# The shifts of musical taste



## Jaime77 (Jun 29, 2009)

I once had a tutor who said that when she was young she loved Rachmaninov as a lot of the music students at Uni did, as well as Chopin and Tchaikovsky, but she said when you mature more you will shift from this kind of romantic excess to the purity and order of Bach. Beauty of form will take over from emotional outpouring. has anyone found this to be so? 

I personally don't listen to the big romantics much anymore. I am drawn more to Baroque on one end and early 20th Century on the other. I am not sure if Mahler deserves to be in the same catagory as Tchaikovsky. Very different kind of Romanticism. I still love Mahler.


And what about the die-hard Wagnerians or Opera enthusiasts. Was it always this way?


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## Chi_townPhilly (Apr 21, 2007)

Here's a related thread on this issue. My contributions are towards the end of the thread.

From a different thread, here are some more of my thoughts on the topic.))


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

I once had a tutor who said that when she was young she loved Rachmaninov as a lot of the music students at Uni did, as well as Chopin and Tchaikovsky, but she said when you mature more you will shift from this kind of romantic excess to the purity and order of Bach.

Of course there seems to be an unspoken prejudicial subtext here... a suggestion that Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, and other Romantics and Post-Romantics are essentially "immature" music while an admiration the "purity" of Bach and Modernism are a sure sign of real maturity. Hmmm... so where does that leave me? Bach has long been my absolute favorite composer... and I's also passionate about Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Shostakovitch (I especially love his Bach-inspired Preludes and Fugues), etc... and yet I also love Wagner, Rachmaninoff, Puccini, Szymanowski, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, etc...


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## nickgray (Sep 28, 2008)

Hmmm... I do prefer romantics and post-romantics the most, including a bit of 20th Century. On the other hand I also like baroque, classicism and even a little renaissance from time to time. I shift between composers primarily, not eras.



jaibyrne said:


> I once had a tutor who said that when she was young she loved Rachmaninov as a lot of the music students at Uni did, as well as Chopin and Tchaikovsky?


But what kind of Rachmaninov or Tchaikovsky? They're very prolific composers who wrote lots of different music, from symphonies to chamber and solo music. To be honest, I find that a lot of people who were/are in the music school aren't really passionate music lovers. They do go beyond the standard Bach-Mozart-Beethoven repertoire, but not much.



StlukesguildOhio said:


> are essentially "immature" music while an admiration the "purity" of Bach and Modernism are a sure sign of real maturity.


Huh? Is there a solid definition of musical maturity? And why is listening to Bach is mature? Why not Vivaldi? Or even renaissance composers, Lassus, for example?


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## Mirror Image (Apr 20, 2009)

Interesting topic, but not one that applies to me so much as I have always liked a wide variety of music anyway. I'll always adore the music of Ravel, Bartok, Bruckner, Vaughan Williams, Delius, Mahler, Langgaard, Tchaikovsky, Debussy, Berlioz, Myaskovsky, etc., because their music fulfills and satisfies me the most. The only Baroque composers that appeal to me are Rameau, A. Scarlatti, and Corelli, but I hardly ever listen to them, because they don't satisfy me emotionally.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

Huh? Is there a solid definition of musical maturity? And why is listening to Bach is mature? Why not Vivaldi? Or even renaissance composers, Lassus, for example?

My point exactly. While I may personally feel that Bach is the greatest composer ever (and a great many others might concur) in no way would I suggest that liking Bach (or Vivaldi, Handel, Telemann, Monteverdi, etc... ) is proof of an inherent maturity level beyond that of a taste for... or even a preference for Tchaikovsky or other Romantics. Perhaps my development is running in reverse, after all Bach was the first master I really came to love while I long found Tchaikovsky and many other Romantics overly saccharine. I'm now in the process of rediscovering them through quality recordings... especially of some of the operas. 
As I noted, however, my own taste covers a broad spectrum... from medieval to Bach to Schubert to Wagner to Shostakovitch to Miles Davis to Henryck Gorecki, Arvo Part, Phillip Glass, and Osvaldo Golijov.


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## Very Senior Member (Jul 16, 2009)

It seems obvious to me that peoples' tastes in classical music will change as they mature.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

It seems obvious to me that peoples' tastes in classical music will change as they mature.

Perhaps... but do we equate this with a maturity? I think my own tastes have become broader and deeper. I like things that I didn't like as much before and I have dug deeper into areas and composers I have somewhat ignored.


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## Very Senior Member (Jul 16, 2009)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> It seems obvious to me that peoples' tastes in classical music will change as they mature.
> 
> Perhaps... but do we equate this with a maturity? I think my own tastes have become broader and deeper. I like things that I didn't like as much before and I have dug deeper into areas and composers I have somewhat ignored.


By "mature" I meant "acquire more listening experience". Like you, my tastes have also become broader and deeper. The fun part is finding out just how great some of the composers are whom one missed first time round the block. It's so easy to miss some of them, a good example in my case being Schumann. Initially I preferred the piano music of Chopin and Liszt, but eventually came to appreciate that Schumann wrote equally, if not better, piano music, and was a far superior all-round composer than either of the others.


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## Jaime77 (Jun 29, 2009)

Maybe there is something to be said of the hot-headed temperament of youth, the search for identity and meaning. 
There is a certain greater urgency and passion in early adulthood, don't you think so? With more years there is a steadying down, a kind of stoic understanding of things. 

Think of Mahler alone, he developed this through his Symphonies. No.1 is boisterous and... lusty, while No. 9 is calmer, deeper, more profound in sentiment. There is an understanding reached. Also in Das Lied von der Erde. 
In later life, or the older you get this kind of maturity occurs that can very well influenced your taste in the way it influenced the composers too.


