# Rhythmic structural composers



## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

I think of *Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff, and Holst* as very structurally tight and heavily focused on rhythmic development.

compared to *Mahler, Wagner, Sibelius, Schumann, Strauss, and Bruckner* whose composition seems more amorphous or blob-like.

Perhaps what I mean by heavy rhythm and structure is that the first row of composers have form that is very straightforward and dynamically rhythmic, catchy, and I thought it might be why people enjoy Beethoven and Mozart so much, on top of their counterpoint. Their structure seems more similar to Brahms than it does Schumann, more like Rachmaninoff than it is Mahler, etc. so I'd group them all together here.

Do you think strong structure and rhythmic skills make for better composers? Or what _do_ you believe makes a better composer?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Ethereality said:


> There are exceptions of course, but do you think strong structure and rhythmic skills make for better composers?


No. Cornelius Cardew, for example wasn't so interested in specifying structure and rhythm in the compositions. Neither was John Cage. Stockhausen was though


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## EmperorOfIceCream (Jan 3, 2020)

I doubt anyone would disagree that rhythm is important—scholarship (by Caplin for instance) has shown that it is much more important in classical form than Schoenberg thought. Although I disagree that Schubert is blob-like—I mean listen to Sonata No. 17, which is even more rhythmic than a lot of Beethoven's piano music. The real rhythmic masters of the 20th century are of course my friends from Hungary, Bartók and Ligeti. Although of course Ligeti doesn't develop rhythmic ideas so much as overlap musical planes with different pulses.


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

Ethereality said:


> I think of Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff, and Holst as very structurally tight and heavily focused on rhythmic development.
> 
> compared to Mahler, Wagner, Schumann, Schubert, Sibelius, Strauss, whose composition seems more amorphous or blob-like.
> 
> There are exceptions of course, but do you think strong structure and rhythmic skills make for better composers?


I love the expression "blob-like". It's actually pretty accurate :lol:

I would say that thoughtful work going into rhytm, deciding not only on meters, but about all those dotted notes, duplets / triplets / quintuplets / septuplets, pauses and all sorts of combinations thereof, can serve to retain a catchy sense of motion even if pitches were to be significantly altered, which makes it seem paramount to the success of any cantabile melody.

The thought experiment can be made on this example *[1:40+]*:





On the other hand, studies show that rhytm is not in itself a source of identity of music pieces. A different melody far outweights the same rhytm as far as human brain is concerned.

But the effect is surely there, and gets even better with tight playing by the musicians (think: some of Toscanini's and Szell's recordings)


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Rachmaninoff is the most blob-like composer I've ever encountered....thick, muddy, sprawling, repetitious, very "blobbish"... the orchestration is generally such a mess, it virtually defines "blob-like".


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

Heck148 said:


> Rachmaninoff is the most blob-like composer I've ever encountered....thick, muddy, sprawling, repetitious, very "blobbish"... the orchestration is generally such a mess, it virtually defines "blob-like".


We need to distinguish between vertical and horizontal blobs now


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

EmperorOfIceCream said:


> I doubt anyone would disagree that rhythm is important-


Rhythm was important because music was connected to dance. But these days there are more listeners than dancers!


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Ethereality said:


> I think of Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff, and Holst as very structurally tight and heavily focused on *rhythmic developmen*t.
> 
> compared to Mahler, Wagner, Schumann, Schubert, Sibelius, Strauss, whose composition seems more amorphous or blob-like.
> 
> There are exceptions of course, but do you think strong structure and rhythmic skills make for better composers?


What is rhythmic development? I always thought variety in rhythms was just one way to keep music from being boring.


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

Heck148 said:


> Rachmaninoff is the most blob-like composer I've ever encountered....thick, muddy, sprawling, repetitious, very "blobbish"... the orchestration is generally such a mess, it virtually defines "blob-like".


That's interesting! I don't hear it.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Fabulin said:


> We need to distinguish between vertical and horizontal blobs now


LOL!! I think Rach-y exhibits omni-directional "blobbishness"...


