# Music/composers w/o boundaries



## paulbest (Apr 18, 2019)

Its something of a phenomenon, that music has no boundaries. 
A composer from one country can just as easily ~~Borrow~ ideas from a composer of a completely different language/culture/time. Although the last does have its perimeters , a modern composer is not likely to want to emulate a composer from the baroque. 


Some composers wrote music that crosses boundaries so as to be truly ~~International~~
However
Vaughan Williams is thematically ~~English~~. 
Spanish composers stay within their borders. 
Russian composers are from Russia. 
Italian composers are from Italy. 


American composers are from the USA.

French composers are from france. 

Czech from Slovenia 
Hungarian , from Hungry,
Bartok has Hungarian folk themes throughout his music. 
ravel and Debussy could not be born in any country except France,,,though Ravel does express a few works via his roots from eastern border with spain. 

Elliott Carter can not be isolated to the USA, his music has no boundaries. 
Schnittke has distinct east german ideas, along with Russian traditional ideas, along with other east Europe influences. His music is spacious and so can not be defined by any 1 country..


Now we come to ~~Germany~.
Austria is defined by Mozart, modern times by the 3 great so called ~~Second Nievve Composers~~Schoenberg/Berg/Webern.

Now back to ~Germany~
Germany can boast of a land fruitful of some excellent composers.
We 1st think of Bach,,,then Wagner, ,,oh wait, 2nd comes Beethoven, then Wagner,,,others could also be mentioned, Brahms comes to mind. 
fast forward to modern times, we arrived at ~Henze~.
Which other country has given roots to 4 outstanding composers
Bach/Beethoven/Wagner/Henze. 
Think about it for one minute, if you will. 

Yet it can be argued germany never has been one truly unified country. 
Germany is in truth a conglomeration of distinct nation-states within one grand power city state/Berlin.
Russia is also the same, but on a grander scale. Nations within one grand power called Moscow. 

Yet if we can overlook this fact and just use the catchall idea ~germany~
This means 
Bach
Beethoven
Wagner
Henze.
name one country in the world which can boast even near as equal? 


Now we are clear on that.
Is Bach's music ,,so decidedly ~Germanic~ of nature. ? 
Yes and no, But more yes than no.
Beethoven, Germanic? Could be from the cousin country Austria, but I'd say Beethoven stays within germany's sound world. His music certainly can not be from say ~~Russia~, nor from say ~~Britain~

Brahms could just as well come from east Europe as from germany. Dvorak is hard to pin down to his country of origin,,as he is so influenced by Beethoven, I think Dvorak is from ,,Ok just cked,,Dvorak is from Czech REPUBLIC (a congom of city states).
Dvorak is more universal than Beethoven, whose music can be from no other country of orgin than ~~Geramny~~ its Germanic through and through,,,100% Made in Germany,,with no additives..


OK, we have completed Bach, 100% german
Beethoven 100% german

Lets see who ,,,Wagner

Take a wild guess of Richard Wagner's birth nation?

That leaves
Henze (Hans Werner = no guess work again).
w/o his name, just listening to his music,,,how many of the classical community could detect from listening to any of his works, where his birth nation is?

Henze's music is like Elliott Carter, it is universally toned, and has no place of origin. 

Ubiquitous is the word we are looking for.


So this post covers lots of ground. 

namely
1) Music can be of a nature as to be without a border, nor language/culture/set nation.(though few composers can achieve this universality in voice) 
And 
2) the great nation/city/state collectively titled ~The German nation states~ can boast 
4 of the finest composers in history
Bach
Beethoven
Wagner
Henze.

3 composers voices are ~~Germanic~~ by nature,,,1 is ~~Universal/with strong Germanic roots)could not be born in say the amazon rain forest)


This OP is no more than a ~~probing, a questioning, a wonder-ing~~, and so I expect the paths will go further away from the OP,,,which makes this topic, a Open Forum on anything suggestive in the OP.


EDIT ADD
Just before I clicked POST..
The thought occurred 
Germany also has composers representative from each of the 4 epochs of this art. Broque/Classicist/Romantic/Modern.

EDIT
We have to subtract one work from Henze's oeuvre to make him fit into my ~~schematic ~~(, as I just now discovered a few minutes ago His 2nd VC has ~~issues~~ can't say anymore than that. Its has ~problems~,


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Music "crosses boundaries" if it actually crosses boundaries. The best indicator of a composer's universality is the breadth of his or her international appeal. Who, anywhere in the world, listens now to Beethoven's "Eroica" and thinks "German music"?

When you state that "Dvorak is more universal than Beethoven" you are, as usual, stating no more than a personal impression with no factual basis.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

paulbest said:


> Czech from Slovenia


I suggest that a refresher course in European geography would be a smart idea ... Slovenia has nothing at all to do with Czech, not even adjacent to it.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Just about every major composer wrote at least some music that is hard to pin down their origins, when they weren't using folk music, or writing national music. Can anyone hear the country of origin in Telemann, Scarlatti, and Rameau? How about Webern, Varese and Babbitt?

The German masters rarely wrote using their own ethnic German folk music. How often do you hear these sounds in their music?






Berlioz, Liszt and Wagner represented a similar stance in music, but were all of different nationalities. It is more the influence on and from the individual composer.


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

Becca said:


> I suggest that a refresher course in European geography would be a smart idea ... Slovenia has nothing at all to do with Czech, not even adjacent to it.


....or indeed in European History. The Czech Republic consists of the relatively historically fixed regions of Bohemia and Moravia (yeah I know the Moravians ran riot across Europe in the 9th/10th centuries; oh and a small slice of Silesia for fun). It would be a massive stretch of the definition to describe the country as a conglomeration of city states....

