# Musical Thought Experiment



## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I have brought up this thought experiment a couple of times before, but I believe I may not have explained it well enough such that the responses I received were less than ideal. I hope I’ve learned enough to describe this thought experiment so everyone can easily understand it.

Imagine a piece of music that you love written by a favorite composer. Maybe it’s a Beethoven or Mozart symphony. Maybe a Wagner opera. You learn today that instead of the composer having written the work, someone wrote it recently (maybe 50 years ago). If it’s easier, imagine that a Beethoven/Mozart/Wagner work was discovered 50 years ago. But the work is as wonderful as Beethoven’s 9th/Mozart’s 41st/Wagner’s Tristan. You really loved the work. Now, however, you realize the work is a pastiche, but not just a pastiche like others you’ve heard. It’s essentially a perfect pastiche – everyone thought the “great” composer wrote the work. The work entered the classical canon. You loved the work and thought extremely highly of it musically.

Basically I want to know if the knowledge that the work is a pastiche (essentially written “out of time”) would color your feelings towards it such that:
1) you would listen to it less often,
2) you would find the work less enjoyable,
3) you would think less highly of the musical value.

Some problems from past versions of this experiment:

1) People said it was impossible. That’s what thought experiments are. If you could do them, we wouldn’t need thought experiments. Philosophers imagine zombies when constructing thought experiments on consciousness. Physicists invoke impossible (in real life) situations to explore physics. Please just accept the conditions and consider how you would react.

2) People thought the intent was to demean modern music or get people to admit modern music was not as good as earlier music. This thought experiment is not about new, modern music but rather about people’s views and feelings concerning music written “out of time”. You may have thoughts about the true composer (why would anyone do that?), but I'm more interested in how the knowledge would color your views of the music itself.

There are no right or wrong answers. It’s simply how you think you would feel after learning the music was written recently. Thanks.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Upon first reading of the OP, I was thinking it was opposite of the 2nd problem: that it sounded similar to demean the value of older period music. Your thought experiment had a real life case with Giazotto who wrote the Adagio people thought was Albinoni's. People did buy the scam, thinking it was a newly discovered piece by that older composer. 

For me it would make no difference how I thought of the music, since I would judge it on its own merit, at least that is what I would like to think.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I've raised this question before, on a different forum, and got little response other than, "Well, that's impossible." But I really wonder if somebody wrote a symphony that was "like" Beethoven and (more importantly) fully as good as Beethoven, if anybody would take much notice. Maybe those days are gone.

Related and amusing: "Some of [Fritz] Kreisler's compositions were pastiches ostensibly in the style of other composers. They were originally ascribed to earlier composers, such as Gaetano Pugnani, Giuseppe Tartini and Antonio Vivaldi, and then, in 1935, Kreisler revealed that it was he who wrote the pieces. When critics complained, Kreisler replied that they had already deemed the compositions worthy: "The name changes, the value remains", he said.

On my radio station, Henri Casadesus's forged cello concerto is stall played with its attribution to "JC Bach."


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## Capeditiea (Feb 23, 2018)

I agree with phil on this. 


But to make the thought experiment more passionate i shall grant a few examples. :3 since most are portrayed randomly. 


:3 

First example. 
Beethoven's Fifth. 
(this is usually on the top ten of many top ten lists. (which personally i don't see why...) but still...) 

If it was instead written by Weber. (which if one pays close attention to Weber's First, it has about ten or so phrases already... with a different motif.) I am going by how it sounds... not via the score since i have not seen the scores for either... 

I would probably enjoy it more, even though i like both composers, (which each have their own qualities.) 

Now let's move forward to a more accurate adaptation of this thought experiment. :3 
Gross Fugue. (there are several works titled Great Fugue. But the one i am speaking of is Beethoven's quartet.) 
We'll say Sorabji wrote it. Given the fact that Sorabji is one of those composers who are usually either hated or loved completely, this would be up there on the rankings of Jami Symphony. But I think the work wouldn't be as well known... Due to Sorabji's reputation in mainstream Classical... 

But given the fact of this. Mahler's Tenth, it is notably his most dissonant work. :3 also one of my top five works ever. I mean it has such emotion to it, that doesn't even match the other symphonies by Mahler. (except hints of the ninth...) But with this in mind, that it was misarchived and a later composer wrote it... but was given credit by Mahler. (Yeah, Yeah, Alma proved that it was writen by him and such...) But this is just a scenario, However what if instead it was written much later by let's say... Stockhausen... i mean it could sincerely be a great conspiracy. :O 

But still regardless of who wrote Mahler's Tenth, i would still love it. 

But then let's go to a work i dislike... because it hasn't been pulled off to it's utmost value. Braxton's For Four Orchestras. If it was written by Sorabji instead... i would probably understand it more effectively, since well... that is a lot like Sorabji's voice. but i haven't heard enough Braxton to fully come to terms of his voice. 

But if Braxton's For Four Orchestras was written by Beethoven. I would have wondered what drugs Beethoven was on.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Capeditiea has a good point. Many people seldom listen to music; they listen to the _idea _of music, filtered through whatever backstory they believe in. This is obviously true of Beethoven, and even more so of Shostakovich. Many seem to hear not his music but what they think he is saying politically (per some crude and garish comic book existing only in their brains), and even that is filtered through their own politics. I won't even start on Wagner…

So if a lost 1940's symphony of DSCH were found, it would be a while before anybody even heard it as music. They'd be too busy combing the tea leaves, the way"experts" used to do when analyzing Soviet politics by looking at which officials were arrayed atop the Kremlin's walls and which were missing for the Mayday parade, and in what order. Is this symphony Shostakovich the party stooge or Shostakovich the secret rebel?