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Ethereality said:


> That's interesting! I don't hear it.


That's because it's all covered up by the heavy murk and muddy texture!! Lol!!


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

'Blobbish' maybe compared to Beethoven and Brahms?






What musical aspects of composers would you say are more catchy or meaningful, I'm interested to hear your and others' opinions since I very well may agree. I think the first row of composers above have very straightforward, dynamically rhythmic and catchy form. But there are other aspects to music than this, I just noticed it about these composers.


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

Composers need more than structure and rhythm-- think of all the forgettable Classical and Romantic symphonies. But when a great composer has structure and rhythm, the results are better than those composers who are more amorphous. 

Also, I would add Haydn and Mendelssohn to the first group.


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## blakeklondike (Oct 28, 2020)

Steve Reich comes to mind-- a song like "Clapping Music" is all about the rhythmic structure and its displacement


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

You know what's interesting, the examples in the first row of the OP seem to perfectly fit composers whom people speak of their 'fast movements' and their 'slow movements.'

This is not because composers in the first row always simplify their movements into fast, medium or slow, but because we can actually measure them as fast or slow in the first place. With the second row composers to say that something is composed to sound 'fast' or 'slow' is a bit harder to picture, because a conceptual speed doesn't manifest all the time in interpretation, ie. "the passage is not going slow, or fast. It just sounds like it's going 1 second at a time as always":

What is the inherent essence with which we can measure _speed_? Not tempo. A slow tempo can easily seem fast with shorter notes, or seem like anything. Speed is easily measureable in the first row composers because, all their phrases have a clear benchmark of rhythmic and dynamic structure we can compare it to. The frequencies and amplitudes (dynamics) of the waves tell us their relative closeness and structure.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Heck148 said:


> Rachmaninoff is the most blob-like composer I've ever encountered....thick, muddy, sprawling, repetitious, very "blobbish"... the orchestration is generally such a mess, it virtually defines "blob-like".


but the rhythms themselves are catchy:


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

"Mozart connoisseurs and admirers know of course about what is bizarre in the finale of his very last string quartet, K. 590. In its development the harshness of the tone language is particularly unparalleled in the Mozart oeuvre. But the unsettling already starts shortly before the end of the first section: The otherwise so airily sparkling sixteenth notes stall all of a sudden in an almost stranded-like repetitive three-note kink. It is just this spot that Mozart vehemently corrected in his manuscript. The investigation of this correction offers us at hand an analytical key to the understanding of this absolutely special movement.
This spluttering three-note figure, in itself circular, seized up, as it were, against the meter,








_Mm. 122-125, vln 1_​dominates the whole development after its first occurrence and is, of course, heard once again at the end of the movement. Mozart later scrupulously corrected it wherever and in whichever part it appears as well. And indeed, to be specific, its articulation. If in the first draft he had always put sixteenths together in a large legato phrase, then he later corrected the legato (but did not cross it out or erase it in the autograph) by placing under the respective notes the familiar two-note grouping of slurs and staccatos:








_Autograph, mm. 122-125, vln 1_​To date I have never encountered any other autograph where Mozart made such a striking, systematic change in the articulation. Notes, yes, dynamics, yes, but articulation over such a long stretch? ..."
<The charm of the unsettling. A special autograph correction of Mozart's in the finale of the F-major string quartet K. 590>


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

My one regret is that I could not save him. With multiple attempts, temporal causality seems not to be overcome. I would've smiled seeing him contend with Beethoven.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

This particular passage in the Mozart missa brevis K.194 always brings smile to my face. The lyrics and measure length feel somewhat "askew" from the phrase length:
*[ 17:02 ]*


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

No. I think composers should be taken on their own terms. If your idea was correct then why isn't Holst widely considered better than Wagner or Mahler? I don't think there is any 'such and such' makes for better composers.