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## nickgray (Sep 28, 2008)

jaibyrne said:


> Think of Mahler alone, he developed this through his Symphonies. No.1 is boisterous and... lusty, while No. 9 is calmer, deeper, more profound in sentiment.


Hmmm... take Beethoven's symphonies. From regular classicism to playful classic/romantic to grand ninth. Although yeah, your statement does reflect the musical evolution of some, if not many composers. I agree with it.


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## Jaime77 (Jun 29, 2009)

nickgray said:


> Hmmm... take Beethoven's symphonies. From regular classicism to playful classic/romantic to grand ninth. Although yeah, your statement does reflect the musical evolution of some, if not many composers. I agree with it.


There are many exceptions, but on Beethoven, he returned to variation form, fugue - absolute, non-developmental or striving forms. The conflict of themes in Sonata form no longer appealed to him as it did. The fight, the desire was over. He looked back to the purity of absolute form in his late quartets and transcended that idea of conflict. That is one way to look at it. That is maturity too maybe.


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## nickgray (Sep 28, 2008)

Shostakovich's quartets might be a brilliant example of this "maturity" - as they progress they get more and more introverted, quiet and scary, so to speak. On the rehearsal of the last, fifteenth quartet, Shostakovich told the musicians (Beethoven Quartet) to play the first movement "so that flies drop dead in mid-air, and the audience start leaving the hall from sheer boredom".


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

When I was younger I liked loud crashing brassy brazen music. Though this does describe a lot of romantic music, I think it had more to do with testosterone than with emotions. I really never liked the overly dramatic pauses and the virtuoso noodling I perceived in much music of the romantic era. Now, only in my maturity am I willing to revisit and try to appreciate it in context.

So I don't think we can say one period is more mature than another, only our reasons for listening change, and therefor our perceptions change too.


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## Mirror Image (Apr 20, 2009)

Weston said:


> When I was younger I liked loud crashing brassy brazen music. Though this does describe a lot of romantic music, I think it had more to do with testosterone than with emotions. I really never liked the overly dramatic pauses and the virtuoso noodling I perceived in much music of the romantic era. Now, only in my maturity am I willing to revisit and try to appreciate it in context.
> 
> So I don't think we can say one period is more mature than another, only our reasons for listening change, and therefor our perceptions change too.


Well said Weston! To the Romantic period's credit, not all of it is fireworks and testosterone. I happen to enjoy the early C20th period more than Romantic, but my love of both are without peril.


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## Kevin Pearson (Aug 14, 2009)

For me I do find that I don't listen as much to Rachmaninov, Chopin and Tchaikovsky as I used to. Not because I consider them inferior but because there is so much other music to explore. In fact when I do revisit these great composers my appreciation for their music has only grown not diminished. My experience with music has helped me hear new things in their music that I never heard before and thus their music stays alive and fresh for me. 

Kevin


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## Jaime77 (Jun 29, 2009)

Kevin Pearson said:


> For me I do find that I don't listen as much to Rachmaninov, Chopin and Tchaikovsky as I used to. Not because I consider them inferior but because there is so much other music to explore. In fact when I do revisit these great composers my appreciation for their music has only grown not diminished. My experience with music has helped me hear new things in their music that I never heard before and thus their music stays alive and fresh for me.
> 
> Kevin


I would second that I hear this music differently now and although I don't listen much the other things I hear make it worthwhile.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Well, as with all things in this world, the only thing that is a constant is change (if that makes sense?). I agree that people's musical tastes evolve as they get older. In my teens, I used to listen to alot of things from the standard repertoire, but now that I'm older, I'm interested in branching out & exploring things off the beaten path. & perhaps more challenging music as well. I think once one has developed an appreciation for the basic repertoire, one can become more adventurous & even flexible. Music that one might have thought be less engaging can actually become interesting to listen to. I think that as one gets older, one can really develop a keen sense of perception, and listen to things with a new set of ears, so to speak...


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

To add my own personal perspective to this discussion, I am an example of the complete opposite.

When I was first drawn to classical music, before my teens, I was very heavily into Mozart and early Beethoven (though, naturally, my exposure to a larger variety of music would take time); and my time on the piano would usually be spent over Baroque and Classical pieces.

However, as I have grown older, I am a rigid, you'll-never-change-me hardcore Romanticist (though this is, admittedly, for very personal reasons with regards to artistic philosophy). Less and less do I find the Baroque and Classical periods appealing, and I even lament how hard I find it to appreciate a lot of Beethoven's music. However, I would defend my case in saying that I don't listen to this music specifically for its tuneful, stereotypically lightweight emotional excess.

Within Romanticism, I make further distinctions as to the kind of music I like - Brahms and Dvorak are very much the pinnacle of my music taste and, while Tchaikovsky is perhaps an exceptional case (for I rank him as highly), as I have grown older I have steered very much away from the likes of Rachmaninoff and Chopin.


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## munirao2001 (Mar 2, 2009)

At first, the external factors influences the listening pleasure-one's own experience; unquestioningly and conveniently adopting others experiences; sense of security with the popular appeal. Second stage, internal factors influences-acquired knowledge, training, taste, pleasure, commitment and emotional satisfaction arising out of reflective qualities in music. The third stage is yearning for intellectual and total satisfaction with meditative qualities in music. Truly listening pleasures vary depending on being-learned and will for commitment and dedication or being at ease, simple, enthusiastic, trendy-without knowledge or a judicious combination of both the above two categories, as a third category.

munirao2001


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## Organum (Nov 29, 2009)

It always goes in phases. Certain times you want big, powerful, crashing, dramatic...other times you crave solemn, reflective, meditative. My favorites have remained the same over many years of listening and enjoying music of all types.

The beauty of classical music is that most composers wrote a wide variety of pieces. You can always find something to fit your exact mood.


