocation and a power move. I think it belongs in Area 51, doesn't it?


Hah! Thanks,_ EB_, for providing an example, when combined with Mahlerian's post, of _The Potential For Heat In Civil Discourse_.

Each member who has been here awhile has acquired a history. For us, posts by other such members have colored backgrounds, or even text.


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## Stavrogin

arpeggio said:


> Mahlerian was expressing a frustrations that many of us have had for years. It appears that he has the stature here to actually say it. If I had written anything like this I would have been accused of all sorts of things and thrown in front of a firing squad.


Yes, I see that. I understand the frustration too.
I just wanted to say that I do not believe in bad faith from TC posters - an accusation that I have perceived in Mahlerian's post. 
I just think that (most of the times) people have strong convictions and in order to prove their points they happen to use rethorical tools that have the unwanted effect to frustrate others.
I may be naif though.


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## clavichorder

Good points made about improving discourse and staying away from insults. 

Music is indeed an ongoing journey(like life). I want to see more posts and threads about people getting to know new(for them) composers and pieces, or about their rich musical experiences. Those are what cause me to reconsider my opinions, and realize that I maybe shouldn't even be forming them.


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## Nereffid

arpeggio said:


> There have been many false perceptions generated by the critics of modernism concerning modernism.
> 
> We frequently get into meaningless argument of what it actually is.
> 
> Many critics of modernism assume that we have disdain for the music of Bach.
> 
> I have read is several places one of Stockhausen's favorite composers was Mozart. He has a son who is a clarinetist. Mozart did not write out a cadenza for his _Clarinet Concerto_. Stockhausen prepared a cadenza for him. I have heard and it is compatible with the Concerto. There is a recording of it at his website. See: http://karlheinzstockhausen.org/
> 
> Elliott Carter was a big aficionado of Schumann. I read in an interview that he felt that his symphonies were underperformed.
> 
> 'some guy' first love was the music of Tchaikovsky. When he left Talk Classical we lost one of the strongest proponents of the music of Tchaikovsky.
> 
> In another post I stated that I spend less that 10% of my time listening to modernistic music and it only is about 7% of my music library. Modernistic music is only a small part of who and what we are as musicians and listeners. I normally do not participate in the current listening thread. I never understood what another person would learn about classical music if I posted what I was listening too. I think I see that it may serve a purpose.
> 
> In spite of their extensive knowledge and intelligence the anti-modernists have no idea of what it is like to be an allege modernist. This is what Mahlerian has been trying to do for years.


TBH I'm not sure the idea that modernists don't actually like Bach, Mozart or 19th-century composers is seen much on TC (maybe not outside TC, either). But perhaps there's a perception that modernists don't like _contemporaneous_ composers who aren't so "modern". I suppose if one were a strict modernist one would be rather obliged to dislike "unmodern" music, but there's few (none?) of that sort of listener here.


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## clavichorder

Ukko said:


> Hah! Thanks,_ EB_, for providing an example, when combined with Mahlerian's post, of _The Potential For Heat In Civil Discourse_.
> 
> Each member who has been here awhile has acquired a history. For us, posts by other such members have colored backgrounds, or even text.


Mahlerian's posts have taken on that hue for me, and I think the feeling is currently mutual. Aramis used be the brightest red poster in any given thread. These guys are not remotely alike, but what they have in common is popularity and a difference of musical opinion.

It's a good point to remember. Maybe we should have a general guideline for waiting a little to respond to people we are seeing that way, or any post that inflames. Sometimes when you wait, the necessity to respond goes away, and you are left with either a non hostile and more substantial contribution to make or nothing to say at all.


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## arpeggio

Nereffid said:


> TBH I'm not sure the idea that modernists don't actually like Bach, Mozart or 19th-century composers is seen much on TC (maybe not outside TC, either). But perhaps there's a perception that modernists don't like _contemporaneous_ composers who aren't so "modern". I suppose if one were a strict modernist one would be rather obliged to dislike "unmodern" music, but there's few (none?) of that sort of listener here.


Correct. I tried to start a thread about the outstanding living tonal composers.

The point is that we are frequently being accused of things we are not. And the few who do it are acting in bad faith.


----------



## Guest

Nereffid said:


> TBH I'm not sure the idea that modernists don't actually like Bach, Mozart or 19th-century composers is seen much on TC (maybe not outside TC, either). But perhaps there's a perception that modernists don't like _contemporaneous_ composers who aren't so "modern". I suppose if one were a strict modernist one would be rather obliged to dislike "unmodern" music, but there's few (none?) of that sort of listener here.


I don't know anyone who dislikes a contemporary composer on the basis of not being contemporary enough.


----------



## clavichorder

nathanb said:


> I don't know anyone who dislikes a contemporary composer on the basis of not being contemporary enough.


Major composers usually not, but students and amateurs who have talent do get ridiculed heavily for writing 'dated' music. Anyways, not a discussion to have here. You can reply but I won't because we'll derail the thread.


----------



## amfortas

*I am Not a Modernist*

Not that there's anything wrong with that.


----------



## Guest

clavichorder said:


> Major composers usually not, but students and amateurs who have talent do get ridiculed heavily for writing 'dated' music. Anyways, not a discussion to have here. You can reply but I won't because we'll derail the thread.


I think what you're referring to is students and amateurs that have yet to find any sort of original voice. Contemporary composition does not exclude tonality, but it should probably not encourage shameless pastiche.


----------



## clavichorder

edit.... nevermind, not relevant.


----------



## fluteman

The original post here reads much like an "I am not a Communist" defense to charges brought by the old House Un-American Activities Committee or Senator Joseph McCarthy. Why would anyone think such a defense necessary? And why the odd statement, "Modernism as an aesthetic and a style of music is no more intrinsically valuable than any other aesthetic or style"? The modernists have had a profound effect on Western culture, not only through music, but also art, literature, theater, architecture and design. Perhaps Mahlerian wants the word "valuable" replaced with "influential".
Or perhaps Mahlerian is pulling our leg here with some elaborate sarcasm?


----------



## arpeggio

nathanb said:


> I think what you're referring to is students and amateurs that have yet to find any sort of original voice. Contemporary composition does not exclude tonality, but it should probably not encourage shameless pastiche.


I agree. Good composers steal from many sources not just one. It is usually that unique combination of ingredients that he absorbs that will create his voice.


----------



## Triplets

I like and am impressed by Mahlerian, and I don't mean to be singling him out for any criticism. However, I have to ask: Why is there so much angst in this Forum? People are cconstantly leaving, or threatening to, after very public justifications; we currently have a thread that atttempts to micromanage how discussions should occur; spats and name calling all over the place; the mods constantly intervening to slap someone on the wrist; and on it goes. People agonizing because they think they have been misunderstood is the latest trend.
It's only Music, folks. I turn to this forum to escape every day reality, with all it's problems. It isn't enjoyable to tune in to all this strife and bickering. If I really want a heavy dose of complaining, I can always call my ex wife


----------



## amfortas

Triplets said:


> If I really want a heavy dose of complaining, I can always call my ex wife


Can I get her number?


----------



## Triplets

amfortas said:


> Can I get her number?


Sure. Would you care to make her alimony payment while you're at it?


----------



## EdwardBast

Ukko said:


> Hah! Thanks,_ EB_, for providing an example, when combined with Mahlerian's post, of _The Potential For Heat In Civil Discourse_.
> 
> Each member who has been here awhile has acquired a history. For us, posts by other such members have colored backgrounds, or even text.


I didn't really provide anything heated: The content you bolded in my post was taken from Mahlerian's. I should have used quotation marks I guess.


----------



## clavichorder

EdwardBast said:


> I didn't really provide anything heated: The content you bolded in my post was taken from Mahlerian's. I should have used quotation marks I guess.


Yes, but he has made a good general point whether it is applicable to your post or not.


----------



## EdwardBast

clavichorder said:


> Yes, but he has made a good general point whether it is applicable to your post or not.


If I had wanted to make a pointed response, I would have noted that a post extolling civil discourse and lamenting the resort to insults might have sounded more convincing if it hadn't painted unidentified others as logically challenged, purveyors of blatant fallacies, scribblers of inflammatory nonsense and tramplers of the truth. But I was really just raising a point of order.


----------



## Sloe

Triplets said:


> People agonizing because they think they have been misunderstood is the latest trend.


For some reason it seems to be easier to interpret what one says in the most negative way than interpret it in a positive way and simple statements are turned to attacks that have to be answered with counter-attacks.


----------



## DaveM

I have a lot of respect for Mahlerian and his obvious classical music related knowledge and intelligence, but I am ambivalent about some of the perspective(s) in the OP. At the outset, I still don't understand why one would care whether they are called a 'modernist' or not, even if they don't agree such a thing exists. It's just a label and not a pejorative one at that.



Mahlerian said:


> I am in favor of civil debate. But civil debate cannot take place without a common acknowledgement of the rules of logic, the goal of understanding, and the respect for truth. I have seen all of these trampled in a firestorm of nonsense, often masquerading as common sense.


Logic is an important goal in debates. Likewise, a goal of understanding and respect for truth are amiable objectives. But what one person sees as these goals _'trampled in a firestorm of nonsense, often masquerading as common sense'_ may actually be the logic, understanding and truth of the other person. Perhaps, there is some impatience with the overall viewpoint (and how it is expressed) of others here.

I believe that this:


> I am not a defender of modernism, much less a modernist myself, as I see no merit in doing this.


conflicts with this (in spite of all the 'quas' that are included):


> To be sure, there is much modern music that I like, and some that I love. I have composed music myself in a contemporary style. When I find that the music I care about dearly is the subject of misrepresentations, misconceptions, or outright falsehoods, whether intentional or otherwise, I have seen fit to correct them.


I know I felt the wrath when I mentioned some of my feelings about the music of Schoenberg and the like. But, that notwithstanding, why would someone care whether they were looked on as defending a genre of music they love?



> Modernism as an aesthetic and a style of music is no more intrinsically valuable than any other aesthetic or style. We do not listen to a Classical piano concerto, we listen to specific Piano Concertos by Mozart. We do not listen to a Romantic symphony, we listen to the Symphony No. 3 by Brahms. Both of these are appreciated not for their style or their time period, but rather for the qualities of the music itself.


I think that a lot of us, if not a majority of us, do listen to a 'Classical piano concerto' and a 'Romantic symphony'. When I listen to a Mozart Piano Concerto, I am very much aware of and appreciative of the Classical era style. Likewise when I listen to a Brahms symphony, I am moved by the depth of the various emotions that are in works of the Romantic era. I am also very much aware of the era in which modern/contemporary works are/were composed. The style of the time period _is_ important to me.

Finally, I disagree with the premise (which I read between the lines of the OP) that modern/contemporary music (as epitomized by Schoenberg after 1906 or so) is nothing more than a segue from the Romantic era just as the latter was from the Classical era. I firmly believe that it was a far more profound change in how music was composed and how it is perceived than anything that preceded it which is why, I believe, that after a hundred years it is still the subject of intense discussion and disagreement. And why we have something like the OP in the first place.


----------



## Triplets

Sloe said:


> For some reason it seems to be easier to interpret what one says in the most negative way than interpret it in a positive way and simple statements are turned to attacks that have to be answered with counter-attacks.


Being misunderstood is one thing. Letting it eat at you until you are consumed by it is something else.
Oh well, we all need hobbies


----------



## Ukko

^ ^ "Logic is an important goal in debates. Likewise, a goal of understanding and respect for truth are amiable objectives. But what one person sees as these goals _'trampled in a firestorm of nonsense, often masquerading as common sense'_ may actually be the logic, understanding and truth of the other person. Perhaps, there is some impatience with the logic and viewpoint of others here."

Logic is logic, ain't it? What are you referring to by "the logic, understanding and truth of the other person"?


----------



## Bulldog

DaveM said:


> I think that a lot of us, if not a majority of us, do listen to a 'Classical piano concerto' and a 'Romantic symphony'. When I listen to a Mozart Piano Concerto, I am very much aware of and appreciative of the Classical era style.


I can't say that holds for myself. I identify totally with the composer, not the time period's style.


----------



## ArtMusic

Members are often helping to explain the music they love listening to for the benefit of the broader community here at TC. This is usually the case.


----------



## fluteman

DaveM said:


> I think that a lot of us, if not a majority of us, do listen to a 'Classical piano concerto' and a 'Romantic symphony'. When I listen to a Mozart Piano Concerto, I am very much aware of and appreciative of the Classical era style. Likewise when I listen to a Brahms symphony, I am moved by the depth of the various emotions that are in works of the Romantic era. I am also very much aware of the era in which modern/contemporary works are/were composed. The style of the time period _is_ important to me.


Yes, I think that is very much the case, whether you are looking at an Italian Renaissance sculpture or an ancient Mayan temple, or listening to a Haydn symphony, context matters. One of the greatest fallacies I frequently see regarding classical music (or classical art or literature) is that it can be fully appreciated without any special educational background or knowledge. Anyone who says otherwise is shouted down as a snob, usually by people who have no idea how much they are missing by lacking a basic music education. And a common hallmark of such people is a narrow view that baroque music is generally bad (or boring), or classical era (Haydn and Mozart) music is, or romantic music is, or modern music is, etc.
That's why I was wondering whether Mahlerian's post was an ironically elaborate riposte to those who would attack him out of ignorance.


----------



## clockworkmurderer

Thanks for this post Mahlerian. You said in better words many things I have often thought.


----------



## arpeggio

clockworkmurderer said:


> Thanks for this post Mahlerian. You said in better words many things I have often thought.


This has been a problem with many classical music forums for years. Mahlerian has succeeded in articulating our frustrations. It is disheartening that some members think we are overacting or exaggerating the negative effect of this animus or whatever.


----------



## Tristan

Cool. Neither am I.

Or is this going to be one of those Leonard Nimoy things, i.e. his autobiography entitled "I am Not Spock" which was followed by another autobiography with the opposite title that quickly allayed the worries of some that he was denying his true self:












I really don't seem to have many issues with my experiences on this forum until someone tries to make me feel inferior or unintelligent because of what I like (or dislike) and unfortunately, that has happened enough times that I do consider it "a negative" to this site, but every site has its issues. Using terms like "modernist" or "anti-modernist" as pejoratives is similar to using terms like "liberal" or "conservative" as pejoratives on a political forum (which I see happen plenty on other forums I'm a member of). Every group of people needs its pejorative labels to hurl at someone when they don't like what they are saying or don't want to have to listen.


----------



## arpeggio

Tristan said:


> Cool. Neither am I.
> 
> I really don't seem to have many issues with my experiences on this forum until someone tries to make me feel inferior or unintelligent because of what I like (or dislike) and unfortunately, that has happened enough times that I do consider it "a negative" to this site, but every site has its issues. Using terms like "modernist" or "anti-modernist" as pejoratives is similar to using terms like "liberal" or "conservative" as pejoratives on a political forum (which I see happen plenty on other forums I'm a member of). Every group of people needs its pejorative labels to hurl at someone when they don't like what they are saying or don't want to have to listen.


I think you may have a point with the possible pejorative application of the term "anti-modernist". Not all anti-modernist are difficult to engage with. I use the term because it is the only one I can think of.


----------



## Guest

DaveM said:


> I believe that this:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _I am not a defender of modernism, much less a modernist myself, as I see no merit in doing this._
> 
> 
> 
> conflicts with this (in spite of all the 'quas' that are included):
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _To be sure, there is much modern music that I like, and some that I love. I have composed music myself in a contemporary style. When I find that the music I care about dearly is the subject of misrepresentations, misconceptions, or outright falsehoods, whether intentional or otherwise, I have seen fit to correct them._
> 
> Click to expand...
Click to expand...

I don't believe it does. Can you explain _your _logic?


----------



## aleazk

But we have cookies, Mahlerian! :-(


----------



## Guest

fluteman said:


> Yes, I think that is very much the case, whether you are looking at an Italian Renaissance sculpture or an ancient Mayan temple, or listening to a Haydn symphony, *context matters*. One of the greatest fallacies I frequently see regarding classical music (or classical art or literature) is that it can be fully appreciated without any special educational background or knowledge. Anyone who says otherwise is shouted down as a snob, usually by people who have no idea how much they are missing by lacking a basic music education.


Context matters? To whom? In what way? I enjoy finding out about context, but it's not an essential prerequisite. I tend to disagree with your 'fallacy' - only I'm not sure what you mean by 'appreciate'.


----------



## DaveM

MacLeod said:


> I don't believe it does. Can you explain _your _logic?


res ipsa loquitur


----------



## Woodduck

Modernism as a movement in music and the other arts (it is not an "aesthetic" or a "style") is over a century old. As a cultural project aimed at defining the future, it failed. It had to. Anyone who is today a Modernist in the strict sense is an anachronism whom the culture has left behind.

"Modernism" on this forum is used very loosely and carelessly, and no one here really knows what "we" mean by it, or who "we" are. But people keep bringing up the "modernist/traditionalist," or "modernist/antimodernist" conflict, sometimes erroneously called a "debate," as if they do know. And since people seem to think that this conflict is meaningful, we have to assume that they think "modernism" exists here, and that some are for it and some are against it. One might expect a few who want to keep talking about this to own up to being one thing or another.

I think the ratio of noise to substance in this conflict is about that of the wind whistling around the eaves of my apartment building; it sounds scary, but when I go out in the morning nothing will have blown down. On this forum, about all I see actually happening most of the time is that someone, not suspecting that they are ignorant, illogical, and dishonest, will say that some "modern" music is atonal or has no melodies - or, as in the Rautavaara piano concerto discussed today on another thread, that it _is_ tonal and _has_ melodies - and members of the Pantonality Defense League will rush out in force and, invoking the name of Schoenberg, will put the offender in his place. Why, if that very thing didn't just happen to me today!...

http://www.talkclassical.com/43404-border-where-modernism-still.html

Now I ask you: are the folks on that thread who truly believe, deep down inside, that that Rautavaara concerto is more tonal than Schoenbergian dodecaphony, "anti-modernists"?

Well, don't look at me. I AM NOT AN ANTI-MODERNIST!!! But to all the we-are-not-modernists here, I would point out a little-discussed fact: the music of the era we call "modern" (basically since around 1900) is actually not what it is typically and officially portrayed as being. Schoenberg and his offspring - and in fact any and all of the movements which declared their Modernist ambitions back then and attracted a lot of attention from intellectual types - provided, in fact, a very, very small part of the music people were writing and listening to. That music (which none here dare call atonal without instant reprisal) looms much larger in textbooks and classrooms than it ever has or will in the concert hall or in the record libraries of classical music lovers. It's only to the extent that we still accept the Modernist myth that such music was centrally important in the classical music of the 20th century, when in fact the overwhelming bulk of the music composed and listened to during that era was tonal and, to a great extent, essentially Romantic (perish the thought!), that we continue to believe in Modernism in spite of our disclaimers.

In the real story of modern music - which, thanks largely to the recording industry, is now being rewritten - we can see that the atonal bogeyman made his mark, but that that mark is a lot smaller than he and his disciples kept saying it would be. Their pretensions have passed into history, a small body of their best work has found its audience, the postman is never going to whistle their tunes (or even recognize them as tunes), God's in his heaven, and people will have the music they want, as they always do. Those-who-are-not-modernists can lament all they want that a century of being revered as perhaps the most important composer of the modern age just isn't a long enough time and that if only orchestras would program him more... But I don't mean to traffic in "blatant fallacies" here, much less "trample" anyone in a "firestorm of nonsense."

I don't care whether you, Mahlerian, or anyone at all, is a Modernist, or any other kind of -ist (though I distrust all -isms). I wouldn't even care if you really were a communist, a fascist, or any of those other things you say you've been accused of being (with the possible exception of Donald Trump; _no one_ should have to endure that). But I do care that people have the right to say what they think about music - to say any supposedly ignorant thing about music they feel and believe - and not have their "betters" jumping down their throats and accusing them of bad faith. I do think that most people who come here do believe what they're saying, and it really is enough to say "I disagree, and here's why..."

And by the way: some of your intellectual opponents here are very smart, have been insulted often, and are not asking for sympathy.


----------



## SimonNZ

Talk about "invoking the name of Schoenberg"!

...whose influence isn't measured by how imitated he is or by how often he's programed in the concert hall, but by how many composers - including the "tonal" ones you mention - admire him and include his musical ideas in their compositional toolkit alongside those of earlier and later composers, to be used or not as seen fit.

And whoever said you need to go _through_ Schoenberg to listen to modern classical?


----------



## Guest

DaveM said:


> res ipsa loquitur


So having raised a challenge about the "other person's logic", you're next contribution is not to further understanding on your 'logic' but quote me Latin doggerel.

Very enlightening.


----------



## Guest

Woodduck said:


> *But I do care that people have the right to say what they think about music* - to say any supposedly ignorant thing about music they feel and believe - and not have their "betters" jumping down their throats and accusing them of bad faith.


I think we all do, within reason. The problem is that our definitions of what is 'reasonable' to say about music vary, as does what "jumping down throats" looks like.


----------



## arpeggio

Simon and Macleod,

I am observing in your latest interactions one of the reasons why I have such problems engaging with some of the critics of modernistic music. They frequently employ rhetoric to invalidate music they dislike and reinforce their perceptions of music. Even when they are correct, so what? A person is going to like what they like no matter how illogical they may be.


----------



## Ukko

DaveM said:


> res ipsa loquitur


Wow, you have no spellchecker? I can tease out "race is a", but what 'loquitur' might be...


----------



## Strange Magic

MacLeod said:


> So having raised a challenge about the "other person's logic", you're next contribution is not to further understanding on your 'logic' but quote me Latin doggerel.
> 
> Very enlightening.


Took me about 0.5 seconds to look up the phrase on Wikipedia. Glad I did: expression very apt.


