# If there was a Romatic Era in Music then was there also an Intellectual Era?



## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

The reason I ask this question is because I have never heard the modern era of music (1900 forward)* called the Intellectual Era, but we always hear the term Romantic Era.

_*Please note, obviously my date can be criticized, this is not the point. The point is; if there is Romantic Era in music surely we should called what followed the Intellectual Era._


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## dsphipps100 (Jan 10, 2016)

The "Intellectual Era" is commonly referred to as the "classical period", from ca. 1750-1825.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

dsphipps100 said:


> The "Intellectual Era" is commonly referred to as the "classical period", from ca. 1750-1825.


This can't be right, this is totally mislabeled. Time to properly apply the term: the Intellectual Era is, in reality, what came after the Romantic Era.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

It is called "The Era of Increasing Eclecticism"; sometimes "The Era of Increasing Entropy"; sometimes "The Era of the New Stasis". You can look it up.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

Strange Magic said:


> It is called "The Era of Increasing Eclecticism"; sometimes "The Era of Increasing Entropy"; sometimes "The Era of the New Stasis". You can look it up.


Ridiculous. This is proof that academics are stupid.


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

I've never heard of the "Intelligent" era

The Classical era happened during the Enlightenment, and the Romantic era was an artistic/philosophical reaction to the previous era. Then the turn of the century and cumulation of the first world war made Modernism concrete, etc.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Cosmos said:


> I've never heard of the "Intelligent" era
> 
> The Classical era happened during the Enlightenment, and the Romantic era was an artistic/philosophical reaction to the previous era. Then the turn of the century and cumulation of the first world war made Modernism concrete, etc.


Actually (and perhaps counter-intuitively to some), the first World War put a damper on the full-ahead exploration of the pre-War years, and instead led to Neoclassicism and the 12-tone method, both intended to rein in some of the expressive and formal freedoms of the early 1900s.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

There was no such 'intelligent era' as to compose music is an act of considerable intelligence in any era.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

DavidA said:


> There was no such 'intelligent era' as to compose music is an act of considerable intelligence in any era.


But you're mistaken, not all music proceeds from the evolved-abstract-species: this is like comparing Neanderthals with Humans (although _far less_ extreme). When you say intellectual you mean something different from me. I suppose the intellectual era (as I'm thinking of it) would be something like a logical era of music... hence 12-tone, Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Shostakovitch, Pettersson and more... it would be characterized by a logical approach to music, as opposed to a romantic one, almost positivistic.


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## dsphipps100 (Jan 10, 2016)

Klassic said:


> This can't be right, this is totally mislabeled. Time to properly apply the term: the Intellectual Era is, in reality, what came after the Romantic Era.


Unless I'm mistaken you previously said in your OP that you've never heard the Post-Post-Romantic era referred to as the "Intellectual Era", so therefore you have no academic precedent on which to base your dogmatism. The so-called "classical" period (from ca. 1750-1825) was the opposite of the Romantic Period, where restraint, form-over-expression, taste-over-boisterousness, and above all, "correctness" were the rule of the day. If that's not "intellectual", then I don't know what is.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Romanticism gave way to "post-Romanticism" (Mahler, R. Strauss, "Gurrelieder," etc.) which could be considered Romanticism overblown (although there was a lot more to it than that). What came after that were a lot of different reactions, which we called Modernism, that includes such more intellectual approaches as Neo-classicism, Twelve-note music, free atonality, along with wildly Expressionistic music that was a response to global war. You cannot characterize that period with one word, and to try to do so for the sake of academic elegance is a fairly futile occupation. You are assuming that the Romantic/Intellectual split is a purely binary one. It isn't. Expressionistic music (a lot of Bartok, for instance) is a melding of both.


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## Arsakes (Feb 20, 2012)

dsphipps100 said:


> The "Intellectual Era" is commonly referred to as the "classical period", from ca. 1750-1825.


More like Rationalist period in the History of Philosophy.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

There's no such thing as an intellectual era. Intellect is at a premium in every era.


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## dsphipps100 (Jan 10, 2016)

Arsakes said:


> More like Rationalist period in the History of Philosophy.


I could happily accept that label also.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

MarkW said:


> Romanticism gave way to "post-Romanticism" (Mahler, R. Strauss, "Gurrelieder," etc.) which could be considered Romanticism overblown (although there was a lot more to it than that). What came after that were a lot of different reactions, which we called Modernism, that includes such more intellectual approaches as Neo-classicism, Twelve-note music, free atonality, along with wildly Expressionistic music that was a response to global war.


It's hard for "wildly Expressionistic music" to be "a response to global war" when pretty much Schönberg's entire Expressionist period, including _Erwartung_ and _Pierrot lunaire_, is pre-war.

re: the OP - yes, two of them, and they're called the Enlightenment and Modernism.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Alex Ross' book on post-post-Romantic music, _The Rest is Noise_, does an excellent job--nay, an exhaustive job--of capturing the incredibly diverse, even chaotic state of what I call the music of the New Stasis (following Leonard Meyer's lead). A powerful and quite accurate metaphorical expression of this diversity is our old friend John Cage and his _Imaginary Landscape No. 4_. Please attend closely--this does capture the sound, in a very true sense, of our time. I find an analogy also in Andy Warhol's notion of a world wherein everyone gets 15 minutes of fame.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Strange Magic said:


> Alex Ross' book on post-post-Romantic music, _The Rest is Noise_, does an excellent job--nay, an exhaustive job--of capturing the incredibly diverse, even chaotic state of what I call the music of the New Stasis (following Leonard Meyer's lead).


In his introduction, Ross says specifically that his survey is far from exhaustive and that the composers he chose were chosen primarily to get a diversity of narratives rather than to catalogue everything important that occurred.

As for Leonard Meyer, he signed off on the braindead screed _Schoenberg's Error_, so I have a difficult time trusting his judgment on much of anything.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Strange Magic said:


> Alex Ross' book on post-post-Romantic music, _The Rest is Noise_, does an excellent job--nay, an exhaustive job--of capturing the incredibly diverse, even chaotic state of what I call the music of the New Stasis (following Leonard Meyer's lead). A powerful and quite accurate metaphorical expression of this diversity is our old friend John Cage and his _Imaginary Landscape No. 4_. Please attend closely--this does capture the sound, in a very true sense, of our time. I find an analogy also in Andy Warhol's notion of a world wherein everyone gets 15 minutes of fame.


So by "our time," you mean 55-65 years ago.

Credit where it's due to Alex Ross for describing minimalism as like driving through the desert and periodically passing similar landmarks (billboards or whatever) over and over, which seems exactly right for Terry Riley and Steve Reich (though interestingly not for Philip Glass). That aside, the most interesting thing about his book is that he weirdly starts with with _Salome_ rather than _Pelléas and Mélisande_.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Mahlerian said:


> In his introduction, Ross says specifically that his survey is far from exhaustive and that the composers he chose were chosen primarily to get a diversity of narratives rather than to catalogue everything important that occurred.
> 
> As for Leonard Meyer, he signed off on the braindead screed _Schoenberg's Error_, so I have a difficult time trusting his judgment on much of anything.


Regarding Ross' book, I will happily be corrected by your observation that Ross could have gone on at much greater length and catalogued "everything important that occurred". It strengthens the case.

Screeds are braindead if one disagrees with them; revelations if one agrees. I'll have to refresh my memory of Meyer's notions of Schoenberg, but disagreement with a cogent thinker like Meyer in one area does not, nor ought not, preclude agreement in other areas.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Strange Magic said:


> Screeds are braindead if one disagrees with them; revelations if one agrees.


I would say one tries, to the best of one's ability, to determine whether a screed is braindead or not, and if, as best one can tell, it is, then of course one doesn't agree with it.

re: the book in question, the only people who still think the 12 tone system matters, per se, are the people who hate it.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Strange Magic said:


> Screeds are braindead if one disagrees with them; revelations if one agrees. I'll have to refresh my memory of Meyer's notions of Schoenberg, but disagreement with a cogent thinker like Meyer in one area does not, nor ought not, preclude agreement in other areas.


The book (which was not written by Meyer, just edited by him) contains a lot of scurrilous arguments in favor of taking down a strawman. It has plenty of factual errors and the author seems unable to understand any of the texts he's reading.

An argument can be evaluated on its own merits regardless of whether or not you agree with the conclusion, and Schoenberg's Error is just a poor argument for anything in general. If it feels revelatory to anyone, it's only because they already agreed with the conclusion it does nothing to support.



Harold in Columbia said:


> I would say one tries, to the best of one's ability, to determine whether a screed is braindead or not, and if, as best one can tell, it is, then of course one doesn't agree with it.
> 
> re: the book in question, the only people who still think the 12 tone system matters, per se, are the people who hate it.


Oh, I don't think that the 12-tone method is the only way forward or anything like that, nor even that composers should still be using it in its original form today (which nobody has really done for some time). It was merely the source of a good many masterpieces, that's all. Even if it were true that it were based on a theoretical error, this would do nothing to diminish the power of the works of Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, and others who came after them.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

I understand that academics have classified certain areas... "expressionism, cubism, etc." This is not my point, my point is that the time after the romantic era (in classical music) _should_ be called the intellectual era. Just like the term cubism fits the material reality of a cubist painting (being descriptive of the nature of the thing) so the term, intellectual era, corresponds to the nature of music after the romantic era. I do believe my point is valid. Did anyone even make contact with what I said?


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Mahlerian said:


> Oh, I don't think that the 12-tone method is the only way forward or anything like that, nor even that composers should still be using it in its original form today (which nobody has really done for some time). It was merely the source of a good many masterpieces, that's all. Even if it were true that it were based on a theoretical error, this would do nothing to diminish the power of the works of Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, and others who came after them.


Yes, exactly. That was my point. The 12 tone system is vastly less important to people who like 12 tone music than it is to people who hate it.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Klassic said:


> ... my point is that the time after the romantic era (in classical music) _should_ be called the intellectual era. Just like the term cubism fits the material reality of a cubist painting (being descriptive of the nature of the thing) so the term, intellectual era, corresponds to the nature of music after the romantic era. I do believe my point is valid. Did anyone even make contact with what I said?


I'm not sure why you feel "intellectual" is relevant to music after the Romantic era. I think we all believe that composers of all eras use(d) their intellect to compose music. _Some_ people use their intellect to understand music of _all_ eras. Everyone responds to music with emotions.

What do you feel is different about Post-Romantic music that specifically calls intellect to mind?


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Not that I didn't understand your OP. Just that I don't think Intellectual Era succinctly describes, or even applies, to all of then disparate threads of musical thought that succeeded Romanticism.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

mmsbls said:


> What do you feel is different about Post-Romantic music that specifically calls intellect to mind?


Well, eventually, when we get to Postmodernism, nothing.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

mmsbls said:


> I'm not sure why you feel "intellectual" is relevant to music after the Romantic era. I think we all believe that composers of all eras use(d) their intellect to compose music. _Some_ people use their intellect to understand music of _all_ eras. Everyone responds to music with emotions.
> 
> What do you feel is different about Post-Romantic music that specifically calls intellect to mind?


Good questions here seeking clarification. I see the romantic era as being deeply sentimental (much of the emphasis is directed toward the provocation of emotion) in contrast, I see the era that followed as more abstract, the emphasis being not so much on the provocation of emotion, but on the development of the musical idea. A Shostakovitch symphony is far more conceptual than a Beethoven symphony. One cannot find positivism or postmodernism in Beethoven.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Klassic said:


> A Shostakovitch symphony is far more conceptual than a Beethoven symphony.


Compared to what? You may prefer Shostakovitch's concepts over Beeethoven's, but that doesn't support a broad statement of fact.


> One cannot find positivism or postmodernism in Beethoven.


Nor is anyone expecting it or looking for them in Beethoven.


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## Guest (Mar 7, 2016)

Klassic said:


> I understand that academics have classified certain areas... "expressionism, cubism, etc." This is not my point, my point is that the time after the romantic era (in classical music) _should_ be called the intellectual era. Just like the term cubism fits the material reality of a cubist painting (being descriptive of the nature of the thing) so the term, intellectual era, corresponds to the nature of music after the romantic era. I do believe my point is valid. Did anyone even make contact with what I said?


It seems to me that your point that "Intellectual" should follow "Romantic" must be based on some reference, probably a literary one, that you have only alluded to but have not specified and since you feel that nobody seems to "understand" your point, maybe you need to specify the reference you are alluding to.


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

Klassic said:


> I understand that academics have classified certain areas... "expressionism, cubism, etc." This is not my point, my point is that the time after the romantic era (in classical music) _should_ be called the intellectual era. Just like the term cubism fits the material reality of a cubist painting (being descriptive of the nature of the thing) so the term, intellectual era, corresponds to the nature of music after the romantic era. I do believe my point is valid. Did anyone even make contact with what I said?


My issue with calling it the "Intelligent" era is that the title implies that this era stands out from the others as being intelligent, while the previous eras were less intelligent...that's what it sounds like to me


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## SimonNZ (Jul 12, 2012)

Strange Magic said:


> It is called "The Era of Increasing Eclecticism"; sometimes "The Era of Increasing Entropy"; sometimes "The Era of the New Stasis". You can look it up.