As far as the relative "internationalism" of certain composers., one could argue that if a composer is too "provincial", his music won't spread (maybe one could mention Smetana here? Or Glinka? Both are seen as the National Composer in their respective countries, but there are better-known composers from their necks of the woods in the big bad outside world) So surely those echt-Czech composers like Dvorak or Janacek have more to say to a larger audience than a few million Western Slavs? Music is, after all a (The?) Universal Language...

Oh, and Bartok did indeed collect and catalogue huge swathes of Hungarian folk music, the style of which he incorporated into a great deal of his music. So he is Hungarian to the very core. The same Hungarian who used Romanian, Arabic, Turkish, Bulgarian elements in his music as well, even eschewing any Hungarian elements in his famous Dance Suite just to irritate the powers-that-be of 1923? Not as insular as a casual glance would suggest.


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## Barelytenor (Nov 19, 2011)

Your opinion of Henze is also just, that, your opinion. The other three Germanic composers have achieved universal recognition on the considerable basis of centuries of musical performance, writing, analysis, and criticism. 

Kind regards, :tiphat:

George


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## paulbest (Apr 18, 2019)

From which soil in the world could have produced the artistry of Debussy and Ravel,,,other than,,France?

Shostakovich/Prokofiev, other than Mother Russia?

Copland, Ives, other than the USA?
This list could be extended,,,obviously there are exceptions.
Beethoven in his 5th sym, is Germanic textures.

Rossini, w/o libretto is undeniably, Italian.
As you say, there are exceptions...
Henze and Carter both seem to have the most ~~Universality~~ voicing in the music. Stockhausen could not have come forth from England, USA, nor Russia. 
Its too complex, lacks a certain tonal color, mechanical/pre fabricated , highly structured,,,only a german could have invented his music.

This opening to Beethoven's 5th sym, could not have come from France, nor anywhere else,,The opening and following portrays the ~~Germanic spirit~~ so poignantly


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## paulbest (Apr 18, 2019)

Barelytenor said:


> Your opinion of Henze is also just, that, your opinion. The other three Germanic composers have achieved universal recognition on the considerable basis of centuries of musical performance, writing, analysis, and criticism.
> 
> Kind regards, :tiphat:
> 
> George


With a hundred years passage of time,,,anything is possible, Henze may become under better known, studied, analyzed, and played by students /orchestras. 
You may witness a all Henze program there in Vienna, or Amsterdam. Who knows.
I will say, last night, I discoved Henze got involved with a n Thomas Mann novel or something,,and used that book to work up his 2nd violin concerto,,which I found be nonsense. The 2nd Vc has serious issues,,,SEE this is what happens whena composer gets too politically wrapped up and attempts to work in a ideology which is inimical to the creative process. Henze went off in a weird direction in his 2nd VC.... This is just a side note,,,, 
Lets get back to the OP


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

^ I think it's more the exception than norm. For every composer you name that wrote more ethnic music, there are 3 or 4 that don't. Don't quite agree about Stockhausen. How about Babbitt. He also wrote music that is " complex, lacks a certain tonal color, mechanical/pre fabricated , highly structured". Is this another Carter, Henze adoration thread in disguise?


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Okay. .


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## paulbest (Apr 18, 2019)

Phil loves classical said:


> ^ I think it's more the exception than norm. For every composer you name that wrote more ethnic music, there are 3 or 4 that don't. Don't quite agree about Stockhausen. How about Babbitt. He also wrote music that is " complex, lacks a certain tonal color, mechanical/pre fabricated , highly structured". Is this another Carter, Henze adoration thread in disguise?


well, the roads may

eventually lead to ,,Henze and Carter,,,you nabbed me...
case of ulterior motives...hwoever,,,if you go to Henze's page,,i just trashed his 2VC. 
Seems when art is interjected with some ~~Ideology~~ in this case that of the modern german poet Enzensberger,,which his 2nd Vc is influenced from,,,a composer is sure to get into serious depletion of his creative imaginations...Music hates philosophy,,esopecially when its of the ~~sophistic~~variety,,, as you know the sophists were enemies to the great Socrates. 
I am socratic,,I too hate the sophists, and as can be heard in his 2nd VC, the sophistic Enzersberger poem has influenced Henze and so his 1st failure.

I do not know babbit,,heard bits of him decades ago,,,I will go to YT today,,as a **refresher* ,,,there was something about him, I could not accept.

With a name like Babbitt, has to be English composer.


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## paulbest (Apr 18, 2019)

You might say,,,carter accept,,why not ~~Babbitt?~~. 
Well in music moderna,,there are certain ~~perimeters~~,,,,,,Interesting music,,,but afraid I have to place his piano concerto in the post mod style.

Or you can not hear a dif twix Elliott Carter and Milton Babbitt? 
I mean there are faint similarities,,,but not enough to establish his name next to Carter's music./masterpieces.


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## brucknerian (Dec 27, 2013)

Japanese/Western composers are very interesting - Toru Takemitsu and Toshio Hosokawa to name just two. I find the fusion intriguing.

The Japanese seem to have an interest in Western music. I've heard some really good Bruckner performances coming from Japanese orchestras. I like to hear how Japanese conductors (e.g. Asahina in the 90s) interpret Western works and put a "Japanese" spin on the same material.

Incidentally (not sure how related this is) I find Japanese electronic/ambient music really engaging. Maybe it's that they're using elements I'm already familiar with - certain jazzy chords, synth sounds, rhythms - but there's some other element to it, perhaps a Japanese cultural element. I can't quite put my finger on what it is, but that ambiguity is also what I enjoy about the music.


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