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

This scenario has in fact happened with a good deal of the solo guitar music of Manuel Ponce, which was initially passed of as newly discovered works by Baroque composers like Scarlatti. The little prank worked so well that some of these works even appeared in print credited to the Baroque masters, because people made transcriptions from the records, assuming the work is in the public domain.

Well, I like those pieces fine, but of course, I knew from the start they weren't by Scarlatti. I don't get the impression though that they became less popular after the deception became well known. If anything, they probably helped to improve Ponce's reputation. 

I like to think I'm so coolly rational that if I like a piece by Beethoven, I'll keep on liking it when it becomes known that it is actually by Bieber. But who knows?

There is a precedent in art: a painting titled "The Colossus" have been traditionally ascribed to Goya, but there are now questions over its authenticity. Do I like it less now? Nope.


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## premont (May 7, 2015)

Good music is never a problem, no matter who composed it. Many great works are made by anonymous composers.

Worse are the mediocre works, which get too much attention because they were composed by a great name, Wellington's Sieg by Beethoven being a typical example - even Karajan recorded it.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Wellington's Victory?


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

I would continue to enjoy Prokofiev's Symphony No.1 even if it were proven that Stockhausen composed it--it's "a classic" .


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

I think if it were too much in the style of a known existing composer, it would be called "derivative," and as such devalued. (The way, for instance, piano concerti by say, Scharwenka, are parsed for their likeness to Liszt, Rachmaninoff, etc.)

However, composing the Eroica in a world where all else of Beethoven existed except that would make it still good, but not revolutionary, because many of the touches that made it great at the time would already have been done and enlarged upon -- so it would be viewed as like a maybe better version of the Warsaw Concerto.

Just as we tend to enjoy and ascribe a modicum of greatness to Ives, despite the fact that many of his innovations entered musical expression ss developed by others and without him because of the delays in performing his works.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Strange Magic said:


> I would continue to enjoy Prokofiev's Symphony No.1 even if it were proven that Stockhausen composed it--it's "a classic" .


It would not even be out of time.
50 years ago there were composers that were the same age as Prokofiev that were still active and had the same style as they had 50 years earlier.


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## ZJovicic (Feb 26, 2017)

If Beethoven composed everything else, except the Ninth symphony, and someone composed the Ninth, 20 years ago, I think it would become instant classic nevertheless. I'd except newspaper's titles like this:

NOW, WHO CAN SAY THAT DERIVATIVE WORKS ARE NO GOOD?

BEETHOVEN STYLE SYMPHONIES STILL KICK ***

IT'S NOT JUST PAYING A PERFECT HOMAGE TO OLD GOOD LUDWIG VAN, IT'S WAY MORE THAN THAT

CLASSICAL MUSIC MAKES A BIG RETURN, IN STYLE OF OLD MASTER

IT'S WAY MORE THAN JUST ANOTHER SYMPHONY IN BEETHOVEN'S STYLE

ROLL OVER BEETHOVEN, A MODERN COMPOSER MIGHT HAVE JUST OUTDONE YOU, IN YOUR OWN STYLE

COLD WAR IS OVER, AND THIS COMPOSER'S BEETHOVEN'S STYLE SYMPHONY MIGHT BE A GLIMPSE OF HOPE FOR A BETTER FUTURE


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

If Beethoven´s ninth symphony would have been written 20 years ago one half would deem it as unoriginal pastiche and the other half would see that it was written 20 years ago and don´t bother listening to it because they would think it was made up of dissonant noises.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

ZJovicic said:


> If Beethoven composed everything else, except the Ninth symphony, and someone composed the Ninth, 20 years ago, I think it would become instant classic nevertheless. I'd except newspaper's titles like this:
> 
> NOW, WHO CAN SAY THAT DERIVATIVE WORKS ARE NO GOOD?
> 
> ...


Very interesting point and OP.

Maybe the OP is, _de facto_, highlighting the fact that modern pieces just aren't big hits.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

My feelings will remain with the same hue.


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## ZJovicic (Feb 26, 2017)

Some more:

SHOCK ON BILLBOARD! FIRST TIME IN HISTORY A CLASSICAL PIECE SITS ATOP OF HOT 100 CHART, THAT IS SO CALLED "ODE TO JOY" EXCERPT FROM A BRAND NEW SYMPHONY BY N-N, WHOSE STYLE STRANGELY RESEMBLES BEETHOVEN


HE IS JUST 24, HE LOVES BEETHOVEN AND HIS FIRST SYMPHONY IS STRIKINGLY SIMILAR TO THESE 8 OF OLD MASTER, BUT STILL VERY DIFFERENT - IT HAS CHORAL PARTS AND SENDS A MESSAGE OF UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD
Is this just an anachronistic and cheesy attempt to talk about peace and love in ever more disunited world (just think of all these Miss World phrases) or perhaps a genuine attempt to celebrate and confirm some values which we all believe in?
Anyway, he is young, and let's hope we'll see more musical masterpieces from him, in the meantime, let's enjoy his first symphony and let's try to suspend our modern irony and just contemplate about this message which can only be understood in its full power when experienced through N-N's music.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Sloe said:


> If Beethoven´s ninth symphony would have been written 20 years ago one half would deem it as unoriginal pastiche


That being the case, then aren't the reasons for such criticism just as valid for the real composer? Or do we say the ninth is original enough despite it tonality?


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

janxharris said:


> That being the case, then aren't the reasons for such criticism just as valid for the real composer? Or do we say the ninth is original enough despite it tonality?


I don´t say it is right but that might unfortunately be the outcome.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Continuing with the counterfactual where Beethoven did not compose his ninth symphony - I wonder, would it really be any less of a feat to compose it today?