Its called none of those things by anybody, apart from maybe one miserable git author whose prejudice you were relieved to find reflected your own.

Also: which is it then? Stasis or Entropy? Because they mean quite different things (neither of which describes C20 classical).


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## SimonNZ (Jul 12, 2012)

Cosmos said:


> My issue with calling it the "Intelligent" era is that the title implies that this era stands out from the others as being intelligent, while the previous eras were less intelligent...that's what it sounds like to me


I assume "intelligent" here is meant - yet again - to mean cold and clinical, unemotional, a classroom exercise. Which is only said by those with little exposure to the actual music.


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## bz3 (Oct 15, 2015)

Someone should change the name of 'Talk-Classical' to 'Talk-Hermeneutics.'


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

Cosmos said:


> My issue with calling it the "Intelligent" era is that the title implies that this era stands out from the others as being intelligent, while the previous eras were less intelligent...that's what it sounds like to me


But it does: the romantic past was not as sophisticated as the intellectual future.


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## dgee (Sep 26, 2013)

SimonNZ said:


> Its called none of those things by anybody, apart from maybe one miserable git author whose prejudice you were relieved to find reflected your own.
> 
> Also: which is it then? Stasis or Entropy? Because they mean quite different things (neither of which describes C20 classical).


Indeed - and when googling those phrases, not much comes up besides this very thread.


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## mstar (Aug 14, 2013)

"If there was a Romatic Era in Music then was there also an Intellectual Era?"

The question is... is there an aromatic era?
(mstar + all fellow chem geeks snicker.)


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Strange Magic said:


> It is called "The Era of Increasing Eclecticism"; sometimes "The Era of Increasing Entropy"; sometimes "The Era of the New Stasis". You can look it up.


Bob Dylan put it more accurately: "Something is happening here, but you don't know what is."


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

I have no idea what the point of this thread is


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

arpeggio said:


> I have no idea what the point of this thread is


There is a categorical difference between Ludwig Van Beethoven and Milton Babbitt.


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## Guest (Mar 7, 2016)

Klassic said:


> There is a categorical difference between Ludwig Van Beethoven and Milton Babbitt.


And what difference is that, Klassic?


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

nathanb said:


> And what difference is that, Klassic?


.....Compositional Methodology.


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## Guest (Mar 7, 2016)

Klassic said:


> .....Compositional Methodology.


Ah, so the same difference between, say, Beethoven and Palestrina. For a second there I thought you were speaking of something significant.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

nathanb said:


> Ah, so the same difference between, say, Beethoven and Palestrina. For a second there I thought you were speaking of something significant.


The approach and conceptual goal of and toward music are exceedingly significant to the classification of music.


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## Guest (Mar 7, 2016)

Klassic said:


> The approach and conceptual goal of and toward music are exceedingly significant to the classification of music.


If the goals are actually significantly different themselves.

May I ask you how many times you have attempted to compose serial, stochastic, indeterminate, or acousmatic music? I wouldn't mind comparing your findings with mine, of course.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

SimonNZ said:


> Its called none of those things by anybody, apart from maybe one miserable git author whose prejudice you were relieved to find reflected your own.
> 
> Also: which is it then? Stasis or Entropy? Because they mean quite different things (neither of which describes C20 classical).


I love responses like this! Of course no one calls the era in question any of those names (except me), but they certainly should. You really, really should read some Meyer, then you may grasp how the ideas of entropy (sensu lato) and stasis fit well together.


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## Guest (Mar 7, 2016)

Strange Magic said:


> You really, really should read some Meyer, then you may grasp how the ideas of entropy (sensu lato) and stasis fit well together.


As an engineering student, I would like to suggest that maybe this Meyer fellow you speak of probably just likes fancy-sounding words. 

Also, the very concept of entropy has never been a fun one for me. Mathematically, entropy and exergy have always seemed to be like a "well, something's happening here, and we don't know what, why, how, etc, but here's an extra term in the equation to account for all that shenanigans". But I'm very grateful for supposed isentropic processes all the same; lord knows I couldn't solve many thermodynamics problems without them!


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

arpeggio said:


> I have no idea what the point of this thread is


The point of this thread at first was to help Klassic come up with a name for the whole general post-Romantic, or maybe post-post-Romantic era. I supplied a few possibilities. Then somebody decided it was really a veiled attack on Schoenberg, because Leonard Meyer, whom I acknowledged, did not author a book about Schoenberg, didn't really edit it--he rather looked over the final draft--but somehow got caught up in the whirling gears of a previously non-existent Schoenberg discussion. Sheesh! But you're right; this thread needs to Rest in Peace.


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## dsphipps100 (Jan 10, 2016)

OK, I feel better now. I think I'm going to go listen to some post-serialist, expressionistic, post-post-romantic, modernist Shostakovich with some traces of minimalism thrown in.

(After I'm done cranking the volume, my neighbors will also be very expressionistic.)


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## dsphipps100 (Jan 10, 2016)

Strange Magic said:


> The point of this thread at first was to help Klassic come up with a name for the whole general post-Romantic, or maybe post-post-Romantic era.


Try this one: "20th Century". Has a nice ring to it, huh?


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

Klassic said:


> There is a categorical difference between Ludwig Van Beethoven and Milton Babbitt.


I really do not understand what you are trying to prove. Apparently there are others who agree with me.

Is there a difference? Of course there is. So what?

Should ensembles not program Babbitt because he is different from Beethoven?

We have been discussing nonsense like this with others for years without any satisfactory resolution. In spite of the differences there are many who admire and appreciate the differences between Beethoven and Babbitt. I seriously doubt that any discussion here is going to change anyone's mind. It has not in the hundreds of threads in this and other forums.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

The Intellectual Period in music fell midway between the Lower Hooter and Upper Hooter eras (taken together, approximately 1573-1644 give or take). It is normally assigned to the years 1611-1612. Its brevity does not detract from its pivotal importance in the development of Western musical thought.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

dsphipps100 said:


> The "Intellectual Era" is commonly referred to as the "classical period", from ca. 1750-1825.


High Baroque, the contrapuntal complexities of Bach through to the very polished and mature opera seria of the same period is often seen as a great "intellectual era" because of the classical (i.e. ancient) themes these works were based on.


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## dsphipps100 (Jan 10, 2016)

KenOC said:


> The Intellectual Period in music fell midway between the Lower Hooter and Upper Hooter eras (taken together, approximately 1573-1644 give or take). It is normally assigned to the years 1611-1612. Its brevity does not detract from its pivotal importance in the development of Western musical thought.


What a hoot! Oh wait, sorry......


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## dsphipps100 (Jan 10, 2016)

ArtMusic said:


> High Baroque, the contrapuntal complexities of Bach through to the very polished and mature opera seria of the same period is often seen as a great "intellectual era" because of the classical (i.e. ancient) themes these works were based on.


No argument here.









I wasn't actually arguing for the "classical" era, specifically as the "Intellectual Era", I was simply pointing out that the label could be equally applied going back from the Romantic Era as going forward.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

True, because each period saw their arts as intellectual in their own way. Even basing a whole oratorio on the words of a poem, or Milton's Paradise Lost (think Haydn's Creation) was therefore intellectual, still is today.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

ArtMusic said:


> True, because each period saw their arts as intellectual in their own way. Even basing a whole oratorio on the words of a poem, or Milton's Paradise Lost (think Haydn's Creation) was therefore intellectual, still is today.


Wow, I agree with an ArtMusic post. I have a bad feeling about this...


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Strange Magic said:


> You really, really should read some Meyer, then you may grasp how the ideas of entropy (sensu lato) and stasis fit well together.


Could you give us some simple explanation of how Meyer connects entropy and stasis? I wonder if he uses the terms differently than they are normally used in science. In science the two describe different things. Entropy is a property of systems like temperature while stasis indicates that a system's properties are constant over time. Further, for almost all real processes, entropy increases with time rather than being constant.

The phrase "The era of increasing entropy" as applied to music seems to suggest that during that period musical works either individually or collectively became more disordered. Alternatively, it could suggest that musical works became more varied and filled a larger region of all possible music (collectively works were more dissimilar than in previous periods). Is something like this what Meyer might mean?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

mmsbls said:


> Could you give us some simple explanation of how Meyer connects entropy and stasis?


Beethoven kicked the snot out of entropy, reducing it to an abnormally low level. It has been increasing ever since. It is currently in need of further and no doubt violent discipline, but it is uncertain who has the wherewithal to provide this


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

This is for both nathanb and mmsbis: Leonard Meyer was neither engineer nor physicist; he was merely for years Professor of Music and Chairman of said department at the U. of Chicago; author of several ground-breaking books on musical structure, history, etc.--but you can look this all up on the Internet, as you know. He, in his writings, uses the terms Brownian motion and also stasis, to be sure; entropy may be my own contribution. But he uses these terms as metaphors, much like you or I would, were such metaphors perhaps the most striking way to illustrate our points. I have suggested an actual reading of Meyer's work as the best guide to what he thought and wrote. If this is done, one finds that Meyer did not use the term stasis to foreclose any change whatsoever, but included periods of very slow or insignificant change as being in a condition of stasis. But in this period of new stasis, the lack of important change is replaced by the constant buzz and flurry of unending, yet short-lived innovation, growing in breadth, such that the diminution of any particular artistic movement or school or impulse is common to all such, and leads to an increase in disorder, which I (and maybe Meyer) metaphorically call entropy. Hope this helps.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

I guess I should be grateful to pop scientists. At least they're telling me clearly and up front that I don't have to bother reading their book.

And, somewhat sorry to belabor the point, but where is this "constant buzz and flurry of unending, yet short-lived innovation"? I can distill classical music between 1945 and 1991, when that book was published, to three words: Serialism, minimalism, spectral. How hard it that?


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

nathanb said:


> As an engineering student, I would like to suggest that maybe this Meyer fellow you speak of probably just likes fancy-sounding words.
> 
> Also, the very concept of entropy has never been a fun one for me. Mathematically, entropy and exergy have always seemed to be like a "well, something's happening here, and we don't know what, why, how, etc, but here's an extra term in the equation to account for all that shenanigans". But I'm very grateful for supposed isentropic processes all the same; lord knows I couldn't solve many thermodynamics problems without them!


I haven't read Meyer, but I suspect that he's using the word "entropy" metaphorically. It's probably an example of physics envy in music.

Edit:



Strange Magic said:


> This is for both nathanb and mmsbis: Leonard Meyer was neither engineer nor physicist; he was merely for years Professor of Music and Chairman of said department at the U. of Chicago; author of several ground-breaking books on musical structure, history, etc.--but you can look this all up on the Internet, as you know. He, in his writings, uses the terms Brownian motion and also stasis, to be sure; entropy may be my own contribution. But he uses these terms as metaphors, much like you or I would, were such metaphors perhaps the most striking way to illustrate our points. I have suggested an actual reading of Meyer's work as the best guide to what he thought and wrote. If this is done, one finds that Meyer did not use the term stasis to foreclose any change whatsoever, but included periods of very slow or insignificant change as being in a condition of stasis. But in this period of new stasis, the lack of important change is replaced by the constant buzz and flurry of unending, yet short-lived innovation, growing in breadth, such that the diminution of any particular artistic movement or school or impulse is common to all such, and leads to an increase in disorder, which I (and maybe Meyer) metaphorically call entropy. Hope this helps.


Well, how do you like that? Strange Magic beat me to the punch by several hours. I need to practice my footwork. (These have been boxing metaphors.)


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Harold in Columbia said:


> And, somewhat sorry to belabor the point, but where is this "constant buzz and flurry of unending, yet short-lived innovation"? I can distill classical music between 1945 and 1991, when that book was published, to three words: Serialism, minimalism, spectral. How hard it that?


Besides Meyer himself, (_Music, the Arts, and Ideas)_) you might read (or re-read) Ross' book (again), or if you're short on time, Harold C. Schonberg wraps things up nicely on p. 619 of the 1997 edition of _The Lives of the Great Composers_. That's the concluding chapter of the book, and it's cunningly entitled The New Eclecticism. My hat is off to Schonberg; I've always been a big fan. :tiphat:


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## Guest (Mar 7, 2016)

Harold in Columbia said:


> And, somewhat sorry to belabor the point, but where is this "constant buzz and flurry of unending, yet short-lived innovation"? I can distill classical music between 1945 and 1991, when that book was published, to three words: Serialism, minimalism, spectral. How hard it that?


You can oversimplify anything like that, really, if that's your goal.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Strange Magic said:


> Besides Meyer himself, (_Music, the Arts, and Ideas)_) you might read (or re-read) Ross' book (again), or if you're short on time, Harold C. Schonberg wraps things up nicely on p. 619 of the 1997 edition of _The Lives of the Great Composers_. That's the concluding chapter of the book, and it's cunningly entitled The New Eclecticism.


