# A more focused discussion on contemporary music



## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

Oh, hi - looking for me? Of course you are! 

I was reading an old issue of BBC Music Magazine earlier today, and the introduction by Oliver Condy got me thinking about certain virtues in art. So, rather than return to the "does modern music suck?" thread, I thought I'd provide a quotation and ask you kind people what you think of the matter:



Mr. Condy of BBC Music Magazine said:


> Mozart's music presents a fundamental question: how was he able to write music of such complexity and depth while still appealing to music lovers of all ages and levels of experience? Scholarly analyses of the finale of Symphony No. 41 alone can run into pages of text, but it will never fail to delight and move the unitiated. Like a well-designed computer, Mozart hides the complexities of his genius behind an exquisite exterior. You can, if you choose, dig down and discover what makes it tick, but the movement is just as incredible for its melodic brilliance and energy.


Essentially, then, Condy is saying that Mozart (or at least his _Jupiter_ symphony) is great because _anyone_ can love it on _any_ level.

*Do you think this is an artistic virtue composers should aspire to, or is it incidental to Mozart, and unimportant to music as a whole?*

With particular reference to some styles of contemporary 'art music': if from the outset of this discussion (unlike in the other thread) we accept that such music _does_ have great value, and is, in its own way, beautiful, is it not still a problem that (as almost all members on this forum have accepted) it is an acquired taste? By definition, this means that its beauty is _not_ obvious to all listeners; it requires a certain amount of time and effort before it can be properly appreciated (of course, this is true of most music, but it generally takes much less time and effort for most people to fall in love with Romantic music, for example), which inevitably leaves amateur listeners on the outside.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying for a moment that people shouldn't have to put effort into listening to music - of course they should; that's part of the whole experience that we undergo throughout our lives. But is it not one of the artistic ideals to write something completely beautiful _both_ on the surface and underneath? Aren't the best pieces the ones which give us instant gratification with their aesthetic sublimity, and yet continue to reward us with each repeated, diligent listening, with its technical mastery slowly opening up to our perception?

As you may have guessed, my opinion is that this _is_ an ideal. I don't think good music has to _not_ be difficult, unwieldy, and even unattractive at first listen - even in my beloved Romantic period, I can think of _plenty_ of pieces I love now but which I disliked for the first however-many exposures (and so, with this discussion in mind, consider that a flaw) - but I think the _best_ music is music that easily engages someone who has never listened to anything like it before, and which is as awe-inspiring on the hundredth listen as it was on the first.

------------------------------

[P.S. I may offer a few replies today and tomorrow, but, once I post this, I'm officially on holiday, so you should assume I'll be away for two weeks and won't be responding.  Of course, I expect that to be no barrier to this wonderful topic! When I return and have the internet again, this thread ought to be 300 pages long, with insightful discussion on every page. If not, I will be disappointed with every single one of you and may never return.]


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## regressivetransphobe (May 16, 2011)

> Essentially, then, Condy is saying that Mozart (or at least his Jupiter symphony) is great because anyone can love it on any level.
> 
> Do you think this is an artistic virtue composers should aspire to, or is it incidental to Mozart, and unimportant to music as a whole?


First, a disclaimer: I don't think there's any objective truth in art, so I think even ideals I totally disagree with can bear results that are valuable.

With that said, I think modern pop music is the logical conclusion of this sort of populist approach to art, and we all know how superficial and soulless that tends to be. It's gotten to the point where there are literally board meetings full of old men discussing demographics, and everyone but the musician has a hand in shaping his or her sound and what he or she stands for. It's terrible, and it enters the realm of advertising and purely crafting a product to such an extent I have trouble considering it art. I'd much rather have something idiosyncratic and difficult, as long as it's personal and connected to the artist in an honest way.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

regressivetransphobe said:


> With that said, I think modern pop music is the logical conclusion of this sort of populist approach to art, and we all know how superficial and soulless that tends to be. It's gotten to the point where there are literally board meetings full of old men discussing demographics, and everyone but the musician has a hand in shaping his or her sound and what he or she stands for. It's terrible, and it enters the realm of advertising and purely crafting a product to such an extent I have trouble considering it art. I'd much rather have something idiosyncratic and difficult, as long as it's personal and connected to the artist in an honest way.