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## ZJovicic (Feb 26, 2017)

I think it would be quite difficult to compose it today. Because the 9th is not really in exactly the same style as the remaining 8. It's longer, it's more daring, it has choral parts. It's really a very substantial piece of music, not just something you'd expect from the derivative average of the remaining 8 symphonies.

Now, today, a real life task would be to compose a symphony, that would be like imaginary Beethoven's 10th.

It would make sense only if it pushed forward from the 9th just as much as the 9th pushed forward from the remaining 8.

So it would have to be a radical work, something that would in some way deal with contemporary issues, yet, in a way faithful to Beethovenian aesthetics and compositional technique.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

My response to music is 100% determined by what it does to me. I don't appreciate music that is theoretically interesting or merely well made. Different music, and the music of different period and in different genres, do different things to me but my valuing of music is all to do with the "meaningful feelings" that it brings me. Music has to do something to me and it those feelings that I evaluate, not the music itself. 

So, if a work as great and Beethovian as Beethoven's 9th were written yesterday I would still love it. I might be more inclined to explore it if I initially thought it actually was Beethoven but once I knew the work it wouldn't matter when it was composed. 

I do agree with your previous wrong respondents who just think such a thing is impossible. They are right: it absolutely is impossible. But it could happen with lesser works. I think it is possible to produce a convincing pastiche of some pretty good old music. And this is where my prejudice against pastiches comes in. I would just think that producing a pastiche of "good but not great" old music is a waste of time. We have so much of the real thing and wouldn't it be better if the talented composer who produced the pastiche tried his/her hand at something new and different, even if it is rooted in music of the past.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

mmsbls said:


> I have brought up this thought experiment...


Great post................


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Would we (regarding the said ninth) immediately say that it was Beethoven-like?


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## ZJovicic (Feb 26, 2017)

janxharris said:


> Would we (regarding the said ninth) immediately say that it was Beethoven-like?


I think we would. It's different, but it's still quite Beethovenian.


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## Stavrogin (Apr 20, 2014)

Personally, and honestly, I am not sure that nothing would change to me:

_1) you would listen to it less often_ - No
_2) you would find the work less enjoyable_ - Possibly. The thought that that work never was what I thought would linger and at least subliminally affect my perception.
_3) you would think less highly of the musical value_ - Possibly. I would maybe tend to think that the work is a well concocted artifact that would have benefited from the knowledge of music evolution occured after the period that it was made to sound like. In other words I would probably think of it less as the fruit of genius and more as the fruit of technical mastery.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Another way to look at it is as in Jorge Luis Borges' story "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" -- in which the protagonist creates several word-for-word passages from Don Quixote, but their meaning is entirely different because of the 400 years separating them.


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## Agamemnon (May 1, 2017)

I guess the question behind the thought expriment is: does context matter in art? And the answer is obviously: yes.

Everybody knows about the mastery of forging art paintings. Some people can make an exact copy of a famous painting; even the experts can't tell it's fake. Yet it is fake and the forgery has no artistic value, even though everybody enjoys the fake one as much as the orginal one because nobody can see the difference. The same applies to the forgery of e.g. producing a 'new' painting in the style of an old master: even if no expert can tell that the painting is not a newly discovered painting by Rembrandt and everybody loves it, the painting is still a forgery and of has no artistic value. It is all about context.

So if someone composes a great work in the style of Mozart or Beethoven, it would be great fun to listen to but it would be void of artistic value. The reason is that the composer doesn't express himself and/or his times but imitates a style of another composer and/or past times. It would not be 'authentic' but 'fake'. 

In our postmodern times artists and composers quote from older works which is alright because they merely use those quotations as material to work with: they put the quotations in new contexts. Because in art context is everything.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

mmsbls said:


> Basically I want to know if the knowledge that the work is a pastiche (essentially written "out of time") would color your feelings towards it such that:
> 1) you would listen to it less often,
> 2) you would find the work less enjoyable,
> 3) you would think less highly of the musical value.


_No_ to all three for me, I think. I'm not a fan of the idea that some composers are on a higher plane than others; the way I see it, some composers produce work that suits my tastes, and others don't. So discovering that a beloved piece of music by a favourite composer was a deliberate pastiche by someone else would ultimately just be a discovery of another composer whose music might suit my tastes.

So one implication of the thought experiment - i.e., if someone can be utterly fooled by a deliberate pastiche - is that "genius" would be less like divine inspiration and more akin to knowing exactly which are the best buttons to push for the intended audience. A "perfect pastiche" is a goal of some attempts at computer-generated music.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Stavrogin said:


> Personally, and honestly, I am not sure that nothing would change to me:
> 
> _1) you would listen to it less often_ - No
> _2) you would find the work less enjoyable_ - Possibly. The thought that that work never was what I thought would linger and at least subliminally affect my perception.
> _3) you would think less highly of the musical value_ - Possibly. I would maybe tend to think that the work is a well concocted artifact that would have benefited from the knowledge of music evolution occured after the period that it was made to sound like. In other words I would probably think of it less as the fruit of genius and more as the fruit of technical mastery.


My answers would be similar except, I believe, for #2.

1) I would not listen less often because...
2) I think I would enjoy the work as much as before. I agree that I would be aware the work was something different than I previously thought, but I think context has never had much effect on my enjoyment of works. I'm not entirely certain of this answer though.
3) I believe I might think less highly of the musical value of the work. I'm not a composer, and I don't have a feel for the difficulty in producing works especially "out of time" works.