Or I could just listen to the music. Popularizing books are a starting point, not the basis for a paradigm. And sometimes not even a starting point. If I'd had to rely on those guys, or even on Richard Taruskin, who is of course an actual scholar, I still wouldn't know who Grisey, Murail, and Lachenmann are, or what their music sounds like, or that Boulez wrote anything after _Le marteau sans maître_, or Riley anything after _In C_, or anything about La Monte Young, period (never mind minimalists and successors outside of the Big Four) (though there I'm heavily indebted to a more specialized scholar-popularizer, Kyle Gann).

I read that part of Harold Schonberg's book many times, years ago, when I was teen or 20-something who of course knew that modern music was garbage (ah, but I was so much older then...). In retrospect his apocalyptic tone is hilarious - unconsciously modeled, I think, on some combination of things including Gibbon and the Book of Revelation.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

nathanb said:


> You can oversimplify anything like that, really, if that's your goal.


But Strange Magic's entire contention is that you _can't_ simplify recent music. My point is you can and I just did.

Of course you can and eventually should go into more detail, just as you should go into more detail than Classical-Romantic-Symbolist ("Impressionist" if you're dumb).


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

I would not be opposed to using another term to classify the time after the Romantic Era, but my point is that it should be descriptive of the methodological, goal-orientation, actual work being produced, and the work after the Romantic Era had a far more logical, abstract emphasis. I just think the term intellectual is a kind of antithesis to the term romantic. If we say a writer "is too romantic," what do we mean? We usually mean he is not logical enough. If we say a writer "is too logical," we usually mean he is lacking in some kind of emotion. The emphasis of the Romantic Era (in my mind) can be seen as having its climax in Wagner... and what is the music of Wagner if not a wonderful roller-coaster of emotion? God bless him he is totally indulgent! Intellectual music, in contrast, is largely based on a logical idea... it is not simply trying to achieve an expression of emotions, but convey states of being (which can be emotional) that have come about as a result of abstract ideas. Hence, the Intellectual Era as opposed to the Romantic Era. Go ahead and pick another term, but common sense dictates that it should be descriptive of the thing it is trying to describe.


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## Guest (Mar 7, 2016)

Klassic said:


> I would not be opposed to using another term to classify the time after the Romantic Era, but my point is that it should be descriptive of the methodological, goal-orientation, actual work being produced, and the work after the Romantic Era had a far more logical, abstract emphasis. I just think the term intellectual is a kind of antithesis to the term romantic. If we say a writer "is too romantic," what do we mean? We usually mean he is not logical enough. If we say a writer "is too logical," we usually mean he is lacking in some kind of emotion. The emphasis of the Romantic Era (in my mind) can be seen as having its climax in Wagner... and what is the music of Wagner if not a wonderful roller-coaster of emotion? God bless him he is totally indulgent! Intellectual music, in contrast, is largely based on a logical idea... it is not simply trying to achieve an expression of emotions, but convey states of being (which can be emotional) that have come about as a result of abstract ideas. Hence, the Intellectual Era as opposed to the Romantic Era.


But there's so many misconceptions about music here that let's just not.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Klassic said:


> The emphasis of the Romantic Era (in my mind) can be seen as having its climax in Wagner...


In more senses than one.


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

I guess it depends on the listener. I heard Berg's Three Orchestral Pieces the other day, and thought they were very emotional. But not everyone will agree, and that's fine and normal.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

This of course (referring to my last post) brings up an interesting point. If there is music in the world that assumes a particular intellectual state... if it conveys the emotional nature of what if means to have this state (which is a state based on abstraction, logical ideas) then does it not logically follow that those who lack the experience of this intellectual state would not be able to appreciate such music? If this is true, I would take it to be a huge discovery when it comes to explaining certain antipathies toward modern music. If one thinks God is shaking down fairy dust from the sky and ordering the world in goodness, versus the existential reality and angst of the music of Shostakovitch, surely there is a conceptual difference in both philosophical and social maturity here? Let's face it, a Neanderthal would probably enjoy certain pieces by Mozart (he would probably think they were magic) but he would be utterly baffled and confused by the existential complexity of Shostakovitch. There is indeed a profound argument here (and it falls in favor of the complexity of modern music)! The appreciation of such music presupposes a certain kind of intellectual experience. Should I lie because this way of thinking offends certain people? Preposterous, in response they seek to fallaciously elevate the music of Mozart to the existential status of Shostakovitch.


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

I don't know...what you described is more about the listener than the music. What I mean is...the neanderthal would be shocked and confused by both Mozart and Shostakovich because they are centuries removed. A modern listener can approach both easily because we have centuries of musical baggage and accumulation behind us. And it's funny you mentioned Mozart and Shosty, because when I was younger, I connected more and more easily enjoyed Shostakovich than I did Mozart. Not because I studied theory or anything [I haven't and I don't], I just liked it.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

To Harold's list I would add at least electronic music and maybe throw in aleatoric music as a new technique. To me what's fascinating about this time is the range of musical styles being composed. Electronic music and minimalism, for example, seem as dissimilar as any two music styles from history (say Gregorian chant and serialism), and composers were producing both at the same time. In this sense I can see referring to this period with the phrase, 'constant buzz and flurry of unending, yet short-lived innovation." 

I probably would not use the words "an increase in disorder" since the works themselves, in general, are as highly ordered as earlier music, but there is another aspect of entropy increase - increasing volume of (musical) phase space - that makes sense. In this sense the increasing volume of musical phase space simply refers to musical works becoming more varied and filling a larger region of all possible music. So I think I understand what Meyer had in mind, and overall, it seems reasonable to me.

I guess in general I'm not so happy with people using scientific or mathematical terms outside of science and math because to those who don't understand the terms, they don't mean much, while to those who do understand them, they mean too much.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Though actually I disagree, re: Wagner. Romanticism climaxes 1830-1840 in early(ish) Berlioz, Chopin, Schumann, and Liszt. Wagner is then trying to impose some method on the madness.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

I


Harold in Columbia said:


> Or I could just listen to the music. Popularizing books are a starting point, not the basis for a paradigm. And sometimes not even a starting point. If I'd had to rely on those guys, or even on Richard Taruskin, who is of course an actual scholar, I still wouldn't know who Grisey, Murail, and Lachenmann are, or what their music sounds like, or that Boulez wrote anything after _Le marteau sans maître_, or Riley anything after _In C_, or anything about La Monte Young, period (never mind minimalists and successors outside of the Big Four) (though there I'm heavily indebted to a more specialized scholar-popularizer, Kyle Gann).
> 
> I read that part of Harold Schonberg's book many times, years ago, when I was teen or 20-something who of course knew that modern music was garbage (ah, but I was so much older then...). In retrospect his apocalyptic tone is hilarious - unconsciously modeled, I think, on some combination of things including Gibbon and the Book of Revelation.


Interesting post. Perhaps reading about the subject is just not right for you. I do not recall that Schonberg himself ever said that modern music was garbage in his book; you must have derived that notion on your own, but as you say, you were so much older then.....


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

mmsbls said:


> To Harold's list I would add at least electronic music and maybe throw in aleatoric music as a new technique.


I would say electronics is an instrument rather than a form - e.g. Stockhausen's _Kontakte_ is electronic and serial, Éliane Radigue's _Trilogie de la Mort_ is electronic and minimalist.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Strange Magic said:


> Perhaps reading about the subject is just not right for you.


Oh puh-lease. I probably read more than you do, and unlike you, I know the difference between Ross and Schonberg and real critics like Rosen, Dahlhaus, and Taruskin.

None of which has anything to do with the fact that, at some point, you do actually have to listen to the music. But maybe listening to music just isn't for you.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

What does it mean to say music is "intellectual"?

I wonder if it just means that it evokes certain associations (Milton Babbitt glasses, vintage sci-fi). I think it does.

I've never felt myself engaged in an intellectual process when hearing music, no matter what. An intellectual process is doing math, or reading something difficult and abstract, or even doing a puzzle. Nothing like any of those things is going on in my brain when I hear any music.

So what is "intellectual" music?


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

isorhythm said:


> What does it mean to say music is "intellectual"?
> 
> I wonder if it just means that it evokes certain associations (Milton Babbitt glasses, vintage sci-fi). I think it does.
> 
> ...


I tried to answer this in my previous post: *'...Intellectual music, in contrast, is largely based on a logical idea... it is not simply trying to achieve an expression of emotions, but convey states of being (which can be emotional) that have come about as a result of abstract ideas...'*


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Klassic said:


> I tried to answer this in my previous post: *'...Intellectual music, in contrast, is largely based on a logical idea... it is not simply trying to achieve an expression of emotions, but convey states of being (which can be emotional) that have come about as a result of abstract ideas...'*


But all musical ideas are abstract, whether or not the composer is trying to express emotion with them. What you mean by "intellectual" seems to be "not emotional," as far as I can tell.


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## Bayreuth (Jan 20, 2015)

Well I have to say that I do agree with Klassic here. 

From what could be referred to as "Post-mahlerian" period (first quarter of 20th century, give or take) I believe that a lot of intellect is needed from the listener in order to make sense of what he is listening, which I don't think was the case with Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Dvorak... I'm not saying that Bach wasn't a smart dude or that Ravel doesn't know how to make beautiful music. Sure, modern music is still quite enjoyable if you just relax and let it get to you; and f*** yeah, you need to have a lot of intellect to compose the Well Tempered Clavier. Nobody is denying any of that. I'm not saying that Bach is better than Ravel, either. 
But I feel that is rather obvious that something changed in the Arts since Baudelaire and Monet and Picasso and Mahler started to address their own art towards a new kind of individual: the Modern Man. This Modern Man was, ultimately, the recipent of their talent. For them, the modern man is an urbanite and he is, irretrievably, an intelectual. Or so they thought (See "The Painter of Modern Life" by Baudelaire). 20th Century Art is conceived around that premise. Check Joyce's Ulysses, check Picasso's Guernica, check The Rite of Spring. They are not "normal" works; they intend to make the reader or listener an active part of the process of art, and for that a high amount of intellect is needed. One can argue whether these modernistic movements stole the arts from the masses and turned them into an elite thing, as some critics have claimed, but the thing here is that the goals of this era changed and tried to appeal that intellectual part of men (or maybe tried to appeal only to the intellectuals, I don't know) and not just entertain or convey an idea. 

Thus, I would be OK if we called the era that came after Mahler as the "Intellectual Era".


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

isorhythm said:


> But all musical ideas are abstract, whether or not the composer is trying to express emotion with them.


Yes, but here the equivocation is yours, not mine.

As far as the music not being emotional I addressed this: "...but convey states of being (*which can be emotional*) that have come about as a result of abstract ideas..."


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

F


Harold in Columbia said:


> Oh puh-lease. I probably read more than you do, and unlike you, I know the difference between Ross and Schonberg and real critics like Rosen, Dahlhaus, and Taruskin.
> 
> None of which has anything to do with the fact that, at some point, you do actually have to listen to the music. But maybe listening to music just isn't for you.


I love it! Is there more? :lol:


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Sure. It's embedded somewhere in this audio file, but you have to listen all the way through to find it:


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Bayreuth said:


> From what could be referred to as "Post-mahlerian" period (first quarter of 20th century, give or take) I believe that a lot of intellect is needed from the listener in order to make sense of what he is listening, which I don't think was the case with Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Dvorak... I'm not saying that Bach wasn't a smart dude or that Ravel doesn't know how to make beautiful music. Sure, modern music is still quite enjoyable if you just relax and let it get to you; and f*** yeah, you need to have a lot of intellect to compose the Well Tempered Clavier. Nobody is denying any of that. I'm not saying that Bach is better than Ravel, either.
> But I feel that is rather obvious that something changed in the Arts since Baudelaire and Monet and Picasso and Mahler started to address their own art towards a new kind of individual: the Modern Man. This Modern Man was, ultimately, the recipent of their talent. For them, the modern man is an urbanite and he is, irretrievably, an intelectual. Or so they thought (See "The Painter of Modern Life" by Baudelaire). 20th Century Art is conceived around that premise. Check Joyce's Ulysses, check Picasso's Guernica, check The Rite of Spring. They are not "normal" works; they intend to make the reader or listener an active part of the process of art, and for that a high amount of intellect is needed.


There can be some debate about Schönberg, especially the neo-classical ("12 tone") works - but if you think more "intellect is needed from the listener in order to make sense of" _The Rite of Spring_ and freaking Ravel than Beethoven's symphony 9 or Wagner's _Valkyrie_, then you're not even conservative, you're just old.


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## Richard8655 (Feb 19, 2016)

isorhythm said:


> What does it mean to say music is "intellectual"?
> 
> I wonder if it just means that it evokes certain associations (Milton Babbitt glasses, vintage sci-fi). I think it does.
> 
> ...


This is a good point. I really don't see classical music as romantic vs intellectual. Art appreciation involves all senses and processing faculties. I guess the closest analogy might be emotional vs analytical... 19th century romantic (i.e., Tchaikovsky) compared to 18th century baroque (i.e., Bach).


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Analytical music: Rimsky-Korsakov

Emotional music: Vivaldi (Bach too, of course, in the most traditional sense of the word "emotional" - the great Pietist composer - but people think Bach means Glenn Gould and John Eliot Gardiner, so let's stick to one battle at a time.)