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

I might've said *Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Brahms, Tchaikovsky and Dvorak* but purposefully wrote Holst and Rachmaninoff to test and see if this holds true, and I suppose many on the poll believe it does. Maybe I should've been clearer; my apologies:

Per your composer comparison and some forum data, why do people prefer:
Beethoven to Mahler
Bach to Wagner
Mozart to Sibelius
Brahms to even Mahler or Wagner
Tchaikovsky to Bruckner, Strauss or Schumann
Dvorak to Strauss or Schumann etc.
even Prokofiev over Schumann

It's just a question of why that is. I agree with your point, there are multiple reasons, but I can't help seeing a pattern. Distinct patterns, that is, in the music.

In any case, I agree that everyone has their own tastes and might divide the Top 20 into a very different category than 'rhythmic' or 'tightly structured.'


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

Humans are closer in most striking movement and function to rhytms than to blobs. Rhytm speaks to us, because we are this sort of creature. Now, if humans were _mould_, and still liked music, maybe they would like blob music more.


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet (Aug 31, 2011)

Ethereality said:


> I might've said *Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Brahms, Tchaikovsky and Dvorak* but purposefully wrote Holst and Rachmaninoff to test and see if this holds true, and I suppose many on the poll believe it does. Maybe I should've been clearer; my apologies:
> 
> Per your composer comparison and some forum data, why do people prefer:
> *Beethoven *to Mahler
> ...


The bolded are the ones I prefer. A mishmash of rhythm and blob, using your assessment in OP.
I don't see a pattern in my preference, other than always choosing abstract musical forms like symphony over forms like opera.


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

Romantic music is often said to be a sort of stream of conscioussness, or have this blob-like quality. Long-winded, formless mass of music flowing into more music, without much rhytmic edge, without many sharp contours.

Some symphonic works seem to fit this mainstream: the symphonies of (for example):
Raff, Wetz, Mahler, Scriabin, Schreker...

Meanwhile Tchaikovsky and Dvorak are very purposeful, resembling symphonies of the classical era, or the "early romantics" such as Mendelsssohn and Schumann.

Were Tchaikovsky's and Dvorak's symphonies out of tune with their era? Not "old-fashioned", but rather... attempting to amalgamate the best of the past and the contemporary instead of just picking one? Notice that both Tchaikovsky and Dvorak were university professors, which gives their formalism some common ground.

I consider these two composers to be much closer to a "classical-romantic", or "Beethovenian" description, than to some big "romantic"... well, _blob _of composers conglomerated together.

"Romantic music" is an unfairly broad umbrella. I find Mendelssohn and R. Strauss to have very little in common. And yet it's relatively hard to quickly state a preference for "Romantic music with well-contoured form", the way fans of some 20th century sub-genres can easily communicate their favourite genre to someone by using countless labels.

But this question is far from simple, with Berlioz and Bruckner for example being something of both worlds.

What name to give to such music?
a) formalist romantic (hard to understand to a normie)
b) classical-romantic (sounds like simply saying: "the romantic era of classical music")
c) romantic neoclassical (confusing?)
d) Beethovenian Romanticist (wouldn't people think of Schubert and von Weber here?)
e) academic romanticist (what a thing to say on a date!)
f) something else?


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## neofite (Feb 19, 2017)

Heck148 said:


> Rachmaninoff is the most blob-like composer I've ever encountered....thick, muddy, sprawling, repetitious, very "blobbish"... the orchestration is generally such a mess, it virtually defines "blob-like".


As Rachmaninoff is clearly one of the greatest (in the top dozen or two), you are thus saying that _thick, muddy, sprawling, repetitious, very "blobbish"_ can be a good thing in the hands of a highly skilled composer?


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## EmperorOfIceCream (Jan 3, 2020)

> Rhythm was important because music was connected to dance. But these days there are more listeners than dancers!


I think this reasoning is fallacious. The meters that composers used were supposed to be danceable meters, but rhythm was not important because of dancing. This is confusing a historical fact about the role of dancing in shaping music and the presence of rhytm at all. Furthermore, the secular tradition of dancing to composed music came after religious music. Bach was extremely careful about rhythm, but it's not because he thought people were actually going to do a minuet when he wrote in triple time.