I think you've probably misunderstood the point Condy and I were trying to make.

With what you said in mind, I'd contend that difficult contemporary music is the conclusion of obsessing over technical mastery over aesthetic appeal, while pop music is the conclusion of obsessing over the precise opposite. Obviously, worthless pop music does _not_ reward listeners constantly with well-thought-out innovations in structure and form - is Mozart worthless pop music? No. So it doesn't fit to say that pop music is on the same spectrum.


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## regressivetransphobe (May 16, 2011)

I know they're not totally equivalent, I was just implying that philosophy of making art that can be appreciated by everyone on every level (whether it be the elegant inner structure or surface beauty) has a strong parallel to that sort of general cynicism. My point is that I suppose in my mind, music (or any art) is best when it's selfish, not trying to please everyone.


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## Vazgen (May 24, 2011)

Polednice said:


> Essentially, then, Condy is saying that Mozart (or at least his _Jupiter_ symphony) is great because _anyone_ can love it on _any_ level.


There's a big difference between appreciating Mozart's composing genius and being familiar enough with Mozart's music to use it as background noise for whatever else you happen to be doing. People should enjoy music on whatever basis they want, but let's be honest. People who just use the _Jupiter _symphony for aural wallpaper aren't appreciating the quintuple counterpoint in the fourth movement. Are they giving this music the respect it deserves? Would Mozart be happy to know the fruits of his labors were nothing but ear candy to most listeners?

-Vaz


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

regressivetransphobe said:


> I know they're not totally equivalent, I was just implying that philosophy of making art that can be appreciated by everyone on every level (whether it be the elegant inner structure or surface beauty) has a strong parallel to that sort of general cynicism. My point is that I suppose in my mind, music (or any art) is best when it's selfish, not trying to please everyone.





Vazgen said:


> There's a big difference between appreciating Mozart's composing genius and being familiar enough with Mozart's music to use it as background noise for whatever else you happen to be doing. People should enjoy music on whatever basis they want, but let's be honest. People who just use the Jupiter symphony for aural wallpaper aren't appreciating the quintuple counterpoint in the fourth movement. Are they giving this music the respect it deserves? Would Mozart be happy to know the fruits of his labors were nothing but ear candy to most listeners?


Although I don't entirely disagree with regressivetransphobe's point, what strikes me most in these discussions is the extremely different ways that the people on each side of the debate interpret the act of a composer writing in an immediately aesthetically pleasing style. I would suggest that, if incidental, then so what?; if deliberate, then - providing subtle technical intrigue for veteran listeners too - it's a kind of outreach for amateur listeners. On the other hand, we have people who believe that any kind of consideration for a less than fully-informed audience is a patronising pandering to populist tastes. I think that's rather blinkard.

I'm not saying that good music needs to be attractive to people who like the sound of a string orchestra while in the bath. I'm saying that it ought to engage amateur listeners who might have little or no knowledge/experience about this kind of music, but who are _nevertheless sincere_ about listening. In all the comments I've come across against my statements, I don't think I've seen that section of the audience properly accounted for (or indeed respected in the same manner that Mozart's music deserves).


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## Kieran (Aug 24, 2010)

Polednice said:


> I'm not saying that good music needs to be attractive to people who like the sound of a string orchestra while in the bath. I'm saying that it ought to engage amateur listeners who might have little or no knowledge/experience about this kind of music, but who are _nevertheless sincere_ about listening. In all the comments I've come across against my statements, I don't think I've seen that section of the audience properly accounted for (or indeed respected in the same manner that Mozart's music deserves).