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

Interesting. I have always been "stuck" with predominantly late Baroque and Classical music, rarely going into anything after the early Romantics. I don't find the Romantics to contemporary appealing, especially with regards to large scale works, instrumental and vocal.


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## Artemis (Dec 8, 2007)

It is possible, if not likely, that people who say that their classical music tastes have not changed significantly are probably too young or inexperienced to be able to judge properly. I would venture to suggest that, from whichever point they happen to start at, most people seem to go through a “romantic” era phase, whether in the form of early examples like Chopin and Schumann or mid/late period example like Brahms, Wagner, Tchaikovsky, or Mahler. 

Curiously, I have found that it is the class of purist romantic fans who tend to express the most negative comments about the significance of other periods in music, especially music of earlier times and "classical" music in particular. 

In my case, I have been all over the place in my preference order of music eras. I did not start in the romantic era but there was a time when this type of music appealed almost exclusively. Since then the emphasis has shifted back to where I started, in the baroque and classical eras. I was never all that taken with 20th C music, apart from some brief encounters with the likes of Elgar, Delius, Holst and Respighi.

The reason for this shift must be an underlying preference for elegance and less heart-rending drama. Certainly my interest in the heavy forms of romanticism has waned sharply, especially of the Wagnerian/Brucknerian type, and even more so, Tchaikovsky. I never rated Mahler Sibelius that highly, so nothing has changed there. My remaining concession to romanticism is the early form when the poetic element was the most prominent feature (Chopin, Schumann, Mendelssohn). I still love Beethoven and Schubert who remain the solid musical rocks around which all else pivots.


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

Artemis said:


> The reason for this shift must be an underlying preference for elegance and less heart-rending drama.


That's pretty much it for me. And I would like to add that the historically informed ensembles bring this out perfectly to my ears.


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## Organum (Nov 29, 2009)

Artemis said:


> It is possible, if not likely, that people who say that their classical music tastes have not changed significantly are probably too young or inexperienced to be able to judge properly.


That's a bit audacious, isn't it? I can only speak personally, but I've listened to classical music (much moreso than any other type of music) for over 30 years and my favorites are still largely the same. Sure we make forays and side trips into deeper corners of the repertoire (there's always much to discover), and sometimes we immerse ourselves in a certain era for awhile, but honestly there isn't any music I once loved that I no longer care for. My tastes haven't changed with age, my appreciation has grown.


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## The Cosmos (Oct 2, 2009)

Well, I honestly can't predict yet what it'll be like when I'm 60 but I could certainly imagine myself still listening to dirty rock n' roll alongside the romantics and bach at the same time! And oh, I've got doubts about the maturity part...hehe .


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## Artemis (Dec 8, 2007)

Organum said:


> That's a bit audacious, isn't it? I can only speak personally, but I've listened to classical music (much moreso than any other type of music) for over 30 years and my favorites are *still largely the same*. Sure we make forays and side trips into deeper corners of the repertoire (there's always much to discover), and sometimes we immerse ourselves in a certain era for awhile, but honestly there isn't any music I once loved that I no longer care for. My tastes haven't changed with age, my appreciation has grown.


Still "_largely the same_" as when? If you mean the same as exactly 30 years ago, then I can only express surprise. I can understand someone saying that they still like the same composers they did 30 years ago when they started, but to say that their current favourites are the same as they were then seems rather unusual in my experience.

In any case, my comment was meant in the context of the typical member of this Board, who I perceive to be quite young, certainly under 21 and with only a short listening experience. My point was that it is not surprising that people of this age have not changed their minds about which composers they like the most, as they've only just begun listening in many cases. Give it 10 years, and then tell us whether their tastes have changed. I would surprised if they haven't. On other Boards where there's generally an older age profile people are often saying how their tastes have changed over the years.


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## jhar26 (Jul 6, 2008)

jaibyrne said:


> I once had a tutor who said that when she was young she loved Rachmaninov as a lot of the music students at Uni did, as well as Chopin and Tchaikovsky, but she said when you mature more you will shift from this kind of romantic excess to the purity and order of Bach. Beauty of form will take over from emotional outpouring. has anyone found this to be so?


One can't talk from personal experience and expect that it will apply to everyone. Everyone's journey is different. Speaking for myself, my tastes haven't changed that much in that I still love the vast majority of the music that I loved ten, twenty or thirty years ago. But as the years go by I keep discovering more and more music that I love and that I can add to my long list of interests. It's both exciting and frustrating at the same time because I always get the feeling that I can never really spend enough time on any one composer or artist because there is always something or someone else that I'm eager to listen to also.


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## Artemis (Dec 8, 2007)

jhar26 said:


> One can't talk from personal experience and expect that it will apply to everyone. Everyone's journey is different. Speaking for myself, *my tastes haven't changed that much* in that I still love the vast majority of the music that I loved ten, twenty or thirty years ago. But as the years go by I keep discovering more and more music that I love and that I can add to my long list of interests. It's both exciting and frustrating at the same time because I always get the feeling that I can never really spend enough time on any one composer or artist because there is always something or someone else that I'm eager to listen to also.


If you have discovered more music that you now like which you didn't like years ago, doesn't this mean that your tastes _have_ changed? This is surely the definition of change. I don't know whether you mean that your interest in classical music developed after an initial preference for pop music, but if so the change involves embracing a wider set of music whilst not losing interest in any former types along the way


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## jhar26 (Jul 6, 2008)

Artemis said:


> If you have discovered more music that you now like which you didn't like years ago, doesn't this mean that your tastes _have_ changed? This is surely the definition of change. I don't know whether you mean that your interest in classical music developed after an initial preference for pop music, but if so the change involves embracing a wider set of music whilst not losing interest in any former types along the way


A change in my tastes would mean that what I liked previously would be replaced by what I discovered later on. This is (mostly) not the case. It's true that I can now appreciate music that I probably wouldn't have 25 years ago, but my love for what I liked 25 years ago hasn't diminished much.