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

Music was a savannah party trick that some ape devised to woo a female. Sure it has to do with dancing.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

neofite said:


> As Rachmaninoff is clearly one of the greatest (in the top dozen or two), you are thus saying that _thick, muddy, sprawling, repetitious, very "blobbish"_ can be a good thing in the hands of a highly skilled composer?


Rachmaninoff is clearly NOT one of the greatest composers....I consider him a 3rd, 4th stringer at best.he isn't a highly skilled composer, at least for orchestral works - overly long, repetitive, sprawling structurally, full of dead ends, awkward transitions, all buried beneath a thick blanket of impenetrable sonic murk....
I've often wondered how Rachm'ff would sound if one of the real masters, maybe Stravinsky, Shostakovich, reorchestrated Rach'ff's works....there's some good detail in there, but it's all covered up by thick, sonic mud.


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## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

I must confess I love both the amorphous structures _and_the rigid ones. That is to say, I love essentially every composer you stated and I never thought of them as divisive in terms of compositional style.


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## neofite (Feb 19, 2017)

Heck148 said:


> Rachmaninoff is clearly NOT one of the greatest composers....I consider him a 3rd, 4th stringer at best.he isn't a highly skilled composer, at least for orchestral works - overly long, repetitive, sprawling structurally, full of dead ends, awkward transitions, all buried beneath a thick blanket of impenetrable sonic murk....
> I've often wondered how Rachm'ff would sound if one of the real masters, maybe Stravinsky, Shostakovich, reorchestrated Rach'ff's works....there's some good detail in there, but it's all covered up by thick, sonic mud.


As you have vastly more TC seniority than I (3,213 vs 70), I will have to defer to your presumably much greater expertise. But it is indeed a major disappointment to learn that a composer whose works I (and likely many others as well) have absolutely loved for much of my life is only _a 3rd, 4th stringer at best_.


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## BachIsBest (Feb 17, 2018)

Heck148 said:


> Rachmaninoff is clearly NOT one of the greatest composers....I consider him a 3rd, 4th stringer at best.he isn't a highly skilled composer, at least for orchestral works - overly long, repetitive, sprawling structurally, full of dead ends, awkward transitions, all buried beneath a thick blanket of impenetrable sonic murk....
> I've often wondered how Rachm'ff would sound if one of the real masters, maybe Stravinsky, Shostakovich, reorchestrated Rach'ff's works....there's some good detail in there, but it's all covered up by thick, sonic mud.


I agree that Rachmaninov has some awkward transitions, but surely the orchestration is better than you make it sound here? It can be a bit muddy at times, but it can also be wonderfully dense and organ-like almost like a "Russian Wagner" feel. He is long, but not the most egregious offender as Romantics go either. Surely this is harsh?


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

In my experience on these forums it is best not to get Heck148 started on Rachmaninov, he'll go on forever on this, he won't back down.


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

EmperorOfIceCream said:


> I think this reasoning is fallacious. The meters that composers used were supposed to be danceable meters, but rhythm was not important because of dancing. This is confusing a historical fact about the role of dancing in shaping music and the presence of rhytm at all. Furthermore, the secular tradition of dancing to composed music came after religious music. Bach was extremely careful about rhythm, but it's not because he thought people were actually going to do a minuet when he wrote in triple time.


This is all mostly wrong.


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## Lisztian (Oct 10, 2011)

tdc said:


> In my experience on these forums it is best not to get Heck148 started on Rachmaninov, he'll go on forever on this, he won't back down.


Ya. Heck148 is a great, sensible and highly valued member, but when it comes to Rachmaninoff, for whatever reason, he has very strong negative opinions and that sensibility goes out of the window. I remember a thread awhile back where everyone was arguing with him about it, but he refused to acknowledge there may be subjectivity at play.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

The answer to the OP's question surely has to be a resounding yes given that the parameters in the question are as important as the ones missed out - melody and harmony. It's a no-brainer for this member at least.

As to Rachmaninov, well I like him, his composing/scoring can be thick at times, yes, but it still works musically for me. Relating him to the OP question though, I sometimes feel as though Rachmaninov's rhythm can be a bit stiff, relying often on a dotted rhythm, be that dotted crotchet and quaver or an augmented version of it. 