----------



## fluteman

MacLeod said:


> Context matters? To whom? In what way? I enjoy finding out about context, but it's not an essential prerequisite. I tend to disagree with your 'fallacy' - only I'm not sure what you mean by 'appreciate'.


Well, I'll respond with an example outside of music, in case that subject unduly inflames people: The James Joyce novel "Ulysses", which is famously considered highly complicated, even incomprehensible. I took a wonderful course in college devoted entirely to Ulysses. It turn out the book is an examination in spectacularly intricate detail of a single ordinary day, June 16, 1904, in the lives of a handful of ordinary people in a drab, ordinary city, Dublin, Ireland. If you were a Dublin native in 1904, most of those details would be second nature to you. But I'm not. If you were a 1904 Dublin native with a thorough education in Irish/British culture and history, and Irish/British and classical literature, as Joyce himself was, all of the often subtle and elaborate literary and historical allusions, jokes and puns would become clear to you. I do have some of that education, but not nearly as much as Joyce had. So I caught only some of those allusions without any help. But with the help of my excellent college professor, Joyce's amazing world opened up to me. That book is a remarkable demonstration that even the most drab and ordinary-seeming people, places and days are anything but if you look closely. I needed a lot of education just to enter Joyce's world and to be able to look closely enough at it. And Joyce well knew that would be the case with nearly all of his readers. That's his point, about art and life: Even the most ordinary things reveal their inner beauty if examined with the most scrupulous care.
Well, that's an extreme example. But I hope it clarifies the point I was trying to make.


----------



## Guest

Woodduck said:


> Why, if that very thing didn't just happen to me today!...


_"Happen to you"? _

Anyone with eyes and a brain can click your graciously provided link and see that (1) I responded to a thread in which you were nowhere to be seen and (2) you saw it as an opportunity to enter the thread and start an argument.

You have a very interesting perception of what it means to be a perpetrator versus a victim. Come to think of it, I don't believe I've ever actually seen another poster _start_ an argument with you.


----------



## Marschallin Blair

nathanb said:


> _"Happen to you"? _
> 
> Anyone with eyes and a brain can click your graciously provided link and see that (1) I responded to a thread in which you were nowhere to be seen and (2) you saw it as an opportunity to enter the thread and start an argument.
> 
> You have a very interesting perception of what it means to be a perpetrator versus a victim. Come to think of it, I don't believe I've ever actually seen another poster _start_ an argument with you.


Oh, 'I have.'

In spades, in fact.

I suppose its just hidden in plain view though.

_Eyes Wide Shut, Part Deux._


----------



## Nereffid

nathanb said:


> _"Happen to you"? _
> 
> Anyone with eyes and a brain can click your graciously provided link and see that (1) I responded to a thread in which you were nowhere to be seen and (2) you saw it as an opportunity to enter the thread and start an argument..


Response deleted in my brain before I even bothered to type it.


----------



## arpeggio

Nereffid said:


> Response deleted in my brain before I even bothered to type it.


I have learned that sometimes the best response is to put difficult people on your ignore list. It really works and helps with your piece of mind. If you say something stupid and they react, you do not get suck into a futile argument.

I like to think that they may find it puzzling when I do not react to their comments. "I just called band music trivial tripe. Why did arpeggio not respond?" The reason is because arpeggio I did not see your post.


----------



## Blancrocher

I occasionally put everyone on the forum on ignore and then post exclusively on a single thread; it's fun to go back afterwards to see if my replies to members made any sense in context. You'd be surprised how often I could more or less correctly guess the gist of long sequences of posts. 

For example, on the basis of this thread's title I think that at about post 87 people are probably talking about placing other members on ignore. I can't wait to see whether or not I'm right.


----------



## Woodduck

nathanb said:


> _"Happen to you"? _
> 
> Anyone with eyes and a brain can click your graciously provided link and see that (1) I responded to *a thread in which you were nowhere to be seen* and (2) you saw it as an opportunity to enter the thread and *start an argument*.
> 
> You have a very interesting perception of what it means to be *a perpetrator versus a victim*. Come to think of it, I don't believe I've ever actually seen another poster _start_ an argument with you.


_No one_ is seen in a thread before they've entered it.

Another way to say "start an argument" is "express a contrary opinion."

We're not talking about crime here. I don't feel like a perpetrator _or_ a victim. Do you?


----------



## Tristan

Yes, I wonder about that distinction as well. Is it "starting an argument" to express an opinion that goes against what the majority of people in the thread believe? Or does it actually require quoting someone's post and saying "you're wrong" in order for it to be so?


----------



## amfortas

Tristan said:


> Yes, I wonder about that distinction as well. Is it "starting an argument" to express an opinion that goes against what the majority of people in the thread believe? Or does it actually require quoting someone's post and saying "you're wrong" in order for it to be so?


And is there a problem with either?


----------



## Tristan

I don't think so. I wouldn't hesitate to express a "contrary" opinion or even to start an argument or debate; I would just make sure that it wasn't done in a rude, insulting, or condescending way. Unfortunately, sometimes it seems that's easier said than done.


----------



## Chronochromie

Woodduck said:


> Well, don't look at me. I AM NOT AN ANTI-MODERNIST!!! But to all the we-are-not-modernists here, I would point out a little-discussed fact: the music of the era we call "modern" (basically since around 1900) is actually not what it is typically and officially portrayed as being. Schoenberg and his offspring - and in fact any and all of the movements which declared their Modernist ambitions back then and attracted a lot of attention from intellectual types - provided, in fact, a very, very small part of the music people were writing and listening to. That music (which none here dare call atonal without instant reprisal) looms much larger in textbooks and classrooms than it ever has or will in the concert hall or in the record libraries of classical music lovers. It's only to the extent that we still accept the Modernist myth that such music was centrally important in the classical music of the 20th century, when in fact the overwhelming bulk of the music composed and listened to during that era was *tonal and, to a great extent, essentially Romantic* (perish the thought!), that we continue to believe in Modernism in spite of our disclaimers.


Any examples? And no Rachmaninov or Sibelius, late Romantics who found their voice in the late 19th century and who even before their deaths looked like oddities (not an insult, I love Sibelius and like Rach).



Woodduck said:


> I do think that most people who come here do believe what they're saying, and it really is enough to say "I disagree, and here's why..."


...which is what happened in many threads.


----------



## amfortas

Chronochromie said:


> Any examples? And no Rachmaninov or Sibelius, late Romantics who found their voice in the late 19th century and who even before their deaths looked like oddities (not an insult, I love Sibelius and like Rach).


All righty, then: Strauss!


----------



## Nereffid

Chronochromie said:


> Any examples? And no Rachmaninov or Sibelius, late Romantics who found their voice in the late 19th century and who even before their deaths looked like oddities (not an insult, I love Sibelius and like Rach).


The crucial question here, though, is: looked like oddities _to whom_?


----------



## Truckload

I am completely confused by this entire thread. When I first read the OP I felt like he was having a bad day, feeling a little sorry for himself and feeling misunderstood. At 63 years old, that has happened to me a lot, so I can relate to that. I often feel misunderstood and unappreciated. 

Mahlerian - please cheer up. We all want to be loved. We all want others to agree with us. It is not a reflection on you, or your intelligence if sometimes you cannot get other people to see things the same way that you see them. Mahlerian, I appreciate the fact that you try to be logical. However, please understand that the things that you see as 1+1=2 do not always seem that way to me. But that does not mean either you or I are evil, horrible people. I ask you to not take disagreement about something as a personal insult. I know it is not intended as such as far as I am concerned. If someone is calling you names, you should as a moderator have that post removed and if necessary remove that persons account.

Some seem to be trying to equate disagreements about music as somehow personally hurtful. At this point in my life I probably am the most fascinated by the music of Dvorak and Tchaikovsky. But that has changed over time. In college I could not get enough Stravinsky, Khachaturian, Prokofiev and Hindemith. Then I spent years fascinated with the late classical composers, Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. But it would not hurt my PERSONAL feelings if everyone on this forum hated every composer I have named in this paragraph. Even if I was the only one to take joy in the music of these composers, that would be sad, but it would not be a personal insult. And I would not want to stop anyone from giving their opinion on any of these composers no matter how negative that might be.

I fear that this thread has yet again become a vehicle to try to silence those who disagree with the atonalist crowd. Why go there? Why not just let it go? There will never be any issue of importance that everyone agrees upon. If everyone agrees about something, the idea loses its importance. I'm rambling. I spend too much time on stuff like this.


----------



## Truckload

amfortas said:


> All righty, then: Strauss!


Ha! By that of course you mean Johan Jr. the waltz king right? 

Just kidding, I know you mean another of my favorites, Richard. I really like his humility. Hence the quote in my signature.


----------



## Chronochromie

amfortas said:


> All righty, then: Strauss!


You might have misread my post.



Nereffid said:


> The crucial question here, though, is: looked like oddities _to whom_?


Mostly to other composers, possibly also to audiences.


----------



## arpeggio

I love members who say they are not anti-modernists and then commence to chastise the music of Schoenberg.


----------



## amfortas

Chronochromie said:


> You might have misread my post.


Or you might have misinterpreted mine.

No biggie either way.


----------



## amfortas

Truckload said:


> Just kidding, I know you mean another of my favorites, Richard. I really like his humility. Hence the quote in my signature.
> 
> "I may not be a first-rate composer, but I am a first-class second-rate composer." Richard Strauss


Along similar lines, I've heard Strauss called the greatest twentieth-century composer. To which I'll reply, he may well have been the greatest nineteenth-century twentieth-century composer.


----------



## Truckload

arpeggio said:


> I love members who say they are not anti-modernists and then commence to chastise the music of Schoenberg.


Why are you trying to start a fight?

I knew a girl who played oboe in college. Every time the music stopped, whether naturally at the end of a piece, or in rehearsal when stopped by the conductor, she would immediately start talking to her neighbors. We all thought she was nuts. One day my stand partner said, "I think it's all of the buildup of pressure in the oboe. When she stops playing, she just kind of explodes with talking." Ha! Funny right? Well maybe you had to be there.

But seriously, I feel like you are just boiling over with some kind of pressure. Why keep picking at old wounds? See the humor in life. Not that I can always do the same. I can't. But that doesn't mean I can't hypocritically recommend that you achieve what I cannot. Right?


----------



## Chronochromie

amfortas said:


> Or you might have misinterpreted mine.
> 
> No biggie either way.


It was a serious post, no jokes allowed!


----------



## Chronochromie

arpeggio said:


> I love members who say they are not anti-modernists and then commence to chastise the music of Schoenberg.


I don't really care at this point. But not even the music, now it's also what he said (milkmen whistling his tunes etc.). So he wasn't 100% right with everything he said? Big deal. He died in 1951. It's not like he's Boulez who died recently and said stuff that people can disagree with no problem.


----------



## violadude

Woodduck said:


> Well, don't look at me. I AM NOT AN ANTI-MODERNIST!!! But to all the we-are-not-modernists here, I would point out a little-discussed fact: the music of the era we call "modern" (basically since around 1900) is actually not what it is typically and officially portrayed as being. Schoenberg and his offspring - and in fact any and all of the movements which declared their Modernist ambitions back then and attracted a lot of attention from intellectual types - provided, in fact, a very, very small part of the music people were writing and listening to. That music (which none here dare call atonal without instant reprisal) looms much larger in textbooks and classrooms than it ever has or will in the concert hall or in the record libraries of classical music lovers. It's only to the extent that we still accept the Modernist myth that such music was centrally important in the classical music of the 20th century, when in fact the overwhelming bulk of the music composed and listened to during that era was tonal and, to a great extent, essentially Romantic (perish the thought!), that we continue to believe in Modernism in spite of our disclaimers.
> 
> In the real story of modern music - which, thanks largely to the recording industry, is now being rewritten - we can see that the atonal bogeyman made his mark, but that that mark is a lot smaller than he and his disciples kept saying it would be. Their pretensions have passed into history, a small body of their best work has found its audience, the postman is never going to whistle their tunes (or even recognize them as tunes), God's in his heaven, and people will have the music they want, as they always do. Those-who-are-not-modernists can lament all they want that a century of being revered as perhaps the most important composer of the modern age just isn't a long enough time and that if only orchestras would program him more... But I don't mean to traffic in "blatant fallacies" here, much less "trample" anyone in a "firestorm of nonsense."


Oh ya, so the music I like isn't very good and no one likes it and no one will ever like it. And the main reason it isn't very good and no one likes it or ever will like it is because your average joe ho bum drum fuddy duddy can't hum the melodies. Thanks for the memo, Woodduck, your encouragement is boundless.

Because OF COURSE the barometer by which we judge, and should judge, music is how well random guys can hum the tunes. How many tunes is "the postman" likely to hum anyway? Anything by Britten? Stravinsky? Hell, most melodies by Wagner are probably a bit much for your every man that can't hum Schoenberg.

Don't put too much faith in the average joe type, would be my advice. You use them as a way of putting certain modernist composers down, but I could just as easily use the opinions of a typical every man to put down Wagner, or Beethoven even. They're not that reliable in a pinch. To use them as a way of judging the worth of the music is not that convenient after all.

In the meantime, from my experience it seems that most young people that take the modern classical in any capacity don't have much problem taking to Schoenberg and others, as well.

But don't mind my minor grievances with your post. Your words of wisdom regarding the fact that no one will ever like what I like is noted, fascinating even. A real eye opener if there ever was one. I just wish someone would have let me know sooner.


----------



## amfortas

Chronochromie said:


> It was a serious post, no jokes allowed!


Will I ever learn?


----------



## Richard8655

I agree with much of the above post. But I can see Mahlerian's point of view about uncivil discourse here. There's such a thing as disagreement, including emotionally intense, and of course we need to accept that as the normal course of conversation. But there have been some very unkind and abusive comments here that have crossed respectful boundaries by any standard. I can identify at least 1 such example recently which has been consistent. There's no need to put up with that kind of behavior which can discourage others from contributing to otherwise intelligent conversations.

The anonymous nature of internet forums seems to encourage that, unfortunately. I agree and encourage any and all moderators to remove such abusive posts and perhaps even the abusers. 

As far as being labeled anti-modernist, I'm not entirely clear what the controversy is there myself. If it's true, great. If it's not true, great. We all have our preferences and it's not a flaw to have such biases. It's good to have firm opinions and preferences about musical styles and periods, and to try to generically like everything seems a little squeamish to me. There's no need to defend such convictions.


----------



## Chronochromie

Woodduck said:


> Their pretensions have passed into history, a small body of their best work has found its audience, the postman is never going to whistle their tunes (or even recognize them as tunes), God's in his heaven, and people will have the music they want, as they always do..


This sounds like most 20th century composers, actually, regardless of the tonality or lack of of their works.


----------



## isorhythm

violadude said:


> Oh ya, so the music I like isn't very good and no one likes it and no one will ever like it. And the main reason it isn't very good and no one likes it or ever will like it is because your average joe ho bum drum fuddy duddy can't hum the melodies. Thanks for the memo, Woodduck, your encouragement is boundless.


This isn't what he said at all.

Predictably, I find serious things to disagree with both in Mahlerian's OP and Woodduck's post above.

I disagree strongly with the "I'm just a music lover" in its strongest form. Medieval, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and the various strains of "modern" music _are not_ the same; they're not all about the same things; they don't have all the same goals; there have been radical breaks and splits along the way. When I listen to Mozart I _am_ listening to Classical music - it's not at all the same as Baroque music.

The "it's all just music" line is at odds with all serious writing and thinking about music ever, by composers, critics and just regular listeners. It does no one any favors.

I agree with Woodduck that there was a sort of "modernist narrative" that has been largely abandoned, and that's a good thing; I can't agree, though, that the more radical modernist music was a sideshow to the basically Romantic mainstream. I don't find any of the 20th century composers writing in a Romantic vein to be nearly as exciting or rewarding as the modernists of various stripes, and frankly I don't think their music is usually very good, though I may be mistaken about which music we're even talking about.


----------



## Truckload

violadude said:


> But don't mind my minor grievances with your post. Your words of wisdom regarding the fact that no one will ever like what I like is noted, fascinating even. A real eye opener if there ever was one. I just wish someone would have let me know sooner.


Sarcasm can of course be mildly amusing, but it is hard to prove a point with sarcasm. Reading between the lines, you are simply saying, I like Schoenberg and anyone who says anything against the music I like deserves derision. That was a good word for it, derision. Why should you stoop to a derisive sarcasm just because you like something Woodduck finds bad and harmful?

Would you deserve derision if you said bad things about Johnny Cash? Gangster Rap? Gregorian Chant?


----------



## amfortas

Chronochromie said:


> This sounds like most 20th century composers, actually, regardless of the tonality or lack of of their works.


Or like most composers, actually, regardless of century.


----------



## violadude

Truckload said:


> Why are you trying to start a fight?


You're asking the wrong person buddy. Ask the people who are essentially saying, in too many words, that a good bit of some of the posters' contributions here are completely worthless.


----------



## Chronochromie

isorhythm said:


> I agree with Woodduck that there was a sort of "modernist narrative" that has been largely abandoned, and that's a good thing; I can't agree, though, that the more radical modernist music was a sideshow to the basically Romantic mainstream. I don't find any of the 20th century composers writing in a Romantic vein to be nearly as exciting or rewarding as the modernists of various stripes, and frankly I don't think their music is usually very good, though* I may be mistaken about which music we're even talking about.*


Yes, that part of the post was strangely vague and maybe a bit presumptuous, which is why I wonder why so many people (apparently) agreed with it.


----------



## Truckload

isorhythm said:


> though I may be mistaken about which music we're even talking about.


Me too. I'm not sure what exactly modernism is. I love Stravinski, Copland and Bernstein. People used to call them modern. I think modernist is a code word for atonal and avant-guarde but I am not sure.


----------



## violadude

isorhythm said:


> This isn't what he said at all.


No?

"That music (which none here dare call atonal without instant reprisal) looms much larger in textbooks and classrooms than it ever has *or will* in the concert hall or in the record libraries of classical music lovers."


----------



## Truckload

violadude said:


> You're asking the wrong person buddy. Ask the people who are essentially saying, in too many words, that a good bit of some of the posters' contributions here are completely worthless.


I must have missed something. When did someone say that? Where?


----------



## amfortas

Chronochromie said:


> Yes, that part of the post was strangely vague and maybe a bit presumptuous, which is why I wonder why so many people (apparently) agreed with it.


In all seriousness (for once), I'm curious as to where people might draw the line between "20th century composers writing in a Romantic vein" and "modernists." Would there be any consensus, or is residual Romanticism very much in the eye of the beholder?

I'd start a thread, if there hadn't probably been at least one already.

EDIT: Oops. Looks like someone kinda just did:

*An Interesting and Useful Treatise on Twentieth Century Music*


----------



## violadude

Truckload said:


> Would you deserve derision if you said bad things about Johnny Cash? Gangster Rap? Gregorian Chant?


If I went onto a rock forum and described Johnny Cash's music as a "bogeyman", that no one will ever like his music, talking about it like it was some sort of scourge of the earth, then yes, I would deserve derision.

I only bit because Woodduck bit first, and yet your issue is with me? I've never gone around implying, insisting actually, that someone's favorite music is irrelevant, basically worthless, that no one will like it. I've never done that. But maybe I should. People tend to not take issue with that sort of thing around here.


----------



## isorhythm

violadude said:


> No?
> 
> "That music (which none here dare call atonal without instant reprisal) looms much larger in textbooks and classrooms than it ever has *or will* in the concert hall or in the record libraries of classical music lovers."


I love tons modernist music but I agree with this. I just don't see it as a problem; or rather, I see it as a potential economic problem only.


----------



## amfortas

Truckload said:


> Would you deserve derision if you said bad things about Johnny Cash? Gangster Rap? Gregorian Chant?


Say what you will about Gangsta or Gregorian. But you best not mess with The Man in Black.


----------



## violadude

isorhythm said:


> I love tons modernist music but I agree with this. I just don't see it as a problem; or rather, I see it as a potential economic problem only.


Well, if no one will ever like certain music that I like, why the **** do I bother to talk about it? To the people that advocate the kind of music Woodduck is talking about, it relegates their contribution to the thread as pretty much worthless and meaningless.


----------



## Truckload

violadude said:


> If I went onto a rock forum and described Johnny Cash's music as a "bogeyman", that no one will ever like his music, talking about it like it was some sort of scourge of the earth, then yes, I would deserve derision.


I always thought of the classical music lover as having a more refined sense of good manners than most folks. Perhaps that is a silly notion. As for me, I will try not to treat others derisively even when I feel their knowledge or judgement about music disagrees with mine.


----------



## Truckload

amfortas said:


> Say what you will about Gangsta or Gregorian. But you best not mess with The Man in Black.


Ha! You nailed it again. You are on a ROLL!!!! You know what is really dangerous? Say anything bad about Elvis in Memphis, or even worse, speak ill of Jerry Lee Lewis in Memphis!

Thank God we can all make fun of Gregorian Chant safely.


----------



## violadude

Truckload said:


> I always thought of the classical music lover as having a more refined sense of good manners than most folks. Perhaps that is a silly notion. As for me, I will try not to treat others derisively even when I feel their knowledge or judgement about music disagrees with mine.


Seriously? Manners? Is that what we're going to take issue with here.

Alright, tell you what, the next time someone brings up some random-as-hell Russian composer, I'll tell them all about how their music is irrelevant, that composer doesn't matter to most average people, orchestras will never schedule their music as much as they do the masters of the past, my mom couldn't hum this melody...etc etc.

But don't worry, I'll make sure I do it in the most mannered way possible


----------



## Truckload

Truckload said:


> Ha! You nailed it again. You are on a ROLL!!!! You know what is really dangerous? Say anything bad about Elvis in Memphis, or even worse, speak ill of Jerry Lee Lewis in Memphis!
> 
> Thank God we can all make fun of Gregorian Chant safely.


I hope He wasn't offended by that upstairs.

Hmmm.

