# Why does conservatism matter?



## kanishknishar (Aug 10, 2015)

I read reviews of Saint-Saens' works and he's accused of being a conservative and that somehow makes him music... worse? Why do we care? It was composed over a hundred years ago. Who listens to a comoser and thinks that this was composed in early 20th century but man it's sounds utterly mid-19th century. And... so? Why did the critics of Saint-Saens' time care if his music was old-fashioned? What matters is if the music was engaging.

Same for Kabalevsky being called 'old-fashioned'... I heard his First Cello Concerto -- isn't it great music?


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## Thomyum2 (Apr 18, 2018)

I agree with you in that whether or not a composer or piece of music is 'conservative', in and of itself, really doesn't have much bearing on what experience you will have with the music or whether you might or might not find the music to be 'great' (a term which is subject to considerable debate on this forum, incidentally).

Not having read the article you mention, it's hard to comment much on what they were getting at, but my suspicion is that this could have been a way of saying that Saint-Saens, while being a very accomplished composer, was less inventive or innovative than some of the composers usually named as the top-tier or 'great' composers who, due to those innovations, had a more significant contribution to the development of music. Again, it makes little difference to whether or how much anyone might enjoy a piece, but some people do evaluate a composer not just solely on the merits of a work, but also in the context of the broader picture of the history of music and that composer's role in it. And I suspect Saint-Saens might have agreed with this writer's assessment of his music actually, as I've read that Saint-Saens once said _"I am first among composers of the second rank." _


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Thomyum2 said:


> I suspect Saint-Saens might have agreed with this writer's assessment of his music actually, as I've read that Saint-Saens once said _"I am first among composers of the second rank." _


Then presumably Richard Strauss plagiarized Saint-Saens when he said, "I may not be a first-rate composer, but I am a first-class second-rate composer."

Which, if you think about it, is kind of a second-rate thing to do.


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## Madiel (Apr 25, 2018)

Conservatism, old-fashioned or derivative they all stand for lack of originality.
The ability to innovate/renew the technique of an art form has always been a fundamental trait we use to define great art, this is true for every art form, a painting by Titian is worth a crazy amount of money, but what would be worth a painting à la Titian painted today? they only have value in the certified copies market, and they are worth pennies when compared to the originals.
Alas nowadays classical music lives a deeply conservative phase, most listeners and concertgoers have very conservative tastes (concert programs and recordings releases prove it) so I guess you can enjoy your Kabalevsky without shame :devil:

P.S.: The funny thing is that Saint-Saens wasn't a conservative composer at all, alas stereotypes are hard to die, as a fact Saint-Sains works present in nuce many elements - the attention to the masters of the baroque and pre-baroque eras or to the musical traditions of non-european cultures - which will constitute the essential traits of every 20th century respectable composer.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Artists should do whatever they want to do, unless they're being paid to do what a patron wants them to do, and audiences can enjoy whatever we want to enjoy. No more "we must drive forward relentlessly into the future" nonsense. Inevitably, someone who's innovative will probably be remembered more reverently than an equally talented artist who isn't, because future artists will be influenced by innovative work, but that doesn't need to matter to anyone who doesn't care about it.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Herrenvolk said:


> I read reviews of Saint-Saens' works and he's accused of being a conservative and that somehow makes him music... worse? Why do we care? It was composed over a hundred years ago. Who listens to a comoser and thinks that this was composed in early 20th century but man it's sounds utterly mid-19th century. And... so? Why did the critics of Saint-Saens' time care if his music was old-fashioned? What matters is if the music was engaging.
> 
> Same for Kabalevsky being called 'old-fashioned'... I heard his First Cello Concerto -- isn't it great music?


This is a difficult one for me. I'm probably going to upset some people.

But, firstly, let me agree. Of course, conservatism in music doesn't matter. Bach was a conservative! Or, to come forward to more recent times, Sibelius was a conservative. These are gods among composers. Some other gods were, perhaps, more radical. Perhaps (I am conscious that I don't know enough to be sure of my ground here) Beethoven and Wagner are examples and Bartok and Stravinsky. But I am not sure that Saint-Seans' music, although some of it is very good is in the same class as these gods. And, to my ear Kabalevsky's music is merely pleasant. Nothing wrong with that - and I do like his 1st Cello Concerto well enough - but it is maybe not a good example of why conservatism doesn't matter because in the end is it not a slight piece which cannot bear repeated hearings over the decades?

I know, I know - let's not have another thread about ranking composers and objective judgements in art! All I am doing is expressing my own feelings about the worth of music. But I do think we can find plenty of more universally praised conservative composers.


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## Dima (Oct 3, 2016)

Enthusiast said:


> This is a difficult one for me. I'm probably going to upset some people.
> 
> But, firstly, let me agree. Of course, conservatism in music doesn't matter. Bach was a conservative! Or, to come forward to more recent times, Sibelius was a conservative. These are gods among composers. Some other gods were, perhaps, more radical. Perhaps (I am conscious that I don't know enough to be sure of my ground here) Beethoven and Wagner are examples and Bartok and Stravinsky. But I am not sure that Saint-Seans' music, although some of it is very good is in the same class as these gods. And, to my ear Kabalevsky's music is merely pleasant. Nothing wrong with that - and I do like his 1st Cello Concerto well enough - but it is maybe not a good example of why conservatism doesn't matter because in the end is it not a slight piece which cannot bear repeated hearings over the decades?
> 
> I know, I know - let's not have another thread about ranking composers and objective judgements in art! All I am doing is expressing my own feelings about the worth of music. But I do think we can find plenty of more universally praised conservative composers.


Enthusiast, different people have different Gods, and everybody think that his God is God of Gods.
The same is with music Gods. There are people who believe in composer1, composer2 and so on. 
Classical music community mostly is like very concervative sect, which trust in ..., and do not trust in ... . 
And I'm probably will upset you ... music of Saint-Saens is may be one of the greatest that can be found in all music.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Madiel said:


> *Conservatism, old-fashioned or derivative they all stand for lack of originality.*
> The ability to innovate/renew the technique of an art form has always been a fundamental trait we use to define great art, this is true for every art form, a painting by Titian is worth a crazy amount of money, but what would be worth a painting à la Titian painted today? they only have value in the certified copies market, and they are worth pennies when compared to the originals.
> *Alas nowadays classical music lives a deeply conservative phase, most listeners and concertgoers have very conservative tastes (concert programs and recordings releases prove it) so I guess you can enjoy your Kabalevsky without shame* :devil:


It's Modernist ideological bias, typical of a 20th-century way of thinking about art, to equate conservatism with lack of originality. Conservative composers have by no means necessarily been old-fashioned or derivative.

The question of "conservatism" first became culturally important in the mid-19th century with the Brahms v. Wagner business. Musical conservatives then were fighting for something of positive value and importance, as they saw it; they really wanted to conserve certain well-established aesthetic values which they saw as threatened. They found their champion in Brahms, whose music was fresh and original even while it utilized traditional forms and techniques, which despite the challenge of the musical progressives were still fundamental to every composer's education, understood by listeners, and not obsolete or about to go away.

It was only when innovation and modernity came to be valued for their own sake that "conservative" became a synonym for unoriginal and outmoded. With new movements coming thick and fast in the 20th century, composers who didn't want to "keep up" began to sound, at least to the casual ear, like relics of an earlier time, seemingly justifying the contempt of the Modernists. Rene Leibwitz famously called the extraordinarily original Sibelius "the worst composer in the world," and music as distinctive as Rachmaninoff's was dismissed as "popular" and couldn't even get a respectful paragraph in Grove's.

With Modernism now itself a historical phenomenon, and a lot of mid-century serialism (for example) sounding dated to many of us (and never having been listened to at all by the majority of music lovers), conservatism isn't what it was in the time of Brahms and Wagner, or even Sibelius and Schoenberg. It exists in a context of general eclecticism, it isn't a cause or movement, and it upholds no specific musical characteristics or ideals which it seeks to "conserve." Where modernism is no longer a thing, conservatism isn't one either, and the value judgments implied in a word like "derivative" are not worth making. Music is either effective and agreeable to listeners or it isn't. Nothing else matters.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Madiel said:


> P.S.: The funny thing is that Saint-Saens wasn't a conservative composer at all, alas stereotypes are hard to die, as a fact Saint-Sains works present in nuce many elements - the attention to the masters of the baroque and pre-baroque eras or to the musical traditions of non-european cultures - which will constitute the essential traits of every 20th century respectable composer.


Well he wasn't as a young man and when he was in his prime, but later he became so. He was apparently critical of new developments, which happens a lot. It probably means conservatism isn't always the best methodology for discovery.


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## Dima (Oct 3, 2016)

In my view progressive music (modernism) is interesting, but never as good as concervative music (traditional). 
Modernism like fashion is very unstable condition.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Dima said:


> In my view progressive music (modern) is interesting, but never as good as concervative music (traditional).
> *Modernism like fashion is very unstable condition*.


I would agree with you, yet I would also say that this is it's strength as well. It isn't bound by tradition or rules (not always) and can tread everywhere rather just carefully.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

Sibelius a conservative? I don't think so, and many will agree.

Btw, Kabalevsky wrote some tragic, edgy works. The 2nd cello concerto is very different from the 1st in that respect.


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## Dima (Oct 3, 2016)

eugeneonagain said:


> I would agree with you, yet I would also say that this is it's strength as well. It isn't bound by tradition or rules (not always) and can tread everywhere rather just carefully.


In Prokofiev's diary the composer put a big poetic caricature on himself written by one of his fellows.
I always smile in this place (in my translation from russian):
"Prokofiev is a good compositor
It's a pity for the ears only incvisitor".


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Dima said:


> Enthusiast, different people have different Gods, and everybody think that his God is God of Gods.
> The same is with music Gods. There are people who believe in composer1, composer2 and so on.
> Classical music community mostly is like very concervative sect, which trust in ..., and do not trust in ... .
> And I'm probably will upset you ... music of Saint-Saens is may be one of the greatest that can be found in all music.


Well, I'm not upset! And I didn't really want to trash Saint-Saens. I like lots of his music and I know there are lots of people who like it more than I do! But I am even more moved and my brain chemistry is even more excited by the other composers I named. But, no issue, I used my gods (I think most classical fans will recognise them as gods) to support the OP, which I think you agree with, too.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Dima said:


> In my view progressive music (modernism) is interesting, but never as good as concervative music (traditional).
> Modernism like fashion is very unstable condition.


I may have once felt the same a long time ago. I thought the old masters were on a whole different level to music composed after 1910. What can I say? I was very very wrong.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

joen_cph said:


> Sibelius a conservative? I don't think so, and many will agree.
> 
> Btw, Kabalevsky wrote some tragic, edgy works. The 2nd cello concerto is very different from the 1st in that respect.


Thanks for the news about Kabalevsky. As you guessed, I sort of gave up after hearing and liking his merely pleasant works. I didn't think there would be more there. Now I will have to explore a bit more.

But you don't think Sibelius was a conservative? I used him as an example for how a really great composer - one of the greatest ever - could still be _relatively _conservative. I also included Bach in that category. Neither was at all derivative but they used relatively established musical language to produce music of stunning originality. They took what was there further. Now I have explained myself a little more, I wonder whether you still disagree? Fair enough if you do!

I think an argument could be made that it is the conservatives in music who produce the greatest music, following on from and building on the music of the revolutionaries (who changed music). It isn't a view I hold but it is not that easy to argue against.


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## Dima (Oct 3, 2016)

Enthusiast said:


> I may have once felt the same a long time ago. I thought the old masters were on a whole different level to music composed after 1910. What can I say? I was very very wrong.


It is not the same what I mean. The date of composition does not matter me. I compare expiremental music vs traditional even today. In our country even festival of modern music prefer to name as festival of modern traditional music, because
people after long time of experiments are tired of them.