From an interesting article by Alex Ross:



> Perhaps Leopold's greatest gift to his son was the instruction to write for both musical insiders and the general public. In a letter from 1782, Mozart takes that favorite phrase of his father's-"the golden mean"-and weaves around it a pragmatic philosophy that is even more relevant now than it was in the eighteenth century:
> 
> "These concertos [Nos. 11, 12, and 13] are a happy medium between what is too easy and too difficult; they are very brilliant, pleasing to the ear, and natural, without being vapid. There are passages here and there from which the connoisseurs alone can derive satisfaction; but these passages are written in such a way that the less learned cannot fail to be pleased, though without knowing why. . . . The golden mean of truth in all things is no longer either known or appreciated. In order to win applause one must write stuff which is so inane that a coachman could sing it, or so unintelligible that it pleases precisely because no sensible man can understand it."
> 
> Read more http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/07/24/060724crat_atlarge#ixzz1QPoGVmpE


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

Thanks very much for that Kieran! I shall read the rest of that with great interest as soon as I have the chance!


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## Vazgen (May 24, 2011)

Polednice said:


> I'm not saying that good music needs to be attractive to people who like the sound of a string orchestra while in the bath. I'm saying that it ought to engage amateur listeners who might have little or no knowledge/experience about this kind of music, but who are _nevertheless sincere_ about listening. In all the comments I've come across against my statements, I don't think I've seen that section of the audience properly accounted for (or indeed respected in the same manner that Mozart's music deserves).


I'm still at a loss to understand exactly who these people are, and what we should be doing to appeal to them that we're not already doing.

These listeners you say, aren't completely passive, but aren't necessarily experienced or knowledgeable. And they're sincere about listening, but we're not supposed to give them anything that won't immediately engage them. And the music should interest them not in the way that contemporary music might interest them, but in the way that old-fashioned music like Mozart would interest them.

It sounds like we're bending over backwards for these listeners. Can't we just give them credit for their intelligence and expect them to listen without prejudice like any listener should?

-Vaz


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

Vazgen said:


> These listeners you say, aren't completely passive, but aren't necessarily experienced or knowledgeable. And they're sincere about listening, but we're not supposed to give them anything that won't immediately engage them. And the music should interest them not in the way that contemporary music might interest them, but in the way that old-fashioned music like Mozart would interest them.


These listeners are the majority of hard-core classical fans before they can call themselves even soft-core fans. It's not about "giving" them what they might naively want (again with the patronising spoon-feeding talk...), and it's not about imitating old styles. It's about appealing to amateur listeners in the same way that older music does (consciously or not).

Another way of putting it, I suppose, is that most people probably go about musical discovery by going via Beethoven and Mozart, to more obscure (but still famous in the classical world) composers, to even more obscure composers, and then to more difficult contemporary music. It has _*nothing*_ to do with being pastiche imitators, but I'm simply suggesting that amateur listeners ought to be able to make that musical journey _just as easily_ from contemporary composers first, then backwards in time to Beethoven. As it is, a lot of contemporary music is so conceptual, so desperate to do things not done before, and therefore so openly (and academically) based on overturning classical traditions, that you have to make yourself properly familiar with those classical traditions before you can appreciate it. I'm saying that you shouldn't have to be knowledgeable of anything prior to listening to music just to be able to see the beauty in it.


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## Vazgen (May 24, 2011)

Polednice said:


> I'm saying that you shouldn't have to be knowledgeable of anything prior to listening to music just to be able to see the beauty in it.


And I'm asking what's so weird about expecting people to be knowledgeable? Even to begin to appreciate Mozart's work, you have to know what the instruments are, what sonata form is, what a theme and variation is, and so on, and so on. We're not born knowing this, and people who don't listen to classical music never have to learn it. But I fail to see why it's so crucial to you to have composers create music where _no effort is necessary_.

-Vaz


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

Vazgen said:


> And I'm asking what's so weird about expecting people to be knowledgeable? Even to begin to appreciate Mozart's work, you have to know what the instruments are, what sonata form is, what a theme and variation is, and so on, and so on. We're not born knowing this, and people who don't listen to classical music never have to learn it. But I fail to see why it's so crucial to you to have composers create music where _no effort is necessary_.


Actually, I would say that you _don't_ need to know the instruments, sonata form, and other technicalities to appreciate Mozart's work. I certainly didn't. And I bet most people don't. _When_ we learn these things, we appreciate _more_ about the work, but it is _not_ necessary in the first instance just to hear the surface beauty of the piece. With much contemporary music, you _do_ need specialist knowledge. As I've mentioned, I'm not saying this is _intrinsically_ bad, but that it _inevitably_ sets amateur listeners as outsiders.

