# Belief in disbelief & music...



## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I was hearing a radio interview last night with Alom Shaha, author of The Young Atheist's Handbook. In the interview, he referred to the ideas of another writer on these issues, Daniel Dennett, who coined the term _belief in disbelief_. This refers to people who don't practice religion but still kind of see themselves as being on the religious side of the spectrum. In other words, they are basically atheists but uncomfortable to question religion, for various reasons. So they try to identify with religion but their heart is not in it.

Now this thread is not meant to be about religion, that was only my starting point, an analogy, if you like.

Members of this forum, Polednice & Huilunsoittaja have raised this issue with reference to specific composers, HERE with regards to J.S Bach, and HERE with regards to Beethoven.

*What I'm saying is that do you have belief in disbelief with regards to anything about classical music?* Eg. if people say a certain conductor or composer is great, do you go along with that, even though in your heart of hearts, you don't believe that (eg. you may even think the opposite?).

*I say this because some people are desperate to "get" or understand a composer or performer, even if their gut feeling is like thanks but no thanks. *So they may go to some effort listen to lots of recordings of them to kind of get over their gut feelings. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

*Anyway, your thoughts on my thoughts here are welcome, esp. with personal examples.

Some issues/questions -

- Did you work to counter or change your belief in disbelief in relation to music?

- How did you do it? Was it systematic? Or did you have an unannounced "road to Damascus" conversion type moment? Eg. when you began to really enjoy music you thought before you should have but didn't enjoy, engage with, appreciate, etc?

- Has your gut feeling changed about some music over time?

- etc...*


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## Guest (Feb 27, 2012)

I grew up with very strict parents. I learned from that to stay as far away from "should" as possible.:lol:

But yeah, my feelings about different pieces and even different types of music has changed over time.

I used to be concerned with such things as greatness and reputation and taste and such, but that was then, and now is now.

My concern now is with the quality of my listening. Am I listening well enough to get pleasure from this piece? And while I can ask "is there something wrong with this piece or is there something wrong with my listening?" I get better, more useful, results if I just attend to my listening.

Some pieces reward listening; some don't. And my list of does and don'ts is very likely going to be different from everyone else's. As it should be.


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

Initially when I started discovering classical music (via my own efforts, coming largely from a non-musical family but very appreciative and had numerous dealings with the visual arts nonetheless), the "pretty tunes" happened to come from Bach, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven etc. and it just so happens that these were the great composers that we were all taught to believe when we attended primary music classes in school and or upbringing in general. All good.

Then as I gathered experience to discover more of classical music in general, stretching into the Romantic and 20th century, I became more confident, if I may put it that way, of my own taste; in other words, I'm not so bothered if I don't happen to enjoy _Symphonie Fantastique_ by Berlioz as much as you might. Mahler, with his epically long, grand scaled symphonies is another example. I enjoy listening to all of them once a while but I don't rate them as highly as Mahler fans here do (I have a nice set of them under Antoni Wit that I enjoy). Do I make a big effort in trying to explode my eardrums with these to enjoy the Berlioz and Mahler as much as I do with say, Haydn and Beethoven symphonies? Not really. I think I understand the idiom of these pieces and it's a matter of personal taste that they appeal to me less. I am a firm believer that one's musical taste does change over time - Bartok's SQ when I was first discovering Mozart's _Eine kleine Nachtmusik_ was musical poison but much more palatable now. Though I still very doubt the frontier of random industrial chainsaw noises would ever be as palatable - that will always likely be a belief in disbelief.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I don't want to miss anything. I'll listen to stuff until I feel that I have some idea why other people love it so much.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

_What I'm saying is that do you have belief in disbelief with regards to anything about classical music? Eg. if people say a certain conductor or composer is great, do you go along with that, even though in your heart of hearts, you don't believe that (eg. you may even think the opposite?)._

I don't like to disagree with people I respect, but it turns out there are a few conductors/composers that I don't agree with the crowd on. But I tend to keep that to myself. I've found out that people get upset if you tip over their sacred cow.

_- Did you work to counter or change your belief in disbelief in relation to music?_

You mean have I discovered that I'm only listening to a piece because people say it's good, then realized I didn't need to follow the crowd? Usually after I've made efforts to understand why people say it's good. This just happened to me recently. There's a composer - I won't say who - who was promoted by a member of this forum, and in respect to their judgment, I tried to get into it, but eventually I figured out, as great as the composer is, he just doesn't do it for me.

_- How did you do it_?