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## Artemis (Dec 8, 2007)

jhar26 said:


> A change in my tastes would mean that what I liked previously would be replaced by what I discovered later on.


I don't see that. Why should a change in tastes necessarily involve jettisoning music one liked previously wholly in favour of something new? A change can involve a broadening of one's likes just as easily as it can entail a wholesale substitution of one type for another. For example, if as a teenager one liked, say Rock, and Rock only, but now one likes Rock and Classical then one's tastes have surely changed. One could say "_I never used to like classical, but now I do, so my tastes have changed_".


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## Organum (Nov 29, 2009)

jhar26 said:


> A change in my tastes would mean that what I liked previously would be replaced by what I discovered later on. This is (mostly) not the case. It's true that I can now appreciate music that I probably wouldn't have 25 years ago, but my love for what I liked 25 years ago hasn't diminished much.


This is exactly how I feel, well stated.



Artemis said:


> A change can involve a broadening of one's likes just as easily as it can entail a wholesale substitution of one type for another. For example, if as a teenager one liked, say Rock, and Rock only, but now one likes Rock and Classical then one's tastes have surely changed. One could say "_I never used to like classical, but now I do, so my tastes have changed_".


Okay, I see where you're coming from now. 

I was thinking you meant "changed" as in "completely different", not just broadened. In that case then, yes, I've drastically changed because I've discovered so much incredible music over the years that was new to me. But I still love the stuff that first drew me in. It's just a little odd to classify that as "change", though, since I didn't know that stuff existed until I came across it. It's not like I heard everything, decided which were my favorites, then gradually started liking additional things. I'd say my core foundation has not changed, but many more layers have been added on top.


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## Artemis (Dec 8, 2007)

Organum said:


> Okay, I see where you're coming from now.


I'm pleased that the "penny" has dropped with you at least. It's such a simple point that I'm making, that change involves the opposite of having static preferences. Most people experience a change in their preferences (not just in music but in their likes/dislikes of many things) throughout their lives. If not, then life would be rather dull, wouldn't it? In some areas, the change can be expansive (i.e. adding to what one already likes) but in some cases it involves a substitution of preferences.


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## Guest (Jan 2, 2010)

My taste does not vary to a great extent *but* what I want to listen to is in a constant state of flux, even my beloved Beethoven has to have a rest at times, I would think this applies to everyone


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## The Cosmos (Oct 2, 2009)

Artemis said:


> I don't see that. Why should a change in tastes necessarily involve jettisoning music one liked previously wholly in favour of something new? A change can involve a broadening of one's likes just as easily as it can entail a wholesale substitution of one type for another. For example, if as a teenager one liked, say Rock, and Rock only, but now one likes Rock and Classical then one's tastes have surely changed. One could say "_I never used to like classical, but now I do, so my tastes have changed_".


Umm...but then, as far as I'm concerned, this has nothing to do with maturity. And certainly doesn't require 20+ years. Most music fans will find lots of new stuff to listen to within a year or two. So tastes are ever evolving I guess. But dissing the romantics in favor of Bach when one gets older? I think one could only speak for themselves as this isn't true.


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## Artemis (Dec 8, 2007)

The Cosmos said:


> But dissing the romantics in favor of Bach when one gets older? I think one could only speak for themselves as this isn't true.


I don't know where you get this notion of "dissing" the romantics from. If you care to look back to my post #23 I think you will see that I wasn't "dissing" any of them. I was simply saying that my tastes have shifted back towards the baroque and classical, and I went out of my way to say that I still very much like the early Romantics. So, in answer to you I would simply say: "_it's all relative, my friend"_, a subtlety which some people apparently have difficulty grasping judging from their replies.


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## The Cosmos (Oct 2, 2009)

^
Oh, that last bit wasn't aimed at you . Just that if there is anyone out there with such a thought, I think that's just not the case.


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## Artemis (Dec 8, 2007)

The Cosmos said:


> ^
> Oh, that last bit wasn't aimed at you . Just that if there is anyone out there with such a thought, I think that's just not the case.


That's fine. In case of any doubt, nothing I have said was intended to be prescriptive. It was entirely a very short descriptive history of the process I went through, which is more or less consistent with what the teacher is quoted as having said in the opening post. Perhaps in the next 10 years my tastes may shift again as I'm certainly not wedded to any ideas that only some types of classical music are worth listening to. It's a personal matter but one which is likely to be partly shaped by time spent listening.

Regards new learning, what I have found to be very useful is the way the BBC (Radio 3) picks out various "composers of the year" - according to the occurrence of their anniversaries - and gives extra weight in their broadcasts to these composers. Last year (2009) it was the turn of Mendelssohn, Haydn, Purcell, Handel, about whom I learned a great deal which one simply can't pick up so well from Forums or CD programme notes, etc. As a result, I like each of these composers a good deal more than I used to.

I'm not yet sure which composers will be selected for 2010. I'm rather hoping they will pick Mahler as he is one composer I have always struggled with, so possibly some progress may be achieved in that area. I suspect that Schumann and Chopin could be selected too, but I'm already a fan of, and quite knowledgeable about, these two titans.


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## kmisho (Oct 22, 2009)

I personally despise the notion of refinement as somehow linked to maturity. It's the same kind of thing that made me go off on Mozart in another thread.

I'm 45 and I think I know myself well enough to know that I will never have a great affection for music from the classical period. It simply lacks a depth that my sensibilities and personality demand. It's not their fault. It's just how music of the time was.