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## Bayreuth (Jan 20, 2015)

Harold in Columbia said:


> There can be some debate about Schönberg, especially the neo-classical ("12 tone") works - but if you think more "intellect is needed from the listener in order to make sense of" _The Rite of Spring_ and freaking Ravel than Beethoven's symphony 9 or Wagner's _Valkyrie_, then you're not even conservative, you're just old.


Like you probably know, The Rite of Spring was received at its premiere with riots and demonstrations. Maybe it says something about the new mentality that it required from the listener. As for Ravel, I do think that there is a huge appeal to the intellect in his music (beyond Bolero, of course). And yes, you just mentioned Wagner and Beethoven, two of the greatest innovators in the history of music. So I would suppose they too required something else from the listener of the time. But not every innovator is an intellectual nor wants to appeal to the intellect. Sometimes artist create new ways of saying the same things or, rather, saying them more powerfully so that they get to the receiver in all its greatness. I don't think there is much to think about the Ode to joy: it is precisely that, joy made music. That I can't find in Ravel or Stravinsky (first names that popped into my mind earlier, actually)

PS: you just called "old" a 24 year old


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Klassic said:


> Time to properly apply the term: the Intellectual Era is, in reality, what came after the Romantic Era.





Klassic said:


> ...A Shostakovitch symphony is far more conceptual than a Beethoven symphony. One cannot find positivism or postmodernism in Beethoven.





Klassic said:


> ...the romantic past was not as sophisticated as the intellectual future.





Klassic said:


> If there is music in the world that assumes a particular intellectual state... if it conveys the emotional nature of what if means to have this state (which is a state based on abstraction, logical ideas) then does it not logically follow that those who lack the experience of this intellectual state would not be able to appreciate such music?
> 
> Let's face it, a Neanderthal would probably enjoy certain pieces by Mozart (he would probably think they were magic) but he would be utterly baffled and confused by the existential complexity of Shostakovitch. There is indeed a profound argument here (and it falls in favor of the complexity of modern music)! The appreciation of such music presupposes a certain kind of intellectual experience. Should I lie because this way of thinking offends certain people? Preposterous, in response they seek to fallaciously elevate the music of Mozart to the existential status of Shostakovitch.





Bayreuth said:


> .. I believe that a lot of intellect is needed from the listener in order to make sense of what he is listening, which I don't think was the case with Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Dvorak... Thus, I would be OK if we called the era that came after Mahler as the "Intellectual Era".


In case anyone has missed it, the above quotes encapsulate the point of this thread:

1. The Intellectual Era should be applied to the period after the Romantic Era because:
-it is more sophisticated than the Romantic Era.
-it is more conceptual than the Romantic Era.

2. One must have a 'particular intellectual state' and have 'a certain kind of intellectual experience' to appreciate music of this period. Thus, a Neanderthal could probably enjoy music before this period (eg. certain pieces by Mozart) but would be 'baffled and confused' by music of the Intellectual Era.

Okay, now I've got it. Those who appreciate the music of the proposed 'Intellectual Era' are simply smarter than those who don't. I have an idea. Let's call it the Era of Arrogance.


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## Guest (Mar 7, 2016)

DaveM said:


> Okay, now I've got it. Those who appreciate the music of the proposed 'Intellectual Era' are simply smarter than those who don't. I have an idea. Let's call it the Era of Arrogance.


If anyone actually felt this way, we might have to call it that, yes. Thankfully, Klassic's argument is but a nonsensical anomaly.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Bayreuth said:


> Like you probably know, The Rite of Spring was received at its premiere with riots and demonstrations.


Like you evidently don't know, the rioters were angry about the costumes and dancing - they wanted to see legs - and had no interest one way or the other in the music, and when the music was given a concert performance a year later, it was a success.

And of course _initial _reception is here beside the point in any case. In a Ludwig Tieck novel from 1811, a character thinks Beethoven's music is almost indistinguishable from the work of a raving madman.



Bayreuth said:


> PS: you just called "old" a 24 year old


And? When I was 14, I was as old as you are now.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

I appreciate the above replies but I'm afraid I'm no closer to understanding.

What is the intellectual process that happens in your head when you listen to an intellectual piece, specifically? What does it consist of?

The _Rite_ was, if anything, criticized by conservatives for not being intellectual enough - for being purely visceral and savage.


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## Bayreuth (Jan 20, 2015)

Harold in Columbia said:


> In a Ludwig Tieck novel from 1811, a character thinks Beethoven's music is almost indistinguishable from the work of a raving madman.
> 
> And? When I was 14, I was as old as you are now.


The fact that you consider yourself smarter and more mature than me just proves my point, buddy. You seem to be a pseudointellectual that feels the need to prove his point by mentioning books and being arrogant towards everybody else. Which is curious given that you don't even know that I love Stravinsky.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Bayreuth said:


> The fact that you consider yourself smarter and more mature than me just proves my point, buddy. You seem to be a pseudointellectual...


That's what people who don't like intellectuals (but don't want to admit it) call intellectuals.



Bayreuth said:


> ...that feels the need to prove his point by mentioning books and being arrogant towards everybody else.


It's not my fault that I know why the riot happened and you didn't.



Bayreuth said:


> Which is curious given that you don't even know that I love Stravinsky.


So what if you love Stravinsky or don't? It has no bearing on whether you're right or wrong in saying he requires listeners today to think more than Beethoven.

By the way: if we're going to say that influencing T. S. Eliot makes you a Modernist, okay, whatever (well, actually not okay, but one thing at a time) - but then, let's give the designation not to Baudelaire, the poet he claimed as an influence, but to the poet who actually influenced him, Walt Whitman.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Let's stop talking about each other and focus back on what to call the post-Romantic era.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

How about Prepostmodernism?


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## Bayreuth (Jan 20, 2015)

Harold in Columbia said:


> That's what people who don't like intellectuals (but don't want to admit it) call intellectuals.
> 
> It's not my fault that I know why the riot happened and you didn't.
> 
> ...


For being a self-proclaimed intellectual, you tend to simplify terms quite a bit.

First of all, that a certain kind of music appeals to the intellect doesn't mean that it requires from you to think more (as far as I know every individual thinks just the same amount, but the way their intellects are formed make the process go one way or the other). It would be like saying that music that appeals to the emotions requires from you to love harder. 
What I mean by "appealing to the intellect" is that the communicative focus of the work of art is not in beauty of sound, coherence or harmony anymore but in structure, order (or disorder), internal references, etc. and that THERE IS ALSO BEAUTY IN THAT. A different kind of beauty that puts to work your mind in a more "intellectual" way (not your kind of intellectual, of course). That, is, it requires you to think different. It requires a background knowledge of some sort. That has nothing to do with thinking more.

The reference to TS Eliot I honestly don't know where it comes from.  First time someone mentions him in here I think. But whatever, I'll blame it on your need for demonstrating how much you know and how you believe that if you write some grandiloquent reference here and there then somehow what you're saying will be more true. However, my reference to Baudelaire had nothing to do with Modernist poetry but with his new perception of what Art and with what the subjects and goals of Art should be. It is, actually, the Impressionist unofficial Manifesto. I know it is very cool to make people think that Walt Whitman himself is backing your point, but don't push it, bro. You sound really pedantic


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## Bayreuth (Jan 20, 2015)

mmsbls said:


> Let's stop talking about each other and focus back on what to call the post-Romantic era.


Totally right. Given that the name "Intellectual" is itching so many people, I would be OK to determine when or with what composer did music changed in a crucial way at the turn of the century. As I think that it is Mahler, I wouldn't mind going with Post-Mahlerian. Sounds cool to me


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## Richard8655 (Feb 19, 2016)

mmsbls said:


> Let's stop talking about each other and focus back on what to call the post-Romantic era.


Maybe we can also cut down on the sarcasm, arrogance, and snobbery toward each other in our posts.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Bayreuth said:


> What I mean by "appealing to the intellect" is that the communicative focus of the work of art is not in beauty of sound, coherence or harmony anymore but in structure, order (or disorder), internal references, etc. and that THERE IS ALSO BEAUTY IN THAT. A different kind of beauty that puts to work your mind in a more "intellectual" way (not your kind of intellectual, of course).


OK, this makes sense. I'm not convinced that this is what distinguishes post-Mahler music in general, though. I think it applies to a lot of Schoenberg, Webern, Stravinsky and other neoclassicists, but I'm not sure it applies to much else. And I think once you get past WWII this all goes out the window.



Bayreuth said:


> That, is, it requires you to think different. It requires a background knowledge of some sort.


I disagree with this as well. I think you need background knowledge to make sense a Mahler symphony, but no background knowledge will help you with music that isn't using classical forms anymore. In fact such music often demands that you throw away all your background knowledge. Stockhausen said of _Kontakte_ that he wanted to create music with no long-term narrative at all, only moments. And the reason that piece is 35 minutes long is that's how far he got before it was time for the premier. Whatever intellectual processes went into composing it (and frankly this is often overstated - we're talking about counting, not multivariable calculus), the demand on the listener is almost _anti_-intellectual.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

I enjoy listening to the music of Elliott Carter. I do not care what you call it. Even if you called it pseudo-intellectual elitist junk, I will still continue to listen to it.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Bayreuth said:


> For being a self-proclaimed intellectual, you tend to simplify terms quite a bit.


Yes, because, since I am an intellectual, I'm not afraid to.



Bayreuth said:


> What I mean by "appealing to the intellect" is that the communicative focus of the work of art is not in beauty of sound, coherence or harmony anymore but in structure, order...


"Coherence," "structure," and "order" are the same thing.



Bayreuth said:


> ...(or disorder), internal references, etc. and that THERE IS ALSO BEAUTY IN THAT.


That's Romanticism.



Bayreuth said:


> The reference to TS Eliot I honestly don't know where it comes from.  First time someone mentions him in here I think. But whatever, I'll blame it on your need for demonstrating how much you know and how you believe that if you write some grandiloquent reference here and there then somehow what you're saying will be more true.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection



Bayreuth said:


> Totally right. Given that the name "Intellectual" is itching so many people, I would be OK to determine when or with what composer did music changed in a crucial way at the turn of the century. As I think that it is Mahler, I wouldn't mind going with Post-Mahlerian. Sounds cool to me


With all the immense respect due to Mahler, he didn't change music as much as Richard Strauss, who didn't change it as much as Schönberg, who didn't change it as much as Debussy, who didn't change it as much as Stravinsky.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

arpeggio said:


> I enjoy listening to the music of Elliott Carter. I do not care what you call it. Even if you called it pseudo-intellectual elitist junk, I will still continue to listen to it.


My first instinct nowadays is to take "pseudo-intellectual elitist junk" as a positive recommendation.


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## Guest (Mar 7, 2016)

Bayreuth said:


> What I mean by "appealing to the intellect" is that the communicative focus of the work of art is not in beauty of sound, coherence or harmony anymore but in structure, order (or disorder), internal references, etc. and that THERE IS ALSO BEAUTY IN THAT. A different kind of beauty that puts to work your mind in a more "intellectual" way (not your kind of intellectual, of course). That, is, it requires you to think different. It requires a background knowledge of some sort. That has nothing to do with thinking more.


But the communicative focus of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Schoenberg, and Boulez is the same, so I'm not sure what hypothetical music you're referencing.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

If there was a Romatic Era in music then was there also an Aromatic era?


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

nathanb said:


> But the communicative focus of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Schoenberg, and Boulez is the same, so I'm not sure what hypothetical music you're referencing.


What do you mean by "communicative focus"? Those composers all have very different goals and methods.


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## Guest (Mar 7, 2016)

isorhythm said:


> What do you mean by "communicative focus"? Those composers all have very different goals and methods.


But the context of the post does not deem pre-modern works to be significantly different from one another. And Schoenberg is certainly no further removed from Wagner than Wagner is from Beethoven, and so on. Therefore, if pre-modern works all fall short of the "intellectual tag", then there is no reason to draw an arbitrary line in the spectrum at modernism.

In other words, I only used the words "communicative focus" to consistently counter his argument, which assumes there to be only two categories, "emotional" and "intellectual". His argument assumes that pre-modern music all falls in one category, so in that assumed sense, no, the goals and methods are not very different.

I disagree with the most basic assumptions of this nonsense, but there it is.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

^Well, the OP, as far as I understand him, was only contrasting "intellectual" music with Romantic music, not all previous music.

What's so odd about this thread is that different people getting offended about the word "intellectual" for opposite reasons.


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## Bayreuth (Jan 20, 2015)

isorhythm said:


> What do you mean by "communicative focus"? Those composers all have very different goals and methods.


For me, communicative focus is the group of central elements that a composer uses in order to convey his musical ideas. For earlier composers it was melody, for Schoenberg was atonality, etc


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

Bayreuth said:


> For me, communicative focus is the group of central elements that a composer uses in order to convey his musical ideas. *For earlier composers it was melody, for Schoenberg was atonality, etc*


Mahlerian is going to love this post


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Bayreuth said:


> For me, communicative focus is the group of central elements that a composer uses in order to convey his musical ideas. *For earlier composers it was melody, for Schoenberg was atonality, etc*


I apologize on behalf of the community for what is about to happen to you for this.