Maybe we better not make fun of Gregorian Chant. OK, who wants to share insults about Gangsta Rap!


----------



## Tristan

Truckload said:


> I always thought of the classical music lover as having a more refined sense of good manners than most folks. Perhaps that is a silly notion. As for me, I will try not to treat others derisively even when I feel their knowledge or judgement about music disagrees with mine.


I would never go into a thread about modern music and talk about how much I dislike it or how it should stay out of concert halls or whatever _unless that's what the question in the thread asked_. I don't care for much modern/contemporary music, but that also means that I'm not going to be able to contribute much to discussions about a type of music I don't listen to and will therefore avoid such threads. It's like on a tech forum I post on, someone might ask for advice about buying a Windows laptop and someone responds with "Windows sucks; get a Mac". That kind of comment is completely unhelpful for the thread and contributes nothing to the discussion/question. However, if the thread asks for my opinion, then I'll share it no matter how "contrary" it is.


----------



## isorhythm

violadude said:


> Well, if no one will ever like certain music that I like, why the **** do I bother to talk about it? To the people that advocate the kind of music Woodduck is talking about, it relegates their contribution to the thread as pretty much worthless and meaningless.


I don't understand any of this - starting with "no one will ever like" - where did you get that?


----------



## amfortas

Truckload said:


> Ha! You nailed it again. You are on a ROLL!!!! You know what is really dangerous? Say anything bad about Elvis in Memphis, or even worse, speak ill of Jerry Lee Lewis in Memphis!
> 
> Thank God we can all make fun of Gregorian Chant safely.


Unless it's modernist Gregorian Chant.


----------



## Truckload

violadude said:


> Seriously? Manners? Is that what we're going to take issue with here.
> 
> Alright, tell you what, the next time someone brings up some random-as-hell Russian composer, I'll tell them all about how their music is irrelevant, that composer doesn't matter to most average people, orchestras will never schedule their music as much as they do the masters of the past, my mom couldn't hum this melody...etc etc.
> 
> But don't worry, I'll make sure I do it in the most mannered way possible


Thank you for humoring me. I feel good about you. I feel good about me too. Let's all go out and have a Beer.  But really, thanks for humoring me!


----------



## Chronochromie

amfortas said:


> Unless it's modernist Gregorian Chant.


AKA Arvo Pärt? .......


----------



## violadude

isorhythm said:


> I don't understand any of this - starting with "no one will ever like" - where did you get that?


"That music (which none here dare call atonal without instant reprisal) looms much larger in textbooks and classrooms than it ever has or will in the concert hall or in the record libraries of classical music lovers."

When you say, this music will *never* "loom" in concert halls or the record libraries of classical music lovers, it basically implies that no one will ever like it (besides music students that don't know any better yet).


----------



## isorhythm

violadude said:


> When you say, this music will *never* "loom" in concert halls or the record libraries of classical music lovers, it basically implies that no one will ever like it (besides music students that don't know any better yet).


It doesn't imply that at all!


----------



## Ukko

Congratulations, Mahlerian. Several of 'the usual suspects' are flipping out. I think they are cherry picking things to flip out about, but what's new there?


----------



## Headphone Hermit

isorhythm said:


> It doesn't imply that at all!


I agree with violadude - I think it clearly does


----------



## violadude

isorhythm said:


> It doesn't imply that at all!


Alright then, what does it imply? And more importantly, what exactly should I take from it?


----------



## Becca

Your synopsis of what Woodduck said left out a key phrase which changes the entire meaning, i.e. "looms _much larger in textbooks and classrooms_ than it ever has or will in the concert hall or in the record libraries of classical music lovers."

The 'take away' is that the music is less represented on concert programs and music collections than it is in musical academia. Absolutely nothing there says that it is not represented nor "that no one will ever like it"


----------



## amfortas

violadude said:


> When you say, this music will *never* "loom" in concert halls or the record libraries of classical music lovers, it basically implies that no one will ever like it (besides music students that don't know any better yet).


Pointing out that a particular type of music has limited audience appeal is not the same as denigrating that music or its devotees.

If it were, we'd all have to denigrate classical music.


----------



## Headphone Hermit

Woodduck said:


> , I would point out a little-discussed fact: the music of the era we call "modern" (basically since around 1900) is actually not what it is typically and officially portrayed as being. Schoenberg and his offspring - and in fact any and all of the movements which declared their Modernist ambitions back then and attracted a lot of attention from intellectual types - provided, in fact, a very, very small part of the music people were writing and listening to. That music (which none here dare call atonal without instant reprisal) looms much larger in textbooks and classrooms than it ever has or will in the concert hall or in the record libraries of classical music lovers. It's only to the extent that we still accept the Modernist myth that such music was centrally important in the classical music of the 20th century, when in fact the overwhelming bulk of the music composed and listened to during that era was tonal and, to a great extent, essentially Romantic (perish the thought!), that we continue to believe in Modernism in spite of our disclaimers.
> 
> In the real story of modern music - which, thanks largely to the recording industry, is now being rewritten - we can see that the atonal bogeyman made his mark, but that that mark is a lot smaller than he and his disciples kept saying it would be. Their pretensions have passed into history, a small body of their best work has found its audience, the postman is never going to whistle their tunes (or even recognize them as tunes), God's in his heaven, and people will have the music they want, as they always do. Those-who-are-not-modernists can lament all they want that a century of being revered as perhaps the most important composer of the modern age just isn't a long enough time and that if only orchestras would program him more... But I don't mean to traffic in "blatant fallacies" here, much less "trample" anyone in a "firestorm of nonsense."


But popularity (in the concert hall, on the record collector's shelf or wherever) is not a good indicator of 'importance' or 'significance'. A comparison of the best selling books of a decade from a list such as
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publi...ling_novels_in_the_United_States_in_the_1920s with a list of 'Best books' of a decade in a list such as https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/39 shows that there is little correlation between popularity and significant

so, it is possible for a movement to have impact that is greater than its sales at the time or its subsequent popularity and I contest your point about "the Modernist myth that such music was centrally important in the classical music of the 20th century"


----------



## violadude

Becca said:


> Your synopsis of what Woodduck said left out a key phrase which changes the entire meaning, i.e. "looms _much larger in textbooks and classrooms_ than it ever has or will in the concert hall or in the record libraries of classical music lovers."
> 
> The 'take away' is that the music is less represented on concert programs and music collections than it is in musical academia. Absolutely nothing there says that it is not represented nor "that no one will ever like it"


And what's important about that point? What should I do with that information?

What's the point of saying "Hey! Most people don't really like the music you're advocating, so calm down!" besides to put down?


----------



## isorhythm

violadude said:


> Alright then, what does it imply? And more importantly, what exactly should I take from it?


It implies (or rather, states plainly) that _not as many_ people will like it as will like more conservative music.


----------



## Becca

What you do with it is up to you but intellectual honesty would suggest that you don't distort HIS point by omission.


----------



## amfortas

Headphone Hermit said:


> But popularity (in the concert hall, on the record collector's shelf or wherever) is not a good indicator of 'importance' or 'significance'. A comparison of the best selling books of a decade from a list such as
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publi...ling_novels_in_the_United_States_in_the_1920s with a list of 'Best books' of a decade in a list such as https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/39 shows that there is little correlation between popularity and significant.


It also depends on whether you define "importance" or "significance" more in terms of the music's widespread impact on its own era or its influence over time and eventual place in history.


----------



## Truckload

Headphone Hermit said:


> But popularity (in the concert hall, on the record collector's shelf or wherever) is not a good indicator of 'importance' or 'significance'. A comparison of the best selling books of a decade from a list such as
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publi...ling_novels_in_the_United_States_in_the_1920s with a list of 'Best books' of a decade in a list such as https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/39 shows that there is little correlation between popularity and significant
> 
> so, it is possible for a movement to have impact that is greater than its sales at the time or its subsequent popularity and I contest your point about "the Modernist myth that such music was centrally important in the classical music of the 20th century"


In general you have an excellent point. It is very hard to judge artistic impact in the moment. "Fifty Shades of Grey" made a lot of money, and seems to have had a large impact on the popular culture. But is that likely to be true 100 years from now? I would think not.

The people who lived at the time of Shakespeare probably had no idea that one day he would be held in the esteem that he ultimately achieved. Very rarely the significance of a composer is recognized in his lifetime, I am thinking of Beethoven who was revered in his lifetime, but usually he is not, i.e. Bach and Mozart. So you have a good point that ultimate significance may be difficult to judge.

At 100 years, we should have a least a little better perspective, but even at 300 years there can be revisions. Look at the huge revival in interest in Vivaldi. I think every classical radio station in the USA is required by law to the play the "Seasons" at least once every 24 hours.

At some point we have to just use our own knowledge and judgement, call 'em as we see 'em, and then let it go and move on.


----------



## Headphone Hermit

Truckload said:


> In general you have an excellent point. It is very hard to judge artistic impact in the moment. "Fifty Shades of Grey" made a lot of money, and seems to have had a large impact on the popular culture. But is that likely to be true 100 years from now? I would think not.


precisely my point



Truckload said:


> The people who lived at the time of Shakespeare probably had no idea that one day he would be held in the esteem that he ultimately achieved. Very rarely the significance of a composer is recognized in his lifetime, I am thinking of Beethoven who was revered in his lifetime, but usually he is not, i.e. Bach and Mozart. So you have a good point that ultimate significance may be difficult to judge.


as before - that's my point



Truckload said:


> At some point we have to just use our own knowledge and judgement, call 'em as we see 'em, and then let it go and move on.


and that's the point made regarding your comment about Medtner in another thread


----------



## Headphone Hermit

amfortas said:


> It also depends on whether you define "importance" or "significance" more in terms of the music's widespread impact on its own era or its influence over time and eventual place in history.


indeed.

very popular at a certain point in time might fade to obscurity in the longer term - as has tended to occur in the best-seller book lists I drew attention to

sometimes real quality is not popular in its (or even in another) time yet is still 'important' or 'significant'


----------



## Guest

Strange Magic said:


> Took me about 0.5 seconds to look up the phrase on Wikipedia. Glad I did: expression very apt.


I didn't need to look it up. I just hoped for a more informative response.


----------



## Guest

Becca said:


> What you do with it is up to you but intellectual honesty would suggest that you don't distort HIS point by omission.


Because the anti-modernist movement here has never willfully omitted information from the points to which they are responding :lol:


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## DeepR

It's a pity that there's sooo much opposition going on around here, this vs that, traditional vs modern, tonal vs atonal etc. It's getting really tiresome. This forum would be a better place if people would talk more about music and composers in a positive spirit, instead of these same old discussions that have been done ad nauseam. There is plenty of knowledge and insight to share on both "sides" (and I hate the idea that there are two sides). How about we focus on the music instead of each other. After a while you just have to get over it and accept each others' points of view, even if you think they are untrue and unfounded. As a relative outsider, I've been reading quite a bit of these discussions and don't think that any of the prominent posters have some kind of malicious intent or hidden agenda just to put down music, or persons for that matter. People's minds are clouded, making them read things in each other's posts that aren't even there, all because of this whole air of animosity. Snap out of it already.


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## DaveM

Becca said:


> What you do with it is up to you but intellectual honesty would suggest that you don't distort HIS point by omission.





nathanb said:


> Because the anti-modernist movement here has never willfully omitted information from the points to which they are responding :lol:


The value & truth of the point being made remains no matter which side it applies to.


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## Strange Magic

Headphone Hermit said:


> But popularity (in the concert hall, on the record collector's shelf or wherever) is not a good indicator of 'importance' or 'significance'. A comparison of the best selling books of a decade from a list such as
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publi...ling_novels_in_the_United_States_in_the_1920s with a list of 'Best books' of a decade in a list such as https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/39 shows that there is little correlation between popularity and significant
> 
> so, it is possible for a movement to have impact that is greater than its sales at the time or its subsequent popularity and I contest your point about "the Modernist myth that such music was centrally important in the classical music of the 20th century"


I think that Herbert Pauls' dissertation mentioned in the other thread will provide much substance in deciding whether there is a rapidly evolving view of the longer-term significance of the more-often written-about trends in music over the last century. Highly recommended.


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## regenmusic

Why don't people just stay out of threads in which they can't stay on the track of what the OP is asking for?


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## SimonNZ

Truckload said:


> I fear that this thread has yet again become a vehicle to try to silence those who disagree with *the atonalist crowd.* Why go there? Why not just let it go? There will never be any issue of importance that everyone agrees upon. If everyone agrees about something, the idea loses its importance. I'm rambling. I spend too much time on stuff like this.


This is the problem right here. You say you've read the OP, but you've missed the entire point of it.



Truckload said:


> Me too. I'm not sure what exactly modernism is. I love Stravinski, Copland and Bernstein. People used to call them modern. I think modernist is a code word for atonal and avant-guarde but I am not sure.


And this inexactness and uncertainty, combined with a willingness to weigh in agressively anyway, highlights the wider problem.


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## mmsbls

This thread has generated quite a few reported posts in the past couple of days. For some these issues evoke strong emotions, and we can all understand people occasionally getting upset. But please refrain from commenting on others in a negative manner. Those comments only serve to further inflame emotions, to escalate problematic posts, and to generate infractions and closing threads.


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## Blake

Dang Mahl, I thought everyone liked you around here. I must've missed a lot if it got to this point...


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## Truckload

regenmusic said:


> Why don't people just stay out of threads in which they can't stay on the track of what the OP is asking for?


This particular thread was a tough one for following your advice. I am not really sure what this thread is about. But I do hope Mahlerian is feeling better. He got a lot of love in the first 20 posts or so. Been there, know how it feels.

But I also appreciate a well written point, even when I don't agree with every sentence. Good writing is so rare these days.


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## Truckload

SimonNZ said:


> This is the problem right here. You say you've read the OP, but you've missed the entire point of it.
> 
> And this inexactness and uncertainty, combined with a willingness to weigh in agressively anyway, highlights the wider problem.


Feel free to block me. It absolutely will not hurt my feelings. In fact, you really should do so.


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## amfortas

Truckload said:


> This particular thread was a tough one for following your advice. I am not really sure what this thread is about.


I'm glad I'm not alone. Nothing against Mahlerian, but I've forgotten what he was asking for--if I ever knew.


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## SimonNZ

Truckload said:


> Feel free to block me. It absolutely will not hurt my feelings. In fact, you really should do so.


Thats not a reply. I want you to consider the implications of what I'm saying and actually run it up the flagpole.


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## ArtMusic

SimonNZ said:


> .....
> 
> And whoever said you need to go _through_ Schoenberg to listen to modern classical?


But I have read many posts of listeners who have listened to limited number of pieces by Schoenberg and then declaring a dislike of the music only to be vociferously questioned.

As already mentioned, there is really no longer a workable definition for "modernism". Even Schoenberg's music is approaching one century old. It's all about the love for classical music in general now.


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## Truckload

SimonNZ said:


> Thats not a reply. I want you to consider the implications of what I'm saying and actually run it up the flagpole.


No, my reply was perfect. I would like you to read all of my posts in this thread and think about what are your motivations in creating your post, and what your post says about you. Your post is a perfect example of "the wider problem".


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## Truckload

mmsbls said:


> This thread has generated quite a few reported posts in the past couple of days. For some these issues evoke strong emotions, and we can all understand people occasionally getting upset. But please refrain from commenting on others in a negative manner. Those comments only serve to further inflame emotions, to escalate problematic posts, and to generate infractions and closing threads.


I'm glad you guys try to maintain a civil tone. This forum needs moderators.


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## violadude

Truckload said:


> Please take a look at the hostile tone of the post immediately above yours. Perhaps it would be wise to close down this thread.


WHAT?? Post #152? That post is not aggressive in the slightest.


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## Truckload

violadude said:


> WHAT?? Post #152? That post is not aggressive in the slightest.


Thanks for your input. A great example of me getting overly sensitive. I edited my post to MMSBLS. Trying to stay frosty! Uh, is that right? Is frosty the right word for stay calm?


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## violadude

Becca said:


> What you do with it is up to you but intellectual honesty would suggest that you don't distort HIS point by omission.


Well, then I'd like Woodduck to explain to me what the point of saying stuff like this is. To me it seems to accomplish nothing to rub in people's faces that most people don't like your favorite music. I wouldn't say this to anyone else.


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## Morimur

regenmusic said:


> Why don't people just stay out of threads in which they can't stay on the track of what the OP is asking for?


Because _that_ would be _logical_.


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## SimonNZ

> And whoever said you need to go through Schoenberg to listen to modern classical?





ArtMusic said:


> But I have read many posts of listeners who have listened to limited number of pieces by Schoenberg and then declaring a dislike of the music only to be vociferously questioned.


That's a different matter entirely.

I'm talking about the way discussions of modern/contemporary music all return, inexplicably, to Schoenberg, seeming to imply that if you can't accept his music then you have no entry into the music that followed, which is absurd. As absurd as it would be for every discussion about Bach to turn to Machaut, or believing that you need to go through Machaut to hear Bach.

This constant need to return to him as de facto boogeyman and later composers as his "disciples" seems to me little more than the laziest way of dismissing modern music as "difficult" without becoming familiar with it (and finding out how damn wrong you are). And if that weren't enough its also a misrepresentation of the music of the man, much of which I personally find exciting and fascinating and beautiful, even though he's not one of my top ten (or whatever) composers.


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## fluteman

Headphone Hermit said:


> But popularity (in the concert hall, on the record collector's shelf or wherever) is not a good indicator of 'importance' or 'significance'. A comparison of the best selling books of a decade from a list such as
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publi...ling_novels_in_the_United_States_in_the_1920s with a list of 'Best books' of a decade in a list such as https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/39 shows that there is little correlation between popularity and significant
> 
> so, it is possible for a movement to have impact that is greater than its sales at the time or its subsequent popularity and I contest your point about "the Modernist myth that such music was centrally important in the classical music of the 20th century"


Thanks for that, it was fun looking at those lists, one with only a few familiar books, the other with many. You make a good point, but it runs both ways. History makes up its own mind as to what is culturally significant, and it does so in the fullness of time, after there is enough perspective to put the art of an era in its cultural, social and historical context. And history can ultimately be a harsh judge of claims both of the artists themselves and of contemporary critics of a prior era. That's why, for example, much as I admire Pierre Boulez as a composer and conductor, I view his attempts to establish his own place in the history of his own era as dangerous bordering on foolhardy.
On the other hand it's already impossible to deny Stravinsky's impact on Western culture. John Williams' theme form Jaws is taken almost directly from the Sacrificial Dance of The Rite of Spring. More recently, the music of Philip Glass and Aarvo Part has had a major impact on movies and TV. They have all profoundly changed what we think music to be, so I'm betting they will be remembered by history.


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## arpeggio

Headphone Hermit said:


> But popularity (in the concert hall, on the record collector's shelf or wherever) is not a good indicator of 'importance' or 'significance'. A comparison of the best selling books of a decade from a list such as
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publi...ling_novels_in_the_United_States_in_the_1920s with a list of 'Best books' of a decade in a list such as https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/39 shows that there is little correlation between popularity and significant
> 
> so, it is possible for a movement to have impact that is greater than its sales at the time or its subsequent popularity and I contest your point about "the Modernist myth that such music was centrally important in the classical music of the 20th century"


When all else fails the anti-modernist pulls out the popularity card and generates a poll that proves nothing.


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## Pugg

I must say Mahlerian you know how to made the fingers typing


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## Casebearer

Indeed and it seems to go in every direction, some new, some recycling viewpoints, some stepping into dead alleys. If we really want to get anywhere I think a different kind of moderation of the exchange would be welcome. I mean: there is a big distinction between moderation that merely monitors the breaking of forum rules (which doesn't seem to help much so far in preventing hurt feelings here and there) and moderation that aims at structuring exchanges like these and helps us to arrive at something as a community. I've experienced the difference between these moderation styles and I can tell you that good moderation of the second type is a relief to everybody that's participating....


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## arpeggio

I have been reviewing what has transpired so far and to be frank I am having trouble keeping track of everything that has been said.

One trend that I have found is that in an effort to establish the idea that contemporary music is weaker than older music is to generate polls and try to play the popularity card. Well so far the result of the various polls here have never really supported their positions.

Now we have this OP by Mahlerian where he has articulated our feelings toward the actions of the anti-modernist. His OP so far has generated over fifty likes, significantly more than any posts I have ever seen here. The anti-modernistic rhetoric has hit a real raw nerve with a very large number of members of this forum. We feel hurt and insulted and are tired of being told that somehow it is our fault. We are getting tired of having to apologize for our approach to classical music for fear of violating the TOS.

The members of this forum are among the more serious who follow classical music, whether or not we have degrees music. Most of us like to listen to all sorts of music from the Gregorian Chant to contemporary avant-garde. Chastising us is not a solution. Then when we try to defend ourselves accuse us of...Well, Mahlerian covers that real well in his OP.

The reality is that in this arena the anti-modernist is in the minority. If he wants us to respect his opinions he has to respect ours. A person can hate Cage but he is obligated to respect the many fine members who admire Cage and follow his music. And he has to respect those who think _433_ is music.


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## Guest

fluteman said:


> Well, that's an extreme example. But I hope it clarifies the point I was trying to make.


I can see that 'context' can help in the case of literature, but how does that idea carry across into music?


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## science

Withdrawn with 15 characters.


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## science

Withdrawn with 15 characters.


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## Tristan

So does not preferring modern music make you an "anti-modernist"? Does disagreeing with people who like modern music make you an "anti-modernist"? Or does it require a more aggressive stance?


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## science

Sorry, I need to retract all of my "contributions" to this thread. 

Just for the record, people have every right not to like modern/contemporary/whatever music for any reason at all. 

And people have every right to enjoy it. 

I've never encountered such attitudes in real life, but the failure of the two sides to extend that right to each other respectfully on the internet is very disappointing to me. I appreciate the individual exceptions very much, but I have lost all respect for the community of classical music listeners as a whole.