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## Madiel (Apr 25, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> Music is either effective and agreeable to listeners or it isn't. Nothing else matters.


every genre of music is "effective and agreeable" to some listeners, what matters then?
how do you conduct a musical discourse? according to the number of "likes" facebook style? I see no other way.
The need of artistic innovation is not a 20th century idea, in my previous post I have used painting as a well-known example of it. The career of some composers - Beethoven being the foremost example I'd say, quite obviously - exhibits the full extent of their need to evolve, the career of most listeners exhibits the full extent of their laziness, nothing wrong with that, nobody intends to deny you your comfort zone, but please don't try to falsify art history.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Madiel said:


> Conservatism, old-fashioned or derivative they all stand for lack of originality.
> *The ability to innovate/renew the technique of an art form has always been a fundamental trait we use to define great art,* this is true for every art form, a painting by Titian is worth a crazy amount of money, but what would be worth a painting à la Titian painted today? they only have value in the certified copies market, and they are worth pennies when compared to the originals.
> Alas nowadays classical music lives a deeply conservative phase, most listeners and concertgoers have very conservative tastes (concert programs and recordings releases prove it) so I guess you can enjoy your Kabalevsky without shame :devil:
> 
> P.S.: The funny thing is that Saint-Saens wasn't a conservative composer at all, alas stereotypes are hard to die, as a fact Saint-Sains works present in nuce many elements - the attention to the masters of the baroque and pre-baroque eras or to the musical traditions of non-european cultures - which will constitute the essential traits of every 20th century respectable composer.


I agree but to become great art it also has to communicate with an audience. The problem is that most music written today does not communicate. Frankly at the fearful din of some modernist composers, all I want to do is turn the thing off. It's not good enough accusing people of being 'conservative' if the music is not listenable. Music is supposed to be enjoyed, to uplift the soul. If it makes us desperately seek earplugs then it does not fulfil its mission and is not great music however innovative


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## arnerich (Aug 19, 2016)

Conservative, radical, all that matters is whether a piece has inspiration. I composed a symphony in the spirit of Beethoven for no other reason than I was inspired to. It was an invaluable experience for me as a composer and when I perform the piano arrangement of it in concerts it really seems to connect with audiences. And at the end of the day that's the most important thing.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

DavidA said:


> I agree but to become great art it also has to communicate with an audience. The problem is that most music written today does not communicate. Frankly at the fearful din of some modernist composers, all I want to do is turn the thing off. It's not good enough accusing people of being 'conservative' if the music is not listenable. Music is supposed to be enjoyed, to uplift the soul. If it makes us desperately seek earplugs then it does not fulfil its mission and is not great music however innovative


That's how you hear it, but there are others on TC who do feel that modernist music communicates to them. It doesn't make them seek earplugs; it makes them seek more modernist music.


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

As I've said, numerous times on here, you either like summat or you don't. I don't care whether it's old, new, conservative, trivial or whatever. If i like a piece of music thats all I need. Sod what anyone else thinks.


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## Thomyum2 (Apr 18, 2018)

But if liking is composition is all that matters, you're missing the point and missing out on the wonder of understanding music in context - there's so much more to learning about music than just enjoying it. 

Saint-Saens actually offers us an excellent real-life example that we can look at to illustrate this, in the Second Piano Concerto, one of his most popular works. The form of the concerto mirrors Beethoven's 'Moonlight' Sonata by dropping the traditional sonata first-movement, starting the work with a slow movement, then a scherzo, and ending with a fast sonata. This form contributes to the great character of both of these pieces. And although anyone has the right to have a preference for the Saint-Saens or the Beethoven (I do myself), but just based on chronology alone, there's no way to deny that this was Beethoven's invention and that is to his credit. I don't think this fact diminishes Saint-Saens at all, but the concerto might not even exist in this form had it not been for Beethoven's boldness and willingness to break the rules and do something different.


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## Dima (Oct 3, 2016)

arnerich said:


> Conservative, radical, all that matters is whether a piece has inspiration. I composed a symphony in the spirit of Beethoven for no other reason than I was inspired to. It was an invaluable experience for me as a composer and when I perform the piano arrangement of it in concerts it really seems to connect with audiences. And at the end of the day that's the most important thing.


Entertaining, I wish you success in future composing. 
But by this opus it is difficult to interest me in the music even if you tell that the author of the symphony is Beethoven.
I wish you compose not in the spirit of Beethoven, but inspired as Beethoven when writing some great opus


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## Dima (Oct 3, 2016)

Thomyum2 said:


> And although anyone has the right to have a preference for the Saint-Saens or the Beethoven (I do myself), but just based on chronology alone, there's no way to deny that this was Beethoven's invention and that is to his credit. I don't think this fact diminishes Saint-Saens at all, but the concerto might not even exist in this form had it not been for Beethoven's boldness and willingness to break the rules and do something different.


In historical view the very first composer was the major composer of the world. Before Beethoven was Mozart and so on... what will you say and prefer if I tell that Beethoven's 1-4 piano concertos are in fact clones of Mozart music?


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## Euler (Dec 3, 2017)

Thomyum2 said:


> Saint-Saens actually offers us an excellent real-life example that we can look at to illustrate this, in the Second Piano Concerto, one of his most popular works. The form of the concerto mirrors Beethoven's 'Moonlight' Sonata by dropping the traditional sonata first-movement, starting the work with a slow movement, then a scherzo, and ending with a fast sonata. This form contributes to the great character of both of these pieces. And although anyone has the right to have a preference for the Saint-Saens or the Beethoven (I do myself), but just based on chronology alone, there's no way to deny that this was Beethoven's invention and that is to his credit. I don't think this fact diminishes Saint-Saens at all, but the concerto might not even exist in this form had it not been for Beethoven's boldness and willingness to break the rules and do something different.


Slow-fast-faster was the schema of choice for sonatas in Padua and Berlin during the late Baroque/early Classical, see Tartini, Quantz, Graun, some C.P.E. Bach. Certainly not Beethoven's invention.


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## Euler (Dec 3, 2017)

Thomyum2 said:


> Saint-Saens actually offers us an excellent real-life example that we can look at to illustrate this, in the Second Piano Concerto, one of his most popular works. The form of the concerto mirrors Beethoven's 'Moonlight' Sonata by dropping the traditional sonata first-movement, starting the work with a slow movement, then a scherzo, and ending with a fast sonata. This form contributes to the great character of both of these pieces. And although anyone has the right to have a preference for the Saint-Saens or the Beethoven (I do myself), but just based on chronology alone, there's no way to deny that this was Beethoven's invention and that is to his credit. I don't think this fact diminishes Saint-Saens at all, but the concerto might not even exist in this form had it not been for Beethoven's boldness and willingness to break the rules and do something different.


Slow-fast-faster was the schema of choice for sonatas in Padua and Berlin during the late Baroque/early Classical, see Tartini, Quantz, Graun, some C.P.E. Bach. Certainly not Beethoven's invention.


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## BiscuityBoyle (Feb 5, 2018)

In the case of Saint-Saens the context is important, namely Parisian fin de siècle aesthetics, where the stated project of the most important composer of the day was freeing French music from what he saw as the tyranny of German forms (which Saint-Saens enthusiastically embraced). Indeed, if you compare Saint-Saens's music to Debussy's, you hear the vast difference in every metric - harmony, rhythm, structure, instrumentation etc. Moreover, some of Debussy's music (Jeux and the etudes, for example) still sounds pretty challenging to this day, which you cannot say about Saint-Saens (some of whose music I like a lot btw).


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## Guest (May 29, 2018)

Thomyum2 said:


> I agree with you in that whether or not a composer or piece of music is 'conservative', in and of itself, really doesn't have much bearing on what experience you will have with the music or whether you might or might not find the music to be 'great' (a term which is subject to considerable debate on this forum, incidentally).
> 
> Not having read the article you mention, it's hard to comment much on what they were getting at, but my suspicion is that this could have been a way of saying that Saint-Saens, while being a very accomplished composer, was less inventive or innovative than some of the composers usually named as the top-tier or 'great' composers who, due to those innovations, had a more significant contribution to the development of music. Again, it makes little difference to whether or how much anyone might enjoy a piece, but some people do evaluate a composer not just solely on the merits of a work, but also in the context of the broader picture of the history of music and that composer's role in it. And I suspect Saint-Saens might have agreed with this writer's assessment of his music actually, as I've read that Saint-Saens once said _"I am first among composers of the second rank." _


Not *first* so much.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Madiel said:


> every genre of music is "effective and agreeable" to some listeners, what matters then?
> *how do you conduct a musical discourse? according to the number of "likes" facebook style?* I see no other way.
> *The need of artistic innovation* is not a 20th century idea, in my previous post I have used painting as a well-known example of it. The career of some composers - Beethoven being the foremost example I'd say, quite obviously - exhibits the full extent of their need to evolve, *the career of most listeners exhibits the full extent of their laziness,* nothing wrong with that, *nobody intends to deny you your comfort zone*, but please *don't try to falsify art history.*




I don't know whose ideas you're responding to here, but it sure isn't mine. What, in anything I've said, reduces "musical discourse" to a a tally of "likes" ?

The "need for innovation" is a phrase loaded with assumptions, and yours are debatable. The creative impulse tends to seek out the new by its nature; most artists want to do more than recycle the ideas of others. But many factors, cultural and personal, determine how innovative an artist's work will be. The Modernist attitude that art must be groundbreaking and shock the bourgeoisie is peculiarly modern and Western. Besides, how much originality of style is sufficient to make art "innovative"? Does that question have an answer, or even require one? Why worry about it? From the accurate observation that the greatest artists of an age are typically more innovative than their less imaginative contemporaries, we cannot deduce that more conservative artists cannot produce art of high quality, whether or not it's art of the greatest "historical" importance.

As for "falsifying art history," I'm fully conscious of the scope of art history, with respect not only to Western culture but also to less "progressive," more traditional cultures, in which artists are less preoccupied with making unique personal statements and are honored to uphold revered traditions and express timeless values. The history of painting in China provides ample evidence that such variation in the pace of artistic change is not necessarily a predictor of excellence. If you fail to take such cultural differences into account, the falsification of history will be yours.

I'd also suggest caution in calling listeners "lazy" and sneering about their "comfort zone." Composers and listeners who decline to jump on the latest stylistic bandwagon are not _ipso facto_ lazy, and reflexively labeling them that is just more stale Modernist attitude. A listener who dislikes Sciarrino or Xenakis may be lazy, or he may simply be unable to get any pleasure out of what he's hearing no matter how many times he hears it.


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## Guest (May 29, 2018)

Enthusiast said:


> I may have once felt the same a long time ago. I thought the old masters were on a whole different level to music composed after 1910. What can I say? I was very very wrong.


I always regard Mozart as terribly conservative. It took someone like Beethoven to explode all of that!!


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Mozart "terribly conservative"? I always thought he could blow the roof off when he wanted to. He just didn't always want to. But when he did, he did it with power, elegance, and class. It meant something and wasn't just a recurring temper tantrum over a handful of change. How quickly people forget that Mozart could all-out explode, storm and rage furiously like Haydn or Beethoven, and without being habitual or crude about it. Mozart was never conservative, IMO, except that he would never use one note too many if he could avoid it. He was consistently innovative with flashes of genius and free musically and philosophically.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

So was moving away from the Harpsichord to the Piano a mistake?


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Well, there's nothing wrong with innovation either. Trying to be revolutionary is at least as good as not. 

I don't think we should have to say these things so often.


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## Spawnofsatan (Aug 5, 2016)

It means what it means, it could be both a positive and a negative.


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## Spawnofsatan (Aug 5, 2016)

Madiel said:


> every genre of music is "effective and agreeable" to some listeners, what matters then?
> how do you conduct a musical discourse? according to the number of "likes" facebook style? I see no other way.


It's intellectualism. Music and art can be talked about in great detail but it is important to realize that it ultimately comes back to the listener and nobody else. Art is subjective, it's not an unknown fact.