And, to repeat myself _again_, I'm _not_ saying that music should require _no_ effort; I'm saying that it should yield _some_ beauty _without_ effort, but _continue to deliver beauty_ with _further_ effort. I fail to see why it's so difficult for people to read what I'm actually writing. I'm not using difficult English!! GRR!

I'm going to bed now. I'll come back to this tomorrow morning, and then I really do need to take a break for my holiday!


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## Vazgen (May 24, 2011)

Polednice said:


> Actually, I would say that you _don't_ need to know the instruments, sonata form, and other technicalities to appreciate Mozart's work. I certainly didn't. And I bet most people don't. _When_ we learn these things, we appreciate _more_ about the work, but it is _not_ necessary in the first instance just to hear the surface beauty of the piece.


And _hearing the surface beauty_ of the piece constitutes _appreciation _how?



> With much contemporary music, you _do_ need specialist knowledge. As I've mentioned, I'm not saying this is _intrinsically_ bad, but that it _inevitably_ sets amateur listeners as outsiders.


I dispute the claim that you need any more _specialist knowledge_ to enjoy contemporary classical music than you do to enjoy Mozart's music. Why do you expect this to be taken as a self-evident truth?

-Vaz


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Well, what I don't understand is why *every* composer has to compose music to engage a large amount of the public when Mozart's music already does this. Can't Mozart's music be the starting point then, and Schoenberg is something you work up to....like what usually happens. It's not as if there is absolutely no music out there that beginners can't grasp.

I think composers just need to stick to their guns and write in their own language. After all, a composer finding an audience is a lot like someone finding a girlfriend/boyfriend, no matter how ugly the general population thinks you are, there is always going to be at least someone who thinks yur purdy 

......or at least likes your personality.


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## SuperTonic (Jun 3, 2010)

Why do you assume that it isn't possible for a casual listener of classical music to enjoy contemporary classical music without some prior knowledge of how it was created? For that matter, why does contemporary music have to come into the discussion at all? There are many examples of complex music from the Baroque and Romantic eras as well, the details of which would be lost on most casual listeners and which may not be immediately appealing to some people.
When I started listening to classical music as a teen, I started with the standards that everyone recommends for beginners. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms... etc. Nothing really clicked with me until I heard Shostakovich's 5th Symphony though. I was immediately intrigued and wanted to hear more music in a similar style. I never had to work to enjoy most music from the 20th century. 
I accept that I am probably the exception to the rule, but there are always exceptions. And because of this you can't make blanket statements about the worth of a certain style of music.


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## Guest (Jun 27, 2011)

Polednice said:


> - but I think the _best_ music is music that easily engages someone who has never listened to anything like it before, and which is as awe-inspiring on the hundredth listen as it was on the first.
> .]


Basically I do agree but variety is the spice of life.... sort of thing, was it not WAM in a letter home that said 'Music must never give offence to the Ear' or words to that effect, but then what offends me will highly delight others which proves that they have no taste! 
this thread should catch the eye of a certain person


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## Guest (Jun 27, 2011)

Two things are missing from Condy's account, time and the listener. Mozart pleases a lot of people _now._ It wasn't always so. Here's a contemporary response (1787) to Mozart: "He carries his effort at originality too far.... What a gulf between a Mozart and a Boccherini! The former leads us over rugged rocks on to a waste sparsely strewn with flowers...."
(The same "rocky waste" image has been used to describe other composers, too. Here's an assessment of Beethoven from 1811: "His two illustrious predecessors [Haydn and the now rehabilitated Mozart] had long since occupied all the main avenues [someone had built a nice road on the rocky waste, maybe?], and had left him only a few steep and rocky paths, in which good taste and the purity of tradition can easily come to grief." And for Berlioz, whose music had a time lag similar to Schoenberg's, here's a comment from 1875, six years after his death (and forty-five after the piece being discussed): "There is a great wealth of ideas and melody in [Symphonie fantastique], but they are like the good seed cast upon rocky ground."