I have been listening to the last movement of Mozart's 41st and have been continuously stunned by the combination of the beauty and intricacy of the music. I wish I could ask 50 good composers just how difficult they feel that movement would be to compose. Was it hard? Really hard? Almost inconceivable? I think if I found out the someone else had composed the 41st, I would still marvel at the construction and value the music as highly. But I don't know so my answer would be similar to Stavrogin's - i.e. possibly. More on this later.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

janxharris said:


> Continuing with the counterfactual where Beethoven did not compose his ninth symphony - I wonder, would it really be any less of a feat to compose it today?


I think this is an interesting question and gets to my third consideration (would we think less highly of the work?).

Some people feel it would be impossible. I do not, but I think it would be extremely unlikely. Basically it would require a modern composer to want to write an old style work (the vast majority do not), to study, say, Beethoven in great detail in order to create something that would perfectly mimic his music (unlikely), and to have the musical genius to create such a work (very unlikely). Overall, it would be at least extremely unlikely.

Would it be less of a feat to compose it today? I assume the musical construction would take similar ability and the other factors (writing perfectly in another's style) would require some effort as well. So maybe it would actually be more difficult. Of course, no one would give credit for writing in another's style.

As I mentioned above, I don't have a feeling for the difficulty of composing so I don't know if writing in older styles in somehow easier, but it seems to me that the difficult parts would be essentially the same.


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Consider Ravel's_ Le tombeau de Couperin_. He carefully studied Couperin's style and makes a reasonable attempt. The trouble is that very few people dance a forlane or even a minuet nowadays so he lacks something of the ambience of the era. I would similarly compare Beethoven's Ecossaises to the work of somebody like Muriel Johnstone who regularly plays for Scottish dancing and understands the idiom. Beethoven's pieces are musically superior but they are not proper dance tunes, Muriel Johnstone's are.


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## ZJovicic (Feb 26, 2017)

> So if someone composes a great work in the style of Mozart or Beethoven, it would be great fun to listen to but it would be void of artistic value. The reason is that the composer doesn't express himself and/or his times but imitates a style of another composer and/or past times. It would not be 'authentic' but 'fake'.


I don't think it would be fake. Of course it would be fake if it is misattributed to Beethoven or Mozart, as some of their lost, newly found works. But if a modern composer, sincerely composes in their style, without claiming anything else, and with adding his own personality in such a work, of course it would not be fake. It depends also on the style of imitation, if imitation is parrot like, slavish, of course it would be devoid of any artistic value. But if the composer thinks of the old style just as a general framework inside of which he can produce something completely new and original, with his personal stamp, then of course it would still be a good work of art. If we think of Beethoven's style as of genre or language... of course you can make new and original works inside of that genre, language.

It's possible to think of musical styles as of languages. Just like true languages, you can say pretty much anything with any musical language. You're not fake if you write a new novel in English. You're using an existing language to say something new. But of course you can also invent your own language (think Tolkien) or create new words in English. (This analogy is not really that helpful and is not totally appropriate though).

In classical music usually those composers who invent new languages are more highly valued, but I think it's a mistake. I think it's better to value what they said, rather than which language they used. If what they want to say requires a new language, than of course, it's a great thing when they invent it, but if it doesn't, well, using existing languages is OK, IMO.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Let's say that that the Schmidt Symphony #1, particularly the Adagio, was said to be a lost Schumann symphony written circa 1850. I might have issues with the fact that much of it doesn't sound like Schumann, but I wouldn't have an issue with the fact that it was supposedly written around 1850, even though it was actually written 1896-1899.

The Adagio states two distinct themes (1st at opening, 2nd at 3:50), typical development, then restatement (recapitulation) of both themes then coda much the same as Schumann or Mendelssohn symphonies of the mid 19th century. Everything, especially melody, is highly accessible. It doesn't matter to me that this work is written out of time. On the contrary, I have great admiration for someone who could write a work like this when many of Schmidt's peers were, increasingly and inexplicably, indulging in trying to distance themselves from music that was accessible to the common man/woman.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

My favorite novel, William Gaddis's _The Recognitions_, is a sort of thought experiment on the lines of the OP, but in the visual arts and set in 1950s New York. The main character, Wyatt Gwyon, loves the paintings of the Flemish Renaissance masters and has worked tirelessly in his youth to acquire the skill required for admittance to the painter's guilds of that era. He creates new works in the style of his idols and even the whole oeuvre of a painter known to history but with no extant works. Inevitably, Gwyon is pushed into criminality, allowing his work to be sold under more famous names, because this is the only way he can support his creative habit. He remains known to the world only as an art restorer. Gaddis ratchets up the stakes by surrounding Gwyon with many other artists, writers and composers who fall far short of his artistic integrity and vision-heavy irony given that he is an art forger. Gwyon is in effect an idealized version of Hann van Meegeren.

To pull off the kind of feat proposed in the OP, I imagine the perpetrator could only be someone like Gaddis's character, obsessed and wholly dedicated to his art, and no doubt with a long history of failed attempts behind him. With that in mind, I think I would listen to the forged work with with the same enthusiasm and perhaps an even greater sense of wonder than real Beethoven, given what a unique mindset had to be behind it. Or maybe a compelling novel has warped my thinking?


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

*Suppose I were to discover that something I absolutely adored and considered perfect of its kind - say, Biber's Rosary Sonatas or Vivaldi's Stabat Mater or Purcell's Rondeau from Abdelazer - was actually a modern 'perfect pastiche' -

you're asking me:*

*'Basically I want to know if the knowledge that the work is a pastiche (essentially written "out of time") would color your feelings towards it such that:
1) you would listen to it less often,
2) you would find the work less enjoyable,
3) you would think less highly of the musical value.'*

*I would be very disappointed because for me 'living in history' is part of my enjoyment of music as it is in literature. 
I would (a) probably listen to it as often - (b) find it less enjoyable, but not hugely so - and (c) I would think less highly of Biber, Vivaldi or Purcell, rather than the modern imitator, who had so cleverly produced such near-perfect music.*


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

The question was: Would we appreciate the Choral Symphony as much if Beethoven hadn’t written it but somebody else did, and much more recently?

