# Technical expertise in compositions



## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

It would be beneficial to talk about the technical aspects of classical and modern concert art music.

I will start by asking you to name one or more examples in the following categories:


*1. Music which lacks in the technical aspects and is ruined by the bad compositional execution

2. Music which lacks in the technical aspects but still creates a positive impact

3. Music where the technical expertise and the inspired musical expression/grace form a perfect balance

4. Music where the technical mastery is bordering on overshadowing the inspired musical expression/grace but is enjoyable

5. Music which is technically masterful but lacks in inspired musical expression/grace and therefore is not enjoyable; ruined by the technics*


(Edit: I added the term "grace" as an option because not all music has to pointedly be expression; music can also be perceived as more neutral, graceful, aural forms. Anyhow, that is not the main point of this thread so I will not list everything that music can be.)


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

I'm not qualified to answer your quiz, but I will pop in with a couple amateur observations:

Just like a comic, the hardest thing a musician can do it make it look effortless
Therefore, some of the most seemingly _*naive*_ music might be written by a very accomplished composer, on purpose, to seem naive
Music written for other composers might not find favor with untrained listeners, and so never get played in public
Compositional technique should always take a back seat to, or be in the service of, musical expression


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## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

NoCoPilot said:


> I'm not qualified to answer your quiz, but I will pop in with a couple amateur observations:
> 
> Just like a comic, the hardest thing a musician can do it make it look effortless
> Therefore, some of the most seemingly _*naive*_ music might be written by a very accomplished composer, on purpose, to seem naive
> ...


Very true!

I once made a prog/art music album that was so complicated and heavy that only the most hardcore prog experts enjoyed it and praised it. But it is so very demanding to listen to even for myself and so I withdrew it. I had to get the music/technics out of my system but it is not for the public. Some people must have thought I was crazy. One song especially which was played on the radio is absolutely lunatic and me and my colleagues almost cannot believe something like that was created.

One must be able to balance between the force of inner expression, technical ambitions/requirements and the demands made on the listener.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

Waehnen said:


> It would be beneficial to talk about the technical aspects of classical and modern concert art music.
> 
> I will start by asking you to name one or more examples in the following categories:
> 
> ...


For the first category one only need listen to a lot of amateur DAW composing (of the classical variety) that can be found online.
For category 2 there is much in the way of great music by untrained composers in other fields, but not so much in the concert hall. Having said that (and not wishing to open up yet another debate), the likes of Danny Elfmann who is untrained in the classical sense, has achieved some deserved success with scores that have been played in concert halls, notably scores like 'Edward Scissorhands' and his rather good and less contentious (for this forum) Violin Concerto.
For category 3, well that's easy for my taste - Britten. His marriage of sheer technical brilliance in all aspects of technique and orchestration and a supremely expressive musical gift resulted in some of the great masterpieces of the 20thC. I would also include Shostakovitch, Boulez, Messiaen and a few others.
Categories 4+5 are more difficult to assess adequately imv.


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## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

My quick take on the categories:

1. Lots of Liszt’s orchestral work just does not feel right due to the orchestration. Chopin’s Piano Trio is another one that comes to mind.

2. Sibelius’ Kyllikki is gorgeous music but very unpianistic and even clumsy in my ears.

3. Numerous works could be placed in this category. I will not bother.

4. Sibelius’ Tapiola is technically masterful but the monotonality and the extremely strict motive technique hinderes the inspired musical expression and free spirit of the music to an extent, in my opinion.

5. Grosse Fuge for the string quartet by Beethoven is more on the technical side of things. The technicality of it drowns the possible inspiration. I am not interested in compositional Etudes such as this.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

Waehnen, your offering for category 5 exemplifies the reason I declined to offer any suggestions for it and category 4. Music appreciation is always fraught with differences of taste, preferences and opinion right? - even for composers and their methods. I think the Grosse Fugue is a towering expressive achievement, but then again, I love fugal writing having made an exhaustive study of it in my formative years... 
An interesing angle for me would be how technique informs expression and vice versa, for the two aspects are very closely linked and feed, support and influence each other in many complicated ways.