It's so easy to fall into the "the way we think now is the way things have always been thought" trap. But leaving out contemporary reactions to musics of the past, forgetting the hardships and prejudices that composers now considered untouchable had to experience, is to repeat the same old mistakes that are always made with new things.

Contemporary music is not really any more difficult than musics of the past. It is not more ugly or more distressing. One thing it certainly is, though, and that is new. I.e., it is unfamiliar. And by that I mean _really_ unfamiliar. There are hundreds of pieces by Telemann that I've never heard. Is there even one bar in any of those that would be truly unfamiliar to me? Not a chance. Telemann's music, indeed all of the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic eras is completely familiar, even the pieces I've never heard. Find yourself a piece by Dvorak, say, that you've never heard. Listen to it. It will be completely familiar to you.

Contemporary music is not familiar in that way for most listeners. And most listeners have assimilated a lot of anti-modernist sentiment that goes back to the early nineteenth century, to the extent that hardly anyone in 2011 can actually listen to a 12-tone piece by Schoenberg and hear just the music that's there.

It's dangerous to leave the listener out of these discussions. Well, not the listener, per se, as "the audience" is ubiquitous in these discussions, mostly for either being ignored by the snooty new music composers or for having their delicate sensibilities constantly assaulted by the pestiferous new music composers. To ignore and to assault at one and the same time. What a neat trick, eh?

What's left out of these discussions is the listener as a genuine participant, as someone actively engaged in the whole process, to the extent that one can say, I think, that "music" properly so-called does not exist until there is someone listening to the sounds. No, what you do get is a passive and difficult to please consumer, someone whose needs and whose moods must be predicted successfully by the composer for the music the composer writes to be deemed worthy. And while that majesterial attitude didn't really get going in any widespread way until around 1810, even Mozart, as we've seen, had to deal with it. Not enough to just write music; you also have to gauge how people you don't even know and will never meet and who you probably wouldn't even like, anyway, will react to the sounds you manipulate.

That people now almost universally admire Mozart and consider him one of the giants would probably really startle Mozart were he able to come back and see that. (There's another little historical anomaly--some of the most revered composers, the ones who are the most firmly in "the canon," lived before "the canon" was even a thing that could be talked about, much less be in.)

Contemporary music will always be "difficult" simply because it's contemporary. As Varese put it, composers are never ahead of their time, but listeners are often quite far behind theirs. But that's not the fault of the actual sounds. That's because those sounds and the way they're manipulated is unfamiliar. Given a bit of time (and the right attitude), those unfamiliar things will become familiar, and our grandchildren's grandchildren will wonder how we could have been so deaf to the obvious beauties of Xenakis and Stockhausen, just as we smugly feel superior to the poor schlubs who didn't get Beethoven or Chopin when those people were new.

And so it goes.


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## Bluebeard (Jun 25, 2011)

This idea that contemporary music is only intelligible as a reaction against the past is completely false and extends from the arbitrary schism placed between "tonal" and "atonal" music. All that such boundaries indicate is the difference in soundscape between two eras in the Western tradition, and such differences exist to greater and lesser degrees between _all_ works of music. There is absolutely no difference in the approach one should have towards either kind of music.

The reason why tonal music is the starting point for most people is because it is incorporated into our lives in such a way that it is naturally pleasurable and accessible to the ear. But the pleasure that a serious listener gets from music is not merely the pleasure and comfort of its sound, but in the depth and beauty of the various experiences that it can create, which may very well be completely displaced from the regular milieu of life.

Contemporary music is completely accessible, but it requires a serious engagement with the art that is often learned through repeated listens of tonal, crowd-pleasing masters.


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## Guest (Jun 27, 2011)

some guy said:


> Two things are missing from Condy's account, time and the listener. .
> 
> And so it goes.


Hello certain person


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

some guy said:


> Given a bit of time (and the right attitude), those unfamiliar things will become familiar, and our grandchildren's grandchildren will wonder how we could have been so deaf to the obvious beauties of Xenakis and Stockhausen, ...