My answer: No. There are several reasons, but one that’s easy to overlook is that it’s currently valued above its true merit. Or more precisely, it’s valued primarily for its worst music. This consensus view has developed for non-musical reasons.

I’m speaking of course of the finale. The introduction is pure theater with little musical content. The main theme is both trivial and banal; Beethoven could write a good tune from time to time, but not this time. The choral writing is sub-par at best. Worst of all is the episodic and chopped-up structure of the movement, constantly interrupting any forward impetus and preventing any real dramatic development.

“The fourth movement is, in my opinion, so monstrous and tasteless and, in its grasp of Schiller's Ode, so trivial that I cannot understand how a genius like Beethoven could have written it.” So wrote Ludwig Spohr. Clara Schumann had a similar view, writing that the last movement, intended to be “dithyrambic,” descends instead into bathos. Another (Fanny Mendelssohn?) remarked that the finale reminded her of nothing so much as a kennel full of barking dogs. These are opinions by progressive and musical people, none of whom were stodgy fools.

I’m sure that if we hadn’t reached our “agreement” to praise this music so highly, our opinions of it would be a lot more variable than they are. And of course this would be true if somebody had written the finale more recently, and we had never forged our unified opinion at all.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

KenOC said:


> The question was: Would we appreciate the Choral Symphony as much if Beethoven hadn't written it but somebody else did, and much more recently?
> 
> My answer: No. There are several reasons, but one that's easy to overlook is that it's currently valued above its true merit. Or more precisely, it's valued primarily for its worst music. This consensus view has developed for non-musical reasons.
> 
> ...


You don't mince your words.

I don't mind admitting to similar reservations; I'm not entirely convinced by the third movement either.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

KenOC said:


> The question was: Would we appreciate the Choral Symphony as much if Beethoven hadn't written it but somebody else did, and much more recently?
> 
> My answer: No. There are several reasons, but one that's easy to overlook is that it's currently valued above its true merit. Or more precisely, it's valued primarily for its worst music. This consensus view has developed for non-musical reasons.
> 
> ...


I think the merit of the finale rests on the tutti:


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

KenOC said:


> The question was: Would we appreciate the Choral Symphony as much if Beethoven hadn't written it but somebody else did, and much more recently?
> 
> My answer: No. There are several reasons, but one that's easy to overlook is that it's currently valued above its true merit. Or more precisely, it's valued primarily for its worst music. This consensus view has developed for non-musical reasons.
> 
> ...


You take sarcasm to a high art.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

KenOC said:


> The question was: Would we appreciate the Choral Symphony as much if Beethoven hadn't written it but somebody else did, and much more recently?
> 
> My answer: No. There are several reasons, but one that's easy to overlook is that it's currently valued above its true merit. Or more precisely, it's valued primarily for its worst music. This consensus view has developed for non-musical reasons.
> 
> ...


I think Hanslick said it is like a statue in white marble with a green head - or something like that.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Agamemnon said:


> ... if someone composes a great work in the style of Mozart or Beethoven, it would be great fun to listen to but it would be void of artistic value. The reason is that the composer doesn't express himself and/or his times but imitates a style of another composer and/or past times. It would not be 'authentic' but 'fake'... Because in art context is everything.


This is a modern, Western view of art and of what makes it valuable. Even as a modern, Western man I don't agree with it entirely, but if I were an artist in ancient China I might feel that the ability to paint in the style of a revered artist of an earlier time would not negate the value of my work but enhance it. The degree of self expression and individualism expected of artists has varied culturally. Until the "modern" era (beginning perhaps in the Renaissance) art was valued more for what it expressed about transpersonal, timeless values than for what it said about the artist or some momentary "zeitgeist."

"Nothing is, but thinking makes it so." If someone composed a masterpiece roughly in the style of Beethoven, it would have as much artistic value as our view of art allowed it to. I myself would be astounded and grateful that there was someone in the world capable of doing it. I'm sure that I would, however, experience the work slightly differently than I would if I knew it had been composed in 1820. Context isn't everything, but neither is it nothing.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Agamemnon said:


> I guess the question behind the thought expriment is: does context matter in art? And the answer is obviously: yes.
> 
> Everybody knows about the mastery of forging art paintings. Some people can make an exact copy of a famous painting; even the experts can't tell it's fake. Yet it is fake and the forgery has no artistic value, even though everybody enjoys the fake one as much as the orginal one because nobody can see the difference. The same applies to the forgery of e.g. producing a 'new' painting in the style of an old master: even if no expert can tell that the painting is not a newly discovered painting by Rembrandt and everybody loves it, the painting is still a forgery and of has no artistic value. It is all about context.
> 
> ...


But the point of forgeries of truly great works of art - or works received by channeling! - is that they are not great. They may have the gestures and the language but they lack the greatness. That's in the real world. But the OP asks us as a thought experiment to _pretend _that great art can be written more than a century after the composer it sounds like.

Context doesn't come into it for me: I am only really concerned by the impact of the music on me and, to the extent that I take an interest in context, it is only for composers who mean a lot to me. I know a huge amount of music (I have been listening for 50 years) but am really very ignorant of contextual matters, composers' biographies, composing techniques and the like. The reason I have never heard a great work composed in the style of an earlier composer is because none exist (so the postulated circumstance is impossible) but, for the sake of this thought experiment, if one did exist it would by definition be as great as if it had been composed by the earlier master.

