# Greatness Only in the Ears of the Listener?



## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

As they say with Beauty... but is the greatness of certain composers only to the listener? My focus here is on Bach from my personal standpoint, but hear similar things about Mozart and others.

I find a lot of Bach's music very mechanical and dry, even though they have a formal perfection. But there are some moments that "I feel lifted to the heavens", especially in parts of the Toccata and a Fugue. There are parts in the B minor Mass that make me feel the whole yearning and love of humanity for God :angel:, but those are very far in between, and I'm usually just waiting for the track to end, which can feel like Eternity (unrequited love? :devil. Percentage-of-time wise, my inspired moments of the total time is maybe 5%. I hear of a lot of adoration of Bach, and I feel the same in those moments. But it makes we wonder if my 5% to someone else's 90% is really just a number that is only meaningful to us, and Bach is nothing more than a mathematician or clockmaker.

On flip side of the coin, when I listen to Varese, some moments come across as random beats of percussion and chords, but others come across as Life unfolding (I can give more dandy descriptions on request). But I know some people that just find it as noise.

Are the two really the same person living in different times, to put it profoundly?


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Greatness has been debated on TC many times. The general view is that it is impossible to usefully define such that we can definitively speak of a given composer as great. Certainly people use the term to describe how some composers' music appears to them. For me, for example, Mozart, Bach, and Beethoven are clearly great, but I would have a hard time describing exactly why to someone who wanted to understand why Raff is not.

I'm aware that those who study music will comment on specific aspects of the pieces indicating that the composer did something wonderful here and there. I think those who do study much music are in a much better place to use the term "great", but even then it may refer to construction of the music and not necessarily to how many will feel about the music.

When I listen to the Prelude of Bach's Cello Suite No. 3, I find a certain part sublime in it's beauty. My daughter (a cellist) explains to me how Bach is continuously modulating in an extraordinary way. We're both amazed at the work, but she has a completely different level of appreciation.

A very interesting question is whether non-expert, serious listeners can "hear" the amazing musical construction of works. My daughter believes many can, but they cannot explain what is happening in the music. They just know it's wonderful. Maybe great composers are simply those who put more amazing (to use the technical term) parts in their music for _both_ serious non-experts and experts to find.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Appreciate your response. I was getting more into whether there is such thing as Greatness, more in an objective sense, which you touched on, and couldn't find it on TC in my search. I've studied music, and the teacher would point out certain modulations and other devices, and I think "yeah, ok sure". When I listen to music, I try to get past the "gimmicks", and maybe that's why I end up finding some highly acclaimed music dry. 

Your last point in greatness was used by a certain composer, I believe it was Debussy, in defining "true genius" with the criteria to appeal to both experts and non-. Maybe it is a kind of illusion. Those that can hide the devices used better, appearing to compose more spontaneously, are Great?


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

We have often discussed that there are few "objective" criteria by which a work of art canbe classified as great. To try to narrow down something that can't easily be narrowed down, a "great" work of art speaks to a greater number of people on a more profund level than those that are less so. Trying to be more specific than that opens a too large can of worms too wide.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Ok, thanks, guess we'll have to live with that definition. Had the same problem with poetry, which you can say is music with words instead of notes. Getting past the rhetoric doesn't leave much, except a certain perspective. No closer to Truth.


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## doctorjohn (Mar 5, 2017)

Listen to any Bach in D major , and then tell me it is dry and mechanical


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