In this case, I read his posts and suggestions for listening. Then I read two books about the composer and his works. At least I now know where the composer is coming from, even if he isn't coming for me.

_- Has your gut feeling changed about some music over time_?

Yes. For example, I never paid any attention to Schoenberg until about four years ago. In his case, I don't know why it appeals to me other than a gut feeling.


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## Vesteralen (Jul 14, 2011)

I'm somewhat obsessive/compulsive in my hobbies, as I've said before. So, I tend to listen to things in a very orderly way. Recently, I decided to include a completely chronological list of musical works in my schedule. I just got finished listening three times to a CD of someone's attempted reconstruction of Ancient Greek music (I know, that's probably not really possible, no matter how learned the person is, but it IS the oldest music I could find). Did I like it? Not much. But, did I find it interesting enough to listen to three times? Obviously.

I find I listen to a great deal of music more out of interest than out of great liking. It's a hobby - and that makes it more than just pure entertainment. The CDs I listen to when I'm alone driving in my car are much different than the ones I play when other people are with me. They don't understand the concept of listening out of interest.

The whole "greatness" issue goes over my head. I recently listened to a series of lectures on the Beethoven symphonies, and though I might not agree with everything the lecturer said, I did learn a lot of things I didn't know before. And, in all humility, it's easy for me to acknowledge Beethoven as "great". That still doesn't make him one of my personal favorites. I listen to Beethoven these days more out of interest (as I do most of the composers I listen to) than out of pure liking (though, there was a time in my earlier years when certain Beethoven passages could give me a few goose-bump moments).

Looking back on this post, I'm not sure I really answered the question. I guess the closest thing I had to a change of mind on a composer I had made up my mind was NOT great would be Tchaikovsky. I disdained the man when I was younger and refused to listen to the stuff friends of mine told me to try, but I have found much to admire in his talent as a composer as I've gotten older. He's never gotten to be a real favorite with me, but there is a world of difference in my attitude toward him now.

The "moment" things changed for me in regard to him was probably when I watched the final scene of the movie "Together" - one of the most emotional moments I ever experienced in film-viewing.


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## tgtr0660 (Jan 29, 2010)

As a child I used to have Mozart as my favorite composer and the other two favorites (though far below) were Bach and Beethoven. Yes, the three big sacred cows of all time, how typical. When I grew up and I started understanding what I was hearing, when I actually went beyond just liking my music to actually understanding and appreciating it more, the same three composers were and still are my absolute favorites, though the order has changed (JS Bach towers above them all). So yes, I guessed I had a belief but then I confirmed and modified my belief into certain personal truth. 

I don't go with the flow always, though I have realized the immortal composers are such because they deserved it. That "hidden gem" that one is supposed to find if one digs well enough just isn't there. No matter how much Berwalds, Hummels, Boyces, Tartinis, Veraccinis, Faschs, etc etc etc I hear, I always realize the names that have always stood there as representatives of an era (in this example, baroque-classical era mostly) are still the ones that deserve to be so. 

With conductors is different. I don't hold the belief that Gardiner for example is the ultimate truth of conducting (though I like much of his work) and I love vibrato in all my post-classical recordings (something that I'm sure will be instilled as a "belief" in new classical-music generations: "vibrato is a crime in pre-20th century music!". Screw that.) 

One discovers new things about music every day.


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

tgtr0660 said:


> As a child I used to have Mozart as my favorite composer and the other two favorites (though far below) were Bach and Beethoven. Yes, the three big sacred cows of all time, how typical. When I grew up and I started understanding what I was hearing, when I actually went beyond just liking my music to actually understanding and appreciating it more, the same three composers were and still are my absolute favorites, though the order has changed (JS Bach towers above them all). So yes, I guessed I had a belief but then I confirmed and modified my belief into certain personal truth.
> 
> I don't go with the flow always, though I have realized the immortal composers are such because they deserved it. That "hidden gem" that one is supposed to find if one digs well enough just isn't there. No matter how much Berwalds, Hummels, Boyces, Tartinis, Veraccinis, Faschs, etc etc etc I hear, I always realize the names that have always stood there as representatives of an era (in this example, baroque-classical era mostly) are still the ones that deserve to be so.
> 
> ...


Meh, vibrato wasn't a crime pre-20th century. It wasn't even a crime in the baroque, considering that it was actually around and being used at that time. The real issue is whether or not the interpreter is being over-sentimental. The baroque was more abstract, form driven, focused on the whole ensemble. God forbid that a harpsichordist uses rubato in a mixed ensemble work, right?