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## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

mikeh375 said:


> Waehnen, your offering for category 5 exemplifies the reason I declined to offer any suggestions for it and category 4. Music appreciation is always fraught with differences of taste, preferences and opinion right? - even for composers and their methods. I think the Grosse Fugue is a towering expressive achievement, but then again, I love fugal writing having made an exhaustive study of it in my formative years...
> An interesing angle for me would be how technique informs expression and vice versa, for the two aspects are very closely linked and feed, support and influence each other in many complicated ways.


It is wonderful to talk about differences in how we perceive certain compositional techniques, styles and whole compositions.

I am not afraid to make statements like 4th and the 5th because I am here to learn. If I keep my mouth shut, where is the conversation!  I would love to learn to understand the Grosse Fuge and to see some depth to it.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

I have not sufficient technical knowledge but I think 1 is very rare in established classical music. I don't remember the early Chopin trio as that bad (in fact I thought this a quite decent piece, although not a masterpiece like the cello sonata). If not at least achieving level 2 pieces would usually be quickly forgotten or, more likely, have no chance to become part of established repertoire in the first place. Mussorgsky is often mentioned here but I think this was exaggerated like the supposedly horrible instrumentation of Schumann. There is some space between deficiency and perfection, namely solid, maybe slightly flawed, technique.

For me, 4 and especially 5 would be some avantgarde pieces (Babitt basically admitted in that famous 1950s essay that technical, quasi-scientific exploration was paramount to him) and also etude-like pieces or the 1000s of fugues by Simon Sechter. Maybe also some of the more esoteric medieval/renaissance music with some symbolic message dominating.
Among well known pieces it would be more often that instrumental virtuosity gets too much in the foreground, such as Liszt opera paraphrases. I never heard any Sorabji (or if so, I don't remember) but I have the suspicion that some of his might also fall under this. Reger is another case were the music is highly respected but in many of his pieces there seems a bit of discrepancy between the technical mastery and enjoyment for listeners.


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## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

I think the amateurishness of Gershwin can be overrated but there are still a few bits which- they don't bother me, but in other contexts they might bother me more. The scattershot nature of Rhapsody is the obvious one but I also think one of the main themes of the Concerto in F starts with something like seven or eight repeated A-flats. This sounds entirely fine on a piano where the soloist can use rubato to add a lot of expressiveness to repeated notes however they want, but always sounds awkward when it gets passed back to the orchestra to play, who aren't able to play like a soloist would.

And despite this I wouldn't really change anything. Like most of Gershwin, it's great as it is.


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## progmatist (Apr 3, 2021)

Classical era pieces tend to be very difficult to play, with their blazing fast scale and arpeggio runs. But on the strength of the compositions themselves, the classical era remains the most simplistic of the stylistic eras.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

progmatist said:


> But on the strength of the compositions themselves, the classical era remains the most simplistic of the stylistic eras.


What do mean with "simplistic"? A Vivaldi concerto is usually more simplistic than one by Mozart and so are many 19th century virtuoso concerti...
And it's not really clear how this relates to the topic. Do you mean to suggest that Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven who set the models for another 100 or more years of sonatas, quartets, symphonies and were widely studied by later composers, especially string quartets, were technically deficient? 
It's rather the case that Bach and the 3 Viennese Classics were seen as the ones who operated in that "3" category above (although some Bach and Beethoven might get into 4...), the perfect balance between "form" and "content". This might have been a cliché, sure, but it was upheld by guys like Brahms who knew a bit about musical composition...


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Waehnen said:


> *1. Music which lacks in the technical aspects and is ruined by the bad compositional execution
> 
> 2. Music which lacks in the technical aspects but still creates a positive impact
> 
> ...


Interesting categories. One problem is defining precisely what's meant by "technical aspects." I also think that most of the quote-end-quote "great composers" were technically adept enough to suit their purposes, so I rarely find that any music is ruined by a lack of technical expertise. 

1. Again, can't think of many examples that are ruined solely by a lack of technical aspects. Tchaikovsky's sometimes clumsy handling of sonata form, or Chopin's awkward orchestral writing, etc. perhaps comes closest to me. 