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## Guest

Woodduck said:


> Modernism as a movement in music and the other arts (it is not an "aesthetic" or a "style") is over a century old. As a cultural project aimed at defining the future, it failed.


I'm not sure whether discussing this would be 'off-topic', as it doesn't relate directly to the OP. But I would question the accuracy of this observation. Was Modernism ever a 'cultural project' with a defined aim? I don't think so. Is Modernism defined by a progressive evolution of content and structure/style across the arts that had some self-conscious contributors, attributable to significant societal changes that made it seem more abrupt and deliberate than it actually was? I think so.


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## clavichorder

Science, there should be no two sides and there probably isn't when we are all away from our computers and threads where it's convenient for the sake of argument to have two sides(along with all the beef that exists). Probably the most moderate person on the 'anti modernist' side has more musical overlap with the most moderate of 'modernists', than they do with really 'conservative' listeners. But that team generated rift sure makes it look otherwise in some of our threads.

You can see this in the 'Current Listening' thread, the most 'peaceful' and consistently active thread on this forum, where sometimes people arguing in another thread will comment encouragingly on each others reported music listening.


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## Nereffid

Just as regards this "popularity" thing, are the people who say that there's no correlation between popularity and significance also saying that this non-correlation also exists for pre-20th century music? That a list of composers who were active before 1900 and are currently regarded as significant would not resemble a list of pre-1900 composers whose music is currently popular?


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## violadude

Nereffid said:


> Just as regards this "popularity" thing, are the people who say that there's no correlation between popularity and significance also saying that this non-correlation also exists for pre-20th century music? That a list of composers who were active before 1900 and are currently regarded as significant would not resemble a list of pre-1900 composers whose music is currently popular?


Yes, absolutely. Of course there's always going to be some overlap. But if I thought that popularity = greatness for pre-20th century classical music, I would be forced to believe that the first minute of "Also Sprach Zarathrusta" was the best thing Strauss ever wrote, that Pachabel's Canon was greater than Bach's Mass in b minor, that "Flight of the Bumblebee" was better than the whole of "Boris Gudonov". None of those statements ring true to me in any capacity.


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## DeepR

arpeggio said:


> The reality is that in this arena the anti-modernist is in the minority. If he wants us to respect his opinions he has to respect ours. A person can hate Cage but he is obligated to respect the many fine members who admire Cage and follow his music. And he has to respect those who think _433_ is music.


Respecting another poster doesn't mean that you're not allowed to post negatively about 4'33"', make jokes, or write about it in a way that could be considered disrespectful by someone else. It's called freedom of speech. As long as there are no personal attacks, people can be as nasty towards the music as they want, even if it makes you feel insulted, as long as it doesn't break forum rules. I'm not saying this kind of behavior should be encouraged and there is such a thing as good taste, but you can't expect people to be very considerate of your own opinion all the time.


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## Woodduck

Sorry to have been gone while everyone (well, not everyone) is trying to figure out what I meant by what I thought I said very clearly!

Part of my intention was to use Mahlerian's disavowal of Modernism to talk about what Modernism is, which seemed a reasonable direction in which to take the thread. What does it mean to say that one is not a modernist? Does anyone claim to be one any longer? Can one be a Modernist without realizing it? And - most interesting, I think - how is being _a Modernist_ different from being _modern?_

Is this too philosophical, too arcane, not relevant? Never mind. I can't quit now. :tiphat:

As far as I can see, _Modernism,_ as an explicit ideology and cultural agenda, is virtually obsolete. To be a declared Modernist presently is to be eccentric and peripheral, out of touch with the times. One cannot be truly modern and be a Modernist! (Maybe one can be a Postmodernist and still be secretly a Modernist, or maybe one has to be a Post-Postmodernist. Ugh.) In any case, to be an anti-Modernist in more than an academic sense is nowadays to be a bit peculiar as well. That doesn't mean, though, that certain Modernist ideas haven't become common assumptions which still color our thinking, and that one can't be opposed to them. I have to say I've certainly found that to be the case on this forum.

So what is "Modernism"? Well, the term is sometimes used to refer to a very heterogeneous bunch of artistic styles dating from the early to mid-20th century, styles which have so little in common that some deeper understanding of the culture is certainly required before they can seem to belong together at all. Part of that understanding comes with recognizing the more philosophical meaning of the term, in which "Modernism" is a collection of beliefs and attitudes about music, and art and culture in general, which got going back in the period we call "Romantic," and acquired momentum and prestige in the "Modern" era, remaining dominant in thinking about the arts through most of the 20th century. And what is Modernism - or the ghost of Modernism - _on this forum?_ I won't say that I've analyzed the situation thoroughly, but here are some bona fide Modernist beliefs, assumptions, and assertions I've seen, stated outright or at least rarely challenged, in my time here:

1) that composers before the Modern era routinely faced misunderstanding, resistance, and failure during their lifetimes - that the difficulty "modern music" has had in being understood, acclaimed, and played is exactly like the fate of serious music in earlier times;

2) that the similarity of critical comments about earlier music to those made about modern music indicates exactly the same kind and degree of incomprehension on the part of listeners, and proves (or implies) that modern music is inherently just as understandable and "accessible" as any other music;

3) that the abandonment of tonality was a teleological inevitability, a necessary extrapolation from the harmonic practice of Wagner; which implies

4) that atonality and serialism were "the way forward" for a musical tradition that had essentially exhausted itself;

5) that originality is a principal artistic value and creative goal; which implies

6) that music which is not innovative - does not "move music forward" - is less important or worthy of interest or esteem;

7) that "modern" music - i.e., contemporary music which is "important" and worthy of note - means music which is "challenging";

8) that the extent to which music is played and listened to is of absolutely no significance in determining its artistic or cultural value.

I'm not presuming to define Modernism, or all of its implications, even in the limited terms of this discussion. But I thought I'd better spell out some of the underlying assumptions which Modernist ideologies of music have bequeathed us, so that my previous post might make more sense to some who've questioned it or found it offensive. My contention that Modernism has colored our sense of what _modern_ (lower case "m") music is, wasn't offered as a personal or artistic evaluation of any music, but merely as a way of suggesting that many of us are at least remnant Modernists to the extent that we accept the conventional view of how "modern" music has been and should be defined and valued. Musically sophisticated people (like most of us ), when asked who are the most important composers of 20th-century music, will think naturally of the most innovative and influential composers, starting with Stravinsky and Schoenberg; and when asked what _kinds_ of music were most important in the 20th century, we will think of the kinds that those innovators and their followers wrote. But the question not asked is: "important to whom?" From the way 20th-century writers on music have dealt with their subject, we would have to conclude that the most important music, the music that most defines an era, is the music that's most important to other composers. Which other composers? The composers who are most influenced by the most influential composers, and who then influence other composers in turn. Composers who write music which is less unusual or influential - or which doesn't influence the right composers - tend not to receive much attention or respect from the scholars, even, and perhaps especially, if their music is widely played and enjoyed by listeners who are generally neither composers nor scholars.

Importance to listeners is thus - to a Modernist - no indicator of importance in the world of classical music. To a real old-fashioned dyed-in-the-wool Modernist it may even - as some infamous but not atypical comments I'll quote in a moment will show - indicate the opposite.

I said in my previous post:

_The music of the era we call "modern" (basically since around 1900) is actually not what it is typically and officially portrayed as being. Schoenberg and his offspring - and in fact any and all of the movements which declared their Modernist ambitions back then and attracted a lot of attention from intellectual types - provided, in fact, a very, very small part of the music people were writing and listening to. That music (which none here dare call atonal without instant reprisal) looms much larger in textbooks and classrooms than it ever has or will in the concert hall or in the record libraries of classical music lovers. It's only to the extent that we still accept the Modernist myth that such music was centrally important in the classical music of the 20th century, when in fact the overwhelming bulk of the music composed and listened to during that era was tonal and, to a great extent, essentially Romantic (perish the thought!), that we continue to believe in Modernism in spite of our disclaimers. _

I believe and mean this absolutely (and no, violadude, there is no implication that atonal music is worthless and that no one should or will ever listen to it again). I do not subscribe to a Modernist notion of what makes music, or any other aspect of culture, important. Taking the largest view, what is important about a culture is what the people of that culture most deeply value and most characteristically do. This implies nothing about the intrinsic aesthetic merit of any particular music; to reject one standard of value is not necessarily to accept another. "Pantonality" and serialism are clearly matters of great importance to many musically knowledgeable people, and I don't believe that anyone should question the legitimacy of their valuing music employing these techniques (and for what it's worth, I can enjoy some music of that sort myself, so you won't catch me calling Schoenberg's music "noise" or "crap," which of course shouldn't matter one way or the other). But the commonly accepted criteria in academic studies for assigning importance to these (or any) kinds of music in the whole context of 20th-century music are not criteria that can carry comparable weight for most classical music lovers. Surely the most important thing about music, as an art that serves the needs of humans, is that it is played, listened to, and loved by those who listen to it, from which I deduce that the importance of any particular music cannot be properly assessed without some substantial consideration, among other things, of who, if anyone, is listening to it and what it is saying to them. So if we are going to paint a true picture of musical culture in the modern era we are going to have to look beyond a handful of "innovative" and "seminal" composers - whose various works may or may not have a significant place in the repertoire of music actually performed - and see what sort of music most composers have been writing for the last century, as well as what place their works have occupied in the repertoire of music played, heard, and enjoyed. The musical life of the first half of the 20th-century was not "about" Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Messiaen, Boulez, Stockhausen, Cage, et al. All these were important in introducing new ideas into music, and have therefore been the subjects of intensive interest and focus on the part of scholars, musicologists, music students, and other composers attracted to their methods. But it is not in any sense an aesthetic evaluation of their works - some of which have achieved both critical and popular acclaim - to suggest that the amount of attention given them has been to the neglect of great numbers of composers, and vast quantities of music, which have collectively been more central to the practical musical life of the 20th century, and which therefore, by any fair and objective criteria, constitute truly "modern" music as much as - if not more than - the music of the major innovators.

When Rene Leibowitz called Sibelius "the worst composer in the world, " and Virgil Thomson called his work "vulgar, self-indulgent, and provincial beyond description," they were denigrating, with smirking self-congratulation, one of the great composers of the 20th century, and - how this must have kept them awake nights! - _one of the most popular_. That was Modernism speaking. When the 5th edition of Grove's said of Rachmaninoff, "Technically he was highly gifted, but also severely limited. His music is well constructed and effective, but monotonous in texture, which consists in essence mainly of artificial and gushing tunes accompanied by a variety of figures derived from arpeggios. The enormous popular success some few of Rachmaninoff's works had in his lifetime is not likely to last, and musicians never regarded it with much favour," it was discounting another superb composer of the 20th century, like Sibelius one of the most unflaggingly popular (and one whose music has, as we know, not only lasted but risen in critical esteem). That too was Modernism speaking. How many people now share such views? Hard to say. But even here on TC, in post #93 on this thread, Chronochromie dismisses the idea that Sibelius and Rachmaninoff are "real" modern composers, calling them " late Romantics who found their voice in the late 19th century and who even before their deaths looked like oddities (not an insult, I love Sibelius and like Rach)." The truth, of course, is that these composers' voices evolved well into the 20th century, in interesting ways that showed them alert to the "progressive" music of their time yet resolutely true to their own visions, and that multitudes of devoted listeners did not consider them the least bit odd. Such composers (and these two are only the most prominent representatives of an enormous group which also notably included Puccini and Strauss, in his "reactionary" later music) were barely on the Modernists' radar, and, being impossible to integrate into a Modernist worldview, were treated with indifference or summary contempt in music histories and analyses of "important" music.

This assumption - that prominent (and less prominent) composers of the 20th century who did not break sharply with the past and "revolutionize" music are somehow less characteristic of their time and less important when the history of music is discussed - is the assumption that I want to call into question. Sibelius and Rachmaninoff were composing music contemporaneously with Stravinsky and Schoenberg, as were (in approximate order of birth) Edward Elgar, Giacomo Puccini, Pietro Mascagni, Claude Debussy, Frederick Delius, Richard Strauss, Carl Nielsen, Paul Dukas, Ferrucio Busoni, Enrique Granados, Alberic Magnard, Albert Roussel, Hans Pfitzner, Wilhelm Stenhammar, Alexander Zemlinsky, Alexander Scriabin, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Max Reger, Josef Suk, Gustav Holst, Franz Schmidt, Maurice Ravel, Manuel de Falla, Ernst von Dohnanyi, Frank Bridge, Ottorino Respighi, John Ireland, Nikolai Medtner, Ernest Bloch, Bela Bartok, Nikolai Myaskovsky, Georges Enescu, Gian Francesco Malipiero, Percy Grainger, Karol Szymanowski, Manuel Ponce, Joaquin Turina, Zoltan Kodaly, Arnold Bax, Charles Tomlinson Griffes, Heitor Villa Lobos, Jacques Ibert, Bohuslav Martinu, Sergei Prokofiev, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, Herbert Howells, Walter Piston, Ernest John Moeran, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Howard Hanson, Erich Korngold, George Gershwin, Francis Poulenc, Carlos Chavez, Kurt Weill, Aaron Copland, Edmund Rubbra, Gerald Finzi, Joachin Rodrigo, Maurice Durufle, William Walton, Aram Khachaturian, Michael Tippett, Alan Rawsthorne, Eduard Tubin, William Alwyn, Dmitri Shostakovich, Paul Creston, Miklos Rozsa, Vagn Holmboe, Samuel Barber... And those are only some of the most recognizable names among the enormous number of distinguished composers active all over the Western world from the early to mid-20th century - _the Modern Era_.

What do we notice about these composers, extremely diverse as they are? First, that their music has, by and large, been much played and/or recorded (which is why their names are familiar). Second, that they were appreciated by audiences of their time - i.e., their music was enjoyed when it was new (and still is). But the third thing is what I want to emphasize here: almost all of the music of these composers, even the more recent of them, was tonal in ways that their audiences could recognize; and in its formal and sonorous features, as well as its expressive manner and sensibility, much of it could quite accurately be described as Romantic. The predominance of such music, which I would not hesitate to say represented the "mainstream" of the music of its era, calls sharply into question the boundaries which Modernism has imposed upon our conception of the "periods" of music history. It shows clearly that Romanticism, in any but a limited technical sense, did not end with the 19th century, or with the coming of serialism, neoclassicism, or any other Modernist "ism"; it was merely further enriched in the 20th century, and carried forward by the vast majority of composers who did not yield to the temptation of "newness," but rather utilized selectively the new sounds they heard as further means to their own personal, expressive ends. And, as we know, some of those who did initially aspire to be "modern" and adopt the course expected of "serious" composers reverted back to clearly tonal styles from an explicit need to reclaim a more communicative artistic language. The term "Neo-Romantic, as applied to the music of a composer such as George Rochberg, may have some value in denoting his return to a tonal idiom. But as applied to the course of music as a whole, and specifically to recent composers working with the vocabulary of tonal music, I think it may be a misnomer. Romanticism, as a way of looking at music and musical expression, never died, and despite the addition of still more "isms" to our musical lexicon, audiences have most certainly never lost their love for it, a fact which still causes consternation in cemeteries where the ghosts of Modernism linger.

Most artists are not reformers or revolutionaries. The mainstream of early 20th-century composers, despite often feeling the pressure to be "modern" gnawing at them, did not think it was their mission to determine the course of music; most of them had no need to resort to ideological rationalizations; they took music as it was given to them and, at whatever pace came naturally to them, developed individual styles which led their audiences, for the most part rather gradually, down new byways of expression and beauty. They wanted their music to be enjoyed and to move people, they didn't feel a duty to "challenge our preconceptions," they had no utopian delusions about the need for a new kind of music to create a new kind of listener. But they were _modern composers_ in the way that matters most: their music was the music _of __their time_, as that phrase is properly understood, in precisely the way that the music of the composers of earlier eras was.

Modernism was also an expression of its time. But its self-conscious proponents conceived their time idiosyncratically, often more as what they thought it _ought_ to be than as what it actually _was_, and they claimed more than they owned: no one, and no ideology, can own the future, or even the present for more than an elusive moment. Nowadays, with "isms" having brought us to unforeseen, often unpleasant places and worn out their welcome, protesting that one is not a Modernist should rouse us only to ask, "Well, who would _want_ to be?"


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## SimonNZ

What you're not seeing is that the composers who made grandiose and/or silly statements about the music of the future etc (which was happening well earlier than the last century) are now, and have been for a long time judged solely on their music. If after a century they still have stature its not because of how fashionably new they seemed at the time - we no longer care, nor is it their writings - they're largely no longer read. They're now judged only by the music. And they're judged good - or at least the ones commonly mentioned on TC are - by those who take the time to listen or given the chance to listen without the anachronistic scaremongering and handwringing you just displayed.


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## violadude

Alright, Woodduck, I've read your post and I've concluded that there is a serious disconnect in the way we've been discussing this music. 

In your post, you mentioned the composers "Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Messiaen, Boulez, Stockhausen, Cage" as being the "major innovators" of the 20th century, in contrast with the composers "Edward Elgar, Giacomo Puccini, Pietro Mascagni, Claude Debussy, Frederick Delius, Richard Strauss, Carl Nielsen, Paul Dukas, Ferrucio Busoni, Enrique Granados, Alberic Magnard, Albert Roussel, Hans Pfitzner, Wilhelm Stenhammar, Alexander Zemlinsky, Alexander Scriabin, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Max Reger, Josef Suk, Gustav Holst, Franz Schmidt, Maurice Ravel, Manuel de Falla, Ernst von Dohnanyi, Frank Bridge, Ottorino Respighi, John Ireland, Nikolai Medtner, Ernest Bloch, Bela Bartok, Nikolai Myaskovsky, Georges Enescu, Gian Francesco Malipiero, Percy Grainger, Karol Szymanowski, Manuel Ponce, Joaquin Turina, Zoltan Kodaly, Arnold Bax, Charles Tomlinson Griffes, Heitor Villa Lobos, Jacques Ibert, Bohuslav Martinu, Sergei Prokofiev, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, Herbert Howells, Walter Piston, Ernest John Moeran, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Howard Hanson, Erich Korngold, George Gershwin, Francis Poulenc, Carlos Chavez, Kurt Weill, Aaron Copland, Edmund Rubbra, Gerald Finzi, Joachin Rodrigo, Maurice Durufle, William Walton, Aram Khachaturian, Michael Tippett, Alan Rawsthorne, Eduard Tubin, William Alwyn, Dmitri Shostakovich, Paul Creston, Miklos Rozsa, Vagn Holmboe, Samuel Barber" as composers not as innovative or something like that...

Meanwhile, I have not been thinking of the music of the 20th century in those terms at all, and I wouldn't divide composers of the 20th century in this manner. In fact, I think it's downright strange to put a composer like Pfitzner in the same category as Bartok. To me the music of Copland is as innovative in its own way as the music of Stravinsky...just as an example. 

My composer divide has much more to do with which composers seem to me to have put out a strong body of consistently original and high quality works...and yes, I would put the music of Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Messiaen, Boulez, Stockhausen and (a good bit of) Cage in that category, but I would also put (from your list) Bartok, Vaughn-Williams, Debussy, Ravel, Strauss, Nielsen, Prokofiev, Gershwin, Copland, Barber, Scriabin, Strauss, Sibelius, Rachmaninoff, Shostakovich, maybe Szymanowski to a degree..(I would also add Britten and Lutoslawski to this list).
The other composers you mention in your list I would either consider to not quite have reached the heights of the aforementioned composers or I am not familiar enough with their work to say either way. It has nothing to do with being "the most extremely innovative" to me and I think most if not all composers in my list have innovated music to some degree or another. 

But, on the other side of the coin, I certainly think originality and exploring unexplored aspects of music still has and important place and I wouldn't dismiss those notions as easily as you do. I don't want to listen to a composer that writes music nearly identical to Chopin or Prokofiev or something like that...in that case, I would just rather listen to Chopin or Prokofiev. Do you disagree with this sentiment? 

And let me be clear, because I think many people will misunderstand what I mean when I say "originality and exploring unexplored aspects of music". To me, this does not just mean writing "extreme Avant-Garde pieces, it's something much broader than that. I don't consider composers like Arvo Part, late Gorecki or Rautavarra as "regressive" or "holding music back". Arvo Part sounds new to me, as does Rautavarra, within the contexts of their place in history, I would say they are exploring new facets of music in the same way Schoenberg or Boulez were in their time and I'm personally very against labeling composers like Part as "Romantic", as if their music harkens back to the 19th century. It sounds absolutely nothing like 19th century music to me.


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## Nereffid

violadude said:


> Yes, absolutely. Of course there's always going to be some overlap. But if I thought that popularity = greatness for pre-20th century classical music, I would be forced to believe that the first minute of "Also Sprach Zarathrusta" was the best thing Strauss ever wrote, that Pachabel's Canon was greater than Bach's Mass in b minor, that "Flight of the Bumblebee" was better than the whole of "Boris Gudonov". None of those statements ring true to me in any capacity.


Well. Anyone who thinks a _general correlation_ is the same as a 100%-specific one-to-one correspondence is a fool.


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## violadude

Nereffid said:


> Well. Anyone who thinks a _general correlation_ is the same as a 100%-specific one-to-one correspondence is a fool.


Uh-huh. Well I guess I don't see what the disconnect here is. Stravinsky seems pretty popular to me, and he is a great composer. I don't see that as being in different than any other era as far as a general notion of popularity is concerned. But I would point out that popular within a very educated and well versed set of classical music listeners is very different from popularity from the standpoint of all classical music listeners ever. The composers and pieces that seem popular to me might be very different from the composers and pieces that seem popular to the "100 soothing classical masterpieces" crowd.

If we're talking about the latter, I would say my comparisons weren't too far off.


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## Nereffid

violadude said:


> the "100 soothing classical masterpieces" crowd.