Some have referred to many composers becoming more subtle and profound as they age. In my view (repeat, in my view) this is better described as composers becoming boring in old age. Bach is without a doubt my favorite composer. But I consider the music from later in his life horrendously dry and boring. As much as I love The Brandenburg Concerti, The Goldberg Variations, The Well-Tempered Clavier Book 1, The Orgelbuchlein, I despise the Musical offering and The Art of the Fugue. This phenomenon is not limited to music.

Most artists seem to have only a limited amount to give the world. The only composer I can think of who had the courage to admit this is Aaron Copland. He reached a point in the 60's when he was played out and he knew it, not that it pleased him.

For the sake of integrity and for the preservation of a quality legacy, I think many artists should quit long before they do. But what else are they supposed to do but grind on in the only career they know? As a result, we're stuck with tons of mediocre late work that we often feel honor-bound to defend. And this is what I'm being told is a "mature" taste? I sure hope not.


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

kmisho said:


> Bach is without a doubt my favorite composer. *But I consider the music from later in his life horrendously dry and boring.* As much as I love The Brandenburg Concerti, The Goldberg Variations, The Well-Tempered Clavier Book 1, The Orgelbuchlein, I despise the Musical offering and The Art of the Fugue. This phenomenon is not limited to music.


I agree. Here' why.

Regarding Bach's _Musical Offering_ and _Art of Fugue_, he was pursing a kind of "musical science" with these works, more than anything else, even leaving the instrumentation non-specific for these two works. He did not necessarily have in mind an audience type performance; the only performance he may have had in mind was the trio sonata section of the _Musical Offering_. These two monumentally didactic works were to meant summarise to the connoisseurs of his day, and scholars today, Bach's musical experience primarily with the fugue. That, I think explains why many find these two works difficult to appreciate as entertainment pieces. I seldom listen to them, apart from the trio sonata of _Musical Offering_. (Almost certainly too, Frederick II would not have bothered with the complexities of _Musical Offering_, he employed composers and musicians to provide far easier evening entertainment pieces!)


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## dmg (Sep 13, 2009)

My shifts in musical taste don't really involve swapping preferences for others - I just simply add new likes to my already growing list. In other words, I don't really go from liking music to disliking it. For example, now that I listen to classical full-on, I also still enjoy trance, dance, '80s metal, '70s rock, blues, etc. My musical tastes only grow - they don't really change.


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

kmisho said:


> I'm 45 and I think I know myself well enough to know that I will never have a great affection for music from the classical period. It simply lacks a depth that my sensibilities and personality demand.


I said very similar things when I was 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, ...etc. Then a few years ago, against all my most hard-boiled prejudices, I began to recognise that for all those years I'd confused my inability to perceive depth of a certain sort, with an actual absence of it. Apart perhaps from my early exhilarating years of discovering Elgar, Wagner and Sibelius in my teens, my musical journey has never been so exciting, so breathtaking, as it has been in these last few years of breaking through into composers (such as Mozart) that I'd been resoundingly dismissing for decades.

My impression of the process of engaging with all kinds of art during my life so far, is that many of my most determined negative opinions (far too freely expressed at the time, I'm sorry to say) have been confounded later, when I've discovered them merely to be the result of prejudice, or of an inadequate perceptive open-ness. I'd like to think that I won't go on doing it, but I don't suppose I'm out of the wood yet.


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## Artemis (Dec 8, 2007)

Elgarian said:


> .. Apart perhaps from my early exhilarating years of discovering Elgar, Wagner and Sibelius in my teens, my musical journey has never been so exciting, so breathtaking, as it has been in these last few years of breaking through into composers (such as Mozart) that I'd been resoundingly dismissing for decades.


The way I have always gone about music appreciation is perhaps different from that of many, including you. Instead of focusing only on what I liked (or thought I liked), I always tried to maintain a respect for those other major composers I knew were widely esteemed even though I wasn't so keen on them at the time.

It so happened that I started out liking Mozart, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky above all others, but I knew that the likes of Bach, Handel, Haydn, Schubert, Schumann, Liszt, Brahms, Wagner, Debussy, Stravinsky etc were definitely worth investigating. I knew that because I was told so by music teachers at school, together with the fact that it was quite obvious from even a cursory glance at the history of classical music. Therefore, looking back I tried never to entertain any strongly negative attitudes against any of these other composers, but on the contrary did my best to come to appreciate them. It paid off since basically I like them all, even though my priorities have shifted around over the years, as explained previously.

When I hear supposedly musically educated people criticise any of these composer greats for alleged major failings in their ability to compose, or even worse see implied criticism of people who like any of these composers, it conjures up nothing by contempt from me, as may be obvious at times from the tone of my remarks which I don't always manage to camouflage. I really don't know why they bother to spread a disliking of these various composer greats, as nothing they say is remotely of any significance in the grand scheme of things. They may as well go whistle in the wind or something like that.


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## Il Seraglio (Sep 14, 2009)

Interesting question. A few years ago when I had a passing interest in classical music. I wanted to explore the dark side of romanticism and so found myself listening to quite a bit of Mahler and Shostakovich with a bit of (not so dark) Elgar in between... then my interest waned and more recently my appreciation for music was reignited by listening to Handel, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert so, sadly, I can only speak for the past year or so. At this time, I pretty much avoided romanticism all together and grew to hate Mahler. I think all four of those composers were very easy to appreciate because of their emphasis on simple, direct, but effective use of melody. Also my trendy, hipster friend got me interested in the 20th century minimalists who I neither loved nor hated.

I can't say I've felt compelled to delve into Mahler or Shostakovich again, but my tastes have opened up (not so much 'shifted') over the past year or so. For instance I initially found Bach's emphasis on polyphony and counterpoint over melody intimidating, but that has all changed and I enjoy him as much as Mozart and Beethoven now. My appreciation for the Venetian elegance of Vivaldi's works has grown where before I would confess to having thought of him as a second rate Handel (I know, I know, pretty ignorant).