2. I think the biggest example here was Mussorgsky. He lacked enough know-how that his much more learned contemporaries tried to "fix" him, but more than a century later stuff like Boris Godunov seem all the more modern and avant-garde because of their flouncing of common practice back then, and it certainly thrills in its most inspired moments. 

3. This is the realm of Mozart, Wagner, and Beethoven for me. Supreme technicians that also had a surfeit of inspiration. Too many examples to name. 

4. I think of most Alkan and Godowsky like this. Very technically adept and I enjoy their work but frequently the technique can overshadow the substance. 

5. Most Elliot Carter fits this category for me. I can sometimes hear what so impressed Stravinsky and many others, but even then it's usually in service of music that just isn't enjoyable. Not always, though: I really like some of Carter's early works like the Piano Sonata. 



Waehnen said:


> I once made a prog/art music album that was so complicated and heavy that only the most hardcore prog experts enjoyed it and praised it. But it is so very demanding to listen to even for myself and so I withdrew it. I had to get the music/technics out of my system but it is not for the public. Some people must have thought I was crazy. One song especially which was played on the radio is absolutely lunatic and me and my colleagues almost cannot believe something like that was created.


Would be very interested in hearing it myself! I'd consider myself a "hardcore prog expert" and enjoy must of what are typically considered the most technically challenging prog bands. Often insane technique can create its own kind of unique aesthetic that's attractive by nature of its extremity and oddness.


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## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Would be very interested in hearing it myself! I'd consider myself a "hardcore prog expert" and enjoy must of what are typically considered the most technically challenging prog bands. Often insane technique can create its own kind of unique aesthetic that's attractive by nature of its extremity and oddness.


It is not prog metal by any means, just some really artsy and freespirited eclectic music somewhere in the middle of classical, contemporary, rock (and maybe free jazz because of the alto saxophone improvisations being so prominent), which did not care the slightest for the listeners but formed a 50 minutes network of motives into which I poured all my compositional ambitions.

I might put a few tracks on youtube but I would have to do some remastering. It was the first (and last) time I mixed music myself, you know. I bite off more than I could chew 12 years ago.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Grofe's _Piano Concerto_ might fall between categories 4 and 5. At 15 minutes, its almost the length of a Liszt concerto, but it may have worked better as something shorter (e.g. something along the lines of Addinsell's _Warsaw Concerto_). I'm loathe to criticise music in this way since I'm not a musician, and I think that taken on his own terms, Grofe was a fine composer. I like his _Grand Canyon Suite_.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

progmatist said:


> Classical era pieces tend to be very difficult to play, with their blazing fast scale and arpeggio runs. But on the strength of the compositions themselves, the classical era remains the most simplistic of the stylistic eras.






(every Handel bass aria ever)




(every Romantic lied ever)


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

progmatist said:


> But on the strength of the compositions themselves, the classical era remains the most simplistic of the stylistic eras.


Give us examples of Vivaldi, Handel, Telemann pieces as dissonant as




(Symphony No. 31 in F Major, P. 22: III. Presto)




(Missa Sancti Hieronymi, MH 254: II. Gloria)


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## progmatist (Apr 3, 2021)

Yes, one can name random examples of simplistic baroque, romantic, and even modern pieces. But as a whole in general, I stand by my statement. During the classical era in general, they made it a point to rarely if ever go off key.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

progmatist said:


> Yes, one can name random examples of simplistic baroque, romantic, and even modern pieces. But as a whole in general, I stand by my statement.


But the videos I posted in #15 (especially the first one) don't just caricature "random examples of simplistic" things. And I'm still waiting for a proper answer for #16, in terms of gradations of dynamics, rhythm, harmony, form (treatment of thematic materials), mood changes within a movement.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Waehnen said:


> It is not prog metal by any means, just some really artsy and freespirited eclectic music somewhere in the middle of classical, contemporary, rock (and maybe free jazz because of the alto saxophone improvisations being so prominent), which did not care the slightest for the listeners but formed a 50 minutes network of motives into which I poured all my compositional ambitions.
> 
> I might put a few tracks on youtube but I would have to do some remastering. It was the first (and last) time I mixed music myself, you know. I bite off more than I could chew 12 years ago.


It just sounds more intriguing the more you describe it.


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