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## Guest (Mar 7, 2016)

isorhythm said:


> I apologize on behalf of the community for what is about to happen to you for this.


Yeah, he might as well have walked up and shouted "The World Is Flat!"


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

isorhythm said:


> ^Well, the OP, as far as I understand him, was only contrasting "intellectual" music with Romantic music, not all previous music.
> 
> What's so odd about this thread is that different people getting offended about the word "intellectual" for opposite reasons.


The definitions of 'an intellectual' include:
-a person who is devoted to literary or scholarly pursuits.
-a thinker-someone who reflects and asks or answers questions involving a wide variety of ideas. Loves ideas, books and the mind.
-a person who engages in critical study, thought, and reflection about the reality of society.

Nowhere in these and other definitions does the term 'intellectual' equate with intelligence that is superior to others and yet the author of the OP and his subsequent posts (as indicated in my previous post) make it very clear that that is a prerequisite to understanding the music of the post-Romantic Era vs. the Romantic Era (and before). That is reason enough for people to be offended. All intellectuals, by definition, are thinkers. Some may be highly intelligent, but that's not the price of admission to the club.

I wonder what category one has to be in to appreciate the Beethoven late quartets.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Bayreuth said:


> For me, communicative focus is the group of central elements that a composer uses in order to convey his musical ideas. For earlier composers it was melody/motifs, for Schoenberg it was also melody/motifs, etc


I fixed your post so that it expresses something that makes sense.


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## Bayreuth (Jan 20, 2015)

isorhythm said:


> I apologize on behalf of the community for what is about to happen to you for this.


Haha I can see it coming already! Well, English is not my first language and I know "melody" is probably not the best choice of words here. I didn't know how to put it. In my defense I should say that by "earlier composer" I didn't mean composers earlier to Schoenberg but much much earlier. However, I will take whatever comes to me as a man :lol:


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## Bayreuth (Jan 20, 2015)

Mahlerian said:


> I fixed your post so that it expresses something that makes sense.


To you, you mean


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Bayreuth said:


> To you, you mean


Well, you come up with a definition of melody that doesn't include Schoenberg's melodies as well as a definition of atonality that actually has some relationship to Schoenberg's music, and maybe we could talk, but I don't see what the point is of pretending that atonality was important to how he wrote music, given that he (rightly) scorned the idea of it as nonsense.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

nathanb said:


> Yeah, he might as well have walked up and shouted "The World Is Flat!"


While I also disagree with what he said, I wonder if we can avoid the usual pile-on. I don't think it's ever illuminating.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

isorhythm said:


> While I also disagree with what he said, I wonder if we can avoid the usual pile-on. I don't think it's ever illuminating.


It's not a matter of opinion, though. It's not that I disagree with him that Schoenberg's music is not controlled by melodies/motifs, it's simply demonstrably and obviously wrong to say that at all.


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## Guest (Mar 8, 2016)

isorhythm said:


> While I also disagree with what he said, I wonder if we can avoid the usual pile-on. I don't think it's ever illuminating.


No, but I'm not sure that passive acceptance of the perpetuation of the very lie that divides us here at TC is my favorite idea either.


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## SimonNZ (Jul 12, 2012)

nathanb said:


> No, but I'm not sure that passive acceptance of the perpetuation of the very lie that divides us here at TC is my favorite idea either.


Thank you for finding a way of putting this so succinctly. Its what I'll repeat next time I hear the "just ignore it" as a response to the divisive anti-modern ignorance or misinformation.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

No one here is "lying." What an absurd assertion.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

DaveM said:


> In case anyone has missed it, the above quotes encapsulate the point of this thread:
> 
> 1. The Intellectual Era should be applied to the period after the Romantic Era because:
> -it is more sophisticated than the Romantic Era.
> ...


"-it is more sophisticated than the Romantic Era." ---AND? 
"-it is more conceptual than the Romantic Era." ---AND?

Sorry my friend but _not liking_ the conclusion of something is not a refutation of it.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Klassic said:


> "-it is more sophisticated than the Romantic Era." ---AND?
> "-it is more conceptual than the Romantic Era." ---AND?
> 
> Sorry my friend but _not liking_ the conclusion of something is not a refutation of it.


The summary of your posts is what it is. I will leave it to others as to whether the conclusion I came to refutes your perspective or not. That said, I'm not overwhelmed by the number of posters who support your premise.

I'm not a big fan of the music of many of the composers of your Intellectual Era, but I try not to make a value judgement on it. If others are moved by 'more modern' music then that is all that is important. Perhaps it requires a more sophisticated taste to appreciate a Schoenberg. Perhaps those who like his music have some wiring that makes it easier for them to appreciate it (just as some people like sushi and some don't). I don't know.

But, I am dismayed that anyone would feel the need to make the reason an issue of intelligence. When individuals create a category that (according to them) requires superior intelligence and that category just happens to include them, it tends to raise questions of arrogance and/or intellectual insecurity.


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## Guest (Mar 8, 2016)

Klassic said:


> If there was a Romatic Era in Music then was there also an Intellectual Era?
> The reason I ask this question is because I have never heard the modern era of music (1900 forward)* called the Intellectual Era, but we always hear the term Romantic Era.


To the main question, I'd say no - at least, not, AFAIK, by the same tradition of musical analysis that gave us Baroque, Classical and Romantic. I don't doubt that someone somewhere might have offered their own ideas, including an 'Intellectual' Era.

However, I wouldn't accept an analysis that put 'Romantic' in some kind of opposition to 'Intellectual' anyway.


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## Bayreuth (Jan 20, 2015)

nathanb said:


> No, but I'm not sure that passive acceptance of the perpetuation of the very lie that divides us here at TC is my favorite idea either.


When one half of the world thinks one thing and the other thinks the opposite four things might be happening

A. Both are right but there is a problem of communication
B. None of them are right
C. One of them is right but is not capable of convincing the other
D. One of the halfs feels intellectually superior and tries to dismiss the other half by calling them liars

I wouldn't mind discussing with you these matters but I feel that you are the perfect example that proves that this is an evident case D. I believe that calling me liar for not agreeing with you is just outrageous.


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## Bayreuth (Jan 20, 2015)

Mahlerian said:


> Well, you come up with a definition of melody that doesn't include Schoenberg's melodies as well as a definition of atonality that actually has some relationship to Schoenberg's music, and maybe we could talk, but I don't see what the point is of pretending that atonality was important to how he wrote music, given that he (rightly) scorned the idea of it as nonsense.


Of course Schoenberg's melodies are melody too. I didn't say that. I said that Mozart relied much more on melody (understood as a recognizable, tonal and harmonious progression of notes) than Schoenberg did.


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## SeptimalTritone (Jul 7, 2014)

Schoenberg's melodies are recognizable and harmonious, and from the interaction between melody and harmony, tonal (albeit non-triadically and non-diatonically tonal).

In fact, if we define melody more strictly as a complete entity in itself rather than a phrase or motif, then Schoenberg used melodies _more often_ than Mozart.

Sorry, but your statement is wrong!


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Brief question for Klassic: rather than asking whether the Romantic era was followed by an Intellectual era, would you be OK if the term "Intellectual era" was replaced with the term "Ideological era"? This has the effect of removing IQ, "brainpower", etc., vocabulary and other such notions from your question, and instead focuses on whether people were thinking more about different, more diverse, more structured ways of making, hearing, and thinking about music, than they had been in the previous era. In other words, you would be asking if music became more ideological rather than more "intellectual". Just asking.


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## Guest (Mar 8, 2016)

Bayreuth said:


> When one half of the world thinks one thing and the other thinks the opposite four things might be happening
> 
> A. Both are right but there is a problem of communication
> B. None of them are right
> ...


Relax buddy, I never called you a liar. One does not have to lie to perpetuate a lie. I sincerely believe that you believe the lie you were told.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Lies my teacher told me: Soldier's seldom die, everybody's free, and Schönberg is unlistenable.


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## Bayreuth (Jan 20, 2015)

I find very curious that some people are taking what is being said in this post as an attack to Schoenberg...


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Bayreuth said:


> I find very curious that some people are taking what is being said in this post as an attack to Schoenberg...


This article may help explain the phenomenon:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_conditioning

Also, here's a joke for you: Pavlov is enjoying a pint in the pub. The phone rings. He jumps up and shouts: "Hell, I forgot to feed the dog!"


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

Strange Magic said:


> Brief question for Klassic: rather than asking whether the Romantic era was followed by an Intellectual era, would you be OK if the term "Intellectual era" was replaced with the term "Ideological era"?


I do not believe "Ideological Era" is representative of the music after the Romantic Era. Reason why is because what came after the Romantic Era had more to do with a kind of philosophical development in music (it was a development of conceptual maturity). The emotions expressed in music after the Romantic Era differ from those of the Romantic Era. What changed? [so much changed!] Man's awareness of himself and the universe changed. This is both consciously and sub-consciously forged in the music. Last time I checked man is an evolving creature. Ideological Era makes it sound more like a moralistic cult as opposed to a legitimate development in music. I will here stand by what I say: to understand certain pieces of music by Schnittke (experientially) is to increase one's awareness, is to expand one's consciousness away from the primitive*. The ethos that seems to characterize so much modern music is a radically different ontology of man and the universe, darker and more suited to the expression of reality..... an ontology we might add, that the Romantic Era did not conceive, could not conceive, and would not want to conceive even if it had the power to conceive it! Essentially the emphasis of music after the Romantic Era was "intellectual" in the sense of logic, abstraction and conception.

*_But at the same time in the music of Schnittke man is reminded of the primitive, even as reality is primitive. One can object to this music intelligently by claiming it lacks delusion, the ability to distance one from reality, it reminds one too much of reality!_


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

So basically, Schnittke sounds better on drugs.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

DaveM said:


> The summary of your posts is what it is.


Rubbish. You provided a summary of what you don't like. The argument is not that the Intellectual Era should be called thus because it is superior to the Romantic Era (though in many contexts this is true). The argument is that it should be called the Intellectual Era because this is an accurate _description_ of the music of that Era.


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## Wood (Feb 21, 2013)

Klassic said:


> I understand that academics have classified certain areas... "expressionism, cubism, etc." This is not my point, my point is that the time after the romantic era (in classical music) _should_ be called the intellectual era. Just like the term cubism fits the material reality of a cubist painting (being descriptive of the nature of the thing) so the term, intellectual era, corresponds to the nature of music after the romantic era. I do believe my point is valid. Did anyone even make contact with what I said?


 I didn't.


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## Wood (Feb 21, 2013)

mstar said:


> "If there was a Romatic Era in Music then was there also an Intellectual Era?"
> 
> The question is... *is there an aromatic era?*
> (mstar + all fellow chem geeks snicker.)


I don't know, but there is the smell of something on this thread.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

Conditioning? Of course I am conditioned. After all of my experiences with hostile boards I am also sketical.

My biggest flaw is that I am an agnostic dyslectic insomiac who spends his evenings comtemplating the existance of dog.


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## Wood (Feb 21, 2013)

Strange Magic said:


> This is for both nathanb and mmsbis: Leonard Meyer was neither engineer nor physicist; he was merely for years Professor of Music and Chairman of said department at the U. of Chicago; author of several ground-breaking books on musical structure, history, etc.--but you can look this all up on the Internet, as you know. He, in his writings, uses the terms *Brownian motion* and also stasis, to be sure; entropy may be my own contribution. But he uses these terms as metaphors, much like you or I would, were such metaphors perhaps the most striking way to illustrate our points. I have suggested an actual reading of Meyer's work as the best guide to what he thought and wrote. If this is done, one finds that Meyer did not use the term stasis to foreclose any change whatsoever, but included periods of very slow or insignificant change as being in a condition of stasis. But in this period of new stasis, the lack of important change is replaced by the constant buzz and flurry of unending, yet short-lived innovation, growing in breadth, such that the diminution of any particular artistic movement or school or impulse is common to all such, and leads to an increase in disorder, which I (and maybe Meyer) metaphorically call entropy. Hope this helps.


Yes! I could be onto something here!


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

I love the words that Beethoven's character utters to Schiller in Immortal Beloved: "Not how you are used to being; not how you are used to thinking, but like this [Kreutzer Sonata is playing]... music is like hypnotism, the listener has no choice, he is carried directly into the mental state of the composer."


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

The counter-reaction era after romantic should be called the opposite of romantic. The platonic era.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

I attended a recital of the baroque group Red Priest.

During his commentary, Piers Adams, the leader of the group, mentioned that the term Baroque was not used to describe the music of this era until the 1920's.

Maybe by 2250 somebody will come up with a name for 20th century music.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Bayreuth said:


> Of course Schoenberg's melodies are melody too. I didn't say that. I said that Mozart relied much more on melody (understood as a recognizable, tonal and harmonious progression of notes) than Schoenberg did.


But you said that "atonality" was the communicative focus that Schoenberg used to convey his ideas. It wasn't. Insofar as atonality has any meaning, it is not the way one conveys one's ideas, but rather a description of the kind of ideas conveyed.