I've found myself warming to the Romantic composers having previously found the music too bombastic. It was good to finally stop dismissing everything post-Beethoven or pre-Stravinsky. I loved all of Mozart's operas, so it only made sense to me to explore the genre further and so that was where Wagner came in. Eventually I came to appreciate his contemporaries, especially Brahms, Bruckner and Lizst and have even begun to enjoy Mahler again. I still love modern music, but generally opt for the more dissonant side of modern music such as Bartok, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Penderecki and Xenakis as opposed to the minimalists and have also learned that there is more to Debussy and Ravel than simply 'mood music'.

If there has been any shift, I would say my interest in Handel has waned as I find his music too pomp and circumstance for my liking nowadays (still love Giulio Cesare though) and I listen to Glass and Gorecki even less than I used to. Famous composers that I never find myself wanting to listen to these days would be Elgar, Vaughan-Williams, Mendelssohn, Satie, Dvorak, Donizetti and Telemann.


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## Guest (Jan 6, 2010)

Artemis said:


> When I hear supposedly musically educated people criticise any of these composer greats for alleged major failings in their ability to compose, or even worse see implied criticism of people who like any of these composers, it conjures up nothing by contempt from me, as may be obvious at times from the tone of my remarks which I don't always manage to camouflage. I really don't know why they bother to spread a disliking of these various composer greats, as nothing they say is remotely of any significance in the grand scheme of things. They may as well go whistle in the wind or something like that.


If you mean critics I can understand your point of view but how about musicians and conductors that criticise, are their views not valid? e.g. 'Brahms was not a good orchestrater' or 'Chopin knew the piano but not the orchestra' I don't think they are spreading dislike of the composers as much as stating facts, after all as professionals they have a greater knowledge than someone who is just a listener. I find their views very enlightening even if at times I find it hard to understand.


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## Artemis (Dec 8, 2007)

Andante said:


> If you mean critics I can understand your point of view but how about musicians and conductors that criticise, are their views not valid? e.g. 'Brahms was not a good orchestrater' or 'Chopin knew the piano but not the orchestra' I don't think they are spreading dislike of the composers as much as stating facts, after all as professionals they have a greater knowledge than someone who is just a listener. I find their views very enlightening even if at times I find it hard to understand.


You know the kind of stupid comment I'm referring to: suggestions that people who like Mozart or Bach are a bunch of dim-witted snobs who can't see that these composers are nothing more 18th C equivalents of Beyonce, etc; or that their music is dull and uninteresting. Or the joker who can't stop himself (although thankfully he has lately) from coming here regularly to promote a couple of obscure nobody characters, and whenever the opportunity presents itself to have a dig at Mozart with some wickedly useless comment that nobody is interested in.


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## Guest (Jan 6, 2010)

Well I have not come across this Joker, as yet is he/she from the antipodes? And I have not heard of the composer Beyonce but I do find a lot of Mozart is a bit in the light vein (not all) but that is just my taste and you have a nerve putting Bach and Mozart on the same line, what next?


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

Artemis said:


> You know the kind of stupid comment I'm referring to: suggestions that people who like Mozart or Bach are a bunch of dim-witted snobs who can't see that these composers are nothing more 18th C equivalents of Beyonce, etc; or that their music is dull and uninteresting. Or the joker who can't stop himself (although thankfully he has lately) from coming here regularly to promote a couple of obscure nobody characters, and whenever the opportunity presents itself to have a dig at Mozart with some wickedly useless comment that nobody is interested in.


Just out of curiosity, are you speaking of me (I've promoted a few Avante Garde and Post Modern composers)?


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

Artemis said:


> The way I have always gone about music appreciation is perhaps different from that of many, including you. Instead of focusing only on what I liked (or thought I liked), I always tried to maintain a respect for those other major composers I knew were widely esteemed even though I wasn't so keen on them at the time.


Let me say straight away that I think the course you followed was wiser and probably ultimately more satisfying than mine; and at the moment, I look back with some regret at a lifetime of listening that didn't include a lot of Mozart, Handel, Vivaldi, Lully, and Rameau; it was most definitely impoverished. Yet if I'm fair, I wonder whether there was really much I could have done about it: I'm not the same person now that I was then. All my experience suggested that the great insights were likely to come through the Romantics, and since I experienced almost nothing when I listened to classical and baroque composers, I assumed that there was nothing there; or at least, nothing that I could value - which isn't quite the same thing. It may not be obvious, if one is obsessed with the stars, that one can learn about the universe by looking through a microscope as well as a telescope.

But the real point I would want to make in this discussion is not that we should beat ourselves over the head about past mistakes, or to insist on any one path to tread, but rather that continued _growth_ is something very much to be treasured and nourished. Nothing in the arts is ever settled, once and for all. To be aware that one might be mistaken is to make a big step forward, and that realisation can reap all sorts of unexpected rewards.


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## Artemis (Dec 8, 2007)

Elgarian said:


> Let me say straight away that I think the course you followed was wiser and probably ultimately more satisfying than mine ...


 Putting it in a nutshell, the two extremes may be seen as either following your classical musical fancy entirely unhindered by what other people like, or trying to discipline yourself from an early age to embrace a wider selection of composers who are generally regarded as top rate but whom you may not care for at that stage The latter model worked for me but obviously I accept that it may not suit everyone. Following my approach clearly doesn't mean you have to like everyone, or even most. I drew the line more or less along the lines I suggested earlier, and I admit that there were one or two failures (e.g. I never quite embraced Mahler).

You know what can happen to school kids brought up without proper discipline at school... they finish up not knowing where to put their apostrophes, don't know where to put full stops, have bad spelling and poor grammar, and have lots of other irritating defects besides. The musical equivalent is perhaps an ignorance of some of the greatest composers in history. I suspect that some of these individuals are often those who haven't yet caught up with themselves on the basis of a longer term outlook of their own preferences. In other words, they may live to eat their own words.