Much generalisation in your post, member _some guy_. And with many sweeping generalisations regarding music (and art), they don't often always hold water. There are numerous pieces of contemporary "classical" music that all of us here enjoy, me included. And there are simply many others that are verging on mental m a s t u r b a t i o n ; Stockhausen's _Helicopter_ String Quartet being one.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Much generalisation in your post, member _some guy_. And with many sweeping generalisations regarding music (and art), they don't often always hold water. There are numerous pieces of contemporary "classical" music that all of us here enjoy, me included. And there are simply many others that are verging on mental m a s t u r b a t i o n ; Stockhausen's _Helicopter_ String Quartet being one.


Ok...people that have a problem with contemporary music (and yes I know you like quite a bit of it) always bring up the helicopter quartet, 4'33" and a couple other pieces that are famous for being kind of hoaxy but really how many pieces like that are there? Pieces like that really only make up 5-10% of contemporary music if that but some people act like every composer living composes stuff like this.


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## Vazgen (May 24, 2011)

violadude said:


> Ok...people that have a problem with contemporary music (and yes I know you like quite a bit of it) always bring up the helicopter quartet, 4'33" and a couple other pieces that are famous for being kind of hoaxy but really how many pieces like that are there? Pieces like that really only make up 5-10% of contemporary music if that but some people act like every composer living composes stuff like this.


I've said the same thing a few times. I've heard a lot of vague descriptions of how "difficult" contemporary music is, but whenever people talk about specific works, it's as if these performance-art stunts are the be-all and end-all of post-1900 art music.

So I'll say it again. It's obvious that the people most vocal in criticizing contemporary classical music have an extremely limited exposure to the music they're so eager to condemn.

-Vaz


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

You know what? Screw this discussion.  If the rest of you want to carry it on, then be my guest. I thought it might be an interesting discussion about aesthetics, but I'm damn tired of being spoken down to, and yet _me_ always being accused of being a snob. I'm just interested in a genuine discourse, and about challenging my beliefs. Obviously that's not going to happen here, so I'm off!


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I think many composers since Mozart have composed music that is both not too hard to digest for new or less experienced listeners and quite innovative, complex, high quality, call it what you will. I've just been listening to some early c20th music and it fits the bill perfectly. Someone like Rachmaninov was using many innovative techniques like blocked chords a long time before others, yet his music is seldom thought of as "difficult" at least today. I think that people who misunderstand the BASICS of music - eg. that most composers were/are innovators and visionaries in their own way - don't "see the forest for the trees" so to speak. You don't have to own thousands of cd's to know and understand what good music is, and the connections between all of these guys. People who say things like Rachmaninov was a weak imitator of Tchaikovsky are talking pure rubbish, imo. The techniques Rachmaninov pioneered would find their way into the music of later decades - eg. I can clearly hear what he was doing having parallels in American musics - guys like Copland and the Mexican Carlos Chavez, for example. There are more connections between various types of musics than differences, imo. If you just focus on one or two "eras" or "genres" then you won't get the "big picture" or have a sense of these connections. I don't even think that there is such a thing a strong boundaries between so-called "eras." Palestrina didn't think of himself as a Renaissance composer in his day, he was a contemporary composer then, just as guys like Howard Shore, Eliot Carter or Brett Dean are today. Palestrina strongly influenced guys like Debussy later, does this make him an "impressionist" (another totally useless label) like the Frenchman. Palestrina also influenced Bruckner, so is Palestrina then a "late Romantic." They were all just contemporary composers in their day. That's why their music still speaks to us today, and inspires musicians and composers today. So the best thing is simply to "tear down the barriers" and see the connections. That's more important to me than worrying about whether a certain "style" or "era" of music is or has the potential to be more "accissible" than others...


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## haydnfan (Apr 13, 2011)

To respond to the OP:

In atonal music and modern music in general aesthetics is important. I think that there is plenty of bland atonal music. It's hard to compose anything and have a sense of beauty, transparent architecture, emotional heft. And the greatest composers achieve this. Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Carter, Ligeti, Xenakis etc etc have an amazing innate sense of aesthetics.