Still...what wonderful crescendos and tunes eh.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

neofite said:


> As you have vastly more TC seniority than I (3,213 vs 70), I will have to defer to your presumably much greater expertise. But it is indeed a major disappointment to learn that a composer whose works I (and likely many others as well) have absolutely loved for much of my life is only _a 3rd, 4th stringer at best_.


I certainly don't mean to impair or inhibit any listener's enjoyment of their favorite composers...please enjoy your favorite music.
My assessment of Rachm'ff is based upon a long career as a professional performer - 50+ years, some 42 as an orchestra principal....when one sits in the middle of the whole ensemble, you can really hear what works and what does not.
I've always found Rachmaninoff frustrating to play and not very enjoyable....I won't go into the specifics of his orchestration issues, we've done that at length in the past, but rest assured - that assessment is based upon years of experience, and attempts to make it work....
Again, tho - to each his own...please enjoy any and all music that interests you or brings you pleasure....


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## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

neofite said:


> As you have vastly more TC seniority than I (3,213 vs 70), I will have to defer to your presumably much greater expertise. But it is indeed a major disappointment to learn that a composer whose works I (and likely many others as well) have absolutely loved for much of my life is only _a 3rd, 4th stringer at best_.


Generally Rachmaninov is ranked by how much value you place on piano music.

This is TalkClassical, where the focus is on symphonic works, opera, and then chamber music/solo music here and there. Rachmaninov is generally ranked below the great symphonists like Sibelius or Mahler and placed in the middle of the pack.

If you were on somewhere like PianoWorld or PianoStreet etc., you would see a strong bias towards piano composers and most would consider Rachmaninov among the very best.


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## neofite (Feb 19, 2017)

chu42 said:


> Generally Rachmaninov is ranked by how much value you place on piano music.
> 
> This is TalkClassical, where the focus is on symphonic works, opera, and then chamber music/solo music here and there. Rachmaninov is generally ranked below the great symphonists like Sibelius or Mahler and placed in the middle of the pack.
> 
> If you were on somewhere like PianoWorld or PianoStreet etc., you would see a strong bias towards piano composers and most would consider Rachmaninov among the very best.


Thank you chu42 for this very good explanation.


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

Also, Rachmaninoff is ranked very high in other mainstream Classical communities along with Tchaikovsky and I don't think it has to do with being related to the piano. Sorry maybe I'm stating the obvious but people sometimes forget Rachmaninoff was a pianist because his works sound very 'epic.'


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

The premise of this thread sides with Saint-Saens against Debussy. 

What is your view on them in this context, Ethereality? You seem to value the latter very high...


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

Fabulin said:


> The premise of this thread sides with Saint-Saens against Debussy.
> 
> What is your view on them in this context, Ethereality? You seem to value the latter very high...


I was getting to your question! Thanks, and it took me over a year to think about it now . My conclusion thus far is that you may be alluding to what I identify as boxy music not blobby music, two different dichotomies. Blobby entails that the music doesn't have many large shapes its made up of, because the shapes are smaller and completely stacked that when zoomed out to the listening pace, it sounds like more as a blob or a bunch of little parts. Boxy on the other hand is about what the shapes actually are: boxes--or my impression of what the box shape sounds like. Therefore, a ton of Early Romantic music (even Mahler, and Saint-Saens to a slight degree) seems to me boxy _and_ blobby. Debussy, Mozart, even John Williams are neither very boxy _or_ blobby. Beethoven, Brahms, and Uematsu to a degree, are boxy but not blobby--perhaps a paramount idiom for top melodic success! A lot of Contemporary music is blobby but not boxy. I have some hope that you might be interested in me finally thinking up an answer to this  because I do certainly prefer Debussy over Saint-Saens!