Any interest I have in academic study of the contexts that great works emerged in only comes to me after I have already discovered what the work can do for me. And I can't think of a single such study that has explained to me why the music does what it does to me. The contextual explanations offered are interesting but could just as easily apply to rubbish.

I believe that the reason the different context would cause music of the type postulated to be less great is because _in reality_ great Beethovian (or Mozartian or whatever) works are not written a hundred years after the composer they sound like was active. But the thought experiment asks us to _pretend _that they are and a truly great piece of Mozartian music would _by definition _be great Mozartian music, regardless of the date it was composed.


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## ZJovicic (Feb 26, 2017)

I think we take this "imitation of old masters" concepts a bit too literally, and hence, our reactions to it are a bit trivial and too harsh.

I would be the first one to condemn any derivative work if it was truly a slavish, parrot like imitation, without any personal stamp, and without anything in it that would indicate a true, honest, self-expression on the part of new composer.

But I believe that it's possible to say new and original things in the same, or, roughly the same language.

Let's imagine the following 3 composing processes:

PROCESS ONE:

A composer loves Beethoven, hence he studies his style and decides to use his language to express himself. He tries to get well versed with Beethoven's compositional technique, but once he has studied it thoroughly he stops and doesn't think of Beethoven anymore. He has acquired a language. He's proficient in it now. Now is the time to put his own personality inside of it, his own temperament, his own emotions, and to tell his own story. He will not look back at Beethoven anymore, he will not borrow his themes, his ideas etc. He will make all the changes in style that are necessary so that he can freely express himself. Finally we have a completely new and original work, in which there is still clearly visible Beethoven's influence. Because the new composer didn't try forcefully to distance himself as much as possible from Beethoven either. All the changes to the style that he made were a natural requirement of his own character, temperament, etc...

PROCESS TWO:

A composer loves Beethoven, he studies his style and decides the world needs more works in the exactly the same style. He studies Beethoven's technique thoroughly, and once done he starts composing somehting new, but his main concern is NOT TO EXPRESS HIMSELF, and NOT TO TELL A NEW STORY, but to make something that would sound as much as Beethoven as possible, and still be fresh and sounding good. Since there's nothing real and new to tell, there's no passion in composing, and indeed the process feels fake. If he has a good technical abilities, he might indeed create a sophisticated composition, but it would somehow be empty, and it would lack the "edge", character, or whatever.

PROCESS THREE:

A composer has studied music at a conservatory, hence he is quite familiar with styles of all major composers. Perhaps he is not truly proficient in any of those languages, but he could still write decent works that would sound like old masters. Perhaps some of these languages suit his own personality perfectly. They would allow him for unrestrained self expression. But he is familiar that if he uses any of old languages he'll be considered fake and derivative, and hence he tries to invent a new language and to distance himself as much as possible from the past. If he truly succeeds in it, and creates a new language that others would understand too, well, then he is a new great composer. But if he is clumsy in the process or creates a language that's incomprehensible, he might be revered in small academic circles, but he will never be really impactful, neither to the audience, nor to the history of music itself.

I think process one is a good type of staying connected to the past, and I would admire composers who do something like that. Process two, is of course ridiculous, it might produce a nice sounding tunes, but it's in it essence non-artistic. Process three is what is actually taking place right now, among most composers, who are forced to be as original as possible even if they could perhaps have better results if it wasn't forced on them so much, and if their technique was closer to the process one.

Thinking of some great composers from the past, I think most of them engaged in process one.
For example Mozart and Beethoven didn't not make such a huge departure from Haydn's style as to nullify his influence or invent completely new languages. 
Bach's style wasn't too different from other baroque composers. He just used the existing language, and developed it to its extreme, he used the old language to say new and profound things.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

KenOC said:


> The question was: Would we appreciate the Choral Symphony as much if Beethoven hadn't written it but somebody else did, and much more recently?
> 
> My answer: No. There are several reasons, but one that's easy to overlook is that it's currently valued above its true merit. Or more precisely, it's valued primarily for its worst music. This consensus view has developed for non-musical reasons.
> 
> ...


I wonder. It was the last of the Beethoven symphonies that I got to know (my parents didn't even have a recording of it) and it took me longer than any of the other symphonies to enjoy. It is true that there is a strong element of vulgarity to the last movement. But much that comes before it is sublime. And Beethoven's treatment of the material in the last movement is certainly not without touches of genius. You might also say that the resort to vulgarity in itself was a touch of genius. That many critics and notables in the past resented it doesn't mean that much. It is only relatively recently that we have come to the conclusion that Mahler's music is not terminally vulgar. I am not convinced at all that I would hear the last movement differently if it were demonstrated to be by someone other than Beethoven. I think I hear it warts and all and yet as a rather perfect end to a challenging and radical work. Apparent vulgarity is a risk taken, and yet pulled off, by the great.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

ZJovicic said:


> ...
> 
> But I believe that it's possible to say new and original things in the same, or, roughly the same language.
> 
> Let's imagine the following 3 composing processes: ...


I'm wondering how much difference there is between _the output_ of process one and process two.

Of process one you say, "He will make all the changes in style that are necessary so that he can freely express himself." That sounds as though the composer is starting with Beethoven and then moving on to express herself.

Of process two you say, "...his main concern is NOT TO EXPRESS HIMSELF, and NOT TO TELL A NEW STORY, but to make something that would sound as much as Beethoven as possible, and still be fresh and sounding good." If it's still fresh, the composer is starting with Beethoven and creating something new.