Furthermore, you said this was in contradistinction to earlier composers using "melody." This seems to imply that "atonality" takes the place of melody in Schoenberg's music, when actually, Schoenberg's music is entirely focused on melody (or motifs). So-called atonality is nothing but a side-product, and a trivial one at that (it's not really important that Schoenberg's music doesn't follow a few common practice rules).


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## Stirling (Nov 18, 2015)

Klassic said:


> I love the words that Beethoven's character utters to Schiller in Immortal Beloved: "Not how you are used to being; not how you are used to thinking, but like this [Kreutzer Sonata is playing]... music is like hypnotism, the listener has no choice, he is carried directly into the mental state of the composer."


Which is from Tolstoy.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

Mahlerian said:


> (it's not really important that Schoenberg's music doesn't follow a few common practice rules).


In what sense is this not important?


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Klassic said:


> In what sense is this not important?


Because he was one of the many composers who didn't follow those rules, including others like Debussy, Scriabin, and Stravinsky who are not slapped with the term "atonal."


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

Mahlerian said:


> Because he was one of the many composers who didn't follow those rules, including others like Debussy, Scriabin, and Stravinsky who are not slapped with the term "atonal."


Yes, but why would they be, isn't it Schoenberg who formalized the twelve tone system? I would also argue that the composers you named are equally important precisely for the fact that they broke the rules. The world needs more rule breakers!


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Klassic said:


> Yes, but why would they be, isn't it Schoenberg who formalized the twelve tone system? I would also argue that the composers you named are equally important precisely for the fact that they broke the rules. The world needs more rule breakers!


The 12-tone method never really constituted a system, nor was it necessarily related to the term "atonal"; it was employed differently by every composer who used it. Stravinsky's 12-tone works still sound like Stravinsky, Webern's like Webern, Babbitt's like Babbitt, etc.

Yes, Schoenberg was the composer who devised the method, but this is far less important than his music.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Bayreuth said:


> I find very curious that some people are taking what is being said in this post as an attack to Schoenberg...


You must learn, Bayreuth, that on TC every subject under discussion is actually about Schoenberg. I would have preferred that everything be about Wagner, but I'm too late, as usual.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Woodduck said:


> You must learn, Bayreuth, that on TC every subject under discussion is actually about Schoenberg. I would have preferred that everything be about Wagner, but I'm too late, as usual.


What are you complaining about? If it's still all about Schönberg, that means we haven't yet reached the next inevitable era, when it will be all about Steve Reich.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Lots of people hear Schoenberg as less melodic than, say, Dvorak. Instead of berating them about the definition of melody, why not try to figure out what it is that makes them hear Schoenberg's music this way?

One answer that is often given here is that they only hear Schoenberg the way they do because of propaganda, but that is not the right answer.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Harold in Columbia said:


> What are you complaining about? If it's still all about Schönberg, that means we haven't yet reached the next inevitable era, when it will be all about Steve Reich.


That will be fascinating, since right now Steve Reich, like everything else, is about Schoenberg.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

isorhythm said:


> Lots of people hear Schoenberg as less melodic than, say, Dvorak. Instead of berating them about the definition of melody, why not try to figure out what it is that makes them hear Schoenberg's music this way?
> 
> One answer that is often given here is that they only hear Schoenberg the way they do because of propaganda, but that is not the right answer.


That's a misrepresentation of my views.

People hear it that way, as I've said before, because of the unfamiliarity of the language. Dvorak's idiom and that of the common practice is understood by and absorbed by our time, while Schoenberg's has not been. I've seen others have the same kind of reaction to Stravinsky, Debussy, later Mahler, and so forth. It's by no means limited to Schoenberg.

They accept the assertion that Schoenberg's music is devoid of melody, on the other hand, because of misinformation and ignorance spread by others. The word atonal also acts as a psychological barrier in many cases to hearing what's actually there.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

isorhythm said:


> Lots of people hear Schoenberg as less melodic than, say, Dvorak. Instead of berating them about the definition of melody, why not try to figure out what it is that makes them hear Schoenberg's music this way?
> 
> One answer that is often given here is that they only hear Schoenberg the way they do because of propaganda, but that is not the right answer.


This really should be moved over to the current thread about melody (http://www.talkclassical.com/41476-what-great-melody.html), but I'll just throw out the thought that melody's harmonic implications have something to do with it. Not everything, but something (rather important).

Others have alluded to this too, but I don't remember it getting much discussion.


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## Wood (Feb 21, 2013)

Harold in Columbia said:


> What are you complaining about? If it's still all about Schönberg, that means we haven't yet reached the next inevitable era, when it will be all about Steve Reich.


The next era seems to be about John Cage.  Wood's Law usually applies.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Woodduck said:


> That will be fascinating, since right now Steve Reich, like everything else, is about Schoenberg.


Well, actually, even Schönberg isn't about Schönberg. These conversations are really about Shostakovich, Messiaen, Schnittke, and whoever, and why they can't do Beethoven and Wagner as well as Beethoven and Wagner.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

Harold in Columbia said:


> Well, actually, even Schönberg isn't about Schönberg. These conversations are really about Shostakovich, Messiaen, Schnittke, and whoever, and why they can't do Beethoven and Wagner as well as Beethoven and Wagner.


wtf? (_does this count as a real swear word?_)


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## Wood (Feb 21, 2013)

Klassic said:


> wtf? (_does this count as a real swear word?_)


No, there are no asterisks.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Mahlerian said:


> People hear it that way, as I've said before, because of the unfamiliarity of the language. Dvorak's idiom and that of the common practice is understood by and absorbed by our time, while Schoenberg's has not been. I've seen others have the same kind of reaction to Stravinsky, Debussy, later Mahler, and so forth. It's by no means limited to Schoenberg.


I agree completely with this.



Mahlerian said:


> They accept the assertion that Schoenberg's music is devoid of melody, on the other hand, because of misinformation and ignorance spread by others.


I disagree strongly with this since 1) there's a much better reason and 2) my direct experience tells me otherwise.

Whether people have heard something negative about Schoenberg or not, when they listen, they hear nothing that resembles a melody. In many cases with such music the notes sound random or disconnected. The important thing to understand is that _because they are unfamiliar with the language_ they do not process the music as they do pre-20th century music or as others may process Schoenberg (or other modern composers). They directly hear it as non-melodic, strange, starkly different, unpleasant, _and they wonder why any music would be this way._

I'm not saying that no one is biased by what they might have heard of Schoenberg or other modern composers, but I strongly suspect it plays a minor part in the general response of those who dislike the music. Before I first listened to Dvorak I thought he would sound like Bartok's String Quartets (which I had heard and strongly disliked). Even though I was biased, the music was so beautiful that I was stunned. On the other hand when I first heard Berg's Violin Concerto I expected to love it since many raved about it and I loved violin concertos; nevertheless, it sounded awful and distinctly non-melodic.

Direct experience with the music is what matters most to people, and those who make negative comments about Schoenberg or others are simply relating their experiences. Those experiences are very real and more important to people than what anyone else might say.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

mmsbls said:


> I agree completely with this.
> 
> I disagree strongly with this since 1) there's a much better reason and 2) my direct experience tells me otherwise.
> 
> ...


I think you misunderstood what I was saying.

I agree that they hear it as non-melodic because of the way it sounds to them as non-patterned, unpleasant, random sound.

But not everything that one hears as non-patterned, unpleasant, random sound immediately leads one to assert _the judgement that the music one is hearing is, in fact, devoid of any melodic content whatsoever, or characterized by a lack of such_.

The former is a natural reaction to an unfamiliar language. The latter is an unwarranted judgment exacerbated by the nonsense propagated by those who believe that their reaction is normative.


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## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

Klassic said:


> But you're mistaken, not all music proceeds from the evolved-abstract-species: this is like comparing Neanderthals with Humans (although _far less_ extreme). When you say intellectual you mean something different from me. I suppose the intellectual era (as I'm thinking of it) would be something like a logical era of music... hence 12-tone, Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Shostakovitch, Pettersson and more... it would be characterized by a logical approach to music, as opposed to a romantic one, almost positivistic.


The definition of music was never something that could possibly exist on the intellectual plane alone, since it always had to pass the test going beyond various forms of noise (a technical definition in acoustics is chaos). This made it always emotionally pleasant in some way to hear.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

isorhythm said:


> Lots of people hear Schoenberg as less melodic than, say, Dvorak. Instead of berating them about the definition of melody, why not try to figure out what it is that makes them hear Schoenberg's music this way?


I've been trying to get others to view this response as superior to berating members. The negative response is counterproductive and leads to more divisiveness. Obviously attacks, condescension, ad-homs, etc. won't help change someone's mind. Generally people just think the attacker is a jerk. But surprisingly even simple corrections of mistaken ideas can backfire. Research has shown that people (especially intelligent people) who believe certain ideas often end up believing them more strongly after hearing or reading factual refutations. They find ways to justify their believe in light of the "facts", and that process increases the strength of their belief.

Remember those who think, for example, that Schoenberg's music has no melodies don't just think that. They know that because they've heard it. Anyone telling them that it does have melodies can't be right. Maybe those people just like intellectual music or maybe they like to brag that they like unlikable music. Who knows why they would say something as silly as Schoenberg's music has melodies?

The problem is that those who wish to change the other's view must first connect with that person. They must show that they understand why the other has that view and sympathize with that position. Then one can explain why _seeing the issue from a different perspective could yield a different result._

Obviously berating is easier and maybe feels better to many. Understanding, sympathizing, and carefully explaining is much harder, but it's vastly more effective _assuming one's goal is to change that person's view._


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Now we're in the "Stupid" era.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

mmsbls said:


> Remember those who think, for example, that Schoenberg's music has no melodies don't just think that. They know that because they've heard it. Anyone telling them that it does have melodies can't be right. Maybe those people just like intellectual music or maybe they like to brag that they like unlikable music. Who knows why they would say something as silly as Schoenberg's music has melodies?


You don't see how all of these things are unwarranted, horribly condescending reactions? If there's someone being condescended to in that discussion, it's not the person who claims Schoenberg's music is melodic.



mmsbls said:


> The problem is that those who wish to change the other's view must first connect with that person. They must show that they understand why the other has that view and sympathize with that position. Then one can explain why _seeing the issue from a different perspective could yield a different result._
> 
> Obviously berating is easier and maybe feels better to many. Understanding, sympathizing, and carefully explaining is much harder, but it's vastly more effective _assuming one's goal is to change that person's view._


I do understand. I didn't always follow Schoenberg's music myself. I know that it can be difficult for many. I don't expect everyone to come out loving or even liking it.

All the same, I don't think that there's any way to have a meaningful conversation without correcting the factual errors that drive much of the disagreement in the first place. How can you explain Schoenberg's music without talking about motifs and melodies? It's like trying to explain heavy metal while not allowing any talk of "riffs."


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Mahlerian said:


> I think you misunderstood what I was saying.
> 
> I agree that they hear it as non-melodic because of the way it sounds to them as non-patterned, unpleasant, random sound.
> 
> ...


Years ago when I heard non-patterned, unpleasant, random sound I _did_ believe the music I was hearing was in fact devoid of any melodic content whatsoever. What else could I believe? When I saw black objects, I thought they were devoid of color. My view was unwarranted, but I had no way of knowing differently. I had heard lots of melodies, and this music had no melody. I thought that was obvious. My view was not exacerbated by others' nonsense. It was a direct experience.

Basically I had to learn more about this new music. I had to be open to exploring and hearing it differently. Until that happened I _knew_ all such music had no melody. I could be rather different from others, but it's easier for me to believe that my experience is not so unusual and that many others have similar experiences.

I think our general views about the music are essentially identical, but I just feel that those who start out as I did could be helped by people accepting their beliefs as valid from their point of view and trying to "work with them" to see things a bit differently. Obviously it helps if they have a positive attitude.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

millionrainbows said:


> Now we're in the "Stupid" era.


Could you elaborate?


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

mmsbls said:


> Years ago when I heard non-patterned, unpleasant, random sound I _did_ believe the music I was hearing was in fact devoid of any melodic content whatsoever. What else could I believe? When I saw black objects, I thought they were devoid of color. My view was unwarranted, but I had no way of knowing differently. I had heard lots of melodies, and this music had no melody. I thought that was obvious. My view was not exacerbated by others' nonsense. It was a direct experience.


You can defer to the experience of others.

I am partially colorblind. I have never seen colors the way others do, and fail to make distinctions as readily as a normal eye would, though I of course see color.

This is all something I can only and do only know because of the testimony of those whose experience of color is complete and whole, and it's never occurred to me to think that those who profess direct experience with a wider range of colors are lying to me.

But if I had never had anyone tell me otherwise, wouldn't I assume that two things that look like two shades of the same color are in fact the same color? Probably.

I have many times experienced music that sounded random or unpatterned before coming to understand it, and that includes Mahler, Debussy, and many others. I have never come to the conclusion that my experience is the ultimate point of reference and everyone else must be wrong if they claim to perceive something I do not.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Mahlerian said:


> You don't see how all of these things are unwarranted, horribly condescending reactions? If there's someone being condescended to in that discussion, it's not the person who claims Schoenberg's music is melodic.