By the way Mozart wrote orchestral pieces that were crowd pleasers, but his chamber works were considered very challenging avant garde music. See even back then there was both a sense of public and private music. The private music (meant for the appreciation of connoisseurs and not necessarily the general public) of Mozart and Haydn we find accessible, but back then it was hard. The only real change is that the percentage of private music dramatically increased since the 18th century.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

After reading posts in several threads related to this issue, a long talk with a composition major in college who loves modern music, and mulling everything over for awhile, I'd like to summarize my view and then pose several questions. _some guy_ will recognize much of his repeated posts in my summation. All of this is focused on the _average_ person. I know there are exceptions.

- All music was once contemporary.
- Much contemporary music varied enough from earlier music that was comfortable to audiences.
- That variation made contemporary music more difficult to enjoy for many.
- With time and exposure audiences assimilate the new music and what was once new/difficult/unpleasant (for many) becomes old/comfortable/enjoyable.
- Modern music will be no different. In time it will be assimilated and become old/comfortable/enjoyable for most CM listeners.

There are apparently two basic ways to assimilate new music:
- Decades of relatively passive exposure. The music is played enough such that people finally become comfortable. Presumably more exposure might be necessary for new music that deviates more strongly from the past.
- Dedicated listening to hasten the process. Most people when describing this process to me have referred to it as relatively hard work. Basically the process requires significant effort (probably more for some than others).

Modern music will become old/comfortable/enjoyable after either of these processes.

Questions:
1) What is the difference between a 20 year-old in 1870 who struggles with Wagner's music but after several decades comes to accept/enjoy it and me, who as far as I can tell seemed to immediately enjoy it? Did I hear enough similar music passively in a short time, but the 20 year-old had to wait decades because the music was not played enough? Or is it a bit more subtle than that?

2) Is it easier for a 20 year-old to assimilate new music than a 50 year-old? Is music similar to language learning in that young people pick up languages much more readily than older people? There's an old saying that science proceeds by the older generation (who conservatively stick to what they knew) dying off. Is their little hope for _most older_ people who may be more stuck in their ways?

3) It's been 100 years since the second Viennese school composed music. Many others such as Varese, Carter, Xenakis, Ligeti, and Boulez were composing almost 50 years ago or more. For modern music to be loved/accepted CM listeners need exposure. They can put in the hard effort with dedicated listening, which some will do. The other option is relatively passive exposure. This seems not to be happening (modern music generally not played) for many reasons. What are effective ways to move the majority (I think) of CM listeners to acceptance/enjoyment of modern music?

@Vazgen: I know that individuals can choose to "listen hard", and you feel they ought to do that. People here at TC are probably much more motivated than the vast majority. If people had to learn to like modern music, they would, but they have other options (Baroque, Classical, Romantic) which they love. In my observations, most people are relatively lazy and won't put in the hard effort. I don't fault the composers.


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## Vazgen (May 24, 2011)

mmsbls said:


> @Vazgen: I know that individuals can choose to "listen hard", and you feel they ought to do that. People here at TC are probably much more motivated than the vast majority. If people had to learn to like modern music, they would, but they have other options (Baroque, Classical, Romantic) which they love. In my observations, most people are relatively lazy and won't put in the hard effort. I don't fault the composers.


Agreed. I keep saying people should listen to whatever they want. If people don't want to listen to contemporary or non-tonal music, they should just not listen.

However, the average classical music listener seems to approach contemporary music this way:

1. Avoid it like the plague.

2. Condemn it whenever possible.

3. Feign outrage when anyone suggests they should be more open-minded.


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## GoneBaroque (Jun 16, 2011)

There are contemporary compositions I do not care for; but on the other hand there are many which I enjoy very much. Like most music lovers I have favorite composers in each period, which does necessarily mean I like everything those composers have written. Each composition must be listened to and judged on its merits to you and not condemned out of hand because it is "whatever" type of music Who knows you might learn something.

Rob


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## samurai (Apr 22, 2011)

@GoneBaroque: Man, that's the coolest avatar you have there! I'm only just now noticing it. Nice find!