Image Beethoven himself after composing Symphony No. 5. Which process did he follow? He likely wanted to express himself to create a new and original work and not look back at his prior works (process one), but anything he creates will, by definition, sound as much like Beethoven as possible (process two). The difference between the two processes seems to be the intent, but I wonder if we could discern the intent from the music itself.


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## ZJovicic (Feb 26, 2017)

mmsbls said:


> Image Beethoven himself after composing Symphony No. 5. Which process did he follow? He likely wanted to express himself to create a new and original work and not look back at his prior works (process one), but anything he creates will, by definition, sound as much like Beethoven as possible (process two). The difference between the two processes seems to be the intent, but I wonder if we could discern the intent from the music itself.


It will indeed sound as Beethoven, but not because he intentionally tries to sound like himself, or to copy his old style. His style is simply part of him, it's his native language, but in Symphony no. 6 he wanted to say something completely different from the 5th... He expressed his new moods, ideas, etc... without trying to sound different, but also without trying to sound the same. And the result: Symphony no. 6 while still being in Beethoven's style is very different from any other of his symphonies.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Well, let's take a hybrid example: Rochberg's String Quartet No. 3. He had grown weary of composing in a strictly modernist style, so wrote a quartet that, while modernist, also contained passages and phrases that sounded like Beethoven and Mahler. They were arresting and brought the listener back to an earlier age (and won him a Pulitzer Prize) and ushered in a style called Neo-Romanticism (this was in the early '70s). I remember hearing it in concert, and enjoying it -- but haven't listened to it, or its succcessors, in many decades, in part because I'm not sure what it told me. It was a neat and interesting thought experiment, but I am unsure of its lasting value.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

To do something the first time around is more difficult than the following attempts. This is why it's annoying when people are dismissive of things that seem commonplace and even trite now, but were the product of intense cogitation and work and experimentation for the artist who originated it.

There are two levels I would approach such a work as posited in the original question:

1. Being such a marvellous enough pastiche (or perhaps an 'in the style of...' piece) to generate the same feelings and enjoyment I would derive when listening to works by the composer I believed had composed it, I would be intellectually and artistically dishonest and inconsistent if I stopped enjoying it.

2. I would also consider that making works like this, although not necessarily inferior from a craft standpoint, are not the same sort of activity I described above in the top paragraph. The work has already been done and it's a matter of using the ready-made jig to cut-out the matching jigsaw pieces and put them together. It is not an unknown journey, but a _known_ journey.

If there was some original development involved then I would be happy to treat it as an entirely worthy original work generated from earlier influence. That is how a lot of music is produced anyway.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

ZJovicic said:


> He studies Beethoven's technique thoroughly, and once done he starts composing somehting new, but his main concern is NOT TO EXPRESS HIMSELF, and NOT TO TELL A NEW STORY,


Off topic, but I had to laugh at this because the other night my wife was trying to get my 8-year-old to engage with what she regarded as a very moving piece of music, and he categorically stated, "music doesn't tell a story! It's _music_!"


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## Ludwig Von Chumpsky (Apr 19, 2018)

Actually I think you could make this into an actual experiment. Gather a pool of musicians, maybe students who might not have every piece of Beethoven's memorized like you guys  (that was a compliment btw). Then conduct a survey where the pool listens to a piece, and rates how much they like it, without knowing who the composer is. Then take another pool of similar musicians, play them the same piece, but tell them ahead of time that it was composed by Hitler's personal composer. Compare the results. Something tells me the second pool would rate the piece far worse than the first pool.


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

There are many nuances to the concept of pastiche that are worth keeping in mind. One is that the point of pastiche is not necessarily to replicate an earlier style with exact fidelity. The example of _Le tombeau de Couperin_ was used above and described as a "reasonable attempt" on Ravel's part to sound like Couperin; and while the piece has some obvious Baroque-ish touches that could be described as Couperinish, I can't imagine it was Ravel's intent to trick listeners into thinking they were hearing Couperin. (Alternatively, if he really did want to sound like Couperin, I can't imagine Ravel couldn't have done a better job.) After all, _Le tombeau_ ends with a toccata, a genre that Couperin himself never used. So measuring the work against the sound of Couperin seems to me to miss the point.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

_Le tombeau de Couperin_ is more homage and a twist on the neo-classicism of the early 20th century.


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

There is also a patriotic element, as each movement is dedicated to a friend and member of the French army killed in the then-ongoing war.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Sometimes it's hard to tell whether a composer drawing on a past style really intends for us to think we're hearing an example of it. It's stunning how easily fooled audiences, and even scholars who should know better, have been. This is more noticeable in forgeries in the visual arts, where a hack like Van Meegeren actually had experts convinced that his fake Vermeers, which now look to us very little like the work of Vermeer, represented a "lost phase" in that painter's career. People were similarly tricked by Fritz Kreisler's pseudo-baroque pieces, to which he attached the names of several 18th-century composers. These now seem no more than lovely tributes to old styles, not all that close to their models.