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

Madiel said:


> Conservatism, old-fashioned or derivative they all stand for lack of originality.
> The ability to innovate/renew the technique of an art form has always been a fundamental trait we use to define great art, this is true for every art form, a painting by Titian is worth a crazy amount of money, but what would be worth a painting à la Titian painted today? they only have value in the certified copies market, and they are worth pennies when compared to the originals.
> Alas nowadays classical music lives a deeply conservative phase, most listeners and concertgoers have very conservative tastes (concert programs and recordings releases prove it) so I guess you can enjoy your Kabalevsky without shame :devil:
> 
> P.S.: The funny thing is that Saint-Saens wasn't a conservative composer at all, alas stereotypes are hard to die, as a fact Saint-Sains works present in nuce many elements - the attention to the masters of the baroque and pre-baroque eras or to the musical traditions of non-european cultures - which will constitute the essential traits of every 20th century respectable composer.


JS Bach was considered a conservative Composer in that he was adhering to old forms and not embracing the newest styles. Same with Brahms. Ralph Vaughn Williams as well.
Conservative doesn't equate with low quality. Saint Saens, otoh...


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Triplets said:


> JS Bach was considered a conservative Composer in that he was adhering to old forms and not embracing the newest styles. Same with Brahms. Ralph Vaughn Williams as well.
> Conservative doesn't equate with low quality. Saint Saens, otoh...


"It is one's duty to hate with all possible fervor the empty and ugly in art; and I hate Saint-Saëns the composer with a hate that is perfect." -- J. F. Runciman, 1896


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

Enthusiast said:


> Thanks for the news about Kabalevsky. As you guessed, I sort of gave up after hearing and liking his merely pleasant works. I didn't think there would be more there. Now I will have to explore a bit more.
> 
> *But you don't think Sibelius was a conservative?* I used him as an example for how a really great composer - one of the greatest ever - could still be _relatively _conservative. I also included Bach in that category. Neither was at all derivative but they used relatively established musical language to produce music of stunning originality. They took what was there further. Now I have explained myself a little more, I wonder whether you still disagree? Fair enough if you do!
> 
> I think an argument could be made that it is the conservatives in music who produce the greatest music, following on from and building on the music of the revolutionaries (who changed music). It isn't a view I hold but it is not that easy to argue against.


There´s a lot of discussion about Sibelius´ style and its content, generally a lot of writers identify a renewed interest in him as an innovator in the recent decades. I´ll mention just a few points from browsing a bit in some articles/discussions by well-known writers and conductors:

1) the stylistic variation and progress in Sibelius´ symphonies is of a rare kind; the ardent Sibelius´ fan Per Nørgård´s multi-facetted symphonies form one of the examples of a similar ongoing renewal in style, and Nørgård has stated that Sibelius opened his eyes for the possibility of stylistic variation from one work to even the next work.

2) the brutality of some of the works, including a bunch of the early pieces, can even be seen as that of a adventurous iconoclast.

3) strange instrumental and melodic features of Tapiola and the 5th symphony can be said to invoke later trends found in Xenakis and Ligeti.

4) symphonies 6 and 7 in particular imply a lot of innovation and underlying principles that pointed forward. Some of his ideas seem to be only gradually better understood nowadays, and they continue to inspire composers.

5) for Holmboe, Sibelius was a major influence in the creation of his Metamorphosis Technique - the continued organic, musical development, based on little cells. 
I´m sure that a lot of cases of inspiration given to other contemporary composers can be found.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

joen_cph said:


> There´s a lot of discussion about Sibelius´ style and its content, generally a lot of writers identify a renewed interest in him as an innovator in the recent decades. I´ll mention just a few points from browsing a bit in some articles/discussions by well-known writers and conductors:
> 
> 1) the stylistic variation and progress in Sibelius´ symphonies is of a rare kind; the ardent Sibelius´ fan Per Nørgård´s multi-facetted symphonies form one of the examples of a similar ongoing renewal in style, and Nørgård has stated that Sibelius opened his eyes for the possibility of stylistic variation from one work to even the next work.
> 
> ...


I'm not sure that we are disagreeing! I did not say and do not think that Sibelius was not innovative and did not move things forward. Clearly as a great composer he was. But I did say that he was a relatively conservative composer (compared to what the avant garde of his day were doing). That he may have influenced the avant garde in some respects also doesn't demonstrate otherwise. Much avant garde music still shows the influence of "the past", even while they break with it overall.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

The core of the matter is probably to what extent his techniques of organic musical developments, and the various instrumental effects and ongoings, are original and innovative. They surely seem to have been that.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

joen_cph said:


> The core of the matter is probably to what extent his techniques of organic musical developments, and the various instrumental effects and ongoings, are original and innovative. They surely seem to have been that.


Would that there were more composers that could achieve the sort of organic unity on display in the seventh symphony. It remains a delight to experience it at every listen. So too the fifth.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

joen_cph said:


> The core of the matter is probably to what extent his techniques of organic musical developments, and the various instrumental effects and ongoings, are original and innovative. They surely seem to have been that.


To me all great music must be innovative in some way, it must push at the boundaries to give us something meaningful and new. But conservatism to me does not mean lacking innovation. It merely means being able to work (and ideally to innovate) more or less within the current or accepted "paradigm". Perhaps I am using the term differently to some others?

But if conservatism merely means "to be unoriginal, to lack a distinctive voice and to be simply derivative" then surely conservatism would have to be seen as something that could not produce great art? In such a view conservatism would be rather like craftsmanship. We would probably not need the word conservatism in that case! Certainly, I use the word to mean much more than that.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

> To me all great music must be innovative in some way, it must push at the boundaries to give us something meaningful and new


then it is hard to fathom how you can like Mozart. Mozart did little to nothing to develop music. There is practically nothing new or of interest that could be ascribed to him. Bach, on the other hand, married the contrapuntal-imitative tradition with the newly emerging diatonic-homophonic style, and even composed in every imaginable key-a complete novelty at the time. Both Haydn and Beethoven came up with substantial innovations and developments in both form and style. Mozart contributed nothing new.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Jacck said:


> then it is hard to fathom how you can like Mozart. Mozart did little to nothing to develop music. There is practically nothing new or of interest that could be ascribed to him. Bach, on the other hand, married the contrapuntal-imitative tradition with the newly emerging diatonic-homophonic style, and even composed in every imaginable key-a complete novelty at the time. Both Haydn and Beethoven came up with substantial innovations and developments in both form and style. Mozart contributed nothing new.


Now watch the thread spiral out of control.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Jacck said:


> then it is hard to fathom how you can like Mozart. Mozart did little to nothing to develop music. There is practically nothing new or of interest that could be ascribed to him. Bach, on the other hand, married the contrapuntal-imitative tradition with the newly emerging diatonic-homophonic style, and even composed in every imaginable key-a complete novelty at the time. Both Haydn and Beethoven came up with substantial innovations and developments in both form and style. Mozart contributed nothing new.


I'll not take it out of control but am aghast at your opinion. I'll leave it to others to argue this as I think you and I have probably discussed it enough for me to be sure we could not agree on it!


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## Gallus (Feb 8, 2018)

When I look at the history of music it doesn't seem to me that the greatest composers were the most innovative ones (or vice versa). In fact I think there's sometimes a tendency to read music history through the lens of the Great Composers, and by ignoring their contemporaries people assume that what these Great Men were doing was unique to that period, giving their genius the credit for the inventions of others. So Beethoven gets credit for the innovations of his piano sonatas while the "Father of the Piano" Clementi gets consigned to the dustbin of history, yet if innovation were the highest criterion of greatness we should be extolling the latter's work as one of genius. Likewise, Monteverdi certainly didn't invent opera or basso continuo or monody as opposed to polyphony, he took these innovations from Peri, Caccini and others, yet to many people Monteverdi greatness rests in part on his reputation as the 'innovator' who marks the beginning of the baroque. But what to me makes Monteverdi great isn't his 'innovation' per se, but that he took on the innovations of others and gave them a greater artistic substance. Innovation in and of itself is irrelevant if the music you're writing isn't any good. And I could make the same point for others such as Josquin, who is generally the most highly-regarded composer of the renaissance yet far from the most innovative, Mozart, Bach etc., who also were fundamentally the perfection of well-established styles rather than 'progressive' composers.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Bulldog said:


> That's how you hear it, but there are others on TC who do feel that modernist music communicates to them. *It doesn't make them seek earplugs*; it makes them seek more modernist music.


Fine. Just that it makes ME seek earplugs. That's what worries me! Doesn't matter to me whether other people find filing granite pleasant. Just I don't


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Christabel said:


> I always regard Mozart as terribly conservative. It took someone like Beethoven to explode all of that!!


Yeah. Rembrandt was conservative too! :lol:


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Jacck said:


> then it is hard to fathom how you can like Mozart. Mozart did little to nothing to develop music. There is practically nothing new or of interest that could be ascribed to him. Bach, on the other hand, married the contrapuntal-imitative tradition with the newly emerging diatonic-homophonic style, and even composed in every imaginable key-a complete novelty at the time. Both Haydn and Beethoven came up with substantial innovations and developments in both form and style. *Mozart contributed nothing new.*


Ah someone else who hasn't listened to the operas from Figaro onwards. Or the late piano concertos, or the last three symphonies...........................


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Jacck said:


> then it is hard to fathom how you can like Mozart. Mozart did little to nothing to develop music. There is practically nothing new or of interest that could be ascribed to him. Bach, on the other hand, married the contrapuntal-imitative tradition with the newly emerging diatonic-homophonic style, and even composed in every imaginable key-a complete novelty at the time. Both Haydn and Beethoven came up with substantial innovations and developments in both form and style. Mozart contributed nothing new.


This might come as a shock, but the famous fugue composer Johann Sebastian Bach shaped his own works after those of Johann Jakob Froberger, Johann Pachelbel, Girolamo Frescobaldi, Dieterich Buxtehude and others. For instance, he did not invent the fugue but is known as someone who raised it to a high art and taught others how to do it. The English term fugue originated in the 16th century and is derived from the French word _fugue_ or the Italian _fuga_. Unfortunately, it's simply not possible to convince Mozart's stubborn critics that the substance within a form is just as important as the form itself, if not even more important.

Mozart invented his own form in some of his fantasies. They weren't conventional works and are full of genius that have never been duplicated. Nevertheless, his critics who can't possibly understand him as much as somebody who actually enjoys him and penetrates deeply into his works, will continue to paint themselves into a corner into indefensible positions that he contributed nothing innovated or substantial to music-and this clearly is a misrepresentation of his inventiveness, originality, and genius.



> Mozart's Fantasia in C minor, K. 475. The Fantasia serves as an introduction to the sonata, its improvisatory character placing the structural weight upon the sonata itself.
> 
> The Fantasia is one of very few works Mozart composed in C minor during his years in Vienna. Because of the formal freedom traditionally associated with such pieces, the composer was able to produce in the Fantasia a notably expressive example of keyboard music; in contrast to the prescriptions of traditional forms, the Fantasia instead draws upon Mozart's intuition and supreme sensitivity as a composer and pianist.
> 
> ...


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Gallus said:


> When I look at the history of music it doesn't seem to me that the greatest composers were the most innovative ones (or vice versa). In fact I think there's sometimes a tendency to read music history through the lens of the Great Composers, and by ignoring their contemporaries people assume that what these Great Men were doing was unique to that period, giving their genius the credit for the inventions of others. So Beethoven gets credit for the innovations of his piano sonatas while the "Father of the Piano" Clementi gets consigned to the dustbin of history, yet if innovation were the highest criterion of greatness we should be extolling the latter's work as one of genius. Likewise, Monteverdi certainly didn't invent opera or basso continuo or monody as opposed to polyphony, he took these innovations from Peri, Caccini and others, yet to many people Monteverdi greatness rests in part on his reputation as the 'innovator' who marks the beginning of the baroque. But what to me makes Monteverdi great isn't his 'innovation' per se, but that he took on the innovations of others and gave them a greater artistic substance. Innovation in and of itself is irrelevant if the music you're writing isn't any good. And I could make the same point for others such as Josquin, who is generally the most highly-regarded composer of the renaissance yet far from the most innovative, Mozart, Bach etc., who also were fundamentally the perfection of well-established styles rather than 'progressive' composers.