As for the thread, you guys know my attitude by now. I vainly attempt to enjoy every piece of art I have the time to listen to, and it works enough of the time for me to enjoy all the study. Not to mention that those who study music run into opportunities to appreciate other aspects of history all the time, e.g. the relationship between philosophy and music in the 17th-19th centuries that I drone on occasionally.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

I never think about the consensus (if there is one?) concerning a piece of music, a conductor, an orchestra, a composer, etc. I just go with what sounds good to me. I don't try to like popular minimalists just because they're in vogue and recording for ECM. I don't give a crap.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Everyone had interesting things to say, thanks to all who have responded so far.

I agree with the gist of what some people said above. Some things will be your passion - or developing passions - while with other things you dip your toes in the water, so to speak. It is good to have exposure to things other than your core area/s, it can add to our appreciation of music in other ways than just pure - or immediate - enjoyment as some have pointed out, eg. for reasons of history or musicology, to understand innovations in music, etc.

I think reading about the composer or music is important to me, which is what Manxfeeder talks about, to know where the composer is coming from, etc.

I think there is a limit too, as some say. I try to push, but only so far. My _belief in disbelief _is that opera is a highly sophisticated genre, combining music with theatre and visual art aspect, also setting words, all that stuff. But opera is my least favoured genre of all. My parents loved opera, but it didn't rub off on me to a great deal. But I value that I was exposed to opera early on, I do respect it although I may sometimes come across as critical of it.

I have not tried to necessarily change my _belief in disbelief _of opera, but I have explored more deeply operas of some composers whose instrumental music I liked. Eg. this applies to Beethoven, Berlioz, Schoenberg, J. Strauss Jnr (got into his operettas after hearing his waltzes), Rossini and so on. Some composers I connected with after hearing their operas straight away, without hearing anything else of them first - eg. Berg, Puccini, Donizetti. Other opera composers I take the historical interest view, worth knowing them but not to any depth - eg. Wagner, R. Strauss in particular.

So opera is this kind of area for me, but I don't think I'm defficient for not being as deeply into it as some people. There's plenty of other things out there, and I focus on pushing things based on my tastes and preferences, which I think are still fairly wide and flexible.

& regarding J.S. Bach, I had a wonderful "road to Damascus" moment with his music at a concert of his _Double Violin Concerto _a while back, reviewed HERE. It hit me squarely between the eyes, the emotion, but I had known that work from recordings for a long time...


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## brianwalker (Dec 9, 2011)

http://www.talkclassical.com/17848-not-reason-but-faith.html

This question ultimately comes down to, "do you trust your own ears, your own heart, and your own soul?" which leads to the icky subject matter of "taste".

Since my answer is yes, I have no belief in disbelief.



starthrower said:


> I never think about the consensus (if there is one?) concerning a piece of music, a conductor, an orchestra, a composer, etc. I just go with what sounds good to me. I don't try to like popular minimalists just because they're in vogue and recording for ECM. I don't give a crap.


There's never universal consensus, but within groups with common interests (say, Wagnerites or Brahmsians (sic?)) there are only "a few" consensuses. Just because there's no absolute consensus on who was the greatest soprano ever doesn't mean that Flagstad's reputation is "questionable" or "subjective". It's like the presidential election that never happens. There are only a few candidates that even make it to *the primaries.* Those who make it to the primaries are considered legitimate candidates for the presidency.

The question of "who is the greatest American novelist" will never be definitively answered, but there are only so many reputable, respectable candidates. No literary critic would ever give Grace Metalious a slot in the primaries, just as few critics would deny Henry James the chance to run.

Why do haters gather together? Because for them to submit to faith, or what you call the "belief in disbelief", is for them to discount the validity of their own ears, their own eyes, their own heart and mind and soul. To submit to "belief in disbelief" is an implicit way of acknowledging "yes, that's it, I have inferior taste after all".


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

I think there are wholly different paradigms (points of reference or distinct concepts) that can get involved here, those being the "taste paradigm" and the "value paradigm". If I may, I'd like to define them:

Value- in this system, the questions that the art appreciator asks him/her self during inquiry into and study of the material pertain to the value of the piece(s). "Does it fit into a framework of events?" "Does it express an era of human thinking as well as that of the individual who created the piece?" "Is there another humanistic value involved here, maybe something evocative like theosophy?" Because there is value in the study and much can be learned, there is entertainment. Those using this paradigm can be just as subjective in their thinking as those using the taste paradigm, considering that not all people value the same things.