Oh well, now you've brought them into the conversation there's little point in continuing.


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## violadude

Nereffid said:


> Oh well, now you've brought them into the conversation there's little point in continuing.


Okay, you've got to tell me what you mean by "popularity" then. Because as far as I'm concerned, saying that Pachabel's Canon is more "popular" than Bach's Mass is about as controversial as saying grass is green.

What do you mean by popularity?

It seems to me that certain people on the forum are intent on pushing the "popularity=greatness" idea only as far as the want to see it taken. As soon as you point out that Mendelssohn's "Wedding March" is much more popular than anything else he wrote, you want to run away from the idea.

By the way, if guys like KenOC are going to constantly bring up the notion of record sales as being indicative of popularity/greatness, I don't see what's wrong with me bringing up those "100 soothing classical masterpieces" sets. As far as I know, those sell very well.


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## Ingélou

Heck - there's some *serious reading* on this thread; must earmark time for it.

As far as literature goes, I share the idea that there's a 'general correlation' between popularity and greatness/artistic merit, but not a one-to-one correspondence.

For example, Shakespeare *was* popular in his day, actually; on the other hand so was 'moral' Gower, and who reads him now?


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## Nereffid

violadude said:


> Okay, you've got to tell me what you mean by "popularity" then. Because as far as I'm concerned, saying that Pachabel's Canon is more "popular" than Bach's Mass is about as controversial as saying grass is green.
> 
> What do you mean by popularity?
> 
> It seems to me that certain people on the forum are intent on pushing the "popularity=greatness" idea only as far as the want to see it taken. As soon as you point out that Mendelssohn's "Wedding March" is much more popular than anything else he wrote, you want to run away from the idea.
> 
> By the way, if guys like KenOC are going to constantly bring up the notion of record sales as being indicative of popularity/greatness, I don't see what's wrong with me bringing up those "100 soothing classical masterpieces" sets. As far as I know, those sell very well.


You keep writing "popularity=greatness" and then gleefully focusing on specific data points as if you think you've pulled down the whole house of cards.

Let me put it this way: smoking correlates with lung cancer. Nobody says "smoking=death from lung cancer". And people who smoke don't all get lung cancer. And people who get lung cancer aren't all smokers.

You have to see this as a bigger-picture situation.

General correlation. Not one-to-one correspondence.


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## violadude

Deleted by author


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## violadude

Nereffid said:


> You keep writing "popularity=greatness" and then gleefully focusing on specific data points as if you think you've pulled down the whole house of cards.
> 
> Let me put it this way: smoking correlates with lung cancer. Nobody says "smoking=death from lung cancer". And people who smoke don't all get lung cancer. And people who get lung cancer aren't all smokers.
> 
> You have to see this as a bigger-picture situation.
> 
> General correlation. Not one-to-one correspondence.


Well, first of all, there's really nothing gleeful about my tone here. I'm actually extremely frustrated right now because I'm honestly making an attempt to understand what you mean by "popularity generally correlates with greatness" but you seem to be constantly moving the goalpost to keep me confused.

What do you mean by "popular"? Popular within a certain group of classical music listeners? Popular in general among all classical music listeners? The composers that make those "Top Ten" lists that various classical music publications are always turning out?

What is a valid way, in your view, of determining popularity? You dismissed the idea of using those "100 Masterpieces" sets as a way of determining popularity, but as far as I know those are very popular. I really don't get what you mean.


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## violadude

DeepR said:


> Respecting another poster doesn't mean that you're not allowed to post negatively about 4'33"', make jokes, or write about it in a way that could be considered disrespectful by someone else. It's called freedom of speech. As long as there are no personal attacks, people can be as nasty towards the music as they want, even if it makes you feel insulted, as long as it doesn't break forum rules. I'm not saying this kind of behavior should be encouraged and there is such a thing as good taste, but you can't expect people to be very considerate of your own opinion all the time.


Personally, I am much less insulted by personal attacks than attacks on the music I love.


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## Nereffid

violadude said:


> Well, first of all, there's really nothing gleeful about my tone here. I'm actually extremely frustrated right now because I'm honestly making an attempt to understand what you mean by "popularity generally correlates with greatness" but you seem to be constantly moving the goalpost to keep me confused.
> 
> What do you mean by "popular"? Popular within a certain group of classical music listeners? Popular in general among all classical music listeners? The composers that make those "Top Ten" lists that various classical music publications are always turning out?
> 
> What is a valid way, in your view, of determining popularity? You dismissed the idea of using those "100 Masterpieces" sets as a way of determining popularity, but as far as I know those are very popular. I really don't get what you mean.


There is no specific defintion of "popular" that I can give you, just as there's no specific definition of "quality" anyone can come up with.
This isn't a case of moving the goalpost, because _there is no goalpost_.

Specifics, such as what sells tickets in concert halls, or what gets recorded, or what sells well, or who shows up in "great composers" lists, and so on, are good pointers towards popularity (by the way, I didn't dismiss using what you call the "100 soothing classical masterpieces" crowd as a way of measuring popularity; I dismissed your focus on a specific rather than the bigger picture) but ultimately it's a nebulous thing. There's no possibility of ever producing some definitive list of what's popular and what isn't, or of determining whether one random composer is more popular than another, but that doesn't mean we can't have a _rough_ idea of who the popular composers are, or which composers or kinds of music _tend_ to be more popular than others.

Getting back to Mendelssohn's Wedding March. I won't deny it's a popular piece - that's a fact. Does that mean it's a good piece of music? Of course not! (We'll leave aside whether "good" can even be determined to everyone's satisfaction...) Does the fact that Arkivmusic lists more recordings of it than the octet mean the march is better than the octet? Of course not!
But.
Is the _broader_ fact that Mendelssohn's other highly-recorded orchestral works include the violin concerto, the 3rd and 4th symphonies, and the Hebrides and Midsummer Night's Dream overtures meaningless in a discussion of the merits of Mendelssohn's orchestral music? Surely not.
Is the _broader_ fact that there are a lot of recordings of Mendelssohn's music irrelevant to any discussion of whether Mendelssohn counts among the significant or great composers of the 19th century? Surely not.


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## Guest

But it is claimed that there ARE goalposts. And popularity is sometimes considered a goalpost, in controlled terms, and when it suits. Bach when he was unpopular. Bach when he is popular. Boulez when he fills a concert hall. Boulez when he doesn't. Deutscher when she's unheard of. Deutscher when she is on the BBC.


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## Nereffid

dogen said:


> But it is claimed that there ARE goalposts. And popularity is sometimes considered a goalpost, in controlled terms, and when it suits. Bach when he was unpopular. Bach when he is popular. Boulez when he fills a concert hall. Boulez when he doesn't. Deutscher when she's unheard of. Deutscher when she is on the BBC.


Good point.
On the other hand, I'm the person who said there were no goalposts*, and I have said none of those things.
I can't be held responsible for other people's definitions of popularity or its relevance.

* I don't think there's a clearly marked goal line, either. But we can certainly tell one end of the pitch from the other.


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## Truckload

Casebearer said:


> Indeed and it seems to go in every direction, some new, some recycling viewpoints, some stepping into dead alleys. If we really want to get anywhere I think a different kind of moderation of the exchange would be welcome. I mean: there is a big distinction between moderation that merely monitors the breaking of forum rules (which doesn't seem to help much so far in preventing hurt feelings here and there) and moderation that aims at structuring exchanges like these and helps us to arrive at something as a community. I've experienced the difference between these moderation styles and I can tell you that good moderation of the second type is a relief to everybody that's participating....


I do not agree. Hurt feelings are a small price to pay for freedom of expression. Just look at what is going on politically in the Netherlands regarding free speech. I have certainly had my fair share of hurt feelings. But I would not want to be a part of any group that excluded the free exchange of opinions. Of course, that is the very thing that some on this forum want. They want only clones of themselves allowed to express agreement, no opinions to challenge their own point of view.


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## Guest

Nereffid said:


> Good point.
> On the other hand, I'm the person who said there were no goalposts*, and I have said none of those things.
> I can't be held responsible for other people's definitions of popularity or its relevance.
> 
> * I don't think there's a clearly marked goal line, either. But we can certainly tell one end of the pitch from the other.


Yes, I realise; I'm not ascribing what I said to yourself.


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## Guest

Truckload said:


> I do not agree. Hurt feelings are a small price to pay for freedom of expression. Just look at what is going on politically in the Netherlands regarding free speech. I have certainly had my fair share of hurt feelings. But I would not want to be a part of any group that excluded the free exchange of opinions. Of course, that is the very thing that some on this forum want. They want only clones of themselves allowed to express agreement, no opinions to challenge their own point of view.


As a participant of this forum, with its explicit ToS, you ARE part of a group whose freedom of expression is curtailed (as has been pointed out regularly).


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## Truckload

arpeggio said:


> I have been reviewing what has transpired so far and to be frank I am having trouble keeping track of everything that has been said.
> 
> One trend that I have found is that in an effort to establish the idea that contemporary music is weaker than older music is to generate polls and try to play the popularity card. Well so far the result of the various polls here have never really supported their positions.
> 
> Now we have this OP by Mahlerian where he has articulated our feelings toward the actions of the anti-modernist. His OP so far has generated over fifty likes, significantly more than any posts I have ever seen here. The anti-modernistic rhetoric has hit a real raw nerve with a very large number of members of this forum. We feel hurt and insulted and are tired of being told that somehow it is our fault. We are getting tired of having to apologize for our approach to classical music for fear of violating the TOS.
> 
> The members of this forum are among the more serious who follow classical music, whether or not we have degrees music. Most of us like to listen to all sorts of music from the Gregorian Chant to contemporary avant-garde. Chastising us is not a solution. Then when we try to defend ourselves accuse us of...Well, Mahlerian covers that real well in his OP.
> 
> The reality is that in this arena the anti-modernist is in the minority. If he wants us to respect his opinions he has to respect ours. A person can hate Cage but he is obligated to respect the many fine members who admire Cage and follow his music. And he has to respect those who think _433_ is music.


I don't really care if you or anyone else respects my opinion. I have arrived at a place in life where my judgement and opinions are mine alone, and not subject to the approval of others.

You seem to be determined to create a fight by bringing up the most extreme and objectionable of the avant-guarde nonsense. Why? Is it really that important to you to insult me by even calling 433 music? Because it is insulting to anyone who loves the craft of composition to call 433 music.


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## SimonNZ

Truckload said:


> I do not agree. Hurt feelings are a small price to pay for freedom of expression. Just look at what is going on politically in the Netherlands regarding free speech. I have certainly had my fair share of hurt feelings. But I would not want to be a part of any group that excluded the free exchange of opinions. Of course, that is the very thing that some on this forum want. They want only clones of themselves allowed to express agreement, no opinions to challenge their own point of view.


Weren't you calling for the thread to be locked just a few posts ago?


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## Truckload

dogen said:


> As a participant of this forum, with its explicit ToS, you ARE part of a group whose freedom of expression is curtailed (as has been pointed out regularly).


I don't have a problem with the ToS. I agree completely with the ToS. I place a high value on civility and believe it is an essential ingredient in any discussion of issues that can become emotional. I am absolutely sure that if I ever violated the actual ToS, you among others would be sure to complain and elicit a moderators intervention. Now wouldn't you?

What some members of the atonalist and avant-guarde clique seem to want is not civility but forced agreement or silence. This is a horrifying trend in western civilization at large. It is really sad that some members feel so threatened and insecure that they want to silence anyone who does not agree with them about music.


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## SimonNZ

Truckload said:


> I don't have a problem with the ToS. I agree completely with the ToS. I place a high value on civility and believe it is an essential ingredient in any discussion of issues that can become emotional. I am absolutely sure that if I ever violated the actual ToS, you among others would be sure to complain and elicit a moderators intervention. Now wouldn't you.
> 
> What *some members of the atonalist and avant-guarde clique *seem to want is not civility but forced agreement or silence. This is a horrifying trend in western civilization at large. It is really sad that some members feel so threatened and insecure that they want to silence anyone who does not agree with them about music.


Seriously: please read the OP again.


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## Nereffid

Truckload said:


> I don't have a problem with the ToS. I agree completely with the ToS. I place a high value on civility and believe it is an essential ingredient in any discussion of issues that can become emotional. I am absolutely sure that if I ever violated the actual ToS, you among others would be sure to complain and elicit a moderators intervention. Now wouldn't you.
> 
> What some members of the atonalist and avant-guarde clique seem to want is not civility but forced agreement or silence. This is a horrifying trend in western civilization at large. It is really sad that some members feel so threatened and insecure that they want to silence anyone who does not agree with them about music.


Some members probably do want "forced agreement or silence", but their taste in music is irrelevant to that.


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## Truckload

Nereffid said:


> Just as regards this "popularity" thing, are the people who say that there's no correlation between popularity and significance also saying that this non-correlation also exists for pre-20th century music? That a list of composers who were active before 1900 and are currently regarded as significant would not resemble a list of pre-1900 composers whose music is currently popular?


Excellent point. While it is dangerous to place total faith in popularity, I believe it is also a mistake to completely ignore popularity. I believe that a consensus of those who appreciate great music is worthy of being taken into consideration in evaluating the contribution of any composer. It is one factor, but not the only factor. Most of the historical composers who are venerated today enjoy at least some degree of popularity.

I have often wondered if there was some great composer from the past who created fabulous music, but died without enough fame for anyone to have saved his music. It is an interesting thought.


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## Truckload

Woodduck said:


> Modernism was also an expression of its time. But its self-conscious proponents conceived their time idiosyncratically, often more as what they thought it _ought_ to be than as what it actually _was_, and they claimed more than they owned: no one, and no ideology, can own the future, or even the present for more than an elusive moment. Nowadays, with "isms" having brought us to unforeseen, often unpleasant places and worn out their welcome, protesting that one is not a Modernist should rouse us only to ask, "Well, who would _want_ to be?"


Wow, your posts are always good, but this one is a masterpiece. Your essay is both descriptive of truth and illuminating. I have saved a copy on my computer and will reread again, perhaps frequently. Thank you so much for taking the time to create such a well thought out and well supported summary of modernism.


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## violadude

I don't really see the point in putting any faith into the notion of popularity. Like I said, there may be overlap between popularity and greatness, but I don't know what popularity would necessarily have to do with it. Popularity has no filter, it has no inherent bias towards great things or poor things, there's no reason for anything to be popular other than "a bunch of people like it". Who are these people? What is their background? Why do they like what they like? Popularity doesn't tell us any of that. 

Maybe I wouldn't go as far as to say it has absolutely no bearing on anything...but I put very little stock in it.

Let me put it this way: How many people like what they like because they grew up with it? 40%? 50%? 60%? I'd guess that it's relatively high. 

Now, to be clear, I'm not dismissing anyone's reason for liking something...but as far as my evaluation of a composer's music goes, if a large portion of popularity is based on what people grew up with, relegating its popularity to many a happenstance of early childhood, then that really doesn't say anything to me about the music itself.

Then again, I could be wrong. Maybe a very small percentage of people like certain composers because of what they grew up with...but there's really no way of telling and that's why I put almost no stock in popularity. 

What if everyone's very first musical experience was Schoenberg? Then his music might be very popular, but would that make it great? Obviously, people who already don't think it's great wouldn't think so...


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## Truckload

SimonNZ said:


> Weren't you calling for the thread to be locked just a few posts ago?


No you are mistaken. I started to respond to the moderators that it might not be a bad idea. However, I was wrong, realized I was wrong, and edited the post to remove that comment. Unlike some, I have no problem admitting when I am wrong.

And thank goodness the thread was not locked. If it had been locked we would not have had the privilege of reading Woodducks essay above.


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## Truckload

SimonNZ said:


> Seriously: please read the OP again.


Seriously, I read it. If you have a real point to make, you are going to have to actually state your point.


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## Truckload

Nereffid said:


> Some members probably do want "forced agreement or silence", but their taste in music is irrelevant to that.


Ha! Was that a pun on 433? I don't know if that is what you meant, but it gave me a chuckle.


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## Truckload

violadude said:


> I don't really see the point in putting any faith into the notion of popularity. Like I said, there may be overlap between popularity and greatness, but I don't know what popularity would necessarily have to do with it. Popularity has no filter, it has no inherent bias towards great things or poor things, there's no reason for anything to be popular other than "a bunch of people like it". Who are these people? What is their background? Why do they like what they like? Popularity doesn't tell us any of that.
> 
> Maybe I wouldn't go as far as to say it has absolutely no bearing on anything...but I put very little stock in it.


It is a tough issue to wrestle with. The positions you have espoused in this thread are very reasonable.

I really, really love music. At 63 I think I have finally thought through most of the issues that I wrestled with about music for many years, and reached the best conclusions of which I am capable. And I have realized there are some questions that are simply unanswerable by any human. The exact formula for determining how significant is any composers contribution is one of those things we can not nail down. No one really can, even if they think they can do so.

If Paul Ducas had known during his life that "Sorcerer's Apprentice" would prove to be wildly popular, would he still have destroyed most of his compositions? Would he have been horrified by the success of Sorcerer and perhaps destroyed it also?

At the end of my favorite movie "It's A Wonderful Life" we get the famous quote. "No man is a failure who has friends." So can any composer be considered a failure if he gave joy to others?

What would Bach have thought about being considered by so many people as the greatest composer of all time? Is Cage all that bad if he gives joy to some people?

Tough questions.


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## Guest

Truckload said:


> I don't have a problem with the ToS. I agree completely with the ToS. I place a high value on civility and believe it is an essential ingredient in any discussion of issues that can become emotional. I am absolutely sure that if I ever violated the actual ToS, you among others would be sure to complain and elicit a moderators intervention. Now wouldn't you?
> 
> What some members of the atonalist and avant-guarde clique seem to want is not civility but forced agreement or silence. This is a horrifying trend in western civilization at large. It is really sad that some members feel so threatened and insecure that they want to silence anyone who does not agree with them about music.


You seem to have missed my point. The ToS specifically curtails freedom of expression. You said you could not be part of a group whose freedom of expression is curtailed. How do you explain this contradiction?


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## Truckload

dogen said:


> You seem to have missed my point. The ToS specifically curtails freedom of expression. You said you could not be part of a group whose freedom of expression is curtailed. How do you explain this contradiction?


We all must live with some restrictions or we face anarchy. We can only have the freedom to drive cars, if we agree with the restriction imposed on us by red lights. Advocating that people have freedom to drive cars does not mean advocating freedom to run red lights.

Hostility can be expressed in many ways that do not violate the ToS. Including parsing the posts of those you hate and trying to ferret out meaningless surface contradictions.


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## Nereffid

violadude said:


> What if everyone's very first musical experience was Schoenberg? Then his music might be very popular, but would that make it great? Obviously, people who already don't think it's great wouldn't think so...


My answer is no, not at all, just as the popularity of Beethoven doesn't make his music great either. There's no causation involved. I realise my earlier smoking analogy of course does have causation in it, which just muddies the waters.

Let me try putting it this way - popularity and greatness are distorted reflections of each other.

(ETA: Actually, I do think there's more of a link betwen popularity and greatness than I suggest above. That's not because I think popularity is so important, but because I'm sceptical of objective claims to greatness. As I've remarked before, "great" to me means "popular with the right people". But _for the purposes of this discussion_ I'm accepting the regular notion of "great" as some sort of inherent property of a work of art. If this all seems like trying to have my cake and eat it, well tough snit. You think none of you ever deliberately hold contradictory opinions in order to keep the focus on one particular point?)


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## violadude

Nereffid said:


> My answer is no, not at all, just as the popularity of Beethoven doesn't make his music great either. There's no causation involved. I realise my earlier smoking analogy of course does have causation in it, which just muddies the waters.
> 
> Let me try putting it this way - popularity and greatness are distorted reflections of each other.


Right, I agree that it wouldn't make his music great. But given the myriad of different reasons why people might like something, I don't see it having much of a strong correlation even, or if there is a correlation it has next to no analytical power.


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## Guest

Truckload said:


> We all must live with some restrictions or we face anarchy. We can only have the freedom to drive cars, if we agree with the restriction imposed on us by red lights. Advocating that people have freedom to drive cars does not mean advocating freedom to run red lights.
> 
> Hostility can be expressed in many ways that do not violate the ToS. Including parsing the posts of those you hate and trying to ferret out meaningless surface contradictions.


Calm down dear, there's no hatred.


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## Guest

Nereffid said:


> My answer is no, not at all, just as the popularity of Beethoven doesn't make his music great either. There's no causation involved. I realise my earlier smoking analogy of course does have causation in it, which just muddies the waters.
> 
> Let me try putting it this way - popularity and greatness are distorted reflections of each other.
> 
> (ETA: Actually, I do think there's more of a link betwen popularity and greatness than I suggest above. That's not because I think popularity is so important, but because I'm sceptical of objective claims to greatness. As I've remarked before, "great" to me means "popular with the right people". But _for the purposes of this discussion_ I'm accepting the regular notion of "great" as some sort of inherent property of a work of art. If this all seems like trying to have my cake and eat it, well tough snit. You think none of you ever deliberately hold contradictory opinions in order to keep the focus on one particular point?)


What about smoking on the goal-line?


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## Nereffid

violadude said:


> Right, I agree that it wouldn't make his music great. But given the myriad of different reasons why people might like something, I don't see it having much of a strong correlation even, or if there is a correlation it has next to no analytical power.


Sure, we all have our biases and apparently inexplicable likes and dislikes. Ultimately, though, if people like something, whether they're experienced musicians or uneducated listeners, they're responding to something within the music. It might not _always_ be the same thing, but it would be weird if it _rarely_ was.
As for "analytical power", I'd see it as qualitative rather than quantitative.