I would only add to this that the ability to take the modest, tentative or half-formed ideas of others and find in them the raw material for a powerful, mature style is one of the marks of high-order creative genius, and that the resulting synthesis will probably be so distinctive as to amount to innovation in itself - will be, in fact, the kind of innovation that matters most. Those concerned that art be innovative should consider that meaningful innovation is best achieved by composers who are alert to the new, but who in the quest for something greater than novelty can easily absorb and transform what they hear around them into something unimaginable to lesser minds. I've seen Wagner described as one the least original of the great composers. But _Tristan und Isolde,_ by showing what the chromaticism of Spohr and Weber and Chopin and Liszt could do when concentrated in a work of unprecedented scale and intensity, changed the face of music.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

<<then it is hard to fathom how you can like Mozart. Mozart did little to nothing to develop music.>>

Just so you know, Mozart was the first composer to begin a symphony with woodwinds, the first to incorporate marches into operas, the first to fully develop the piano concerto. He wrote fully formed sacred choral works at age 11 that transcended anything written up to the time, wrote operas in German instead of the prevailing Italian language of the time, and did many other innovations in opera never done before. His Symphony 41 incorporates every theme used in the first three movements in the finale, something no one had ever done previously.

If you doubt any of this listen to everyone that composed before Mozart, then listen to him. Forget everyone that came after him; they all benefited from his innovations. The greatest romantic composers, including Tchaikovsky and Richard Strauss, revered Mozart and copied his forms in the next century. Even Beethoven started out copying Mozart in his early symphonies, chamber music and piano concertos.

Your idea that he is conservative and did nothing to develop music says it all about you and nothing about Mozart, who is the most revered, copied and beloved composer in history by other composers.


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## Thomyum2 (Apr 18, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> I would only add to this that the ability to take the modest, tentative or half-formed ideas of others and find in them the raw material for a powerful, mature style is one of the marks of high-order creative genius, and that the resulting synthesis will probably be so distinctive as to amount to innovation in itself - will be, in fact, the kind of innovation that matters most. Those concerned that art be innovative should consider that meaningful innovation is best achieved by composers who are alert to the new, but who in the quest for something greater than novelty can easily absorb and transform what they hear around them into something unimaginable to lesser minds. I've seen Wagner described as one the least original of the great composers. But _Tristan und Isolde,_ by showing what the chromaticism of Spohr and Weber and Chopin and Liszt could do when concentrated in a work of unprecedented scale and intensity, changed the face of music.


I agree, well said. I think that innovation can take many forms and contexts. Every new piece, by definition, is an innovation of some sort or another but it takes more than that to be successful. I think the great composers are ones who can hold you as a listener by offering material that is both familiar and engaging, but which also at the same time will surprise you and catch you off-guard, and lead you into hearing something new or teach you to listen in a different way than you have before. I think that is one of the great wonders of the tradition of classical music - to not just simply enjoy music as a pastime, but also to evolve in your ability to hear.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

Conservatism isn't lack of creativity. Do you know or use Mr. Coffee? It took the art of coffeemaking and perfected it -- but it wasn't revolutionary. It was simply better than anything before it -- just like St. Saens' "Organ" symphony. There had never been one as complete or tuneful previously ... and there hasn't been one better since.

As to St. Saens and alleged conservatism ... you know his nickname? The French Beethoven.


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## Thomyum2 (Apr 18, 2018)

larold said:


> Conservatism isn't lack of creativity. Do you know or use Mr. Coffee? It took the art of coffeemaking and perfected it -- but it wasn't revolutionary. It was simply better than anything before it -- just like St. Saens' "Organ" symphony. There had never been one as complete or tuneful previously ... and there hasn't been one better since.


Yes, I agree, and I think that ties back well to the original post question of why does it matter that Saint-Saens was 'conservative' (if he even really was, which seems to be in doubt). As far as deciding the worth or quality of his music, I don't think the term is relevant at all. It's only use (albeit a limited use because of the difficulty in defining it clearly) is perhaps as a purely descriptive and relative/comparative term for describing the context of his work within the broader landscape of classical music in general.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Jacck said:


> then it is hard to fathom how you can like Mozart. Mozart did little to nothing to develop music. There is practically nothing new or of interest that could be ascribed to him. Bach, on the other hand, married the contrapuntal-imitative tradition with the newly emerging diatonic-homophonic style, and even composed in every imaginable key-a complete novelty at the time. Both Haydn and Beethoven came up with substantial innovations and developments in both form and style. Mozart contributed nothing new.


Others have already addressed this substantially, but I'll just add to the chorus that this is just plain, factually, objectively, wrong. So many of Mozart's works are direct precedents for the direction music was to take in the Romantic period from Beethoven onward. The Dissonance Quartet is a direct precedent of Beethoven's Grosse Fugue; the late piano concertos are a direct precedent for every piano concerto that followed; the late operas were the impetus for both the Bel Canto and Verismo styles (it's not even hard to see how Mozart's integration of symphonic forms into opera, leading to a greater sense of continuity and less-obvious sectioning as in earlier periods eventually became the through-composed style of Wagner et al.); The fantasies and parts of the sonatas are direct precedents for the darker, more improvisational piano works of the romantics; The Requiem was so dark that even Beethoven called it "wild and terrible" and you can hear its stylings all over the choral and symphonic works of romanticism; meanwhile, the "pure musical" complexity of the late chamber works and symphonies is also a direct precedent to those of the romantics (especially Brahms, who modeled his clarinet quintet on Mozart's; meanwhile, Schumann's Piano Quartet, with its synthesis of themes in the last movement, was directly influenced by Mozart's Jupiter).

This is but a small list. There are even composers like Rossini who practically made a career out of copying Mozart's innovations, though often missing his profundities (I greatly enjoy Rossini, btw, so this isn't a knock on him; but he isn't Mozart). Now, if you want to argue that Mozart wasn't as innovative as Haydn or Beethoven, I could agree with you; but you take your statements far past reasonable criticism into the realm of false absurdity. Mozart isn't even as conservative as Bach who you laud. Yes, Bach "married" the contrapuntal style with the emerging homophonic style, but so did Handel; difference being that Bach was still far more in the "old" tradition and Handel was far more in the "new" tradition, and it would even be possible to argue of the two of them, Handel was the one who did more to actually develop music--there's a reason he was a god to both Beethoven and Mozart. Later composers went to Bach to study harmony/counterpoint, not to develop new/innovative approaches to music. Mozart also showed his mastery in incorporating counterpoint into the even more homophonic classical style, as the finale of his Jupiter proves (and the quintuple thematic fugal coda is as impressive as anything Bach ever did, IMHO).


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

larold said:


> His Symphony 41 incorporates every theme used in the first three movements in the finale, something no one had ever done previously.


Correction: it incorporates all the themes (five of them) used in the final movement fugally in its coda/finale. I don't *think* this had ever been done before, though I've heard that Mozart was probably inspired by the fugal codas of several of Michael Haydn's symphonies.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

I personally don't care about innovation that much. I care primarily if I like the music or not. I wanted to poke fun at Enthusiast, who wrote that all great music has to be innovative, which is absurd imho, especially in a field such a music. There is no innovation, there no progress, there are just various fashions. Schoenberg was much more innovative than Mozart (I hope we can at least agree on that), yet most people prefer Mozart to Schoenberg. Many people blame Saint-Saëns for lacking innovation, yet he wrote some great music.


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## Madiel (Apr 25, 2018)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> There are even composers like Rossini who practically made a career out of copying Mozart's innovations, though often missing his profundities (I greatly enjoy Rossini, btw, so this isn't a knock on him; but he isn't Mozart).


as far as I know Mozart never wrote something comparable to the Guillaume Tell.
every composer in his early years needs to work to develop his own voice and while it is well known that Rossini was fond of Haydn and Mozart - such devotion earned him the nickname "il tedeschino" (the little German) while he was a student in Bologna - what you have written is simply untrue, the mature Rossini was his own master and the style he developed had nothing to do with Mozart in terms of both music and singing.
Opera being the most popular form of entertainment was a highly competitive environment, if there is a musical terrain where every generation of composers had somehow out-duel the previous one, that was opera, so in my opinion the "conservatism" discourse makes little sense when we talk about opera.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Others have already addressed this substantially, but I'll just add to the chorus that *this is just plain, factually, objectively, wrong.* So many of Mozart's works are *direct precedents* for the direction music was to take in the Romantic period from Beethoven onward. The Dissonance Quartet is a direct precedent of Beethoven's Grosse Fugue; the late piano concertos are a direct precedent for every piano concerto that followed; the late operas were the impetus for both the Bel Canto and Verismo styles (it's not even hard to see how Mozart's integration of symphonic forms into opera, leading to a greater sense of continuity and less-obvious sectioning as in earlier periods eventually became the through-composed style of Wagner et al.); The fantasies and parts of the sonatas are direct precedents for the darker, more improvisational piano works of the romantics; The Requiem was so dark that even Beethoven called it "wild and terrible" and you can hear its stylings all over the choral and symphonic works of romanticism; meanwhile, the "pure musical" complexity of the late chamber works and symphonies is also a direct precedent to those of the romantics (especially Brahms, who modeled his clarinet quintet on Mozart's; meanwhile, Schumann's Piano Quartet, with its synthesis of themes in the last movement, was directly influenced by Mozart's Jupiter).
> 
> This is but a small list. There are even composers like Rossini who practically made a career out of copying Mozart's innovations, though often missing his profundities (I greatly enjoy Rossini, btw, so this isn't a knock on him; but he isn't Mozart). Now, if you want to argue that Mozart wasn't as innovative as Haydn or Beethoven, I could agree with you; but you take your statements far past reasonable criticism into the realm of false absurdity. Mozart isn't even as conservative as Bach who you laud. Yes, Bach "married" the contrapuntal style with the emerging homophonic style, but so did Handel; difference being that Bach was still far more in the "old" tradition and Handel was far more in the "new" tradition, and it would even be possible to argue of the two of them, Handel was the one who did more to actually develop music--there's a reason he was a god to both Beethoven and Mozart. Later composers went to Bach to study harmony/counterpoint, not to develop new/innovative approaches to music. Mozart also showed his mastery in incorporating counterpoint into the even more homophonic classical style, as the finale of his Jupiter proves (and the quintuple thematic fugal coda is as impressive as anything Bach ever did, IMHO).


Speaking of "factually, objectively wrong"...

As soon as I read that Mozart's "Dissonance" Quartet is a "direct precedent" of Beethoven's _Grosse Fuge_ my mental red flag went up. A few dissonant bars in a string quartet don't even foreshadow, much less "directly" lead to, the shockingly innovative conception, form or sound of the _Grosse Fuge_. The word "direct," here and in your subsequent examples, is given a meaning it has never had before.

Surely it isn't necessary to exaggerate the significance of Mozart's work to the subsequent development of music in order to prove his originality or importance. Your cited precedents are fine examples of Mozart's creativity, but their influence on music written a century later is, when traceable at all (and you haven't shown how it is), certainly _in_direct. You may as well call the introduction to Haydn's _Creation_ a direct precedent for _Tristan und Isolde._ (Where, btw, did you read that "Schumann's Piano Quartet, with its synthesis of themes in the last movement, was directly influenced by Mozart's Jupiter"? Can't two composers think up similar structural ideas independently?)

You're also, IMO, underestimating the originality of Bach.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Jacck said:


> I personally don't care about innovation that much. I care primarily if I like the music or not. I wanted to poke fun at Enthusiast, who wrote that all great music has to be innovative, which is absurd imho, especially in a field such a music. There is no innovation, there no progress, there are just various fashions. Schoenberg was much more innovative than Mozart (I hope we can at least agree on that), yet most people prefer Mozart to Schoenberg. Many people blame Saint-Saëns for lacking innovation, yet he wrote some great music.


I am duly poked, Jacck. But I can't say that I felt it. I know you are a lost cause as far as Mozart is concerned at the moment. Many of us have put forward music of his for you to listen to and change your mind. But to no avail! And I'm afraid I continue to stand by my statement that all great music in innovative and that it is so even if/when it is conservative - and I am not so sure that Mozart was a conservative composer, either. As for Saint-Saens - he was a fine composer but the earth doesn't move too often for me when I lie with him!