Taste- in this system, the questions that the art appreciator may ask himself go along various lines, are definitely different for different people, and can be less verbally asked and determined upon more intuitive grounds. "How is it that I initially feel about this piece?" (this first one being a question very much for cultural anthropology) "Is it aesthetically pleasing to me?"

Do both of these paradigms seem limited, and not actually much of a likeness for us and the listeners we know? Certainly, because both of these paradigms work on us and can be observed doing just that. We are all people who come from a cultural reference and we all physiologically respond to music, that much has been pretty well proven. We all at least presumably have humanistic interests, and seeing as that we listen to and may also study art music here, we presumably must have humanistic interest of an academic bent. The issue here for me is seeing which paradigm predominates from listener to listener.

Some assumptions can be made by those who stick more to one paradigm than another, and it may well do them good to take stock of those assumptions. 

Simply because music from a certain period does not impress one as "emotional", or as a better descriptor "personable", it can be assumed that that music lacks in those qualities. Maybe assumptions along those lines are correct, yet then again we come from an entirely different period in history, and cultural context, than a lot of the people who wrote the music we listen to. We folks of the modern western world tend to lead highly individualistic lives, with a disdain towards imperialism, and repression of the "inner self". Not to mention that we have a totally different aesthetic frame of reference and bulk of early listening that hooks us on tonal modality (as opposed to other forms of modality).

Ockeghem (a polyphonic church composer from the renaissance), for example, wrote for a crowd that was of a stricter religious tradition, who generally knew the common modes and their cadential focus, and would easily have grasped the novelty of his work. They weren't interested in some personalized narrative, some impressionistic picturesque environment, or other later musical pursuits that they might have considered hedonistic, gushy, mellodramatic, or even a farce if they had been subjected to it. They were probably interested in a religious aesthetic, one of the holy spheres (Greek reference there if you follow me) and beautiful simplicity.

It can be assumed that we ought to value a work according to it's prominence and contribution to further development, at the same time assuming something is less valuable because it didn't create as much of a ripple in the pond. Maybe composers who aren't the holy cows (and I don't mean the big three because there are more than three holy cows) really weren't as good at what they did. Then again, it goes to say that there are bound to be other composers out there who make a better emotional impression than the big figures. We all have our odd fancies, and I would venture to say that those who wish to devalue some of our odd fancies are limiting their scope of appreciation.

Those two lines of assumption weren't meant to cover very many bases. They were meant to be material to look at in terms of the two paradigms. I would venture to say in closing that if anyone were to give effort to appreciate both paradigms and had the time to do so well, that hardly any piece of art music would be considered "unemotional" or "a trivial waste of time" to that listener.


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

What's popular is popular either because it's been shoved down our throats or because it isn't too abnormal. It also helps if the composer is thought to have been mad or depressed, because then you can confidently say that their works have emotional depth or reveal a tortured soul. Maybe I'm just cynical, but it seems to me that a lot of what's popular in classical music is that way simply because it's either easy listening, has a personal (i.e.: written just after the composer's lover died etc.) story attached to it, or because it had a scandalous première/sensationalist representation of the event in the media.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with easy listening, but I think many of us find difficulty in calling a spade a spade.


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## regressivetransphobe (May 16, 2011)

The most difficult, left-field music on earth is easy listening if you enjoy it. That's a red herring.


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## tgtr0660 (Jan 29, 2010)

Crudblud said:


> What's popular is popular either because it's been shoved down our throats or because it isn't too abnormal. It also helps if the composer is thought to have been mad or depressed, because then you can confidently say that their works have emotional depth or reveal a tortured soul. Maybe I'm just cynical, but it seems to me that a lot of what's popular in classical music is that way simply because it's either easy listening, has a personal (i.e.: written just after the composer's lover died etc.) story attached to it, or because it had a scandalous première/sensationalist representation of the event in the media.
> 
> I'm not saying there's anything wrong with easy listening, but I think many of us find difficulty in calling a spade a spade.


I think you're being cynical and even trying to. This is not pop music after all. The pieces and composers that have achieved immortality are far from easy listening. Bach? Yeah right compare his music to other music of the baroque era. Beethoven? Compare it to Hummel or contemporaries, yeah right so easy. Wagner easy listening? Oh yes I guess Stravinsky is basically smooth jazz... Sorry man this is actually absurd. You're too cynical as you said, don't apply Zappa's lack of popularity in the realm of popular music to the lack of popularity of lesser composers in academic music. Immortal music has passed the test of time and there is a reason for that much simpler and less complicated than your "shoved down your throats" one (who, by the way??): it is tried and tested amazing music.