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## violadude

Nereffid said:


> (ETA: Actually, I do think there's more of a link betwen popularity and greatness than I suggest above. That's not because I think popularity is so important, but because I'm sceptical of objective claims to greatness. As I've remarked before, "great" to me means "popular with the right people". But _for the purposes of this discussion_ I'm accepting the regular notion of "great" as some sort of inherent property of a work of art. *If this all seems like trying to have my cake and eat it, well tough snit. You think none of you ever deliberately hold contradictory opinions in order to keep the focus on one particular point?*)


oooohhh throwin some heat on me. I like that, actually.

Well, I don't have much to add, except for again, if a majority of popular support for certain music is decided by factors other than the actual substance of the music itself (someone who like the music because they grew up with it) then I don't see how its popularity isn't completely arbitrary. I know it's a hypothetical, but it's a strong enough hypothetical for me to not care much about what popularity might say about some composer or another.


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## Guest

Nereffid said:


> (ETA: Actually, I do think there's more of a link betwen popularity and greatness than I suggest above. That's not because I think popularity is so important, but because I'm sceptical of objective claims to greatness. As I've remarked before, "great" to me means "popular with the right people". But _for the purposes of this discussion_ I'm accepting the regular notion of "great" as some sort of inherent property of a work of art. If this all seems like trying to have my cake and eat it, well tough snit. You think none of you ever deliberately hold contradictory opinions in order to keep the focus on one particular point?)


You're right I think! - cognitive dissonance is a very popular hobby.


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## violadude

Nereffid said:


> Sure, we all have our biases and apparently inexplicable likes and dislikes. Ultimately, though, if people like something, whether they're experienced musicians or uneducated listeners, they're responding to something within the music. It might not _always_ be the same thing, but it would be weird if it _rarely_ was.
> As for "analytical power", I'd see it as qualitative rather than quantitative.


I think it would be hard for you and I to find common ground on this issue, since you don't believe in any notion of objective greatness within music. I'm skeptical of the opposite position, that there's no objective greatness within music. A world where Beethoven's 9th has absolutely no inherent quality above a typical pop song is a world that just doesn't make sense to me.


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## Petwhac

violadude said:


> A world where Beethoven's 9th has absolutely no inherent quality above a typical pop song is a world that just doesn't make sense to me.


But that is not a fair comparison. Were you to compare the 9th to a 'typical' early 19th century symphony by a less celebrated contemporary of Beethoven then your point would seem more reasonable. 
In pop music you cannot separate popularity from greatness to any large degree.


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## fluteman

MacLeod said:


> I can see that 'context' can help in the case of literature, but how does that idea carry across into music?


Music, sculpture, painting, theater, literature -- it's all art. And each work of art speaks with its own language, specific in certain ways to its culture, its era, its locality and of course its artist. In many cases, your educational background is enough that an art work will communicate effectively without too much preparation on your part. But as you encounter art from more distant cultures, eras, and localities, further education becomes more helpful to understand it on a deeper level. Sure, Western music hasn't changed so much since Haydn that his work would be incomprehensible on first hearing, just as the English language hasn't changed so much since Shakespeare. But in both cases, education can promote a deeper understanding.
Go further back to the music of Praetorius or the poetry of Chaucer, or to the music or poetry of India or China, education is even more helpful. Etc.


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## violadude

Petwhac said:


> But that is not a fair comparison. Were you to compare the 9th to a 'typical' early 19th century symphony by a less celebrated contemporary of Beethoven then your point would seem more reasonable.
> In pop music you cannot separate popularity from greatness to any large degree.


It's a fair comparison in the sense that I believe in a certain degree of objective greatness when it comes music, despite or regardless of popularity. Doesn't matter what type of music it is.

Unless you're saying that objective greatness somehow doesn't exist within a musical genre, but it does between musical genres. I don't know how I would reconcile that.


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## Petwhac

And while I'm on the subject of pop music, here's a thought:
One can accept and acknowledge the contribution that the Sex Pistols, The Damned and the punk 'movement' made to popular music without liking it, respecting its inherent qualities or the musicianship of its practitioners. Whatever one thinks of the music one cannot deny its enormous influence on a generation of pop groups such as The Police, The Clash, Elvis Costello and others more mainstream and universally popular than punk. 
So it is with much of the avant-garde classical music of the 20th century. One can acknowledge the influence of the various 'schools' on the general aesthetic and thinking of later composers quite irrespective of whether or not one likes, rates or respects the actual music in question.


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## Petwhac

violadude said:


> It's a fair comparison in the sense that I believe in a certain degree of objective greatness when it comes music, despite or regardless of popularity. Doesn't matter what type of music it is.
> 
> Unless you're saying that objective greatness somehow doesn't exist within a musical genre, but it does between musical genres. I don't know how I would reconcile that.


I too believe in an objective let's say quality rather than greatness. Unfortunately it is quite impossible to define except in the matter of craftsmanship. And only then, as long as one understands what is being attempted.


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## arpeggio

DeepR said:


> Respecting another poster doesn't mean that you're not allowed to post negatively about 4'33"', make jokes, or write about it in a way that could be considered disrespectful by someone else. It's called freedom of speech. As long as there are no personal attacks, people can be as nasty towards the music as they want, even if it makes you feel insulted, as long as it doesn't break forum rules. I'm not saying this kind of behavior should be encouraged and there is such a thing as good taste, but you can't expect people to be very considerate of your own opinion all the time.


This is another example of being accused of something I am not because of flaws in my rhetoric. I really do not have the wherewithal to cover every possible reaction to my remarks.

The bottom line is that a very large segment of the members have serious problems with the agenda of some of the people who dislike contemporary music. Like the members who constantly generate polls in an effort to invalidate contemporary music.


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## Nereffid

violadude said:


> I think it would be hard for you and I to find common ground on this issue, since you don't believe in any notion of objective greatness within music. I'm skeptical of the opposite position, that there's no objective greatness within music. A world where Beethoven's 9th has absolutely no inherent quality above a typical pop song is a world that just doesn't make sense to me.


This is wandering so far off the OT at this stage, but anyway...
My position is more a rhetorical one than a practical one. I do think there's something inherent in Beethoven's music that makes it appreciated (and appreciable) far above a typical pop song. But that quality arises from shared ideas about what's meritorious and what's not, not from something fundamental called "greatness". Put it this way - the way we have of determining a great gymnast is by agreeing on some rules about what a gymnast should be able to do, and then subjectively judging competitors based on how they match our interpretation of those rules. Whereas to determine a great sprinter we simply use a stopwatch to see how quickly they run 100 metres. The former is how I see the judgement of music; and the fact that there are now so many quite different approaches to classical music makes me more aware of how potentially arbitrary and non-universal some of those rules are (especially given that unlike sports, those rules are unspoken and uncodified); and the situation is not helped by the vigour with which some people apply one set of rules to dismiss something that actually operates by a different set of rules. So I'd rather we drop the pretense of objectivity and just accept that we live in a world of varyingly shared subjective values.


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## Truckload

Nereffid said:


> This is wandering so far off the OT at this stage, but anyway...
> My position is more a rhetorical one than a practical one. I do think there's something inherent in Beethoven's music that makes it appreciated (and appreciable) far above a typical pop song. But that quality arises from shared ideas about what's meritorious and what's not, not from something fundamental called "greatness". Put it this way - the way we have of determining a great gymnast is by agreeing on some rules about what a gymnast should be able to do, and then subjectively judging competitors based on how they match our interpretation of those rules. Whereas to determine a great sprinter we simply use a stopwatch to see how quickly they run 100 metres. The former is how I see the judgement of music; and the fact that there are now so many quite different approaches to classical music makes me more aware of how potentially arbitrary and non-universal some of those rules are (especially given that unlike sports, those rules are unspoken and uncodified); and the situation is not helped by the vigour with which some people apply one set of rules to dismiss something that actually operates by a different set of rules. So I'd rather we drop the pretense of objectivity and just accept that we live in a world of varyingly shared subjective values.


That was really well reasoned and very clear. Thank you for posting this.

I would contend that once we have a set of rules for gymnastics, it is entirely possible for the judges to score performances objectively. Could we have gymnastics if we did not have a set of rules about what a gymnast should be able to do? If someone comes into a floor exercise and just lies still for the entire performance, would that be gymnastics?

Instead of giving up on the shared rules, I think it is better to promote and support the rules so that the sport of gymnastics is continually getting better for everyone. Ditto music.


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## Guest

I suppose there's one way to truly sniff out the problem: rotate all members involved in these debates through a series of 1-week temp bans and observe which weeks are suddenly peaceful as can be on this forum. I will gladly be banned for the greater good.


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## Blancrocher

Some good points, Nereffid--though personally I doubt its any easier to develop standards for posting etiquette than for musical composition.


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## Guest

nathanb said:


> I suppose there's one way to truly sniff out the problem: rotate all members involved in these debates through a series of 1-week temp bans and observe which weeks are suddenly peaceful as can be on this forum. I will gladly be banned for the greater good.


Only in Unity does The Cabal remain Strong.


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## Petwhac

Truckload said:


> Instead of giving up on the shared rules, I think it is better to promote and support the rules so that the sport of gymnastics is continually getting better for everyone. *Ditto music*.


What rules are there in music?


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## violadude

Petwhac said:


> What rules are there in music?


There aren't rules...but there are tools. The tools of music, melody, harmony, rhythm, color, silence, structure, polyphony, dynamics, juxtaposition, diminution, augmentation, variation... etc.

These tools can be used to create all the aspects of music that make it dynamic and exciting, things like tension and release, contrast and cohesion, sense of direction and purposefulness...and others.

A composer could use all of those tools or just one, or anything in between.

How well a composer uses these musical tools to create these effects that make music tic is basically what I look at when I am getting to know a composers music and eventually determining what I think of it.


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## Truckload

Petwhac said:


> What rules are there in music?


I understand why you posted that question.

Unlike Woodduck I don't have the patience to write a huge essay. One thing I would have hoped all could agree upon, is that the art of music is the art of manipulation of sound.

It seems that even that most basic definition / rule is beyond mutual agreement.


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## Nereffid

Truckload said:


> That was really well reasoned and very clear. Thank you for posting this.
> 
> I would contend that once we have a set of rules for gymnastics, it is entirely possible for the judges to score performances objectively. Could we have gymnastics if we did not have a set of rules about what a gymnast should be able to do? If someone comes into a floor exercise and just lies still for the entire performance, would that be gymnastics?
> 
> Instead of giving up on the shared rules, I think it is better to promote and support the rules so that the sport of gymnastics is continually getting better for everyone. Ditto music.


That floor exercise wouldn't last for about four and a half minutes, would it? 

I guess my point about shared rules was that classical music these days is broad enough to include, as it were, not just gymnastics but also diving and figure skating, and that saying a diver or skater cannot be great because she fails to do what's expected of a gymnast would be rather unfair. (As, I suppose, would be the insistence that someone who is a great diver must automatically be considered a great gymnast).


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## fluteman

Petwhac said:


> What rules are there in music?


Many. Why not take some music courses at a local college or university (any form of music, not just classical) and find out?


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## Truckload

Nereffid said:


> That floor exercise wouldn't last for about four and a half minutes, would it?
> 
> I guess my point about shared rules was that classical music these days is broad enough to include, as it were, not just gymnastics but also diving and figure skating, and that saying a diver or skater cannot be great because she fails to do what's expected of a gymnast would be rather unfair. (As, I suppose, would be the insistence that someone who is a great diver must automatically be considered a great gymnast).


I see your point. Thanks for expressing it so well. Personally I would exclude the divers and figure skaters from the gymnastics competition, but I can't extend the analogy any further without getting dizzy. Thanks for seeing the humor.


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## Petwhac

fluteman said:


> Many. Why not take some music courses at a local college or university (any form of music, not just classical) and find out?


Surely you jest.
Name me one rule please. I understand you may be referring to certain practices that were generally followed in certain eras. Such as those in species counterpoint, Bach choral harmonisation, 12-tone procedures etc., but they only become 'rules' retrospectively. The student may want to follow such rules when writing pastiche but what rules should one follow in one's own composition? One must be guided by instinct. if one's instincts are good, so is the music. Generally speaking!


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## violadude

Petwhac said:


> Surely you jest.
> Name me one rule please. I understand you may be referring to certain practices that were generally followed in certain eras. Such as those in species counterpoint, Bach choral harmonisation, 12-tone procedures etc., but they only become 'rules' retrospectively. The student may want to follow such rules when writing pastiche but what rules should one follow in one's own composition? One must be guided by instinct. if one's instincts are good, so is the music. Generally speaking!


Exactly. The "rules" we learn about in theory classes are descriptive, not prescriptive, practice nearly always came before the theory. The rules only become prescriptive if you wish to write in the style that the rules apply to.


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## Petwhac

violadude said:


> There aren't rules...but there are tools. The tools of music, melody, harmony, rhythm, color, silence, structure, polyphony, dynamics, juxtaposition, diminution, augmentation, variation... etc.
> 
> These tools can be used to create all the aspects of music that make it dynamic and exciting, things like tension and release, contrast and cohesion, sense of direction and purposefulness...and others.
> 
> A composer could use all of those tools or just one, or anything in between.
> 
> How well a composer uses these musical tools to create these effects that make music tic is basically what I look at when I am getting to know a composers music and eventually determining what I think of it.


But that's not like judging a gymnast is it? A gymnast must use x number of techniques and execute them correctly, stay within the boundaries, land with feet together and no stumbling. The judges can easily see when a rule is broken. Not so in contemporary music.


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## violadude

Petwhac said:


> But that's not like judging a gymnast is it? A gymnast must use x number of techniques and execute them correctly, stay within the boundaries, land with feet together and no stumbling. The judges can easily see when a rule is broken. Not so in contemporary music.


No, my comment was made independent of the gymnast analogy.


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## Petwhac

violadude said:


> No, my comment was made independent of the gymnast analogy.


I think there's a little cross-talk going on! It's hard to remember who said what and to whom!! I think Truckload was saying there are or should be rules in music as there are in gymnastics.

_"Instead of giving up on the shared rules, I think it is better to promote and support the rules so that the sport of gymnastics is continually getting better for everyone. Ditto music."_


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## Chronochromie

Woodduck said:


> But even here on TC, in post #93 on this thread, Chronochromie dismisses the idea that Sibelius and Rachmaninoff are "real" modern composers, calling them " late Romantics who found their voice in the late 19th century and who even before their deaths looked like oddities (not an insult, I love Sibelius and like Rach)." The truth, of course, is that these composers' voices evolved well into the 20th century, in interesting ways that showed them alert to the "progressive" music of their time yet resolutely true to their own visions, and that multitudes of devoted listeners did not consider them the least bit odd. Such composers (and these two are only the most prominent representatives of an enormous group which also notably included Puccini and Strauss, in his "reactionary" later music) were barely on the Modernists' radar, and, being impossible to integrate into a Modernist worldview, were treated with indifference or summary contempt in music histories and analyses of "important" music.


I'm well aware of (and have probably posted about) the modernizing tendencies in works such as Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances and Piano Concerto No. 4 and Sibelius' 7th symphony and Oceanides. Putting my comment alongside the likes of Thomson seems disingenuous, as that is part of what I was referring to when I said they were seen as oddities, and I think (hope) that wasn't your intention and you just misunderstood. 
My point was that I wanted to know which composers you were referring to when you claimed that "in fact the overwhelming bulk of the music composed and listened to during that era was tonal and, to a great extent, essentially Romantic". Now you have at least provided a list of composers, but I don't find many "essentially Romantic" composers in there that didn't use fully modern means of expression or that didn't start their careers in the late 19th century and when they died they were seen as oddities in the sense that Glazunov was at the end of his life. Yes, Glazunov didn't really change his Romantic style in the 20th century at all as far as I'm aware, unlike Rach and Sibelius, but even with those few works by them that aren't purely Romantic and are influenced by Modernism, it doesn't feel quite right to me to call them "Modern composers". But as I said the post wasn't about Rach and Sibelius in particular.


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## Truckload

Petwhac said:


> But that's not like judging a gymnast is it? A gymnast must use x number of techniques and execute them correctly, stay within the boundaries, land with feet together and no stumbling. The judges can easily see when a rule is broken. Not so in contemporary music.


I agree. That is exactly why I see a problem. We can not even seem to agree that music is organized sound. That is the most basic rule. Then we have the rules of notation, except you have people who write weird circles and chance music, and squiggly lines and expect musicians to somehow know what was wanted. Then we have rules of bowing for strings, and pitch production for brass, except people want the strings to be played by the hard part of the bow, and brass players to blow into their instruments with no mouthpiece attached. And these are just basic, fundamental rules, yet people let "composers" get away with the most ridiculous stuff and call it music.

It is a very long way down the road before you get to rules like the 12-tone method, or Hindemith's categories of dissonance, let alone getting all the way to Common Practice Era Harmony and Fux's rules of counterpoint.

And if you read much about the process of composition prior to modernism, virtually all composers (I can't think of an exception) learned the rules of counterpoint, the rules of harmony, and the rules of form, BERFORE they ventured off very slightly from those rules. But none of that is even relevant, because we can not even get composers to actually write notes in a staff using time signatures.


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## Fugue Meister

Nereffid said:


> the fact that there are now so many quite different approaches to classical music makes me more aware of how potentially arbitrary and non-universal some of those rules are (especially given that unlike sports, those rules are unspoken and uncodified); and the situation is not helped by the vigour with which some people apply one set of rules to dismiss something that actually operates by a different set of rules. So I'd rather we drop the pretense of objectivity and just accept that we live in a world of varyingly shared subjective values.


This is very close to how I feel and if I could offer another view, I'll try to be brief but we'll see how I do..

Personally I don't understand why some people take things so personally. I'm not trying to pick on you Violadude we see eye to eye on a great deal of things but your statement "Personally, I am much less insulted by personal attacks than attacks on the music I love." in post 193 is one I don't understand. Why does it bother you?, I think your looking at the glass half empty here. Arpeggio and Mahlerian as well.. Why do you feel personally indicted when others vocalize there disdain for particular type of music?

First of all Schoenberg, Webern, Boulez, Stockhausen all those composers that figure in here, there music is obviously popular enough to have a following, popular enough that whenever I listen to one of these guys' work on youtube the video's views are always in the thousands of views (and yeah it may not be the millions that a Beethoven symphony gets but that's being defeatist again, thousands (if not millions) of people are followers of this music), isn't that astounding?.

All these guys Schoenberg, Berg there music lives on in the hearts of so many (or few however you see it) and thats all that matters. Who cares if so many more people hate it, or don't hate it but prefer other music to it? Your putting unnecessary stress on your life here, Schoenberg doesn't need your defense he's doing just fine, two of my closest friends are musicians and they'd kill to have the followers Schoenberg has so what are you guys fretting away at? If someone speaks out about how Schoenberg is garbage, or Cage isn't music at all can't you guys just be warmed by a sense of self satisfaction that you get this music that so many people don't get?

Again I'm not trying to inflame people's emotions here, I know people are people and sometimes passions are going to be fanned into forest fires but we're a community here.. We should look at the good things in our fellow posters point of view and also remember the common ground all of us have in the first place, we are all lovers of absolute and operatic music. Surely when we think about this all this bickering is silly. Your arguing with your fellow absolute music enthusiasts...

Now I might be able to get on board for a our music verses pop/hip-hop/country/contemporary music... Absolute and Opera are worlds better.


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## Petwhac

Truckload said:


> I agree. That is exactly why I see a problem. We can not even seem to agree that music is organized sound. That is the most basic rule. Then we have the rules of notation, except you have people who write weird circles and chance music, and squiggly lines and expect musicians to somehow know what was wanted. Then we have rules of bowing for strings, and pitch production for brass, except people want the strings to be played by the hard part of the bow, and brass players to blow into their instruments with no mouthpiece attached. And these are just basic, fundamental rules, yet people let "composers" get away with the most ridiculous stuff and call it music.
> 
> It is a very long way down the road before you get to rules like the 12-tone method, or Hindemith's categories of dissonance, let alone getting all the way to Common Practice Era Harmony and Fux's rules of counterpoint.
> 
> And if you read much about the process of composition prior to modernism, virtually all composers learned the rules of counterpoint, the rules of harmony, and the rules of form, BERFORE they ventured off very slightly from those rules. But none of that is even relevant, because we can not even get composers to actually write notes in a staff using time signatures.


Well, it's up to the composer to write whatever he/she feels inclined to write. Whether it includes taking an axe to a piano or playing a flute submerged in sticky toffee pudding!!
Some people will like it and some people won't. Nobody is forced to listen to anything but equally, no composer has a right to the audience's attention. To each their own.
I do believe that an artist should master, to some degree the techniques of the past and then reject or assimilate those techniques as suits his/her goals.


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## violadude

Fugue Meister said:


> This is very close to how I feel and if I could offer another view, I'll try to be brief but we'll see how I do..
> 
> Personally I don't understand why some people take things so personally. I'm not trying to pick on you Violadude we see eye to eye on a great deal of things but your statement "Personally, I am much less insulted by personal attacks than attacks on the music I love." in post 193 is one I don't understand. Why does it bother you?, I think your looking at the glass half empty here. Arpeggio and Mahlerian as well.. Why do you feel personally indicted when others vocalize there disdain for particular type of music?


Well, the logic behind my statement is quite simple really. The composers whose music I love and respect are such genius' in my eyes. For them to be dismissed so readily, by some who have only heard mere minutes of their work, ignites in me a sense of injustice (however founded or unfounded you think it might be), because what they accomplished, to me, is much greater and deserves so much more than to be trashed so boorishly on an internet forum. I'm just saying how I feel, I'm not advocating suppression of opinion or anything...

Me on the other hand? I'm just another walking, talking ape taking up space on this planet. Nothing too special. I haven't climbed to the heights of human genius that I believe my beloved composers have. In fact, I know I can be kind of an a*hole when I get fired up about something, so whatever insults come my way I probably deserve, and I'm cool with that. Being on the internet for so long has kind of made me immune to personal insults anyway.