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## kanishknishar (Aug 10, 2015)

Larkenfield said:


> Mozart "terribly conservative"? I always thought he could blow the roof off when he wanted to. He just didn't always want to. But when he did, he did it with power, elegance, and class. It meant something and wasn't just a recurring temper tantrum over a handful of change. How quickly people forget that Mozart could all-out explode, storm and rage furiously like Haydn or Beethoven, and without being habitual or crude about it. Mozart was never conservative, IMO, except that he would never use one note too many if he could avoid it. He was consistently innovative with flashes of genius and free musically and philosophically.


Having heard Rattle's M41, I can safely say that Mozart ties us with his excessive repetition - one that audiences in the 18th century may have welcomed.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Herrenvolk said:


> Having heard Rattle's M41, I can safely say that Mozart ties us with his excessive repetition - one that audiences in the 18th century may have welcomed.


?
Ties??
.....................


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Madiel said:


> as far as I know Mozart never wrote something comparable to the Guillaume Tell.
> every composer in his early years needs to work to develop his own voice and while it is well known that Rossini was fond of Haydn and Mozart - such devotion earned him the nickname "il tedeschino" (the little German) while he was a student in Bologna - what you have written is simply untrue, the mature Rossini was his own master and the style he developed had nothing to do with Mozart in terms of both music and singing.
> Opera being the most popular form of entertainment was a highly competitive environment, if there is a musical terrain where every generation of composers had somehow out-duel the previous one, that was opera, so in my opinion the "conservatism" discourse makes little sense when we talk about opera.


There's a reason I added the qualifier "practically" as I realize Guillaume Tell was an early and influential example of grand opera, indeed something Mozart never attempted. I might also add that Rossini's opera serias seem to have as much in common with earlier composers than Mozart's. Still, Rossini's most popular comic operas--Barber, Turco, L'italiana, Cenerentola, etc.--contain probably more Mozartean touches than any music I can think of that he influenced.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Woodduck said:


> Speaking of "factually, objectively wrong"...
> 
> As soon as I read that Mozart's "Dissonance" Quartet is a "direct precedent" of Beethoven's _Grosse Fuge_ my mental red flag went up. A few dissonant bars in a string quartet don't even foreshadow, much less "directly" lead to, the shockingly innovative conception, form or sound of the _Grosse Fuge_. The word "direct," here and in your subsequent examples, is given a meaning it has never had before.
> 
> ...


There's no denying that what Beethoven DID with that precedent was "shockingly innovative (in) conception, form, and sound," but do you really think that the the Dissonance Quartet played no role in that conception? I did not take "direct precedent" to mean "later examples just copied it;" of course innovation is possible with direct precedent. In that sense, Meyerbeer was a direct precedent for Wagner; this doesn't mean Wagner did nothing innovative with what Meyerbeer had done. Given that most of these later composers explicitly discussed their admiration for Mozart, the notion that they weren't directly influenced by him seems rather absurd to me; an "indirect" influence would mean, to me, they were influenced by other composers influenced by Mozart, which also seems silly. And, yeah, I'd say the intro to Haydn's Creation was one precedent for Wagner (though probably more the overture to Rheingold than Tristan).

I read that about Schumann's piano quartets in one of the booklets that came with one of my recordings. Of course two composers can think up similar structural ideals independently, but when you know the later composer has studied the works of the earlier composer, the notion that they came up with the idea independently is rather remote.

I also don't want to give the impression I think Bach was unoriginal. The issue was more that Bach was more rooted in the older musical traditions than was composers like Handel or Mozart. Now, one can argue that what he DID with those older traditions was, in itself, still highly original and innovative, and indeed that's a statement I would agree with. But doing something innovative and original in old styles can still sound old-fashioned to those just looking at the superficialities of the style, as many in his own time were undoubtedly doing. I think it would be difficult to argue that, of the two composers, Bach was the one who was more representative of the "sound/style" of his time.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Enthusiast said:


> As for Saint-Saens - he was a fine composer *but the earth doesn't move too often for me when I lie with him!*


Get a good subwoofer and listen to a good recording of his Organ Symphony! The Earth will definitely move for you!  The Guillou/de Waart recording is often used to test subwoofers!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> There's no denying that what Beethoven DID with that precedent was "shockingly innovative (in) conception, form, and sound," but do you really think that the the Dissonance Quartet played no role in that conception? I did not take "direct precedent" to mean "later examples just copied it;" of course innovation is possible with direct precedent. In that sense, Meyerbeer was a direct precedent for Wagner; this doesn't mean Wagner did nothing innovative with what Meyerbeer had done. Given that most of these later composers explicitly discussed their admiration for Mozart, the notion that they weren't directly influenced by him seems rather absurd to me; an "indirect" influence would mean, to me, they were influenced by other composers influenced by Mozart, which also seems silly. And, yeah, I'd say the intro to Haydn's Creation was one precedent for Wagner (though probably more the overture to Rheingold than Tristan).
> 
> I read that about Schumann's piano quartets in one of the booklets that came with one of my recordings. Of course two composers can think up similar structural ideals independently, but when you know the later composer has studied the works of the earlier composer, the notion that they came up with the idea independently is rather remote.
> 
> I also don't want to give the impression I think Bach was unoriginal. The issue was more that Bach was more rooted in the older musical traditions than was composers like Handel or Mozart. Now, one can argue that what he DID with those older traditions was, in itself, still highly original and innovative, and indeed that's a statement I would agree with. But doing something innovative and original in old styles can still sound old-fashioned to those just looking at the superficialities of the style, as many in his own time were undoubtedly doing. I think it would be difficult to argue that, of the two composers, Bach was the one who was more representative of the "sound/style" of his time.


You're ignoring me. I challenged you to show that a few dissonant bars in a Mozart quartet is a DIRECT PRECEDENT for what Beethoven did in the _Grosse Fuge._ You haven't shown that. And yes, I really think that Beethoven was perfectly capable of coming up with his piece without knowing the "Dissonance" Quartet, and that his familiarity with that work need not have influenced what he did in his. How low is your opinion of Beethoven's creative imagination?

You have a habit of placing odd spins on things I say. I never said that "direct precedent" implied "copying." But I did question your use of the term "direct." I still question it. In fact I reject it. What is "silly" about the idea that influence can be _indirect_, i.e., mediated through more than one work over time? That occurs all the time, in art and elsewhere: someone tries out an idea, others take it up, consciously or unconsciously, and maybe at some point someone makes something remarkable out of a concept that's "in the air." To assume without evidence that one artist's work is a "direct" result of his acquaintance with another's is pretty presumptuous.

There is nothing remote about the possibility that Schumann did not derive the idea for a contrapuntal finale, combining themes, from Mozart's "Jupiter." Such polyphonic perorations go back to the double and triple fugues of Bach, whose music Schumann studied assiduously. Wagner, of course, combines three themes in the prelude to _Die Meistersinger._ What reason is there to suppose that _his_ example was Mozart?

The intro to Haydn's _Creation_ has some very "Tristanesque" chromaticism, but I wouldn't call it a "direct precedent" or even assume it was an influence. It certainly didn't influence the prelude to _Rheingold,_ which consists of a single chord for 134 bars. There is _no_ precedent for that!


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## Madiel (Apr 25, 2018)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Still, Rossini's most popular comic operas--Barber, Turco, L'italiana, Cenerentola, etc.--contain probably more Mozartean touches than any music I can think of that he influenced.


Not at all.
You continue to "moderate" your unfounded assessments using "practically" and "probably" but the fact remains that they are unfounded. I can even tell you that Rossini in one case stole a whole aria from Mozart, but you seem to identify influence - or "touch" as you have called it - in superficial features (the same goes with what you have written comparing "dissonance quartet" to "grosse fugue)" where the reality is that the fundamental musical traits of Rossini's operas - let's talk about the use of the overture, the singing, the paroxysm of his finales, the whole character of his serious operas - have nothing to do with Mozart.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Although attempts to form in- and out-groups ("us" and "them") on the basis of taste will always be most interesting, because their unfoundedness provides a rich source and occasion for creative argument, we're asymptotically approaching a much sounder basis for hierarchies in the arts: actual knowledge and experience. Admittedly, gaining status via actual knowledge and experience takes real work and real time, whereas anyone skilled at BS can fake an alignment between their own taste and the appropriate taste of whatever group they wish to join. Still, once one has actually put in the work and time and has actual knowledge and experience, why would one then choose to rely on anything as slippery as "correct taste?" I guess some people, regardless of objective status, will always enjoy the attempt to use the power of their personality to force others to acknowledge their subjective inferiority. As for me, I have a lot more confidence in my knowledge, however relatively limited that may be, than in the force of my personality, and my nature as a teacher is to be more of a welcomer than an excluder, so I find the whole thing off-putting.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

My knowledge of Mozart (his music as well as his life) is rather limited compared to others, but I know all his Haydn string quartets (and also quintets) including the dissonance quartet. I absolutely fail to see, how one can even compare the dissonance quartet (which is misnamed, because it has little dissonace, and is a pretty ordinary quartet compared to other Mozart and Haydn quartets) to a piece like the Grosse Fugue. The Grosse Fugue is one of the most crazy works in all of classical. It is ahead of Stravinsky or Schoenberg or Bartok. I listened to it at least 15 times and it never ceises to amaze me. 
Concerning Mozart innovation - I mainly see him as having adopted and developed the style of Haydn. Romantism? Haydn was there before Mozart with the Sturm and Drang symphonies (written in minor keys) and wrote several. Mozart wrote only 1. The same goes for string quartets. Haydn was the inventor and innovator, Mozart took over and possibly slightly improved (although that is questionable, I see the best of Mozart quartets are not better than the best of Haydn quartets). The real talent and most original development of Mozart is probably in opera, although I have yet to explore those, I heard only one so far. Had Mozart lived longer, he could have contributed interesting things, because his late works are finally starting to show some originality and freeing himself of the annoying clichés, that plague most of is earlier output. Pity he died right at the time that he was finally starting to mature as a composer.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> Get a good subwoofer and listen to a good recording of his Organ Symphony! The Earth will definitely move for you!  The Guillou/de Waart recording is often used to test subwoofers!


That is one reason why I used the qualifier "too often". Also I was referring to the earth moving as a psychological quality rather than physically moving (which is not that hard if you deploy an organ). Also, the work is great of course but it hardly has the life and invention of so much of Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, Haydn, Bartok, Bach, Sibelius, Mahler ... or so many others!


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Jacck said:


> My knowledge of Mozart (his music as well as his life) is rather limited compared to others, but I know all his Haydn string quartets (and also quintets) including the dissonance quartet. I absolutely fail to see, how one can even compare the dissonance quartet (which is misnamed, because it has little dissonace, and is a pretty ordinary quartet compared to other Mozart and Haydn quartets) to a piece like the Grosse Fugue. The Grosse Fugue is one of the most crazy works in all of classical. It is ahead of Stravinsky or Schoenberg or Bartok. I listened to it at least 15 times and it never ceises to amaze me.
> Concerning Mozart innovation - I mainly see him as having adopted and developed the style of Haydn. Romantism? Haydn was there before Mozart with the Sturm and Drang symphonies (written in minor keys) and wrote several. Mozart wrote only 1. The same goes for string quartets. Haydn was the inventor and innovator, Mozart took over and possibly slightly improved (although that is questionable, I see the best of Mozart quartets are not better than the best of Haydn quartets). The real talent and most original development of Mozart is probably in opera, although I have yet to explore those, I heard only one so far. Had Mozart lived longer, he could have contributed interesting things, because his late works are finally starting to show some originality and freeing himself of the annoying clichés, that plague most of is earlier output. Pity he died right at the time that he was finally starting to mature as a composer.