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Actually, in a discussion about contemporary music Schoenberg shouldn't really even be brought up. His music is pretty old school by now.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

I think there are many great pieces of music that are enjoyable on first listen, yet continue to inspire after many listens, however I don't think this a 'hard and fast' rule. This certainly hasn't been the case for me for all pieces of music I love. Some of my favorite pieces I was initially lukewarm to. Another thing is, I've found listening to music is in fact almost like a 'skill' of sorts that can be sharpened. I've found the more I listen to music, the quicker I am able to figure out what pieces have artistic merit for me. So the 'likability on first listen' factor can also be dependent on the experience and expectations of the listener.

Many of the pieces of music I love the most I actually really didn't understand at first, yet in the whole process of coming to understand them, I have experienced some profound insights - they have opened my mind to broader possibilities. I love that feeling. So, some of the most powerful musical experiences I have had, have come with pieces that I wasn't receptive to at first, but that 'opened up new doors' for me, so to speak.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

mmsbls said:


> ...Questions:
> 1) What is the difference between a 20 year-old in 1870 who struggles with Wagner's music but after several decades comes to accept/enjoy it and me, who as far as I can tell seemed to immediately enjoy it? Did I hear enough similar music passively in a short time, but the 20 year-old had to wait decades because the music was not played enough? Or is it a bit more subtle than that?
> 
> 2) Is it easier for a 20 year-old to assimilate new music than a 50 year-old? Is music similar to language learning in that young people pick up languages much more readily than older people? There's an old saying that science proceeds by the older generation (who conservatively stick to what they knew) dying off. Is their little hope for _most older_ people who may be more stuck in their ways?...


What I'd add to these interesting thoughts (in my usual roundabout way) is that I was the same with a number of composers, it took me years to "come round" to understanding them at a deeper level than when I was first exposed to them. It basically took life experience, which is the most important thing imo, it wasn't really a matter of technical knowledge or even repeated listening. I first bought the first Naxos disc of Varese's orchestral works (under the baton of Christopher Lyndon-Gee) when it came out around 2002. I felt it to be uncomfortable and unpleasant (& this rarely happens) but I took it back to the store for exchange (I actually got some Max Roach in place of it!!!). Fast forward 6 years to 2008, and I went into the store and got that same Varese disc again. Intervening years I had matured more, I had gained lessons from "the university of life" as they say. Despite having not heard this disc for 6 years, and even being a bit scared that I'd run the risk of returning it to the store yet again, on the second listen in 2008 I immediately "clicked" with it, enjoyed it to the max. Somehow, the barriers I had built between me and this music just vanished. Varese has been one of my favourite composers ever since, and I even got the second Naxos disc when it came out not long after that. I like to take him in small doses due to the complexity, layering and intensity of his music, but when I do listen to it, I'm "all ears" (have been listening to some works on those disc the past few days, actually, in conjunction with contemporary composers like Copland, Ives and Chavez - so context is also important). Now, I even go to a few electro-acoustic concerts every year, performances of the latest music in this realm & I enjoy it just as much as the purely acoustic stuff.

So you are right, it might take a while, while your brain does some internal "processing" of this music to appreciate it more. BTW, the same thing has happened with me in regards to early music, which I had previously thought of as kind of boring (eg. it's mostly unaccompanied choral), but now getting into it deeply after many years without it, I'm very excited to hear the unique harmonies and pure emotion in these composers wonderful music, it is definitely on par with something orchestral or something like that. So yes, openness and flexibility have been the keys for me to unlocking enjoyment in many areas of the repertoire that I had previously not been very interested in. Lately I have even been getting into vocal music - opera arias and art songs sung by Gigli, Volpi, Caruso and Mario Lanza & also the lighter realm of operetta. A few years back, I would have thought this almost impossible, at least to the degree that I've been getting into this stuff lately. As with the electro-acoustic stuff, I enjoy going to hear artsong done live. It's far better to open oneself to the richness of music out there rather than shut the door, because if you do that, you run the risk of missing out from something you'd otherwise have a fairly good chance of enjoying to the max...


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