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## brianwalker (Dec 9, 2011)

Crudblud said:


> What's popular is popular either because it's been shoved down our throats or because it isn't too abnormal. It also helps if the composer is thought to have been mad or depressed, because then you can confidently say that their works have emotional depth or reveal a tortured soul. Maybe I'm just cynical, but it seems to me that a lot of what's popular in classical music is that way simply because it's either easy listening, has a personal (i.e.: written just after the composer's lover died etc.) story attached to it, or because it had a scandalous première/sensationalist representation of the event in the media.
> 
> I'm not saying there's anything wrong with easy listening, but I think many of us find difficulty in calling a spade a spade.


What explains Bach's popularity?

OR RATHER.

What explains the history of his popularity? He had to be revived. His Cello Suites weren't popular until the 1930s when Casals started recording them with EMI.

St. Matthews Passion had to be revived by Mendelssohn.

If all of those extra-musical elements are what's responsible, why did his music go through an incubation period?


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

brianwalker said:


> ...To submit to "belief in disbelief" is an implicit way of acknowledging "yes, that's it, I have inferior taste after all".


I don't really agree with that. As I said above, somebody accepting something as being valued and loved by many listeners, but not this individual personally, it's not a weakness or deficiency.

Eg. amongst people I personally know into classical, I was the only one who said I didn't enjoy J.S. Bach's music. But over the years, esp. in the last year or so, I have reversed that, I have come "back to Bach," well, his violin concertos and chamber/solo music at least.

If we accept that we are kind of believing something, but not fully, we can work on dealing with it. For some people, nothing will change, they will remain in the same position as before. For others, they may listen to and find out more about a certain composer or piece of music, and maybe warm to it, maybe not, or maybe be in-between. It's all fine, there's room for diversity of _belief in disbelief _in music, imo...


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

P.S. I would really love if people stayed away from the debate between objective and subjective evaluations of art, the various canons, etc. I don't want this to be yet another thread I started hijacked by that rubbish. Go and create your own threads on that if you wish. About a year ago, there was a spate of what I see as idiotic comparisons between pieces that had nothing to do with eachother. Eg. John Cage and Beethoven. If you want to do that crapola, make your own space to do it. I'm paranoid of this, it's just silly & childish...


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

I have to agree to a huge degree with Crudblud. There are so many sacred cows we are all confronted with and taught to revere that all but a few seasoned listeners who don't really care what others think and who are well-sure of their accumulated sense of what is good and that their 'criteria' are good enough without "checking in with the authorities" - who then can happily trust their own 'taste' and ignore all the common opinions. 

Though I've always liked only SOME, I find Bach, since he wrote so much, often as perfectly made as he is perfectly boring. The built up apocrypha, the 'Oh Wow' dramatized presentation (even in textbooks) of how "anyone could do that" gravely impresses the hell out of laymen and music students alike. Bach: talented, remarkably gifted, etc. check, check and check. But if you are already a very genial and clever tyro crossword designer and that is the only way you write for forty five or fifty years, and daily, is it such a bleeding miracle? People revere him (literally) as if he invented counterpoint out of thin air, instead of being the heir to and taught by the previous two centuries of contrapuntal masters.

So there you go -- one perfect illustration of overwhelming distorted concepts of why he was such a big deal. People seem to think the music reminds them of cosmic order, the truths of the universal mechanism, the Godhead, etc. That's fine if you can accept the inception of Newtonian physics and think of watching and hearing the gear-wheel mechanisms of an 18th century timepiece as ultimate models of the truth of the universe. That he wrote so much daily and that even a bit of it is inspired IS a bit of a miracle. He affected, in his own time and thereafter, the direction of music not one whit, unlike Monteverdi, Rameau, Mozart, Schubert, Beethoven, Debussy or Stravinsky.

Much of the above, with a tweak here and there, could be said to illustrate the distorted presentation of many of the other headliners, Poor, tortured Tchaikovsky, poor tubercular Chopin, coughing up blood all over the keyboards of Europe, etc. etc. (Chopin is still thought of and too often played as a drippingly sentimental, ‘pretty’ and vaporous composer – the complete opposite of what he wrote or is about.) 