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

A pretty ridiculous thread to be honest. The examples the OP cited, especially those that are "amorphous" and "blob-like" is unfounded and simply misinformed. You honestly think Sibelius is "amorphous"? Have you ever listened to any of his music? The man oozes structure in all of his music. In fact, he was such a stickler for a tighter structure that he revised works over and over. The same with Bruckner. Just because a composer writes a long symphony, doesn't mean they're structureless. Maybe you need to actually listen to their music before making such a grandiose assertion.


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## Red Terror (Dec 10, 2018)

Award for strangest thread ever.


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

Red Terror said:


> Award for strangest thread ever.


Award for who cares.



Neo Romanza said:


> In fact, he was such a stickler for *a tighter structure* that he revised works over and over.


In your attempt to change the subject, your fallacy is called *relative privation*. It ignores the topic. Didn't even read the title of the thread . Someone revising their works has nothing to do with the topic of composition methodology.



Neo Romanza said:


> A pretty ridiculous thread to be honest. Maybe you need to actually listen to their music before making such a grandiose assertion.


No one's made any assertion that the music of Sibelius isn't well-structured, even rhythmically. A relative comparison was made on purpose between only very well-regarded composers to show a possible conceptual trend. I even let you decide in a poll, and I don't even mind putting Sibelius more in both camps, for the main composers. Maybe instead of telling others what to do, you should read and observe the threads you post in.


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## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

Ethereality said:


> I think of *Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff, and Holst* as very structurally tight and heavily focused on rhythmic development.
> 
> compared to *Mahler, Wagner, Sibelius, Schumann, Strauss, and Bruckner* whose composition seems more amorphous or blob-like.
> 
> ...


I find none of the composers mentioned amorphous or blob-like. Just think of Wagner, Mahler, Bruckner and Sibelius and their rhythmic motifs - and there really is no room for a thought that they would somehow lack rhythmic structure. Quite the opposite.

I also do not find any correlation between the rhythmic shapes of symphonic themes and the overall concise or sprawling structure of a symphony.

There must be a point in the original post that I have yet to grasp! Maybe the traditional differences between classicism and romanticism as styles is the topic here?


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

I find that Rachmaninoff generally uses a lot less polyrhythms than Scriabin, and often strikes me as more like "marching in straight line".
The first etude in this video, Scriabin Op.42 No.1




uses 9:5 polyrhythm, which changes to 9:6 later in the work. 9:6 is essentially 3:2 with strong/weak beats placed differently. But 9:5 seems so much more complicated, how anyone could play it correctly (and there are rests here and there) is beyond me.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Ethereality said:


> I think of .....Rachmaninoff....as very structurally tight and heavily focused on rhythmic development.


Rach'm'ff structurally tight??!! 


Hardly....to me, he is the epitome of "amorphous or blob-like." all over the place....


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Heck148 said:


> I certainly don't mean to impair or inhibit any listener's enjoyment of their favorite composers...please enjoy your favorite music.
> My assessment of Rachm'ff is based upon a long career as a professional performer - 50+ years, some 42 as an orchestra principal....when one sits in the middle of the whole ensemble, you can really hear what works and what does not.
> I've always found Rachmaninoff frustrating to play and not very enjoyable....I won't go into the specifics of his orchestration issues, we've done that at length in the past, but rest assured - that assessment is based upon years of experience, and attempts to make it work....
> Again, tho - to each his own...please enjoy any and all music that interests you or brings you pleasure....


You are aware that Rachmaninoff was primarily a composer of piano music and songs, right? Evaluating and comprehensively panning a composer's work without addressing the center of his output is not very professional.


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

I wish people just read the thread



Ethereality said:


> I might've said *Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Brahms, Tchaikovsky and Dvorak* but purposefully wrote Holst and Rachmaninoff to test and see if this holds true, and many on the poll still believe it does.


instead of segueing into how "tightly and rigidly structured Wagner is" heh, and "how ridiculous and strange this thread is." The rude responses here just caught me off guard.