Yes, of course they are. But many people react that way (i.e. they find a way to make sense of things based on what they know). It human nature (not for everyone).



Mahlerian said:


> All the same, I don't think that there's any way to have a meaningful conversation without correcting the factual errors that drive much of the disagreement in the first place. How can you explain Schoenberg's music without talking about motifs and melodies? It's like trying to explain heavy metal while not allowing any talk of "riffs."


Yes, errors must be corrected, but apparently the way one corrects the errors matters greatly. I was quite surprised when I read several papers describing the effect a simple clear refutation of mistakes could have on those who believed the mistakes. It's a bit daunting actually since what could be wrong with explaining mistakes. I think the issue is that correcting mistakes that don't have emotional content is much easier than mistakes that have such content.


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## SeptimalTritone (Jul 7, 2014)

Let me try to be pedagogical to beginners. This movement is a great place to start to realize the clear melody/accompaniment textures in Schoenberg that come back in a rondo-like form.






This movement begins with a singing melody by the first violin that's complete in itself. This melody later comes back in various guises throughout the movement.

This movement is a lot of fun, it's passionate, and its coda ends extremely beautifully in a resolved state of blissful dreaminess.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Mahlerian said:


> I have many times experienced music that sounded random or unpatterned before coming to understand it, and that includes Mahler, Debussy, and many others. I have never come to the conclusion that my experience is the ultimate point of reference and everyone else must be wrong if they claim to perceive something I do not.


Perhaps you're right in saying that similar experiences of others (i.e. ignorance spread by others) does play a part in one's acceptance of such views. If everyone agreed that Schoenberg is full of melodies, it would be difficult to hold onto the belief that Schoenberg is devoid of melody. I don't think people are purposely disseminating such misunderstandings but rather collectively they come to what appears tobe a sensible belief.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

mmsbls said:


> Perhaps you're right in saying that similar experiences of others (i.e. ignorance spread by others) does play a part in one's acceptance of such views. If everyone agreed that Schoenberg is full of melodies, it would be difficult to hold onto the belief that Schoenberg is devoid of melody. I don't think people are purposely disseminating such misunderstandings but rather collectively they come to what appears to be a sensible belief.


Exactly. That's my point. I don't believe that most are purposefully spreading lies, but rather they come to believe firmly in false ideas and hold onto those.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Mahlerian said:


> Exactly. That's my point. I don't believe that most are purposefully spreading lies, but rather they come to believe firmly in false ideas and hold onto those.


But what made people to "firmly believe in false ideas"? If a group of listeners do not hear the type of tonal melody that they are used to from listening to Beethoven and Chopin when listening to atonal music by Schoenberg, then who are we to accuse them of "firmly believing in false ideas"? There is nothing false in what their ears tell them. It may well be they are not used to atonal music and cannot hear the harmonics in the piece, and they therefore say "I cannot hear any melody that I can whistle to". There's nothing complicated about that.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

ArtMusic said:


> But what made people to "firmly believe in false ideas"? If a group of listeners do not hear the type of tonal melody that they are used to from listening to Beethoven and Chopin when listening to atonal music by Schoenberg, then who are we to accuse them of "firmly believing in false ideas"? There is nothing false in what their ears tell them. It may well be they are not used to atonal music and cannot hear the harmonics in the piece, and they therefore say "I cannot hear any melody that I can whistle to". There's nothing complicated about that.


Again, "atonality" does not describe the difference in language between Chopin and Beethoven as opposed to Schoenberg and Sessions. I already said that the difference in language is what prevents people from hearing the melodies as melodies, but there's nothing that makes, say, a lot of the more chromatic melodies in Wagner or Strauss tonal that isn't also present in Schoenberg and Berg.

It's the harmonic background and the non-repetition that make remembering difficult as much as or more than the content of the melodies themselves.

I'm not saying their ears are wrong, I'm saying that they are unable to process what they are hearing.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Mahlerian said:


> Again, "atonality" does not describe the difference in language between Chopin and Beethoven as opposed to Schoenberg and Sessions. I already said that the difference in language is what prevents people from hearing the melodies as melodies, but there's nothing that makes, say, a lot of the more chromatic melodies in Wagner or Strauss tonal that isn't also present in Schoenberg and Berg.
> 
> It's the harmonic background and the non-repetition that make remembering difficult as much as or more than the content of the melodies themselves.


As long as people' opinion are based on actual listening experience rather than not, I am quite comfortable with it. They may or may not understand it but that's a different discussion point.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Klassic said:


> I would also argue that the composers you named are equally important precisely for the fact that they broke the rules. The world needs more rule breakers!


Stravinsky is probably more usefully understood as someone who _imposed_ rules. He achieved his nationalist style by endeavoring to purge everything non-Russian from his music. (As for his Neoclassical and serial periods, well, obviously.)


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## Guest (Mar 9, 2016)

ArtMusic said:


> As long as people' opinion are based on actual listening experience rather than not, I am quite comfortable with it. They may or may not understand it but that's a different discussion point.


My contemporary music polls suggest that many opinions about contemporary listening may be only loosely based on actual listening experience


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Mahlerian said:


> I didn't always follow Schoenberg's music myself. I know that it can be difficult for many. I don't expect everyone to come out loving or even liking it.
> 
> All the same, I don't think that there's any way to have a meaningful conversation without correcting the factual errors that drive much of the disagreement in the first place.


I ask an extraordinarily simple question, and I understand that a perfectly clear, safisfactory answer has probably been provided sometime in the past that I must have missed. So I ask for indulgence for my naively asking yet again: It is clear from the first quote above that it is permitted to be someone who does not love or even like the music of Schoenberg. What, then, are the legitimate, acceptable grounds that can be expressed by an auditor of Schoenberg's music as a "reason" he/she does not like the music? I'm looking beyond the easy refutations of such reasons, such as "You didn't listen to it enough times", "You need to get beyond/rise above/understand whatever aversion you have", etc. Will "I just don't like it" work, without subjecting the utterer of such a statement to withering scorn? This question is triggered by the Tasmanian Devil blowback that emanates from the staunch partisans of Schoenberg seemingly every time the subject comes up.

My position about avoiding trashing musics and works and composers people don't like is clear to the meanest understanding--I loathe such threads as destructive and mean-spirited. I attempt to keep my lack of enthusiasm for music I don't care for pretty well under control, I think, and I apologize to anyone who feels offended if I have strayed. But my question posed above, I believe, is quite within bounds, and I am hopeful of a clear, non-confrontational answer.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Strange Magic said:


> I ask an extraordinarily simple question, and I understand that a perfectly clear, safisfactory answer has probably been provided sometime in the past that I must have missed. So I ask for indulgence for my naively asking yet again: It is clear from the first quote above that it is permitted to be someone who does not love or even like the music of Schoenberg. What, then, are the legitimate, acceptable grounds that can be expressed by an auditor of Schoenberg's music as a "reason" he/she does not like the music? I'm looking beyond the easy refutations of such reasons, such as "You didn't listen to it enough times", "You need to get beyond/rise above/understand whatever aversion you have", etc. Will "I just don't like it" work, without subjecting the utterer of such a statement to withering scorn?


It's not to your taste? Its expressive qualities are too intense? Its dense contrapuntal/motivic fabric seems like too much all at once? His penchant for unusual tone color is found grating?

Not all of the works are of equal quality. Maybe one thinks a lesser piece like the Prelude op. 44 or the Variations for Band and feels that the music is too stodgy?

The only criticisms I attack are those that are based on false ideas, like a supposed lack of melodies, or nonsense like "atonality." If someone dislikes it and says so, that's fine. If they claim Schoenberg was a tone deaf nihilist who willfully destroyed tradition, that's just wrong.



Strange Magic said:


> This question is triggered by the Tasmanian Devil blowback that emanates from the staunch partisans of Schoenberg seemingly every time the subject comes up.


I'm only a partisan for great music. I don't think people who say Schoenberg's music is noise should be treated any differently from someone who said the same of Haydn.


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## Guest (Mar 9, 2016)

mmsbls said:


> Whether people have heard something negative about Schoenberg or not, when they listen, they hear nothing that resembles a melody.


For some, however, it's not the experience, it's the description of the experience that leads to dispute. Whether wilful or not, the truth of the description that 'there is no melody' depends on a definition of melody that is narrow and incomplete. I see nothing wrong in that misconception being challenged when it appears.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Mahlerian said:


> It's not to your taste? [.......] If someone dislikes it and says so, that's fine.


Thank you for the clarification in its entirety. The bits I have selected above represent the essential answer I sought; it goes to the central core of my concern about the attitude of the fiercest partisans of Schoenberg toward those whose chosen position may be best expressed by the old rhyme--

I do not love thee, Doctor Fell.
The reason why I cannot tell.
But this I know and know full well,
I do not love thee, Doctor Fell.

I am content that there is a legitimate place for those who find they are not Schoenberg's intended audience.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

MacLeod said:


> For some, however, it's not the experience, it's the description of the experience that leads to dispute. Whether wilful or not, the truth of the description that 'there is no melody' depends on a definition of melody that is narrow and incomplete. I see nothing wrong in that misconception being challenged when it appears.


Sure there's nothing wrong with challenging a misconception. The issue is how best to do that to achieve the desired goal.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

I don't see any problem with someone saying they don't like Schoenberg's music because it's atonal. There is a perfectly valid criticism - more or less made by Boulez, actually - that to go on writing sonata movements and variations and so on without the tonal structure that used to undergird those forms makes no sense. I don't agree, but it's an opinion someone could have. It doesn't need to be shouted down.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

isorhythm said:


> There is a perfectly valid criticism - more or less made by Boulez, actually - that to go on writing sonata movements and variations and so on without the tonal structure that used to undergird those forms makes no sense. I don't agree, but it's an opinion someone could have. It doesn't need to be shouted down.


I kind of get why someone might think like that when it comes to the sonata allegro form, but I don't think the criticism makes sense when applied to the theme and variations form.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Dim7 said:


> I kind of get why someone might think like that when it comes to the sonata allegro form, but I don't think the criticism makes sense when applied to the theme and variations form.


I was thinking because theme-and-variation in common practice music is more or less based on harmony, and some of the techniques used by Schoenberg (the usual allowed transformations of the row) are not audible to the listener. But yeah it's a weak case. It is stronger for sonata form.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

isorhythm said:


> I don't see any problem with someone saying they don't like Schoenberg's music because it's atonal. There is a perfectly valid criticism - more or less made by Boulez, actually - that to go on writing sonata movements and variations and so on without the tonal structure that used to undergird those forms makes no sense. I don't agree, but it's an opinion someone could have. It doesn't need to be shouted down.


But you're conflating two separate things.

- The true fact that it's not in keys

- The false idea that it is atonal, in some sense beyond the above

As it happens, a listen to one of Schoenberg's 12-tone period sonata form movements reveals that the harmonic aspects are used in conjunction with the formal aspects to create a satisfying unity of form and content, just as one would find in common practice music.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Mahlerian said:


> But you're conflating two separate things.
> 
> - The true fact that it's not in keys
> 
> ...


Being "in keys" is fundamental to how sonata form worked, though. I agree with you that Schoenberg found other ways, but am saying that someone else might not find them compelling and that's a perfectly valid opinion to have, not a factual misconception.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

isorhythm said:


> Being "in keys" is fundamental to how sonata form worked, though. I agree with you that Schoenberg found other ways, but am saying that someone else might not find them compelling and that's a perfectly valid opinion to have, not a factual misconception.


Yes, but you see that I'm not disagreeing with you about that. I'm merely disagreeing with the application of the word "atonal," which has never simply meant that something is not in keys.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

The issue is melody means different things to different people, and for most people melody mean something along the lines of a tune that appeals to them in a way that they can whistle to or sing to, or remember easily in the minds. I see nothing wrong in people defining for themselves what appeals to them best when it comes to music or any arts. A construction site drilling into the earth with hard pounding may sound melodious to a minority and the same minority may reject a Vivaldi concerto as melodious. Nobody necessarily needs to accept a textbook definition when it comes to the arts. But a common starting point to help understand what we are talking about can sometimes help. It's all pretty obvious, pure and simple.


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## Bruckner Anton (Mar 10, 2016)

The term "Romantic Era" in music refers to a period when composers prefer expressing their personal ideas by all means, rather than putting formal rules on the top.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Strange Magic said:


> Pavlov is enjoying a pint in the pub. The phone rings. He jumps up and shouts: "Hell, I forgot to feed the dog!"


I've been wading through this thread looking for something new and exciting: It took 132 posts, but there it is: That is the best Pavlov joke I have ever heard!

What wonders will the next 50 posts bring …


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

EdwardBast said:


> What wonders will the next 50 posts bring …


Try this: Jean-Paul Sartre is sitting in a café, revising his draft of _Being and Nothingness_. He says to the waitress:"I'd like a cup of coffee, please, with no cream". The waitress replies: "I'm sorry, Monsieur, but we're out of cream. How about with no milk?"