Beethoven gets a similar, if not egregiously lionized, presentation -- the great deaf composer. Certainly one of the greatest of composers, but also most 'identified with' because his personal struggle is so readily audible in the music itself (Aw, he's one of US!) That audible struggle is often perceived as man against the rages of fortune and misfortune. Something closer to the truth is he had to wrestle with his Materials almost all the time and Willfully force them into shape -- it did not come easily or readily to Luigi! (Again, we sentimentalize his 'winning' that struggle, like we get teary about The Special Olympics. -- it should have No Bearing on what we hear in the music!) He was the opposite of a Monteverdi, Mozart, or Rameau, whose works never sound anything but so fluid and fluent that is as if they came as easily to those composers as breathing (That, I think, is ‘art’ – when it seems ‘artless.’) Everyone else, including my personal Gods and Demigods, can be heard as 'having had to think about it,' at least a little bit.

Much of this comes from the fact that a great deal of what was written about these composers was at the inception of music history, ca. 1880-1910, with the still present full bore of the late romantic ethos and its predilection for the lugubrious and grossly sentimental (viz. those ridiculous books of über-inflated hyberbole on 'The real meaning of the Beethoven Sonatas.") Very little of it has been truly excised from later writings - or attitudes toward - and it is still what is often presented in introducing music to the general public, preconditioning both their expectations and perception of music, to the present day.

No wonder anyone has trouble hearing any music, old or new, as something fresh, or that they do not feel free to make up their own mind about it. It is a point of wonder to me that in the 21st century that burden of the excess and mannered later 19th century Romantic sensibility should so still dominate how music is initially taught and presented.

P.s. I Love Music, and think all I've complained of are the elements that set up barriers or prohibit people from immediate access to that which I love.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

never mind


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Personally, I know that I don't have the knowledge necessary to evaluate music insightfully. I can only tell you whether I enjoy it.


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

PetrB said:


> I have to agree to a huge degree with Crudblud. There are so many sacred cows we are all confronted with and taught to revere that all but a few seasoned listeners who don't really care what others think and who are well-sure of their accumulated sense of what is good and that their 'criteria' are good enough without "checking in with the authorities" - who then can happily trust their own 'taste' and ignore all the common opinions.
> 
> Though I've always liked only SOME, I find Bach, since he wrote so much, often as perfectly made as he is perfectly boring. The built up apocrypha, the 'Oh Wow' dramatized presentation (even in textbooks) of how "anyone could do that" gravely impresses the hell out of laymen and music students alike. Bach: talented, remarkably gifted, etc. check, check and check. But if you are already a very genial and clever tyro crossword designer and that is the only way you write for forty five or fifty years, and daily, is it such a bleeding miracle? People revere him (literally) as if he invented counterpoint out of thin air, instead of being the heir to and taught by the previous two centuries of contrapuntal masters.
> 
> ...


Ah, I see we have a Bach scholar here, content to compose rants that are difficult to get through  And Beethoven is only popular because he was a bad boy and a tortured soul, eh? Let's just forget that he was the benefactor of the scherzo, that he wrote some particularly refined chamber music, that he mixed up the symphonic ensemble, and that he wrote tons of charming short pieces, right?

Nah, I'm just busting your chops. I do agree that the presentation of the cows has been romanticized, but they also wrote really great music.


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## tgtr0660 (Jan 29, 2010)

^Also, yes, Bach never changed in 50 years. His early cantatas are the same as his late ones. Also, he never influenced anyone. Of course. And yes his music was made popular because of his extremely exciting and romantic life... Yes of course. 

And then Beethoven who made no impact in the world of harmony, of the symphony, whose music is just popular because he was deaf of course. 

Damn this all seems to have been taken from People's magazine edition on classical music. Because last time I read actual scholarly books on these two composers, the fact that one was deaf was rather a minimal detail when his music was discussed, and the influence of the other on composers of all ages (if not precisely of the one that followed his directly) is usually recognized as immortal, as is the quality of his, damn, perfect music. 

Oh well that would prove that I'm a sheep who likes those two composers only because I've been told to by guys in wigs writing books. Who would have thought I fell in love with that music far earlier than I could actually begun to read extremely boring (for a kid that is) books on music? And, amazingly, once I actually understood what the hell harmony and counterpoint and all of that were, their music became even greater in my ears. 

Oh well I guess we all like Chopin because he was a sick man, Tchaikovsky because of his drama, Mozart because he died young, Schubert because he also died young... I guess Wagner is like because he liked silk? (his antisemitism couldn't be the answer could it?). 

Nonsense. At least the people that actually like and love what we call classical music usually like composers because of their music, first and foremost. Just as you like Rameau, Monteverdi and other composers because of that, because of their music.


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