I recently posted on the fun poll about the most influential composer. I adopted a minority view but I do think my case is strong. I confess, though, that I was thinking of you when I wrote it:

_I surprised myself by choosing Mozart. Why? Because of what he did with opera and concertos, in particular. But, in a number of other genres (quartets, piano sonatas, symphonies), although he was joined by (and perhaps even followed) Haydn in his influence, he took things further and demonstrated even more what was possible. I wonder what Beethoven would have done without his example? I know many will say that he drew more directly from Haydn but Mozart really showed how a composer could be the hero - and in this he was the first Romantic.
_

I do love Haydn and greatly admire his achievement. I see his exploration of what was possible in a number of genres as almost scientific. But he was a true classicist in that his music was not really about himself or his inspiration. Of course, it is fine that you hear things differently. But do allow me the same privilege!


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Enthusiast said:


> Of course, it is fine that you hear things differently. But do allow me the same privilege!


of course, but allow me to think that the Saint-Saens Symphony 3 is better and more enjoyable than Mozart Jupiter 41 - which for me it indeed is.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Jacck said:


> of course, but allow me to think that the Saint-Saens Symphony 3 is better and more enjoyable than Mozart Jupiter 41 - which for me it indeed is.


Yes, you are welcome to. But it might be best for you to avoid the edit I just added (before seeing your post) to my response to Eva Yojimbo!


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## Madiel (Apr 25, 2018)

Jacck said:


> of course, but allow me to think that the Saint-Saens Symphony 3 is better and more enjoyable than Mozart Jupiter 41 - which for me it indeed is.


the Jupiter is a product of its times, it doesn't matter how much technique à la Bach Mozart infused into it, the legendary status of this work has little to do with its real merits and a lot to do with musicology (a German reign for too many years) and Mozart's use of the - boring to my ears - use of threefold repetition (a mainstay of 18th century music) as has been correctly written in this thread by Herrenvolk.
Saint-Saens' third symphony is an ingenious work, when you consider all the heterogeneous musical styles he made coexist (it looks like a short history of music from Gregorian chant to Wagner) it is an amazing feat, and it is a showpiece too, which for sure has not hurt its fortune, but all said and done I still prefer the Jupiter.


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## Anankasmo (Jun 23, 2017)

I have listened to almost every major S-S work and i would say S-S was never as conservative as people believe him to be. He achieved quite many original and innovative things. And he certainly was more original than eg Talkclassical's demigod Brahms.

1) Saint-Saens was the only major French composer who attended Mahlers 8th premiere.
2) Saint-Saens was the first to employ a xylophone in orchestral works (Dans Macabre, Fossils)






3) His style is neoclassical and therefore foreshadows Poulenc and Les Six
4) His orchestration is incredibly economic and Ravel said he learned all orchestration from S-S works.
5) First French composer to write symphonic poems






6) First French composer to write substential piano concertos. Some of them showing a Wagnerian influence.
7) He is among the first who used foreign scales/melodies in his music.


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## Anankasmo (Jun 23, 2017)

8) Extenive use of cyclical form.






9) ingenious thematic transformation (Organ symphony)






10) He wrote for many different ensembles.






11) He used "impressionism before Debussy"


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Madiel said:


> the Jupiter is a product of its times, it doesn't matter how much technique à la Bach Mozart infused into it, the legendary status of this work has little to do with its real merits and a lot to do with musicology (a German reign for too many years) and Mozart's use of the - boring to my ears - use of threefold repetition (a mainstay of 18th century music) as has been correctly written in this thread by Herrenvolk.
> Saint-Saens' third symphony is an ingenious work, when you consider all the heterogeneous musical styles he made coexist (it looks like a short history of music from Gregorian chant to Wagner) it is an amazing feat, and it is a showpiece too, which for sure has not hurt its fortune, but all said and done I still prefer the Jupiter.


With the Jupiter symphony, I mostly dislike the first movement, it is ugly and repetitious, the last movement is of course great. I like his symphonies 25, 31, 34 more than the Jupiter. I do not know what my problem with Mozart's music is, I do not seem to like the harmonies/melodies/chord progressions that he is using. And I do not have this problem with Haydn, which shows it is not about the classical style in general, but rather specific to Mozart alone. There are people in the world, such as myself, who are not Mozart-compatible.


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## Madiel (Apr 25, 2018)

Anankasmo said:


> I have listened to almost every major S-S work and i would say S-S was never as conservative as people believe him to be. He achieved quite many original and innovative things. And he certainly was more original than eg Talkclassical's demigod Brahms.


Excellent post! you have made good use of specific examples to illustrate what I have written in a former post about Saint-Saens being "in nuce" the exemplary 20th century composer.
I'd like to add that there is a reason for that, the way we label composers today originated in the 19th century, a time when musicology and history of music were mostly a German affair, in 2018 we are still victim of those nationalistic stereotypes (I call them nationalistic since that was the whole and only reason of their coming into being), while it is undeniable that Germany has produced a lot of great composers, its preeminence is a total lie, alas it is a lie we still commonly use when we talk about classical music. It is a lie because while classical music has an history spanning circa 900 years (if you accept the works of Hildegard von Bingen as a starting point for works of the classical music canon) such supposed preeminence freely ignores 700 years of it. Such distorted vision could make sense in the 19th century - when very little was known and not an inch was played of what had been written in those ancient times - but in 2018, with all the things we know, with all the music which has been resurrected from the vaults (such an endless trove that most of it will never reach the general public, the most relevant embodiment of this could be Vivaldi, whose music simply disappeared for 200 years, one century ago the initial discovery that he had written some amazing violin concertos and nowadays the notion that he was a prolific and relevant opera composer) - the view that Bach, Mozart and Beethoven are the ne plus ultra of classical music (I don't want even mention minor Germans benefited by this view, the likes of Borjannes Brahms) is ridiculous. Of course a lie surviving for so long needs an external help, and my guess is that German preeminence still survives because it is tonal music, like it or not what came before and after tonal music does not encounter the favor of the general public these days, nonetheless the lie remains a lie even restricting our area of investigation to the circa 200 years when tonal music was dominant.
In the case someone should wonder what all this got to do with conservatism, well, our grasp of who is conservative and who is not is unavoidably connected to the history of music, I am not a professional, just an aficionado, and I am aware that some views are still controversial, but at the same time - as far as I have read - nobody disputes that the labels and categories born in the 19th century have been made obsolete by musical discoveries that constantly re-write the history of music.


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## Anankasmo (Jun 23, 2017)

Madiel said:


> Borjannes Brahms


--> best thing i have read for a long time hahaha 

Indeed you are quite right in saying that the German ubiquitous influnece is toxic for "Classical music". I myself am German but the fact that almost every German composer is held on higher plains than every other foreign composer is ridiculous. I mean imo there is not one reason why Brahms should be considered higher than S-S or Dvorak. Why is Bruckner (german culutre but austrian) better than Respighi etc..... 
I once read an interesting article which said that the prelevant opinion in Classical music was made by primarily the UK and USA. The former because they are heavenly dependent on German music since the greatest and most popular composers in England are in fact German by birth and education (Händel, Mendelssohn) I mean Händel probably almost invented the English music style (nothing against Purcell haha). The USA gained this opinion because their orchestras of the early 20th century where stuffed with German musicians who left Germany in the wake of Social Nationalism and who programed mostly German music since that one was the music they new best. Music which gets played often gets popular and since the USA is leading the world since the 50s their opinion has become the general one. Funny actually since in Germany there is not such an opinion and many diverse and forgotten composers are staged and played.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

It is true that the German music is relatively overvalued while other national music is undervalued (French more than English). The USA were too much under the influence of German traditions and in my opinion missed a great opportunity to develop a unique style of their own - symphonic jazz in the vein of Gershwin and Duke Ellington. They were trying to sound like the European schools (tonal, as well as atonal later) instead of concentrating on their only indigenous music form, jazz


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Woodduck said:


> You're ignoring me. I challenged you to show that a few dissonant bars in a Mozart quartet is a DIRECT PRECEDENT for what Beethoven did in the _Grosse Fuge._ You haven't shown that. And yes, I really think that Beethoven was perfectly capable of coming up with his piece without knowing the "Dissonance" Quartet, and that his familiarity with that work need not have influenced what he did in his. How low is your opinion of Beethoven's creative imagination?
> 
> You have a habit of placing odd spins on things I say. I never said that "direct precedent" implied "copying." But I did question your use of the term "direct." I still question it. In fact I reject it. What is "silly" about the idea that influence can be _indirect_, i.e., mediated through more than one work over time? That occurs all the time, in art and elsewhere: someone tries out an idea, others take it up, consciously or unconsciously, and maybe at some point someone makes something remarkable out of a concept that's "in the air." To assume without evidence that one artist's work is a "direct" result of his acquaintance with another's is pretty presumptuous.
> 
> ...


There's only a few ways of potentially meeting your challenge. One can quote the composers stating explicitly they were influenced by someone/something in their work, but it's rarely the case that this happens; one can try to examine them musicologically and argue for whatever similarities they see, but I'm not a musicologist, and no such argument is irrefutable; or one can cite sources that have claimed such influences, but the two problems inherent there is in finding those sources, and even then, as in the previous case, one can still easily dispute the claim. So what would you like me to do? Much of what I'm stating is based on memories of books, articles, and liner notes I've read over the years. It's possible if I scoured all such things I could find the information I'm remembering, but what good is that if you could still easily dispute it? It seems like a fool's errand.

Speaking of "odd spins on what I say," it's an odd spin indeed to think I suggested anything "low" about Beethoven's creative imagination (especially startling considering he stands with Wagner as my 2nd favorite composer!). However, we do know that Beethoven studied Mozart's Haydn Quartets. He even remarked to a pupil about the complex counterpoint in the 18th Quartet. So we have Beethoven studying those quartets, admiring the complex counterpoint in one, knowing that another is so famous for its dissonance it earned the nickname "dissonance," yet when Beethoven composes a quartet famous for its dissonance and complex counterpoint we're to assume no direct influence? This has nothing to do with having a "low opinion" of Beethoven's creativity; it's just about whether an influence was probable.

I really have no idea how you're using direct/indirect here; indirect meaning "mediated through more than one work over time?" You'd have to elaborate further. If by that you mean that more than one work played a role in influencing any of the works I named, then I would not deny that, but neither would I call that "indirection." To me, influence is direct if a composer directly studied any given works, and used some aspects of them as influence in their own work. The notion that Beethoven could've admired Mozart's counterpoint in the 18th quartet, and perhaps the dissonance in the 19th, and decided to take these two aspects and make this monumental movement that in its unnerving dissonance and relentless complexity took the concept far beyond what Mozart did, seems not only reasonable but quite likely. That he probably was directly influenced by many other composers and works in that piece and others is just as likely.

As I said, I got the Schumann/Jupiter connection from (I believe) liner notes I read that said, IIRC, that Schumann was studying Mozart's work around the time of his chamber compositions and that the Jupiter was the influence for the Quartet. I could try to find them, but as I suggested above, even if I could you could still dispute it. It sounded-much like the above Mozart/Beethoven influence-to seem perfectly reasonable given what I heard. The fugues of Bach and what Mozart does in the finale of the Jupiter are rather different, and Schumann's thematic combination in the finale sounds far closer to Mozart's conception, even if we ignore the fact that, like Mozart, he saved it for the finale. With Haydn's Creation, while the chromaticism may recall Tristan and Isolde, both The Creation and Das Rheingold land on the key of C for crucial moments after their depictions of chaos; Haydn when God speaks light into existence, and Wagner when the Rhinemaidens reveal the gold. Certainly coincidence is possible, but yet again we do know Wagner was quite familiar with The Creation given that he once presented it in concert.

Let's forget these examples for a moment. I've been listening to Schubert's lesser-played piano music recently and several pieces have struck me as likely being inspired by Mozart. The opening theme of the D. 940 Fantasy for Four-Hands sounds awfully similar to L'ho perduta... from Figaro: 









How about D. 993/D2E and Mozart's Fantasy K. 475: 









Also recently gave another listen to Ravel's Piano Concerto, and he claimed the middle movement was modeled after the slow movement of Mozart's Clarinet Quintet. Other than the serene beauty I'm not sure I hear this one:





*EDIT* So I can only include 5 videos per post. Everyone can look up the Clarinet Quintet's slow movement if they care to.