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## Guest (Mar 11, 2016)

Strange Magic said:


> Try this: Jean-Paul Sartre is sitting in a café, revising his draft of _Being and Nothingness_. He says to the waitress:"I'd like a cup of coffee, please, with no cream". The waitress replies: "I'm sorry, Monsieur, but we're out of cream. How about with no milk?"


I think Laural and Hardy got there first...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021755/quotes


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

MacLeod said:


> I think Laural and Hardy got there first...


You're right. As the old saying goes, we don't need new jokes; just new audiences. 

Let's try another: Werner Heisenberg, Kurt Gödel, and Noam Chomsky walk into a bar. Heisenberg turns to the other two and says: "Clearly this is a joke, but can we know whether it's funny or not?" Gödel replies: "We can't know that because we're inside the joke." Chomsky then says: "Of course it's funny. You're just telling it wrong!"


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

You'd think that the Modern era would have to be renamed eventually. It can't be "Modern" forever!


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

That's why we put an "ist" on it.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Strange Magic said:


> Try this: Jean-Paul Sartre is sitting in a café, revising his draft of _Being and Nothingness_. He says to the waitress:"I'd like a cup of coffee, please, with no cream". The waitress replies: "I'm sorry, Monsieur, but we're out of cream. How about with no milk?"


That reminds me of a time when I went into a photo developing booth (remember those?) in Dublin, Ireland some years ago. The woman behind the counter asked me when I would like to collect my photos. I suggested some time the next day.

"No, I'm sorry, sir, we only do a three hour or a three day service."

I suggested they got them ready in three hours and that maybe I could collect them the next day. She brightened immediately, pleased to be able to help.

"Oh yes, sir, we could certainly do that."


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

Remember, only intellectuals like music from the Intellectual Era.


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## Bayreuth (Jan 20, 2015)

Klassic said:


> Remember, only intellectuals like music from the Intellectual Era.


Not really. They just like it differently


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

I have never considered myself worthy of music from the Intellectual Era, it has always evaded me, I can hear Schoenberg for what it really is: nails scratching on a chalkboard that pretentious people dare to call music.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Oh no, not this again.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

In fact, Bach's music has always been labeled as "intellectual" and the great composer himself always published what he thought was his finest examples for "connoisseurs" but he never lost the emotional context of his music, which makes Bach among the very greatest of them all.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

If there was, indeed, an "Intellectual era," then was there also a Moronic era?


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

Strange Magic said:


> Oh no, not this again.


Yes, but with enough pretension one can learn to love the sound of nails scratching on a chalkboard, and with a lot more pretension, one can even consider it to be a work of great genius.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

KenOC said:


> If there was, indeed, an "Intellectual era," then was there also a Moronic era?


I think this thread has just reached its Moronic era.


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## Balthazar (Aug 30, 2014)

KenOC said:


> If there was, indeed, an "Intellectual era," then was there also a Moronic era?


I fear they may be cotemporal.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

KenOC said:


> If there was, indeed, an "Intellectual era," then was there also a Moronic era?


*KenOC* your synonymous and antonyms are confused. The Romantic Era was not a Moronic Era, quite the reverse, it was an Era of great genius, but it was _emotive_ in contrast to the Intellectual Era.


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## Guest (Mar 13, 2016)

Strange Magic said:


> Oh no, not this again.


Didn't you enjoy the dental torture scene in Marathon Man?


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Klassic said:


> *KenOC* your synonymous and antonyms are confused. The Romantic Era was not a Moronic Era, quite the reverse, it was an Era of great genius, but it was _emotive_ in contrast to the Intellectual Era.


But the very composer you're using to characterize the "Intellectual Era" is among the most emotive in all of classical music.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

Mahlerian said:


> But the very composer you're using to characterize the "Intellectual Era" is among the most emotive in all of classical music.


*Mahlerian* while I believe your statement is correct, I think there might be an equivocation here. In the first place I would not claim that Schoenberg is what characterizes the Intellectual Era (this belongs to the musical _emphasis_ of the Intellectual Era in contrast to that of the Romantic Era). Also, if you go back and read what I wrote throughout this thread you will see that the Intellectual Era is not a denial of emotions, but a different emphasis of emotions; emotion that results from logical and philosophical considerations .....however, I think it is probably better to call the Intellectual Era something like The Era of Abstraction. I don't know, I just don't think the names given fit the actual work.


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## SimonNZ (Jul 12, 2012)

Klassic said:


> I have never considered myself worthy of music from the Intellectual Era, it has always evaded me, I can hear Schoenberg for what it really is: nails scratching on a chalkboard that pretentious people dare to call music.


How about "The Era Of Thinking You Know What Stuff Sounds Like Without Even Taking The Time To Listen To It"?

or:

"The Era Of Accepting Uninformed Assumptions Blindly And Willingly"?

go on, then: which Schoenberg works sound like "nails on a blackboard"?


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

dogen said:


> Didn't you enjoy the dental torture scene in Marathon Man?


Surcease from pain, please!

What would Pavlov think of this thread? Maybe he and the dogs are listening to _The Bells_.


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## SimonNZ (Jul 12, 2012)

Strange Magic said:


> What would Pavlov think of this thread? Maybe he and the dogs are listening to _The Bells_.


What do you mean by this?


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

SimonNZ said:


> What do you mean by this?


Please refer back to post #132; it's all explained there.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

SimonNZ said:


> What do you mean by this?


In other words, this thread is the very opposite of an attack on Schoenberg.

But then again, it is not an affirmation or denial of Schoenberg, it is really just an attempt to be more precise when labeling the Era that came after the Romantic Era.

_I thought about this the other day... we have some excellent minds on this forum I wonder what great thing we could all accomplish collectively (not that things have not already been accomplished, the Composers Guest Book is excellent). We all love classical music, maybe we can band together and help revive classical culture. Maybe we should be uniting and attacking the stereotypes against classical music. Working together this would be a piece of cake._


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## SimonNZ (Jul 12, 2012)

Strange Magic said:


> Please refer back to post #132; it's all explained there.


Yeah...I know what a Pavlovian response means. I'm asking about the way you're applying it to - correct me if I'm wrong - people who have some actual familiarity with the music to people who are demonstrating none whatsoever while still delivering provocative verdicts. Do you really believe this can be dismissed as just a Pavlovian response?

And Klassic: I'm still waiting to hear specifically which Schoenberg works sound like nails on a blackboard...

Funny how on this site you can call all Schoenberg fans (or even merely listeners) "pretentious" and thats not deemed insult.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

SimonNZ said:


> And Klassic: I'm still waiting to hear specifically which Schoenberg works sound like nails on a blackboard...
> 
> Funny how on this site you can call all Schoenberg fans (or even merely listeners) "pretentious" and thats not deemed insult.


Ok fine, you made me do it. 1) it's not my fault you're a Schoenberg fan and 2) to name a few pieces, "Transcribed Midnight" and his Piano Concerto (which has to be one of the most unoriginal pieces ever written in the history of mankind). These prove that Schoenberg was merely using ideology to indoctrinate people into believing that his music was actually music and not random noise.

someone sent a message to my private inbox that read, "Klassic you ought to be ashamed of yourself amusing yourself the way you do." I said they are probably correct, but that I simply wanted to liberate mankind from the bondage of terrible music. In this sense I believe I am a persecuted martyr for the cause of good music.


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

What is "Transcribed Midnight"? 

Transfigured Night? It can't be...


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## SimonNZ (Jul 12, 2012)

Yup, like I've said here and elsewhere: these haters really need to actually play the music.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

I would not be surprised if there is a work were the music is the sound of nails on a blackboard.

When there is music which is that bizarre there seems to be no need to go on against Schönberg. He did compose some good music after all.


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## Chronochromie (May 17, 2014)

Klassic said:


> Ok fine, you made me do it. 1) it's not my fault you're a Schoenberg fan and 2) to name a few pieces, "Transcribed Midnight" and his Piano Concerto (which has to be one of the most unoriginal pieces ever written in the history of mankind). These prove that Schoenberg was merely using ideology to indoctrinate people into believing that his music was actually music and not random noise.
> 
> someone sent a message to my private inbox that read, "Klassic you ought to be ashamed of yourself amusing yourself the way you do." I said they are probably correct, but that I simply wanted to liberate mankind from the bondage of terrible music. In this sense I believe I am a persecuted martyr for the cause of good music.


Not sure if satire or...


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## dgee (Sep 26, 2013)

Sloe said:


> I would not be surprised if there is a work were the music is the sound of nails on a blackboard.
> 
> When there is music which is that bizarre there seems to be no need to go on against Schönberg. He did compose some good music after all.


Verdi frequently uses the piccolo to achieve a nails on the blackboard effect


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

GreenMamba said:


> What is "Transcribed Midnight"?
> 
> Transfigured Night? It can't be...


"Abgeschriebene Nacht"?



Sloe said:


> I would not be surprised if there is a work were the music is the sound of nails on a blackboard.


Pretty much, yup: 




And perhaps more significant, that kind of sound mixed with other things: 




Which kind of effect was promptly exported into pop culture by one of the practitioners: 




And then there's this:


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

SimonNZ said:


> Do you really believe this can be dismissed as just a Pavlovian response?.


Let me give you the short answer: Yup. It's Pavlovian coming and going, both sides, front and back. And Who Let the Dogs Out?


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## Guest (Mar 14, 2016)

Chronochromie said:


> Not sure if satire or...


If Verklarte Nacht is nails on a chalkboard, then logically Wagner would've already been pretty much Merzbow, and Bach would be atonal enough.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

String Trios/Quartets/Quintets/Sextets of any era can sound "scratchy". But if it's the String Orchestra arrangement I definitely don't get it....


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Dim7 said:


> String Trios/Quartets/Quintets/Sextets of any era can sound "scratchy".


I think they nearly always sound scratchy so therefore I usually don´t notice that much difference from different eras. Obviously people hear music in different ways.


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## Guest (Mar 14, 2016)

Klassic said:


> I have never considered myself worthy of music from the Intellectual Era, it has always evaded me, I can hear Schoenberg for what it really is: nails scratching on a chalkboard that pretentious people dare to call music.


OK, I'm going with "provocative satirising" for now. Let me know if it's not.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Klassic said:


> I can hear Schoenberg for what it really is: nails scratching on a chalkboard that pretentious people dare to call music.





Klassic said:


> to name a few pieces, "Transcribed Midnight" and his Piano Concerto (which has to be one of the most unoriginal pieces ever written in the history of mankind). These prove that Schoenberg was merely using ideology to indoctrinate people into believing that his music was actually music and not random noise.
> ... I simply wanted to liberate mankind from the bondage of terrible music. In this sense I believe I am a persecuted martyr for the cause of good music.





Klassic said:


> this thread is the very opposite of an attack on Schoenberg.


So poor Arnold was just collateral damage, then?


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## SimonNZ (Jul 12, 2012)

Harold in Columbia said:


> And then there's this:


I'm not sure what you thought of it, but I really enjoyed that performance of Lachenmann's Pression. Thanks for the link.


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## Janspe (Nov 10, 2012)

Klassic said:


> -- and his Piano Concerto (which has to be one of the most unoriginal pieces ever written in the history of mankind). These prove that Schoenberg was merely using ideology to indoctrinate people into believing that his music was actually music and not random noise.


It never ceases to amaze me how differently people can react to a piece of music. Schoenberg's piano concerto is absolutely one of my favourite pieces of music - and I say this honestly from the bottom of my heart, without any hint of pretentiousness - and for someone it is _not music at all._ Wow!


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Janspe said:


> It never ceases to amaze me how differently people can react to a piece of music.


After years of reading Youtube comments on a wide variety pieces I've become inured to it. No matter how great a masterwork may be, put-downs and diatribes against it roll off me like water off a duck's back.

Btw, I've asked the mods to add a rule to the Terms of Service: members must be able to read Youtube comments on a controversial piece of modern music for at least 10 minutes without a significant increase in their heart rate before they're allowed to participate in modern-music threads. I see this primarily as a safety precaution rather than an attempt to affect the nature or quality of discussion on TC.


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## Janspe (Nov 10, 2012)

Blancrocher said:


> After years of reading Youtube comments on a wide variety pieces I've become inured to it. No matter how great a masterwork may be, put-downs and diatribes against it roll off me like water off a duck's back.


Indeed. One of my many perverted pastimes is deliberately searching for YouTube comments that question the _musicality_ of a piece of music - as in, _this isn't music_ etc. - and then asking one simple question:

_Why?_

Quite a lot of people have trouble answering that question in a way that I can accept - meaning, in a way that's not outrageously subjective - and then I leave the scene feeling just a little bit better, knowing that maybe, _just maybe_ someone is left with a feeling of uncertainty, with the thought that perhaps their idea of what counts as music isn't the only one out there.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

Janspe said:


> It never ceases to amaze me how differently people can react to a piece of music. Schoenberg's piano concerto is absolutely one of my favourite pieces of music - and I say this honestly from the bottom of my heart, without any hint of pretentiousness - and for someone it is _not music at all._ Wow!


Dear friend, see post #64: http://www.talkclassical.com/42029-music-holds-up-after-5.html


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