I understand where Waehnen and Neo Romanza are coming from. When it comes to aspects outside of rhythm, motivic movement and progression, a greater argument can be made and I appreciate the former for being polite about it. "It's _totally_ fair to address _all_ structural elements of composers and not dismiss them as simply amorphous because they don't fit into a popular category of dynamical rhythm and motivic movement." Many of the composers I listed, Wagner, Sibelius, Schumann, Mahler, are really not as popular as people think, and I addressed one reason. That's it. It has no bearing on whether the mainstream is clueless, it's simply an observation and you're within your right to counter the mainstream position that these composers aren't even better at structure and form. I made a very personal simplification back in 2020 I still haven't had time to explain


Ethereality said:


> To me form is synonymous with quality, that is, the interpretation you take away from a whole work, getting over the obstacles and onto seeing the big picture or whole impression. Form is the whole. Once you've heard a work, form can leave its impression. It's often correlated to length as well, ie. how big and symmetrical can you make a mountain, or how worthwhile and aesthetically balanced can you make a journey. Greater form can be achieved with greater length, but it's also more difficult.
> 
> The best work / form imo is probably within *The Ring of Nibelungen.*


and I think it correlates to simple music theory. Someone countered me:



1996D said:


> Wagner's form can be very poor because of his overambition. The common criticism that his works are a sea of dullness with occasional great moments is valid, but his music has many more issues than that.


 How do we explain the difference between these composers? I thought categorizing them into very close-knit rhythms, themes and patterns was one option. I said:



Ethereality said:


> But there are other aspects to music than this, I just noticed it about these composers.


_There are other categories of form and composition to consider besides the OP one_. So let's make our observations politely and with some better examples and references to back them up. Thank you. And I understand Heck148 is referring to vertical amorphousness.



Waehnen said:


> I also do not find any correlation between the rhythmic shapes of symphonic themes and the overall concise or sprawling structure of a symphony.
> 
> There must be a point in the original post that I have yet to grasp!


Thank you for stating/sharing your position.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

EdwardBast said:


> You are aware that Rachmaninoff was primarily a composer of piano music and songs, right? Evaluating and comprehensively panning a composer's work without addressing the center of his output is not very professional.


My omission - I understand that Rachm'ff's main output was for the piano and voice...I was responding to the OP in regards to his orchestral music....I'm not as familiar with the bulk of his works for voice and solo piano....but his orchestral works, for me - are anything but "strongly structured" - they meander about, loaded with cul-de-sacs, awkward transitions, tangents going ???...
My apologies for not addressing his entire oeuvre....


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## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

Ethereality, I still have a feeling that we are dealing with the traditional characteristic differences of classicism and romanticism here. When it comes to composing, it often is a balancing act between the two: concise and precise classicist musical forms, and more expansive and expressive romanticist elements. It would seem to me that on the other list you have included composers who have a strong classicist trait in them — and in the other group you have listed composers who have a strong romanticist element to them.

Those differences are stylistic. It would be wrong to always pick the music that has the most clear-cut classicist themes, rhythms and structures and say that music would always somehow be better than a long romanticist elaboration of an atmosphere or drama for example.

Classicism was before romanticism on the timeline and hence due to the establishment there is more canonized composers of ”universal stature” there. Romanticism tended to incorporate more the national, local and exotic elements in the themes and material. It can also lead to the perception of romanticism not being as ”universal” as classicism.

In my opinion none of the things above linked to a musical camp indicate more musical quality over the other camp. Neither do I see all that great a difference in popularity — something that the extended universality of the musical language or establishment would not explain.

(Are classicist and romanticist even words? Pardon my fenno-english! Please!)


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

I seem to have skipped over an appreciation for Romantic era sensibilities._ "I needed a new path through the woods."_ In some ways I wish Classical music would've moved into a different direction, that's maybe why I trash on Beethoven sometimes yet not being his fault to desire more drawn-out, increased amplitude and breadth that the orchestra can achieve. It was the most convenient nature at that time. Ravel and Wagner for me, just really opened up better potentials for me than most of the Romantics and Beethoven. Although my ideal sound in the following post doesn't reference Wagner at all due to what I described there about Bruckner. I think this post linked is really a perfect response to yours at this time, though I want to add more here.

Recommendions Based on my Ideal


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