Perhaps goes to show how elusive influence can be even when we know about it for certain.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Madiel said:


> Not at all.
> You continue to "moderate" your unfounded assessments using "practically" and "probably" but the fact remains that they are unfounded. I can even tell you that Rossini in one case stole a whole aria from Mozart, but you seem to identify influence - or "touch" as you have called it - in superficial features (the same goes with what you have written comparing "dissonance quartet" to "grosse fugue)" where the reality is that the fundamental musical traits of Rossini's operas - let's talk about the use of the overture, the singing, the paroxysm of his finales, the whole character of his serious operas - have nothing to do with Mozart.


My assessment was so "unfounded" that Rossini earned the nickname Little Mozart for what reason? Because I'm the only one who thinks his style recalled Mozart?

You may call these "superficial features," and perhaps they are depending on how we're defining "superficial." People call Claude Chabrol the French Hitchcock, and having seen all of Hitchcock's films and about a dozen of Chabrol's I could simultaneously make the argument that, indeed, Chabrol is probably the most Hitchcock-like of all directors influenced by him, as well as argue that the influence is only superficial. I think much the same is true of Mozart and Rossini; the latter is the most Mozartean of all composers influenced by Mozart that I've heard, yet I've no doubt that, if one were so inclined, one could make the argument of how there are plenty of "Rossinian" traits that aren't to be found in Mozart. I don't think these two things-Rossini having many of Mozart's traits, Rossini developing many of his own traits-are mutually exclusive.

That said, I'm willing to concede that "copying" was too strong a word to use, since copying implies just pale imitation. I don't think that about Rossini; I'd be more inclined to say that Rossini captured Mozart's spirit and supplemented it with his own. One thing I actually love about Rossini is that I can imagine much of his music as being similar to what Mozart might've composed had he lived longer, and that's, at least from my perspective, a tremendous compliment.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Enthusiast said:


> I was referring to the earth moving as a psychological quality rather than physically moving (which is not that hard if you deploy an organ).


I know that's what you meant; I was just making a little joke by taking your "psychological earth moving" and treating it literally. That said, I have such a subwoofer that can reproduce those uber low notes, and it is quite an experience!


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Anankasmo said:


> 11) He used "impressionism before Debussy"


What a beautiful piece! I think you've inspired me to get more acquainted with Saint-Saens! I confess that outside the Organ Symphony, Carnaval..., Danse Macabre, and the piano concertos I haven't heard much.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Jacck said:


> The USA were too much under the influence of German traditions and in my opinion missed a great opportunity to develop a unique style of their own - symphonic jazz in the vein of Gershwin and Duke Ellington. They were trying to sound like the European schools (tonal, as well as atonal later) instead of concentrating on their only indigenous music form, jazz


Three points to be made here: one, American music was obviously an evolution from the British music that was itself deeply influenced by the Austrio-German traditions, and this was around for a good while before jazz was a thing. Two, there WERE many composers--American and otherwise--who incorporated jazz idioms into their work. Besides Gershwin, Stravinsky and Ravel are two big names with compositions influenced by jazz. Three, one can argue that the direction jazz took in 40s, more towards improvisation and away from pre-conceived composition, was pretty antithetical to the way most classical-influenced composers approached music. Yes, you had Ellington and Gershwin before them, but once Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie set the world on fire with their improvisational solos and the players became the stars rather than the composers, it became much harder to integrate those two worlds. After Ellington and Gershwin (and the jazz-influenced pieces of other classical composers), Charles Mingus probably came the closest to finding that medium:


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## Madiel (Apr 25, 2018)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> My assessment was so "unfounded" that Rossini earned the nickname Little Mozart for what reason? Because I'm the only one who thinks his style recalled Mozart?


sorry but this is non-existent in Rossini biographies, as I have written yesterday his love of German music (not only Mozart) earned him the nickname "il tedeschino" - the little German, when he was a student in Bologna.


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## Anankasmo (Jun 23, 2017)

Eva Yojimbo said:


> What a beautiful piece! I think you've inspired me to get more acquainted with Saint-Saens! I confess that outside the Organ Symphony, Carnaval..., Danse Macabre, and the piano concertos I haven't heard much.


I am happy to hear that. But do not start with S-S piano music since he didn't shine there except a few pieces as posted above.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

I think the word conservatism and modernism may be misunderstood. There are a number of modern composers who are also conservative and progressive the same time. Prokofiev, Messiaen, Bartok, and Stravinsky's later phase applied older principles / forms in new ways. Even Schoenberg did not intentionally try to throw the old in the trash can. I think it was with Cage, one of the first who sought to redefine or expand the definition of music, when conservatism got thrown out. After more than 1/2 a century, I think the postmodern movement has run out of steam and new ideas. Some would say they never progressed in the first place.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Madiel said:


> sorry but this is non-existent in Rossini biographies, as I have written yesterday his love of German music (not only Mozart) earned him the nickname "il tedeschino" - the little German, when he was a student in Bologna.


My mistake (though I could've sworn I heard/read that epithet before). Still, I thought the kinship/comparison between the two was pretty common.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Herrenvolk said:


> I read reviews of Saint-Saens' works and he's accused of being a conservative and that somehow makes him music... worse? Why do we care? It was composed over a hundred years ago. Who listens to a composer and thinks that this was composed in early 20th century but man it sounds utterly mid-19th century. And... so? Why did the critics of Saint-Saens' time care if his music was old-fashioned? What matters is if the music was engaging.


Beyond a certain point of mastery for a composer, I doubt if rankings are other than rank. Ranking the difference between a Mozart and Beethoven when both were fantastic?-doesn't make much sense when both can be so greatly enjoyed, as well as so many of each person's favourites.

According to his friend Liszt, Saint-Saëns was "not only first-rank, but incomparable." It obviously didn't matter to place him into a restricted category. But I would say that S-S, late in life in his 80s, probably didn't help his own cause by being so highly critical of his contemporaries. Saint-Saëns on Ravel said: "If he'd been making shell cases during the war it would have been better for music." (!) And anyone who sees absolutely no value in fresh or new ideas is probably going to be labelled a conservative-and not as a compliment.

The basic idea behind conservatism is that there's no waste of resources because they're valued like every note is valued-everything is used well without anything being extraneous-and how could that be a bad thing? Saint-Saëns seemed to fit that description perfectly and he was undoubtedly one of the greatest of pianists during his long career.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

Larkenfield said:


> The basic idea behind conservatism is that there's no waste of resources because they're valued like every note is valued-everything is used well without anything being extraneous-and how could that be a bad thing? Saint-Saëns seemed to fit that description perfectly and he was undoubtedly one of the greatest of pianists during his long career.


I think that's a rather different idea/definition of conservatism. That's more like conservation against waste, while conservatism in aesthetics (and politics) is more about conserving older values against changes that threaten those values. The progressive/conservative opposition is mostly one of change VS stasis.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

It is a conclusion that few here will want to agree with but it has been growing in my mind that the new music that I find "pays me back" the most for the effort is actually quite challenging at first. Music that requires more time to really feel (and to feel the music is "talking to me") often seems to take me to new and important places that I haven't been to before. New music, on the other hand, that uses conventional (already developed) languages often seems to disappoint on repeated hearings. But this doesn't happen when I listen to older music. Beethoven continues to reward even though his language is anything but new to me.


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## Anankasmo (Jun 23, 2017)

Larkenfield said:


> According to his friend Liszt, Saint-Saëns was "not only first-rank, but incomparable." It obviously didn't matter to place him into a restricted category. But I would say that S-S, late in life in his 80s, probably didn't help his own cause by being so highly critical of his contemporaries. Saint-Saëns on Ravel said: "If he'd been making shell cases during the war it would have been better for music." (!)


 Indeed he damaged himself especially in rallying against Debussy, Ravel (who actually admired S-S quite much) and Stravinsky. The climax was probably reached when he published his "Germanophile" where he dismisses Wagner. But compare him to Brahms who fought against Wagner, Rott and Bruckner and who is not a bit hated for it shows how different e.g. French composers are seen by the general consensus. Also he was quite old for the 19th century so i can understand why he got so grumpy


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## Mozart555 (Jun 17, 2018)

The attempt to not seem old-fashioned is what lead to the horrible music being composed today. Everything was Avant-garde at some point in history, but one thing is having an organic original idea you genuinely believe could make beautiful music, and another is deforming music into gibberish just to seem different.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Mozart555 said:


> The attempt to not seem old-fashioned is what lead to the horrible music being composed today. Everything was Avant-garde at some point in history, but one thing is having an organic original idea you genuinely believe could make beautiful music, and another is deforming music into gibberish just to seem different.


It doesn't bother me that you think poorly of contemporary/modernist music; I'm not thrilled with it myself. However, there are plenty of classical music enthusiasts right here on this board who admire/love it. It's gibberish to you but not to them.

You insult the music with your comments and indirectly insult those who enjoy it. Try to refrain from making these insults.


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## Mozart555 (Jun 17, 2018)

Bulldog said:


> It doesn't bother me that you think poorly of contemporary/modernist music; I'm not thrilled with it myself. However, there are plenty of classical music enthusiasts right here on this board who admire/love it. It's gibberish to you but not to them.
> 
> You insult the music with your comments and indirectly insult those who enjoy it. Try to refrain from making these insults.


I'm not insulting the music, it sounds like garbage to me. Maybe they hear a masterpiece, what's it to me.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Perhaps in music as it is in politics?

"Conservative, n: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others." - Ambrose Bierce


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Without conservatism, 4'33" would actually become meaningless. Cage couldn't have made a career of rattling other peoples' Cages. If everyone expected the unexpected, music would become groundless.


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## Guest (Jun 20, 2018)

Phil loves classical said:


> Without conservatism, 4'33" would actually become meaningless. Cage couldn't have made a career of rattling other peoples' Cages. If everyone expected the unexpected, music would become groundless.


Not sure if Cage is the kind of personality who thrives on 'rattling other peoples' Cages' as you've put it. Honestly, his whole approach to music seems to be based on the simple pleasures of sound that anyone has the capacity to enjoy.


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## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

I think taking extremes in position of conservative or liberal are taken by mostly misguided people and most of the great did not subscribe to these viewpoints. Looking at them as so are just modern perceptions.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

shirime said:


> Not sure if Cage is the kind of personality who thrives on 'rattling other peoples' Cages' as you've put it. Honestly, his whole approach to music seems to be based on the simple pleasures of sound that anyone has the capacity to enjoy.


I'm totally convinced he is doing that somewhat intentionally by his antics and from his interviews. He couldn't even argue against my view with his philosophy. He is ultimately satirical.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> It's Modernist ideological bias, typical of a 20th-century way of thinking about art, to equate conservatism with lack of originality. Conservative composers have by no means necessarily been old-fashioned or derivative.


"Modernism" as a term should mean more than how you're using it. The term "Modern" is best used as not an ideology, but a way of thinking about the materials of music. In this objective context, "modern" has tangible, objective results which can be discussed as realities, not ideologies.

But since this discussion seems to be ideological, not musical, it can hardly be considered as revealing any earth-shattering truths.



Woodduck said:


> Musical conservatives then were fighting for something of positive value and importance, as they saw it; they really wanted to conserve certain well-established aesthetic values which they saw as threatened.


This sounds like ideology on the part of conservatives. This is a matter of style, not music per se, and is an attempt to manipulate the "art" world.



Woodduck said:


> They found their champion in Brahms, whose music was fresh and original even while it utilized traditional forms and techniques, which despite the challenge of the musical progressives were still fundamental to every composer's_ education,_ understood by listeners, and not obsolete or about to go away.


"Education" sounds like the academy. This is very socially-oriented.



Woodduck said:


> It was only when innovation and modernity came to be valued for their own sake that "conservative" became a synonym for unoriginal and outmoded. With new movements coming thick and fast in the 20th century, composers who didn't want to "keep up" began to sound, at least to the casual ear, like relics of an earlier time, seemingly justifying the contempt of the Modernists. Rene Leibwitz famously called the extraordinarily original Sibelius "the worst composer in the world," and music as distinctive as Rachmaninoff's was dismissed as "popular" and couldn't even get a respectful paragraph in Grove's.