Besides all that, one has only to consider what some of the great Romantics themselves thought about their musical forebears from a previous tradition. Beethoven thought wonderfully of Handel; Tchaikovsky, who is perhaps one of the most romantic of Romantic composers, idolised Mozart; Mendelssohn greatly admired J S Bach; Liszt, Schumann, Brahms and Dvorak all rated Schubert very highly; Debussy and Ravel both skirted around Beethoven strongly in favour of Mozart.

Those who reckon that Mozart is generally too light-hearted in style should bear in mind that he died very young and hence a lot of his works are essentially early and mid period works, based on a comparison with several other composer's time-frame (cf Bach, Handel, Haydn, Beethoven, Brahms). Contrary to some ill-informed opinion on this Board, there is in fact an incredible beauty, depth and sophistication in many of Mozart's works. Take the clarinet quintet for example which is unrivalled in quality except perhaps that by Brahms. The last symphony, Jupiter, has the most amazingly complex last movement, which is very difficult to follow and yet comes over as a seamless garment. Serenade No 10 "Gran Partita" is an unrivalled gem. Piano Concerto Nos 20/21/24 are all excellent, and rival Beethoven's. Critics who reckon that Mozart couldn't write music with a more sombre tone must be suffering from amnesia, a hearing defect, or something possibly worse. Here, his sacred music is second to none, quite apart from the magnanimous Requiem. Mozart's Masonic Funeral Music (K 417, 471) is usually another eye-opener to experience the more sombre side of Mozart. His quintet for piano and winds, K 452, is a masterpiece which Beethoven tried to emulate (op 16) but didn't quite make it. Anyone who doubts this might try putting them side by side and decide which is best.

Usually, in almost genre one cares to mention, across most time periods of music, Mozart made a very significant statement and usually comes out at or near the top in many cases. This is without even mentioning opera where Mozart stands supreme. I think even Wagner accepted that.


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## Argus (Oct 16, 2009)

Artemis said:


> Putting it in a nutshell,blah, blah, blah.


That is one big nut.

All the big name composers have something good to offer. Whether it be a wealth of excellence like Bach or a slice of cake like Satie, there are few famous composers not there on their merit



> Just out of curiosity, are you speaking of me (I've promoted a few Avante Garde and Post Modern composers)?


I thought of your love of Scriabin, Alkan or Sorabji was a possibility but I think the composers in question may be Sibelius and Ifukube from the anti-Mozart reference.


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## TresPicos (Mar 21, 2009)

jaibyrne said:


> I once had a tutor who said that when she was young she loved Rachmaninov as a lot of the music students at Uni did, as well as Chopin and Tchaikovsky, but she said when you mature more you will shift from this kind of romantic excess to the purity and order of Bach. Beauty of form will take over from emotional outpouring. has anyone found this to be so?


I don't know if the fact that my shift of taste in classical music has not brought me to Bach, tells me that I'm moving in a different direction or that I'm only in the middle of my journey. Settling for the "purity and order of Bach" is not what I hope for, though.

To me, the maturing of the taste is a shift from obvious beauty to not-so-obvious beauty (often disguised as (and sadly often dismissed as) ugliness), a shift from the easily accessible to the not-so-easily accessible, and a shift from appreciating music for its plain beauty and emotion to appreaciating music for the way it widens your horizons and takes you to other worlds that you didn't know existed. I really like the way you can suddenly immensely enjoy something that seemed horrible just a year ago.

Another aspect of a shift in taste is, of course, whether it's an abandonment of your previous taste or just a shift in focus. I still enjoy Tchaikovsky and Schubert and Chopin, but my focus is on the 20th Century music. Going back to only listening to Tchaikovsky, Schubert and Chopin would be an absolute nightmare. 

How often do journeys from Tchaikovsky go straight to Bach, by the way, without passing Debussy, Bartok or contemporary classical music? Is Bach a relief after the emotional Romantics or a relief after the complex and inharmonious 20th Century stuff? Is it like returning to Earth to enjoy your old age in the peace and quiet of a nice little cottage, tired after having spent your career roaming around the galaxy?


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

Each piece of music is a world unto itself. The only thing I judge in a piece is it's merit, because I just don't find judging all that appealing. I doubt if I ever had parameters in taste. Maybe when I was eight and younger, but not since then.


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

TresPicos said:


> How often do journeys from Tchaikovsky go straight to Bach, by the way, without passing Debussy, Bartok or contemporary classical music? Is Bach a relief after the emotional Romantics or a relief after the complex and inharmonious 20th Century stuff? Is it like returning to Earth to enjoy your old age in the peace and quiet of a nice little cottage, tired after having spent your career roaming around the galaxy?


Actually, my escape from Modern, Romantic, and Avante Garde music is _Froberger_:


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

Artemis said:


> You know what can happen to school kids brought up without proper discipline at school... they finish up not knowing where to put their apostrophes, don't know where to put full stops, have bad spelling and poor grammar, and have lots of other irritating defects besides. The musical equivalent is perhaps an ignorance of some of the greatest composers in history. I suspect that some of these individuals are often those who haven't yet caught up with themselves on the basis of a longer term outlook of their own preferences. In other words, they may live to eat their own words.