Hope that clears things up.


----------



## arpeggio

Fugue Meister said:


> Personally I don't understand why some people take things so personally. I'm not trying to pick on you Violadude we see eye to eye on a great deal of things but your statement "Personally, I am much less insulted by personal attacks than attacks on the music I love." in post 193 is one I don't understand. Why does it bother you?, I think your looking at the glass half empty here. Arpeggio and Mahlerian as well.. Why do you feel personally indicted when others vocalize there disdain for particular type of music?


Because I have been in real life situations where the anti-modernist manifesto has been used to suppress the programing of contemporary music.

And I used to participate in another forum where the anti-modernist manifesto drove out the modernists and shut down all discussions concerning contemporary music for about eighteen months.


----------



## Casebearer

Truckload said:


> I do not agree. Hurt feelings are a small price to pay for freedom of expression. Just look at what is going on politically in the Netherlands regarding free speech. I have certainly had my fair share of hurt feelings. But I would not want to be a part of any group that excluded the free exchange of opinions. Of course, that is the very thing that some on this forum want. They want only clones of themselves allowed to express agreement, no opinions to challenge their own point of view.


I'm sorry I was unclear. I seem to have given you the impression that I proposed to put constraints on the free exchange of opinions. I absolutely don't in anyway. Good moderation isn't about putting limits on free exchange ofopinions, it's about enabling a group to have an structured exchange process that arrives at something. This can be done in a consensual way, e.g. first having the group agree on the topic and goal of the exchange.


----------



## isorhythm

Confusing music with sports is at the root of many serious errors, I think.

There's no analogy between music and gymnastics at all.


----------



## Tristan

Fugue Meister said:


> Personally I don't understand why some people take things so personally. I'm not trying to pick on you Violadude we see eye to eye on a great deal of things but your statement "Personally, I am much less insulted by personal attacks than attacks on the music I love." in post 193 is one I don't understand. Why does it bother you?, I think your looking at the glass half empty here. Arpeggio and Mahlerian as well.. Why do you feel personally indicted when others vocalize there disdain for particular type of music?


It does sometimes seem that this is really just about people being bugged by the fact that others don't like what they like. And it's hard for me to have a lot of sympathy for that. Mainly because almost everything I like is stuff people "don't like". Try defending a love of vocaloid music, or of classical music in general to "the masses". It's all things people "don't like" and dismiss and write off and question why I would even like it in the first place. (Even worse is trying to explain to people why I'm majoring in linguistics...the phrases "joke major", "waste of time", and "why aren't you studying app development?" come up, to name a few). Part of the problem of course is when the reasons for not liking something are given, we seem to have an unstoppable desire to change that person's preference if we deem their reasons invalid. An example that applies to me would be when people claim classical music is "boring" and write off 400+ years of it for that reason. I can accept that someone doesn't like classical music, but if "boring" is the reason, it makes me wonder if perhaps they _could_ like it. At the same time, other people's preferences are not always my priority. Sometimes I couldn't care less if someone dismisses classical music for that reason. It depends on the person too.

Of course, getting away from just "like" and "dislike", I can understand why the "anti-modernists" can be especially vexing, if, as arpeggio described, they can actually prevent contemporary music from being performed or hamper discussion about contemporary music (as someone who doesn't much care for contemporary music, I still think it should be performed, which is why, contrary to what science claimed, I don't consider myself an "anti-modernist". I'm not "fighting against" modern music, the way an anti-corruption force fights against corruption, I just...don't prefer it. But just because I don't prefer something, doesn't mean I'm morally opposed to or fighting against it).

I'm rambling, so I'll try to summarize: 1. Like what you like, dislike what you dislike, for whatever reason. 2. _If_ said reasons are a bit tenuous, you might be open to changing your preference and one might be open to helping you do that. 3. If at the end, you still don't prefer it, one can accept differing preferences. And most importantly: 4. Disliking something does not mean you need to fight against it or prevent others from liking and enjoying it.


----------



## DaveM

arpeggio said:


> Because I have been in real life situations where the anti-modernist manifesto has been used to suppress the programing of contemporary music.
> 
> And I used to participate in another forum where the anti-modernist manifesto drove out the modernists and shut down all discussions concerning contemporary music for about eighteen months.


How productive is it to keep repeating this over and over. Nobody here is responsible for suppressing the programming of contemporary music. And I'm sure that there are at least two sides to the stories as to whatever happened on that 'other' forum.

In the several months I've been on this forum, my experience has been, at the very least, an equally heated give and take between the 2 sides, tonal vs atonal, traditional vs modernistic or whatever (simplistically speaking since there are probably several perspectives going on here). The picture being painted of a few victims huddled in a corner against the anti-modernist hordes is really getting old. And anticipating the response that I wasn't around when the really bad stuff occurred, well that's old history; let's move on.

Look around at what's going on this forum outside 1 or 2 threads like this. There are a lot of active threads on really interesting subjects involving 'traditional' and contemporary music, some of them controversial, but there's no acrimony. Everyone's being respectful. Overall, this a good forum. There's no nefarious agenda here.


----------



## Nereffid

isorhythm said:


> Confusing music with sports is at the root of many serious errors, I think.
> 
> There's no analogy between music and gymnastics at all.


Well, I admit I broke my First Rule of Using Analogies, which is: Never use an analogy, because someone will always miss the point of analogies.


----------



## isorhythm

Nereffid said:


> Well, I admit I broke my First Rule of Using Analogies, which is: Never use an analogy, because someone will always miss the point of analogies.


Ah, well, you made the analogy to make a point I agree with! So I guess I was wrong to say there was "no analogy."


----------



## Fugue Meister

violadude said:


> Well, the logic behind my statement is quite simple really. The composers whose music I love and respect are such genius' in my eyes. For them to be dismissed so readily, by some who have only heard mere minutes of their work, ignites in me a sense of injustice (however founded or unfounded you think it might be), because what they accomplished, to me, is much greater and deserves so much more than to be trashed so boorishly on an internet forum. I'm just saying how I feel, I'm not advocating suppression of opinion or anything...
> 
> Me on the other hand? I'm just another walking, talking ape taking up space on this planet. Nothing too special. I haven't climbed to the heights of human genius that I believe my beloved composers have. In fact, I know I can be kind of an a*hole when I get fired up about something, so whatever insults come my way I probably deserve, and I'm cool with that. Being on the internet for so long has kind of made me immune to personal insults anyway.
> 
> Hope that clears things up.


No brother, not an a*hole... Just human.

And I can totally empathize with this, sometimes it's maddening what people don't see in some things. Just breathe...


----------



## fluteman

Petwhac said:


> Surely you jest.
> Name me one rule please. I understand you may be referring to certain practices that were generally followed in certain eras. Such as those in species counterpoint, Bach choral harmonisation, 12-tone procedures etc., but they only become 'rules' retrospectively. The student may want to follow such rules when writing pastiche but what rules should one follow in one's own composition? One must be guided by instinct. if one's instincts are good, so is the music. Generally speaking!


No, I don't jest. Art is nearly always made in accordance with specific rules as well as general principles and conventions. Those rules expand, contract and evolve, variations on them developed, and abandoned as new ones are adopted. Sometimes long-accepted rules are intentionally broken outright as an artistic statement in itself. Some works of art are made at least partly with rules unique to them. The contemporary American composer John Harbison wrote a piece called The Most Often Used Chords, inspired by a passage in some pages listing the "fundamentals of music" he found in a notebook of blank music pages. But he isn't the first to make such a witty gesture. At least as far back as Haydn and Mozart, sophisticated composers have been having fun with the rules of their day, turning them on their heads or stretching them further than one would have thought they could be stretched.
There was a lot more to Haydn and Mozart than instinct. They were highly trained and highly knowledgeable musicians, as is John Harbison. 
To name one rule, as you asked: A theme generally resolves on the tonic or something closely related to it, often closing with a dominant tonic cadence. Haydn wrote a whole string quartet movement turning this rule upside down and having all sorts of fun with it. But doing that was a concession of the rule's existence in the first place.


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## Guest

I, for one, would have zero issue with the debate of tonality and of modernism being a banned subject on TC. And yes, subjects are allowed to be banned here; some already are. Don't like Schoenberg or Boulez or Cage for some reason beyond "I'm just not a fan"? Your most careful course of action would be not to post about them.

Of course many people have this bizarre opinion that the United States constitution is some how applicable to TC, but given that it's not, I think we'd currently benefit a lot more from pushing for a forum where one goes to discuss the music they like than from pushing for a forum where everyone has the liberty to rejoice in their freedom to sling mud and push buttons.


----------



## Strange Magic

nathanb said:


> I, for one, would have zero issue with the debate of tonality and of modernism being a banned subject on TC. And yes, subjects are allowed to be banned here; some already are. Don't like Schoenberg or Boulez or Cage for some reason beyond "I'm just not a fan"? Your most careful course of action would be not to post about them.


"A most careful bravery, that." Let all know if or when such a ban is put into effect, so that all those with any sense of integrity or self-worth can instantly quit the Forum.


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## Guest

Strange Magic said:


> "A most careful bravery, that." Let all know if or when such a ban is put into effect, so that all those with any sense of integrity or self-worth can instantly quit the Forum.


You would prefer a private forum full of meaningless arguments to a peaceful private forum with one extra minor limitation on subject matter added to its current list of limitations? Very fine and principled of you, but I'm more of a pragmatist myself.

But I do appreciate you publicly implying that I have zero sense of integrity or self-worth.


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## Strange Magic

I prefer the forum we have right now.


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## Sloe

What are these polls that the anti-modernists are supposed to make to probe their stance?
I have never seen such polls.


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## fluteman

violadude said:


> Exactly. The "rules" we learn about in theory classes are descriptive, not prescriptive, practice nearly always came before the theory. The rules only become prescriptive if you wish to write in the style that the rules apply to.


Yes, your comment that rules in art are descriptive rather than prescriptive is well taken. But that doesn't mean the rules don't exist, or aren't necessary. As for which came first, theory or practice, I can't accept your generalization there. But your final statement is on point, not only for artists who wish to adopt a style, but also those who wish to develop it or even rebel from it.


----------



## KenOC

fluteman said:


> Yes, your comment that rules in art are descriptive rather than prescriptive is well taken. But that doesn't mean the rules don't exist, or aren't necessary. As for which came first, theory or practice, I can't accept your generalization there. But your final statement is on point, not only for artists who wish to adopt a style, but also those who wish to develop it or even rebel from it.


Must music really have "rules"? Weber thought so. From his withering condemnation of Beethoven's 4th Symphony: "...and to end all a furious finale, in which the only requisite is that there should be no ideas for the hearer to make out, but plenty of transitions from one key to another -- on to the new note at once! never mind modulating! -- above all things, throw rules to the winds, for they only hamper a genius."

Granted, Beethoven knew the rules well enough, and today we don't mind at all that he sometimes rebelled against them!


----------



## amfortas

Nereffid said:


> Well, I admit I broke my First Rule of Using Analogies, which is: Never use an analogy, because someone will always miss the point of analogies.


Using an analogy is like skydiving without a parachute:

You should never, ever do it.


----------



## Truckload

Strange Magic said:


> "A most careful bravery, that." Let all know if or when such a ban is put into effect, so that all those with any sense of integrity or self-worth can instantly quit the Forum.


Awesome! Well said! Your post made me think of Plato, "You should not honor men more than truth."

Perhaps the most careful course of action would be simply to never post anything at all. But sadly for some on the forum, I have never been very careful.


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## Truckload

Sloe said:


> What are these polls that the anti-modernists are supposed to make to probe their stance?
> I have never seen such polls.


Me either. Where are they?


----------



## SimonNZ

KenOC said:


> Must music really have "rules"? Weber thought so. From his withering condemnation of Beethoven's 4th Symphony: "...and to end all a furious finale, in which the only requisite is that there should be no ideas for the hearer to make out, but plenty of transitions from one key to another -- on to the new note at once! never mind modulating! -- above all things, throw rules to the winds, for they only hamper a genius."
> 
> Granted, Beethoven knew the rules well enough, and today we don't mind at all that he sometimes rebelled against them!


Careful...your "modernist beliefs" are showing there:



Woodduck said:


> I won't say that I've analyzed the situation thoroughly, but here are some bona fide Modernist beliefs, assumptions, and assertions I've seen, stated outright or at least rarely challenged, in my time here:
> 
> 1) that composers before the Modern era routinely faced misunderstanding, resistance, and failure during their lifetimes - that the difficulty "modern music" has had in being understood, acclaimed, and played is exactly like the fate of serious music in earlier times;
> 
> 2) that the similarity of critical comments about earlier music to those made about modern music indicates exactly the same kind and degree of incomprehension on the part of listeners, and proves (or implies) that modern music is inherently just as understandable and "accessible" as any other music;


----------



## Bulldog

nathanb said:


> I, for one, would have zero issue with the debate of tonality and of modernism being a banned subject on TC. And yes, subjects are allowed to be banned here; some already are. Don't like Schoenberg or Boulez or Cage for some reason beyond "I'm just not a fan"? Your most careful course of action would be not to post about them.


I also disagree with your proposal, but what really caught my attention was your statement that there are subjects that are already banned. Assuming you're talking about music subjects, I'm not aware of any that are banned.


----------



## Guest

Bulldog said:


> I also disagree with your proposal, but what really caught my attention was your statement that there are subjects that are already banned. Assuming you're talking about music subjects, I'm not aware of any that are banned.


There are no purely musical subjects banned at this time, but in general, subjects that cause problems for the site are banned. Whether it be NSFW, other specific music forums, etc. I can scarcely think of a bigger problem for this site than this subject.


----------



## Bulldog

nathanb said:


> There are no purely musical subjects banned at this time, but in general, subjects that cause problems for the site are banned. Whether it be NSFW, other specific music forums, etc. I can scarcely think of a bigger problem for this site than this subject.


My view is that people cause problems, not musical subjects. Even this thread of 18 pages has not been banned (yet).


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## Petwhac

fluteman said:


> No, I don't jest. Art is nearly always made in accordance with specific rules as well as general principles and conventions.


What rule, principal or convention would you expect a composer in 2106 to follow? Or are you looking back at past practices and seeing what composers tended to do and then forming a rule?



fluteman said:


> There was a lot more to Haydn and Mozart than instinct.


I did not mean to imply that instinct was the _only_ thing required for good composition but it is perhaps what sets those composers apart from the dozens, if not hundreds of highly trained and educated professional composers of their day.



fluteman said:


> To name one rule, as you asked: A theme generally resolves on the tonic or something closely related to it, often closing with a dominant tonic cadence. Haydn wrote a whole string quartet movement turning this rule upside down and having all sorts of fun with it. But doing that was a concession of the rule's existence in the first place.


And when Beethoven or Schubert or Brahms or Berlioz began to abandon the strict tonic dominant relationship of the sonata, were they breaking rules and thus should be chastised or were they simply abandoning a past practice that no longer served their musical needs? Surely it is the latter.
A sportsperson cannot break the rules because the rules are the game. The artist on the other hand will and must ignore, invent or apply any rule or convention that serves their purpose.


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## isorhythm

I think most composers have a strong _desire_ for rules, and I think that goes a long way in explaining the popularity of the 12-tone system in the 20th century, and the claims that used to be made about its inevitability.


----------



## Petwhac

isorhythm said:


> I think most composers have a strong _desire_ for rules, and I think that goes a long way in explaining the popularity of the 12-tone system in the 20th century, and the claims that used to be made about its inevitability.


It's more that 12-tone provided an organising principal to replace tonality which some felt could no longer do the job for their needs. Again though, any rules in the application of 12-tone would be happily abandoned or altered in the service of the composer's needs. It was no more inevitable than using the I-Ching or modes of limited transposition or neo-classicism. It was merely one of many solutions to be invented.
I agree that composers generally need a starting point. But that may just be some self made rule or principal, a limitation against which to push. It is a matter of focusing one's ideas towards a goal.


----------



## Guest

Bulldog said:


> I also disagree with your proposal, but what really caught my attention was your statement that there are subjects that are already banned. Assuming you're talking about music subjects, I'm not aware of any that are banned.


By the way, the "proposal" is not my favorite idea either. I simply view it as a lesser of two evils since we've already worked some other channels to death, to no avail.


----------



## isorhythm

Petwhac said:


> It's more that 12-tone provided an organising principal to replace tonality which some felt could no longer do the job for their needs. Again though, any rules in the application of 12-tone would be happily abandoned or altered in the service of the composer's needs. It was no more inevitable than using the I-Ching or modes of limited transposition or neo-classicism. It was merely one of many solutions to be invented.
> I agree that composers generally need a starting point. But that may just be some self made rule or principal, a limitation against which to push. It is a matter of focusing one's ideas towards a goal.


Yes, I agree with all this. Lots of composers made their own "rules" or principles for themselves.

But I think there was a huge appeal to the idea that there was one common, ready-made system anyone could learn and use as a starting point. Hence 12-tone.


----------



## KenOC

nathanb said:


> There are no purely musical subjects banned at this time, but in general, subjects that cause problems for the site are banned. Whether it be NSFW, other specific music forums, etc. I can scarcely think of a bigger problem for this site than this subject.


Not sure what the problem is. Obviously people enjoy talking about certain things, and do. For people who prefer other subjects, there are many other threads.

As the Chinese philosopher Mencius wisely said, "Those who are distressed by the suffering of animals should avoid the street of the butchers." 

(real quote BTW)


----------



## Guest

KenOC said:


> Not sure what the problem is. Obviously people enjoy talking about certain things, and do. For people who prefer other subjects, there are many other threads.
> 
> As the Chinese philosopher Mencius wisely said, "Those who are distressed by the suffering of animals should avoid the street of the butchers."
> 
> (real quote BTW)


Sounds like that philosopher might agree that "those who are distressed by the state of modern music should avoid conversations about modern music".


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## Truckload

nathanb said:


> By the way, the "proposal" is not my favorite idea either. I simply view it as a lesser of two evils since we've already worked some other channels to death, to no avail.


So please share with us who these people are that make up the "we"? What are these channels that you and the other "we" members have worked to death?



nathanb said:


> Sounds like that philosopher might agree that "those who are distressed by the state of modern music should avoid conversations about modern music".


Since you are so committed to amicability and healing the divisions, why not propose to the other members of "we" that all reference to atonal and avant-guarde music be avoided? After all, it would be the careful thing to do, and it would make the site ever so much calmer.

Of course, I like a good debate, but if it really makes you happy, I guess I could live with it.


----------



## Guest

Truckload said:


> So please share with us who these people are that make up the "we"? What are these channels that you and the other "we" members have worked to death?
> 
> Since you are so committed to amicability and healing the divisions, why not propose to the other members of "we" that all reference to atonal and avant-guarde music be avoided. After all, it would be the careful thing to do, and it would make the site ever so much calmer.


I have proposed countless times that people maybe focus their time here on talking about music they actually enjoy. This must be the first time you've read it. Bottom line, every single time, this proposal has fallen on deaf ears.

As for the other "channels we've worked to death" - we is referring to the body of TC posters, and the "channels" are referring to the attractive option of actually talking it out in countless Area 51 threads, consulting site moderation, respectfully asking that people just not talk about music they so passionately despise, etc. You have been a party in a number of these threads, so I know for a fact that you're aware, in this case.


----------



## Truckload

nathanb said:


> I have proposed countless times that people maybe focus their time here on talking about music they actually enjoy. This must be the first time you've read it. Bottom line, every single time, this proposal has fallen on deaf ears.


But you didn't answer my question. Who are the we? And what are these "channels"? Posting a message is not a "channel". Come on, inquiring minds want to know the real inside scoop.


----------



## SimonNZ

Truckload said:


> Since you are so committed to amicability and healing the divisions, why not propose to the other members of "we" that all reference to atonal and avant-guarde music be avoided? After all, it would be the careful thing to do, and it would make the site ever so much calmer.


How about we just stop using terms like "atonal" and "avant-garde" in this unhelpful blanket manner?

But I've said this to you before - when I asked you to be specific about which contemporary composers you're giving those terms to, and you wouldn't or couldn't reply.


----------



## Guest

SimonNZ said:


> How about we just stop using terms like "atonal" and "avant-garde" in this unhelpful blanket manner?
> 
> But I've said this to you before - when I asked you to be specific about which contemporary composers you're giving those terms to, and you wouldn't or couldn't reply.


Interesting that some would rather censor an entire group of classical music fans than avoid using a couple of inflammatory words.


----------



## SimonNZ

nathanb said:


> Interesting that some would rather censor an entire group of classical music fans than avoid using a couple of inflammatory words.


I wouldn't mind if the words were used when actually necessary and specific, there are maybe a couple of critics who can use them usefully like that - but every other time I see them (and every time on TC) its just as a lazy scattergun catch-all.

Maybe a "moritorium" rather than banned. Lets see if the detractors can express themselves without these easy conveniences. Atonal gets the all-asterix treatment for a year, maybe.


----------



## Truckload

SimonNZ said:


> How about we just stop using terms like "atonal" and "avant-garde" in this unhelpful blanket manner?
> 
> But I've said this to you before - when I asked you to be specific about which contemporary composers you're giving those terms to, and you wouldn't or couldn't reply.


Please refer to any standard text on 20th century music. I really don't have time to teach a class on the atonal and avant-guard, you could look it up on Wikipaedia, or Groves, or lets see,

Wikipedia on Atonality 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atonality
A very helpful entry. Gives composers, lists of sources, and lots more. You will love it.

Wikipedia on Avant-Garde music
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avant-garde_music
Also with helpful lists of composers and references.

Gee, we didn't even have to look in Groves or a book on 20th century music. Isn't that wonderful? Now there you go, you don't need to complain about not getting your question answered.


----------



## Guest

nathanb said:


> I have proposed countless times that people maybe focus their time here on talking about music they actually enjoy. This must be the first time you've read it. Bottom line, every single time, this proposal has fallen on deaf ears.