This characterization of modernity is shallow, and makes 'modernity' seem shallow, and it's not. Modernity is simply new ways of thinking about music. To turn it into a social, sylistic, shallow phenomenon is missing the point.



Woodduck said:


> With Modernism now itself a historical phenomenon, and a lot of mid-century serialism sounding dated to many of us (and never having been listened to at all by the majority of music lovers)…


This use of "modern" reduces it to a historical phenomenon, and it is more than that. It is a way of thinking about musical materials.



Woodduck said:


> ...Conservatism isn't what it was in the time of Brahms and Wagner, or even Sibelius and Schoenberg. It exists in a context of general eclecticism…


That's because modernist thinking has fully penetrated the musical landscape. It is pervasive and part of music. Thus, it's no wonder that conservatism, i.e. diatonic major-minor tonality, has become somewhat anomalous. It can now be used for Broadway shows, cinema, and television. It has good old-fashioned appeal and comprehensibility, and is accepted as the 'given' way to make 'normal' music with 'normal' utilitarian functions and uses. I'm not saying that's bad.



Woodduck said:


> ...it isn't a cause or movement, and it upholds no specific musical characteristics or ideals which it seeks to "conserve."


Or if it is, it's unconsciously used as such, as a sort of "don't ask, don't tell" ideology of normality.



Woodduck said:


> Where modernism is no longer a thing, conservatism isn't one either, and the value judgments implied in a word like "derivative" are not worth making. Music is either effective and agreeable to listeners or it isn't. Nothing else matters.


Well at least I'm glad to see you recognize a level, post-modern playing field, even if you still seem to harbor some resentment towards serialism and non-tonal thinking in general.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> "Modernism" as a term should mean more than how you're using it. The term "Modern" is best used as not an ideology, but a way of thinking about the materials of music. In this objective context, "modern" has tangible, objective results which can be discussed as realities, not ideologies.
> 
> But since this discussion seems to be ideological, not musical, it can hardly be considered as revealing any earth-shattering truths.
> 
> ...


Do Cowboys make the best post Modern Composers?


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

I think many listeners are unaware of exactly what they are listening to.

Debussy is a good example of a composer who is using modern harmonic techniques, yet is quite popular with 'conservative' listeners who might also like Beethoven and Mozart.

Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Barber, and Copland are others; even late Mahler: while using modern approaches, they still have wide appeal.

I see this as more than a 'matter of degree' of modernity. It also hinges on _how_ the music is structured harmonically. As long as there are isolated areas of tonality, or triadic chord construction, or other some-such vestige of tonal devices, the music seems to pass muster with most conservative listeners who like their music to be 'normal' and do what music is 'supposed' to do.

This acceptance seems to rely on old habits, recognition of tonal devices and patterns, themes, comprehensible melodies, and other devices derived from tonal practice and ingrained listening habits.

Some listeners are willing to go a bit further than what is mentioned above; they can tune-in to the emotive content of pieces such as Berg's Op. 3 String Quartet, or Webern's Op. 5 pieces for string quartet. They can relate to the 'gestures' of the music, if not the harmonic and melodic content.

*So, the conclusion is that many listeners are not really listening to music for what it is, but are 'listening to an ideology' that was ingrained into their musical paradigm by 'the ideology of tonality' and its practices, habits, values, and devices.*

When music becomes totally chromatic, no longer tonal, and begins manifesting 'modern' musical thought and its accompanying devices in more uncompromising ways, then this seems to be a deal-breaker for most conservative listeners.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> I think many listeners are unaware of exactly what they are listening to.
> 
> Debussy is a good example of a composer who is using modern harmonic techniques, yet is quite popular with 'conservative' listeners who might also like Beethoven and Mozart.
> 
> ...


All you're really saying here is that "conservative" listeners want harmonic progressions to proceed by some recognizable principle of organized relationships, so that they sense where the music is going and where they are in it.

I would add to your examples music based on various modal systems (as found in folk music, ethnic musics, some contemporary pop, etc.), which people adapt to rather easily because there is still a tonal center and a hierarchy, with its consequent feeling of direction and gravitation.

This is simply tonality. I don't know why you'd call it an "ideology," even in quotes. It's a matter of perception, not of thought or belief.


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## Madiel (Apr 25, 2018)

millionrainbows said:


> I think many listeners are unaware of exactly what they are listening to.
> 
> Debussy is a good example of a composer who is using modern harmonic techniques, yet is quite popular with 'conservative' listeners who might also like Beethoven and Mozart.


football/soccer is way popular worldwide than classical music, nonetheless it would be fair to say that most football/soccer spectators are unaware of what exactly they are watching.
I guess we could adapt this phrasing to almost every human activity, since it seems that every activity/art/tool/game is composed by many layers of understanding/utility/scope.
years ago in a TV show presenting La Scala's inauguration Daniel Barenboim - though it was not his intention - exposed this point clearly, part of the orchestra was with him in the studio and he made the orchestra perform some popular bars from the opera, then made every section of the orchestra perform its single part of the score, Barenboim's intention was to demonstrate that the whole score contained much more musical information than the tune and that the whole made the music more interesting. Alas what he was missing is that most people once they've got the tune they need nothing more than that, just like you can watch football/soccer only understanding what a goal is and ignoring offside, 4-4-2 et cetera. 
The way I see it the "primitive" experience could be even the better one - being wild and a lack of awareness maybe allows a purer experience - but here comes the problem with "modernist" music: what's the goal? the rules are different, the playing field is different - it's like football/soccer versus Calcio_Fiorentino
In my personal experience most people when they say they like "classical music" they intend that they like classical and romantic periods, they have no interest for music composed in a style that was not en vogue during those periods, 1920 and 1520 are the same thing.


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## Thomyum2 (Apr 18, 2018)

Madiel said:


> The way I see it the "primitive" experience could be even the better one - being wild and a lack of awareness maybe allows a purer experience[/URL]


Your posts are always thoughtful Madiel. This brings to mind the difference between Apollo and Dionysus perhaps? I think this dichotomy has been with us a long time.


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## Tallisman (May 7, 2017)

Some composers are conservatives on purpose. But some just happen to compose in a particular idiom, not for the sake of conservatism itself, but just because that suits them. I think it's unfair to label Sibelius a conservative, because what he composed was totally unique, and he did it that way because he found that mode of composing the best for communicating what he wanted to communicate, not to be a deliberate reactionary. The irony is that after being labelled a conservative in his time, his music actually sounds fresher today than the composers labelled radical at the time (Schoenberg, Webern etc), at least in my opinion. 

The label 'conservative' should be reserved for those people who retain an old idiom but do nothing new with it. Sibelius took tonality and did something entirely unique with it. Similarly, Brahms retained the language of the classical period and Beethoven, and yet there are things in his symphonies that are uniquely Brahms, things that are simply not found in Beethoven, which don't simply throw away the old idiom like Schoenberg did, but rather broaden its expressive capacities, inventing new words but for the same grammar.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> All you're really saying here is that "conservative" listeners want harmonic progressions to proceed by some recognizable principle of organized relationships, so that they sense where the music is going and where they are in it.
> 
> I would add to your examples music based on various modal systems (as found in folk music, ethnic musics, some contemporary pop, etc.), which people adapt to rather easily because there is still a tonal center and a hierarchy, with its consequent feeling of direction and gravitation.
> 
> This is simply tonality. I don't know why you'd call it an "ideology," even in quotes. It's a matter of perception, not of thought or belief.


Well, I call it an "ideology' because it uses devices that are derived from tonality: triads, melodies that are arching rather than leaping, and areas of tonality. It has little to do with harmonic "progressions" that proceed in tonal fashion; Debussy is proof of this, as many of his progressions "wander" without goals, such as the whole-tone pieces.

A triad itself, in isolation, infers and manifests tonal principles, in the way it has a lowest (root) note, upon which secondary tones are stacked: the fifth, the third, the seventh, and so on. This construction infers a tonal center of the rtoot, usually in the bass. This is also how natural harmonics are derived from a fundamental ("root") tone. So, a triad is a little "harmonic model" in itself, derived from the way we hear tones.

In my listening to modern music, I have been able to transcend this "ideology of harmonic tonality" by listening to pitches and tones for what they are, apart from any tonal harmonic meaning. Berg's String Quartet No. 3 does not sound "meaningless" to me because it is not tonal. I accept the sounds, pitched sounds, for what they are.

To overcome this habitual ideological listening, one must listen to pitches as pure sound, apart from any "ideological" meaning which one expects.

This "tonal ideology" of sound is based on natural harmonic principles, so one must overcome it by refusing to succumb to "the habits of the ear." Listening to serial music then becomes a matter of hearing and perceiving sound without the _*habits *_of the ear, and becomes a more cerebral experience, to that extent.

Sound is not totally dependent upon the ears; it also involves the ear/brain perception.


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## San Antone (Feb 15, 2018)

Tallisman said:


> Some composers are conservatives on purpose. But some just happen to compose in a particular idiom, not for the sake of conservatism itself, but just because that suits them. I think it's unfair to label Sibelius a conservative, because what he composed was totally unique, and he did it that way because he found that mode of composing the best for communicating what he wanted to communicate, not to be a deliberate reactionary. The irony is that after being labelled a conservative in his time, his music actually sounds fresher today than the composers labelled radical at the time (Schoenberg, Webern etc), at least in my opinion.
> 
> The label 'conservative' should be reserved for those people who retain an old idiom but do nothing new with it. Sibelius took tonality and did something entirely unique with it. Similarly, Brahms retained the language of the classical period and Beethoven, and yet there are things in his symphonies that are uniquely Brahms, things that are simply not found in Beethoven, which don't simply throw away the old idiom like Schoenberg did, but rather broaden its expressive capacities, inventing new words but for the same grammar.


Feldman did not consider Sibelius a conservative and cited him as an influential composer for himself and others of his generation. But, Schoenberg did hope to be seen as a conservative, as remaining within the late Romantic tradition but moving it along.

Feldman's quote was, "The people who you think are radicals might really be conservatives. The people who you think are conservatives might really be radicals."


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Madiel said:


> football/soccer is way popular worldwide than classical music, nonetheless it would be fair to say that most football/soccer spectators are unaware of what exactly they are watching.
> I guess we could adapt this phrasing to almost every human activity, since it seems that every activity/art/tool/game is composed by many layers of understanding/utility/scope.
> years ago in a TV show presenting La Scala's inauguration Daniel Barenboim - though it was not his intention - exposed this point clearly, part of the orchestra was with him in the studio and he made the orchestra perform some popular bars from the opera, then made every section of the orchestra perform its single part of the score, Barenboim's intention was to demonstrate that the whole score contained much more musical information than the tune and that the whole made the music more interesting. Alas what he was missing is that most people once they've got the tune they need nothing more than that, just like you can watch football/soccer only understanding what a goal is and ignoring offside, 4-4-2 et cetera.
> The way I see it the "primitive" experience could be even the better one - being wild and a lack of awareness maybe allows a purer experience - but here comes the problem with "modernist" music: what's the goal? the rules are different, the playing field is different - it's like football/soccer versus Calcio_Fiorentino
> In my personal experience most people when they say they like "classical music" they intend that they like classical and romantic periods, they have no interest for music composed in a style that was not en vogue during those periods, 1920 and 1520 are the same thing.


I think this is a good analogy. Perhaps of relevance to how people react to modern music (and some non-Western music, too) is that it's not so much that the rules are different, it's that the very presence of rules isn't immediately obvious. If you understand the rudiments of soccer and enjoy watching it, then despite their differences it's not too hard to also pick up the basics of rugby and basketball even if you don't necessarily enjoy them. But for some listeners to modern music, it's like being confronted by a game of darts without even being told there's a scoring system: it just looks like people semi-randomly hitting parts of the board. Whereas for others, the experience might be more like a first encounter with golf - if you're not told anything about the rules, you might still quickly work out what's going on.

And yes: for many classical listeners 1920 and 1520 are indeed the same thing - but only the former tends to be seen as a problem.


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