Yes. The difference, though, is that many of us, I think, approach listening to music not so much as a discipline, but more as something delightful or mind-blowing that drags us in like iron filings to a magnet. At the time of discovery and for some time after, I couldn't _help_ wanting to become acquainted with virtually every piece that Elgar ever composed, for example. And if you're spending whole evenings listening to the Ring, that makes heavy inroads into the time available for listening to music. I think what I'm saying is that there are different types of discipline: my Elgar and Wagner listening were pretty disciplined, in their heyday, and in their way. (No one else I knew was listening to Wagner at all, let alone reading Donnington and Culshaw, and picking out leitmotives and their meaning.) In hindsight it all seems too narrowly focused; but I seriously wonder whether I could have done much about it at the time. I was engaged wholeheartedly in one of the great musical adventures of my life, and music of the classical period seemed no more than a trivial distraction compared to it. It's that temperament thing: to a great degree, we can't help being who we are, when we are.

You realise, I hope, that I'm neither agreeing nor disagreeing with you - just comparing notes and pondering imponderables: 'what might (or might not) have been'.


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## danae (Jan 7, 2009)

Elgarian said:


> Yes. The difference, though, is that many of us, I think, approach listening to music not so much as a discipline, but more as something delightful or mind-blowing that drags us in like iron filings to a magnet. [....] It's that temperament thing: to a great degree, we can't help being who we are, when we are.


I completely agree.


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## kmisho (Oct 22, 2009)

Artemis said:


> You know the kind of stupid comment I'm referring to: suggestions that people who like Mozart or Bach are a bunch of dim-witted snobs who can't see that these composers are nothing more 18th C equivalents of Beyonce, etc; or that their music is dull and uninteresting. Or the joker who can't stop himself (although thankfully he has lately) from coming here regularly to promote a couple of obscure nobody characters, and whenever the opportunity presents itself to have a dig at Mozart with some wickedly useless comment that nobody is interested in.


I can't help but think this includes me. But...the mischaracterization of me is much more extremely wrong than my possible mischaracterization of Mozart.

To deny that a lot of people only latch onto the Classical or Baroque styles out of snob-appeal would be deluded. It doesn't have to be with music. It could be wine or auctions or travel or some other thing that the pea-brained think can make up for being a total bore. People like this couldn't like Mozart if they wanted to, it being much too rarefied and complicated.

Don't tell me you've never met people like this...

This post may well be the last time anyone sees me broach this topic. As unpopular as classical music is, it's suicidal to keep ripping at schisms. I've decided I'd much prefer to dwell on our shared love. Some disagreement is unavoidable and even good if for no other reason than we can learn something from it.


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## kmisho (Oct 22, 2009)

Elgarian said:


> I said very similar things when I was 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, ...etc. Then a few years ago, against all my most hard-boiled prejudices, I began to recognise that for all those years I'd confused my inability to perceive depth of a certain sort, with an actual absence of it. Apart perhaps from my early exhilarating years of discovering Elgar, Wagner and Sibelius in my teens, my musical journey has never been so exciting, so breathtaking, as it has been in these last few years of breaking through into composers (such as Mozart) that I'd been resoundingly dismissing for decades.
> 
> My impression of the process of engaging with all kinds of art during my life so far, is that many of my most determined negative opinions (far too freely expressed at the time, I'm sorry to say) have been confounded later, when I've discovered them merely to be the result of prejudice, or of an inadequate perceptive open-ness. I'd like to think that I won't go on doing it, but I don't suppose I'm out of the wood yet.


I understand this as I live inside this mentality at all times. I'll gladly defend 2Pac, Orlando Gibbons, Haydn and Xenakis in the same breath. And on a board like this I'm sure people like me are not a rarity.

I think I know myself pretty well, and not by preference but by raw experimentation, trial-and-error. I'll go through a phase of finding some enjoyment from almost anything. I judge not by those things in themselves but by which of them, after falling by the wayside, returns again and again.

It's impossible to deny the lack of a certain amount of harmonic depth in the Classical style. That it lacked this depth was one of its points. Preceding it, JS Bach was almost modern, almost post-Romantic with his harmony sometimes, flirting with bi-tonality and serialism. This is one of the fascinating things about him, so far ahead of his time. In this sense, the raw classical style was a step backward, rejecting a portion of the harmonic atmosphere that Bach had unveiled. I find this irritating, which is why I typically skip straight from Bach to Beethoven, who began to bring back to harmony what his predecessors had excised. If I want to hear Classical, I reach for Stravinsky's Symphony in C as it at least lives in a wider harmonic realm that my trained ear, for better or worse, demands.


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## Elgarian (Jul 30, 2008)

kmisho said:


> It's impossible to deny the lack of a certain amount of harmonic depth in the Classical style. That it lacked this depth was one of its points. Preceding it, JS Bach was almost modern, almost post-Romantic with his harmony sometimes, flirting with bi-tonality and serialism. This is one of the fascinating things about him, so far ahead of his time. In this sense, the raw classical style was a step backward, rejecting a portion of the harmonic atmosphere that Bach had unveiled.


The difficulty, as I've realised only gradually, is that the appreciation of art is more a matter of perception than of argument. In the bad old days when I thought all abstract art was a con, I could produce all kinds of convincing arguments in support of my belief. Now, when I'm painfully aware of the relative blindness of my earlier self, I could (if I wished) produce all sorts of convincing arguments in its favour. Generally speaking, we put forward arguments about art to support positions that our perceptions have already persuaded us about. No amount of argument is likely to persuade someone that a piece of music is good when his ears tell him he's bored by it; and no amount of argument will persuade him that it's bad if his soul soars when he listens to it.

Art is one of the ways we _show_ each other the things that can't be _said_; when we resort to trying to _say_ things that can only be _shown_, then we've swapped perceiving for talking - which may be very interesting in its own right, but it takes us away from the actual point of engagement where the essence of artistic experience is found. My point is that Mozart is regarded with awe by so many people not because they've been persuaded by argument, but because his music has brought them musical insights the like of which they haven't experienced with other composers. If I don't or can't hear that magic for myself (as was once the case), then the loss is entirely mine, whether I admit it or not.


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