While you're here, Truckload, this is your opportunity to keep this suggestion from falling upon deaf ears, for a change.


----------



## SimonNZ

Truckload said:


> Please refer to any standard text on 20th century music. I really don't have time to teach a class on the atonal and avant-guard, you could look it up on Wikipaedia, or Groves, or lets see,
> 
> Wikipedia on Atonality
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atonality
> A very helpful entry. Gives composers, lists of sources, and lots more. You will love it.
> 
> Wikipedia on Avant-Garde music
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avant-garde_music
> Also with helpful lists of composers and references.
> 
> Gee, we didn't even have to look in Groves or a book on 20th century music. Isn't that wonderful? Now there you go, you don't need to complain about not getting your question answered.


It was the second half of my first sentence that was the important bit:



> How about we just stop using terms like "atonal" and "avant-garde"* in this unhelpful blanket manner?*


And my question has never been answered by you no matter how many times I've asked: when you talk about hating modern composers and walking out of their concerts, when you talk about the atonalists and the avant-guardists...who do you mean?


----------



## Truckload

nathanb said:


> Interesting that some would rather censor an entire group of classical music fans than avoid using a couple of inflammatory words.


I don't want to censor anyone. I thought that was your proposal wasn't it? And you better tell all of the musicologists, Groves, Wikipedia, the authors of all of the textbooks on 20th century music, music history authors, program notes writers, cd company executives, and the authors of basic college harmony textbooks that the words atonal and avant-garde are now considered inflammatory and have been banned by those in your "we" group, because I don't think they know that.


----------



## Truckload

nathanb said:


> While you're here, Truckload, this is your opportunity to keep this suggestion from falling upon deaf ears, for a change.


I enjoy a good debate. But more importantly, the subject is too important to ignore. But feel free to do so yourself if you think that is a wise course of action.


----------



## Guest

Truckload said:


> I don't want to censor anyone. I thought that was your proposal wasn't it? And you better tell all of the musicologists, Groves, Wikipedia, the authors of all of the textbooks on 20th century music, music history authors, program notes writers, cd company executives, and the authors of basic college harmony textbooks that the words atonal and avant-garde are now considered inflammatory and have been banned by those in your "we" group, because I don't think they know that.


My proposal was that people not enter into discussion about music that they clearly dislike so as to avoid needless conflict on a site that is supposed to be an outlet for leisure time. My radical (and not ideal) secondary proposal was that, because people seem completely unwilling to even entertain the first idea, the very real and very needless conflict simply become a banned subject.

This logic does not extend to "censor all discussion of contemporary music" but rather serves only to censor disruptive behavior, as is typically a goal of the ToS. If people like music, they should feel free to use a classical music forum. If people want to rub feces all over music, they should not be surprised when they are asked to use a little tact and refrain here and there.

I understand that you do not wish to focus your leisure time on discussing music you actually enjoy, but I encourage you to do some soul-searching and determine why you want this forum to be an outlet for hate.


----------



## Truckload

nathanb said:


> As for the other "channels we've worked to death" - we is referring to the body of TC posters, and the "channels" are referring to the attractive option of actually talking it out in countless Area 51 threads, consulting site moderation, respectfully asking that people just not talk about music they so passionately despise, etc. You have been a party in a number of these threads, so I know for a fact that you're aware, in this case.


So the "we" are the usual group and the "consulting site moderation" really means trying to shut down anyone with an opinion other than yours. But sadly, the site moderators did not fall into step with the plan. Darn, that must be frustrating.


----------



## Guest

Truckload said:


> So the "we" are the usual group and the "consulting site moderation" really means trying to shut down anyone with an opinion other than yours. But sadly, the site moderators did not fall into step with the plan. Darn, that must be frustrating.


Well that's one way to misinterpret things. At least I have never advocated censorship of an art form, and have only occasionally advocated some slight censorship of debate after things have been so continuously heated that this forum might as well be the moderation team's new hell.

EDIT: Just to clarify, as I recall recent threads in which you've been a major participant, I suppose you weren't as big an advocate of censorship as you were an advocate of segregation, so my apologies.


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## Truckload

SimonNZ said:


> It was the second half of my first sentence that was the important bit:
> 
> And my question has never been answered by you no matter how many times I've asked: when you talk about hating modern composers and walking out of their concerts, when you talk about the atonalists and the avant-guardists...who do you mean?


Gee, do you not have access to Wikipedia?

And just like Wikipedia, I will continue to use the standard vocabulary of classical music, and my word choice, poor as you may deem it to be, is not subject to your approval.


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## Woodduck

violadude said:


> Alright, Woodduck, I've read your post and I've concluded that there is a serious disconnect in the way we've been discussing this music.
> 
> In your post, *you mentioned the composers "Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Messiaen, Boulez, Stockhausen, Cage" as being the "major innovators" of the 20th century, in contrast with the composers* "Edward Elgar, Giacomo Puccini, Pietro Mascagni, Claude Debussy, Frederick Delius, Richard Strauss, Carl Nielsen, Paul Dukas, Ferrucio Busoni, Enrique Granados, Alberic Magnard, Albert Roussel, Hans Pfitzner, Wilhelm Stenhammar, Alexander Zemlinsky, Alexander Scriabin, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Max Reger, Josef Suk, Gustav Holst, Franz Schmidt, Maurice Ravel, Manuel de Falla, Ernst von Dohnanyi, Frank Bridge, Ottorino Respighi, John Ireland, Nikolai Medtner, Ernest Bloch, Bela Bartok, Nikolai Myaskovsky, Georges Enescu, Gian Francesco Malipiero, Percy Grainger, Karol Szymanowski, Manuel Ponce, Joaquin Turina, Zoltan Kodaly, Arnold Bax, Charles Tomlinson Griffes, Heitor Villa Lobos, Jacques Ibert, Bohuslav Martinu, Sergei Prokofiev, Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud, Herbert Howells, Walter Piston, Ernest John Moeran, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Howard Hanson, Erich Korngold, George Gershwin, Francis Poulenc, Carlos Chavez, Kurt Weill, Aaron Copland, Edmund Rubbra, Gerald Finzi, Joachin Rodrigo, Maurice Durufle, William Walton, Aram Khachaturian, Michael Tippett, Alan Rawsthorne, Eduard Tubin, William Alwyn, Dmitri Shostakovich, Paul Creston, Miklos Rozsa, Vagn Holmboe, Samuel Barber" as composers *not as innovative* or something like that...
> 
> Meanwhile, I have not been thinking of the music of the 20th century in those terms at all, and *I wouldn't divide composers of the 20th century in this manner.* In fact, *I think it's downright strange to put a composer like Pfitzner in the same category as Bartok.* To me the music of Copland is as innovative in its own way as the music of Stravinsky...just as an example.
> 
> *My composer divide has much more to do with which composers seem to me to have put out a strong body of consistently original and high quality works*...and yes, I would put the music of Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Messiaen, Boulez, Stockhausen and (a good bit of) Cage in that category, but I would also put (from your list) Bartok, Vaughn-Williams, Debussy, Ravel, Strauss, Nielsen, Prokofiev, Gershwin, Copland, Barber, Scriabin, Strauss, Sibelius, Rachmaninoff, Shostakovich, maybe Szymanowski to a degree..(I would also add Britten and Lutoslawski to this list).
> The other composers you mention in your list I would either consider to not quite have reached the heights of the aforementioned composers or I am not familiar enough with their work to say either way. *It has nothing to do with being "the most extremely innovative" to me* and I think most if not all composers in my list have innovated music to some degree or another.
> 
> But, on the other side of the coin, *I certainly think originality and exploring unexplored aspects of music still has and important place and I wouldn't dismiss those notions as easily as you do. *I don't want to listen to a composer that writes music nearly identical to Chopin or Prokofiev or something like that...in that case, I would just rather listen to Chopin or Prokofiev. Do you disagree with this sentiment?
> 
> And let me be clear, because I think many people will misunderstand what I mean when I say "originality and exploring unexplored aspects of music". To me, this does not just mean writing "extreme Avant-Garde pieces, it's something much broader than that. I don't consider composers like Arvo Part, late Gorecki or Rautavarra as "regressive" or "holding music back". Arvo Part sounds new to me, as does Rautavarra, within the contexts of their place in history, I would say they are exploring new facets of music in the same way Schoenberg or Boulez were in their time and *I'm personally very against labeling composers like Part as "Romantic", as if their music harkens back to the 19th century. It sounds absolutely nothing like 19th century music to me.*


I have no disagreement with you, but I think you're disagreeing with points I haven't been making. I think you mistake my discussion of musical culture for music criticism, which it isn't. I guess I can understand this, in that the pernicious factionalism on this forum seems to want to divide us all into camps, and since I know I can't be in the "modernist" camp I must expect to be assigned to the only other one that's been designated.

My purpose, put as bluntly as possible, was to redeem the idea of modern music from Modernist dogma. Maybe you don't think it needs redemption, and that the way we've been taught to define and classify our musical heritage is carved on stone tablets. I don't think so.

I didn't list all those early 20th-century composers to demonstrate their superiority to Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Boulez, or any other Modernist you can name. Neither did I offer them as a homogeneous faction, or wish to suggest any equivalence between them, neither in style nor in "innovativeness." I simply wanted to convey an idea of the sheer scope of music of the Modernist period outside the major Modernist trends. Some of those composers were highly original and others less so or hardly at all, but all were considered "modern" by audiences - audiences, not spokesmen for the avant-garde - of their day. I could have listed twice or three times as many names, and would have if I were a more ambitious (and better) typist.

During that period, the major divisions of what is now considered musical Modernism were the atonal/serialist development in harmony and the explicitly anti-Romantic approach of Neoclassicism, with Schoenberg and Stravinsky as their guiding geniuses. The great dissimilarity of those two composers, and their suspicion of each other's agendas, exemplifies the heterogeneous nature of Modernism, its inherently contentious nature, the difficulty of viewing it as basically a technical or stylistic phenomenon, and the impossibility of making universal judgments about the value of its products - which is why, I repeat, I am not an "anti-modernist." (You'll notice that I left Debussy out of the discussion. I did so because his innovative aspects relate to Modernism technically rather than philosophically. For all his influence, he neither spearheaded nor joined any movement, nor, to my knowledge, propounded any radical notions of music's nature and function. It's Modernism's philosophical aspects that interest me, rather than the question of who was or wasn't most innovative. Debussy, like many of the composers I listed, simply _did_ original things. He didn't claim that anyone else, much less some imagined future, should adopt his aesthetic.)

The point of my ponderings is not to contrast "innovative" composers with "traditional" ones, or to question the value of originality (of course it's valuable, all else being equal), but to question what "modern" has been taken to mean in our inherited narrative of the development of Western classical music, and whether some self-appointed avant-garde really has a special claim on the designation "modern" and a special right to tell posterity what is musically "important." I believe that the received wisdom about the early 20th century has largely been shaped by Modernist ideologies which have co-opted the very concept of modernity, giving a biased picture of our culture's actual, living musical values and doing much injustice to a lot of fine and highly valued and valuable composers and their music. A similar Modernist bias can be seen in the visual arts, in which the standard academic story of "modern art" begins in the 19th century with the French Impressionists and takes us through Cezanne and the cubism of Picasso to abstraction and beyond, attempting to understand even such an individualist as Van Gogh as a link in that Paris-centric chain when in fact he best exemplifies a wholly alien artistic lineage. As a result, vast quantities of non-conforming art was for decades relegated to footnotes or simply consigned to oblivion (see, for example, Robert Rosenblum's _Modern Painting and the Northern Romantic Tradition: Friedrich to Rothko_).

As a consequence of the dominance of Modernist ideas, we've inherited a concept of modernness and a division of our culture's recent chronology into Classical, Romantic and Modern "periods" (sometimes with "Post-Romantic" hovering between them) which we really need to see as partially arbitrary expressions of musical/historical biases, and thus open to challenge on the basis of alternative paradigms. I was aware that my using the word "Romantic" to describe what I consider the fundamental musical aesthetic of the modern era from the late 18th through the early 20th centuries (and even into our day) would be questioned. The word has many definitions, none all-inclusive, and I don't want to go deep into the subject here. But I will point out that the term "Romantic" was first used to describe literature in the 18th century, and was rather quickly adopted into the other arts and, surprising as it seems to us, applied to the music of Haydn and Mozart. If we can see why those composers were viewed that way, we may see the term's continuing applicability to a lot of 20th century music that isn't ordinarily so categorized, and see how Modernism, both a product of and a reaction to Romanticism, wrestled with, expressed, opposed, and attempted to dominate its own deep-rooted sensibilities through a radical bid for the future.

Western society underwent momentous philosophical, religious, political, economic, and scientific changes in the 18th century which expressed, and gave scope to, man's growing sense of himself as a free agent in the universe, with the values of self-determination and personal rights and the sense of opportunity, challenge, exhilaration, loneliness, alienation, and heightened self-consciousness. We are, pretty obviously, the inheritors of that sense of life, and more than a remnant of it is quite easy to find by scratching whatever dispassionate or cynical Postmodern poses we may affect. There's no mistaking the fact that _popular_ culture in the early 20th century was essentially Romantic in spirit, and if we claim that a few representatives of a self-styled avant-garde so effectively negated that sensibility as to tear out the Romantic roots of the "serious" music of the time we are only revealing how well Modernist ideology has trained our ears.


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## Blancrocher

nathanb said:


> My proposal was that people not enter into discussion about music that they clearly dislike so as to avoid needless conflict on a site that is supposed to be an outlet for leisure time. My radical (and not ideal) secondary proposal was that, because people seem completely unwilling to even entertain the first idea, the very real and very needless conflict simply become a banned subject.


My suggestion is that we refer to people who attack music they dislike as "atonalists," since they bring unresolved dissonance to the forum.


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## Guest

Blancrocher said:


> My suggestion is that we refer to people who attack music they dislike "atonalists," since they bring unresolved dissonance to the forum.


Whatever the humor may be, this forum is an utter train wreck. Human nature towards adamant negativity is profoundly disturbing.


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## fluteman

Petwhac said:


> And when Beethoven or Schubert or Brahms or Berlioz began to abandon the strict tonic dominant relationship of the sonata, were they breaking rules and thus should be chastised or were they simply abandoning a past practice that no longer served their musical needs? Surely it is the latter.


Ah, but in art, the past is never entirely abandoned - or escaped from. New ideas don't spring up from nowhere, they build on old ones. Some dramatically reject certain established principles and strike out in new directions. Haydn and Beethoven did. So did Ives, Ruggles and Varese. But even these avant gardists didn't materialize from nowhere. They come from a cultural context, musical and otherwise. The sonata form is a part of that context. It didn't vanish completely and permanently. It's still a fundamental part of the Western musical heritage that is part of the makeup of even the most forward-thinking Western musician.


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## Truckload

nathanb said:


> Well that's one way to misinterpret things. At least I have never advocated censorship of an art form, and have only occasionally advocated some slight censorship of debate after things have been so continuously heated that this forum might as well be the moderation team's new hell.
> 
> EDIT: Just to clarify, as I recall recent threads in which you've been a major participant, I suppose you weren't as big an advocate of censorship as you were an advocate of segregation, so my apologies.


No need to apologize. I have no hard feelings towards you. I mentioned specialty groups and concerts as a way for those who love a certain sub-category of classical music to have more opportunities to hear the works that interest them most. For example, the specialty groups and concerts for renaissance music, or groups using period instruments. The Kronos Quartet specializes in very contemporary music and commissions new works every year. I would love it if there was a late-romantic specialty orchestra or quartet, etc. that gave concerts of only late-romantic music, as at the present that is my primary interest. I would be their first subscriber.

Censorship involves the use of power to coerce compliance. I would never advocate censorship. I do advocate the use of greater voluntary discernment by listeners in determining upon which music they will give their attention.


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## Truckload

nathanb said:


> My proposal was that people not enter into discussion about music that they clearly dislike so as to avoid needless conflict on a site that is supposed to be an outlet for leisure time. My radical (and not ideal) secondary proposal was that, because people seem completely unwilling to even entertain the first idea, the very real and very needless conflict simply become a banned subject.
> 
> This logic does not extend to "censor all discussion of contemporary music" but rather serves only to censor disruptive behavior, as is typically a goal of the ToS. If people like music, they should feel free to use a classical music forum. If people want to rub feces all over music, they should not be surprised when they are asked to use a little tact and refrain here and there.
> 
> I understand that you do not wish to focus your leisure time on discussing music you actually enjoy, but I encourage you to do some soul-searching and determine why you want this forum to be an outlet for hate.


Wow, "rub feces all over music" and "an outlet for hate". Wow.

I don't even know how to respond to something like that. Wow.


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## SimonNZ

Woodduck said:


> My purpose, put as bluntly as possible, was to redeem the idea of modern music from Modernist dogma. Maybe you don't think it needs redemption, and that the way we've been taught to define and classify our musical heritage is carved on stone tablets. I don't think so.


You're charging at phantoms. Nobody here who likes modern music requires it to hold to some modernist dogma. Most people here who like modern music like most of the composers you mentioned just as much as the card-carrying "modernists".

And its all ancient history to the critics and historians. Why do you think there is some battle raging out there?


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## mmsbls

I understand your good intentions (at least recently in this thread), but unfortunately things are always a bit too complicated for simple solutions.



nathanb said:


> My proposal was that people not enter into discussion about music that they clearly dislike so as to avoid needless conflict on a site that is supposed to be an outlet for leisure time.


The first thread I ever started was explicitly about music I disliked. I basically said, "I dislike almost all modern music I've heard, and I want to change that. I don't want to miss out on a century of potentially wonderful music. Help me, please."

I realize you would never want to prohibit such a discussion, but it does show that simply taking some subjects off the table can be problematic. The same is true for atonal and avant-garde. I suppose you could suggest discussions about topics should be positive just as we explicitly require that comments on other members be positive. One problem is that I have posted several times in what was a positive or neutral sense about various topics only to have people misinterpret them as negative comments about modern music. I think many people here have been annoyed when their posts are misinterpreted. I guess there's no good way to exclude such misunderstandings - people are people.

The bottom line is that perhaps the best solution is to ask, as we do in the terms of Service, that members post civilly. And the moderators must try to enforce that without being heavy-handed, too passive, or too lenient.



nathanb said:


> Whatever the humor may be, this forum is an utter train wreck. Human nature towards adamant negativity is profoundly disturbing.


Some posts on some threads can be disturbing or unpleasant, but I think (or hope) almost everyone here at TC would generally say the forum is a wonderful place where they can share their thoughts on and learn about this glorious thing we call classical music. Again I do think I know what you generally mean here, but I prefer a more positive view.


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## Woodduck

SimonNZ said:


> You're charging at phantoms. Nobody here who likes modern music requires it to hold to some modernist dogma. Most people here who like modern music like most of the composers you mentioned just as much as the card-carrying "modernists".
> 
> And its all ancient history to the critics and historians. Why do you think there is some battle raging out there?


I don't know that there _is_ a "battle" raging out there. Actually, I see out there signs that the cultural biases I'm talking about have begun to get some attention - I'm not the only one interested in phantoms that insist on hanging about - and the history of music is starting to be viewed in a more inclusive, less ideologically straightjacketed way. I grew up (some time ago) with Modernist orthodoxies weighing heavily on the way music was taught and talked about. The orthodoxies are giving way, but they aren't dead yet. In fact I've noted them on this forum. Ancient history it is not.

I don't know how music history is taught now, but I wouldn't doubt that younger people are seeing a broader picture than I did, and if they are I'll give credit to the recording industry. Our image of the "Modern" period of music is filled out more every day as work after work by composer after composer is given a fine performance and made available to us.


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## KenOC

Mahlerian said:


> ...Since I began posting here, I have been compared to: Stalin, murderer George Zimmerman, a communist, a fascist, a racist, an academic, and Donald Trump.


In the interest of fairness, George Zimmerman was acquitted of both second degree murder and manslaughter by a jury -- unanimously. To call him a murderer seems out of place. I followed his trial quite closely at the time and thought, given the evidence, that any other finding would be unreasonable. The jury evidently felt the same.


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## Truckload

Woodduck said:


> I don't know that there _is_ a "battle" raging out there. Actually, I see out there signs that the cultural biases I'm talking about have begun to get some attention - I'm not the only one interested in phantoms that insist on hanging about - and the history of music is starting to be viewed in a more inclusive, less ideologically straightjacketed way. I grew up (some time ago) with Modernist orthodoxies weighing heavily on the way music was taught and talked about. The orthodoxies are giving way, but they aren't dead yet. In fact I've noted them on this forum. Ancient history it is not.
> 
> I don't know how music history is taught now, but I wouldn't doubt that younger people are seeing a broader picture than I did, and if they are I'll give credit to the recording industry. Our image of the "Modern" period of music is filled out more every day as work after work by composer after composer is given a fine performance and made available to us.


Excellent point. I am reading "Two Centuries in One" by Herbert Pauls. This book was recommended by Strange Magic in the thread "An Interesting and Useful Treatise on Twentieth Century Music ". Pauls makes points remarkably similar to your own. And his emphasis on the animosity of the modernist towards views different to their own and their desire to control the art form and extinguish all competing voices eerily reflects some of the attitudes held by some posters on this forum.


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## arpeggio

I just reviewed the activity here including the remarks of those on my ignore list.

It appears that about eight to ten members are critical of the OP and maybe about three to five are neutral. Yet Mahlerian's essay has generated sixty likes.

Maybe the anti-modernists should take that into consideration before criticizing our approach to classical music.

I can just imagine an anti-modernist reading this and accusing me of playing the popularity card or accusing us of being out of touch with the masses.

In spite of the rhetoric in this forum the anti-modernist is a small minority.


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## mmsbls

Unfortunately this thread generated a large number of borderline or worse posts. Further the thread now is a political discussion. The thread is closed for now.


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