Most composers who make use of old styles are really creating tributes. One of the best is Grieg's neo-baroque suite for strings, "In Holberg's Time," a masterpiece of Romantic music that crosses the stylistic divide with elegance, poignancy, and exhilaration. I'd hesitate to call it "pastiche." However, I recently discovered a work by the Romanian pianist Dinu Lipatti (1917-1950), his "Concertino" for piano and orchestra, which better merits that term. It's clearly modeled on Bach, but also influenced by Stravinsky's neoclassicist aesthetic. Whatever we call it, I think it stands quite nicely on its own merits.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Enthusiast said:


> I wonder. It was the last of the Beethoven symphonies that I got to know (my parents didn't even have a recording of it) and it took me longer than any of the other symphonies to enjoy. It is true that there is a strong element of vulgarity to the last movement. But much that comes before it is sublime. And Beethoven's treatment of the material in the last movement is certainly not without touches of genius. You might also say that the resort to vulgarity in itself was a touch of genius. That many critics and notables in the past resented it doesn't mean that much. It is only relatively recently that we have come to the conclusion that Mahler's music is not terminally vulgar. I am not convinced at all that I would hear the last movement differently if it were demonstrated to be by someone other than Beethoven. I think I hear it warts and all and yet as a rather perfect end to a challenging and radical work. Apparent vulgarity is a risk taken, and yet pulled off, by the great.


I admit to stating my case pretty strongly. In fact, I greatly enjoy the finale of the Choral, which just happens to be playing on the Radio now because the symphony has won the annual KUSC countdown (again). Only Beethoven could have gotten away with this! :lol:


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

KenOC said:


> I admit to stating my case pretty strongly. In fact, I greatly enjoy the finale of the Choral, which just happens to be playing on the Radio now because the symphony has won the annual KUSC countdown (again). Only Beethoven could have gotten away with this! :lol:


Yes, only Beethoven could, and he more than got away with it. The finale of the 9th, like late Beethoven in general - like Beethoven in general! - is an imaginative tour de force. It's one of those variation movements in which he throws together the vulgar and the sublime and - here's the point - obliterates the difference. _Diesen Kuss der ganzen Welt!_ -"This kiss is for the whole world!" Schiller's poem is a testament to the human universal; Beethoven found that simple tune and made it a hymn to Everyman, and every time it stirs softly in the basses and cellos and arcs slowly upward through the orchestra the sun rises again on hope for humanity. For me, and for many, it never fails.


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## Star (May 27, 2017)

One of Mozart's early operas 'La Finta Giardiniera' was found in an updated arrangement - no-one knows by who but is great fun. Has been recorded by Jacobs.

Mozart himself updated Handel's Messiah to be sung in German.

There is a Handelian aria in G&S Princess Ida which is great fun. 

Much film music written today is a pastiche - of Wagner, Rachmaninov, etc


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> Yes, only Beethoven could, and he more than got away with it. The finale of the 9th, like late Beethoven in general - like Beethoven in general! - is an imaginative tour de force. It's one of those variation movements in which he throws together the vulgar and the sublime and - here's the point - obliterates the difference. _Diesen Kuss der ganzen Welt!_ -"This kiss is for the whole world!" Schiller's poem is a testament to the human universal; Beethoven found that simple tune and made it a hymn to Everyman, and every time it stirs softly in the basses and cellos and arcs slowly upward through the orchestra the sun rises again on hope for humanity. For me, and for many, it never fails.


I sometimes think of the finale of the Choral as that uncle that sometimes comes over on holidays - you know, the one your parents don't invite too often for some reason. He's a bit odd and hasn't bathed recently, and he seems to have forgotten shaving today and smells kind of funny. But he wants to hug you to show his love. You try not to recoil. But somewhere, deep down, you know that you will never, ever, be able to love as he does.​


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## Guest (Apr 28, 2018)

mmsbls said:


> Basically I want to know if the knowledge that the work is a pastiche (essentially written "out of time") would color your feelings towards it such that:
> 1) you would listen to it less often,
> 2) you would find the work less enjoyable,
> 3) you would think less highly of the musical value.


I would of course prefer to think that I'm invested purely in the music, and nothing else; that I would continue to play it, enjoy it and value it as much as I did before the revelation.

But, potentially, I might respond in all three ways. I find it difficult not to connect a work to its composer, adding to it, almost like some memorised ID3 tags, 'facts' including my acquired prejudices.


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## Star (May 27, 2017)

KenOC said:


> I sometimes think of the finale of the Choral as that uncle that sometimes comes over on holidays - you know, the one your parents don't invite too often for some reason. He's a bit odd and hasn't bathed recently, and he seems to have forgotten shaving today and smells kind of funny. But he wants to hug you to show his love. You try not to recoil. But somewhere, deep down, you know that you will never, ever, be able to love as he does.​


It is a sad fact that for all Beethoven's ideals about the brotherhood of man he was such a difficult person he tended to alienate those nearest to him, especially towards the end of his life. Certainly we would have recoiled if we had visited Beethoven, as Rossini did when he saw the squalor.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Star said:


> It is a sad fact that for all Beethoven's ideals about the brotherhood of man he was such a difficult person he tended to alienate those nearest to him, especially towards the end of his life. Certainly we would have recoiled if we had visited Beethoven, as Rossini did when he saw the squalor.


An alternative view: Kind of sad he wasted so much time and effort on family and other entanglements when he could have composed more music. He was willing to burn it all for his art. I wouldn't be one to argue he got it wrong.


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## Razumovskymas (Sep 20, 2016)

Enthusiast said:


> *My response to music is 100% determined by what it does to me*. I don't appreciate music that is theoretically interesting or merely well made. Different music, and the music of different period and in different genres, do different things to me but my valuing of music is all to do with the "meaningful feelings" that it brings me. Music has to do something to me and it those feelings that I evaluate, not the music itself.


And what it does to you is determined by what? Those "meaningful feelings" originate from some kind of absolute objective "meaninfulness"? You believe that the status of Beethoven as a musical genius has no influence at all on your appreciation of his music?


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Razumovskymas said:


> You believe that the status of Beethoven as a musical genius has no influence at all on your appreciation of his music?


Yes. Firstly, there is much Beethoven that doesn't do much to me. Secondly, in my young days of getting to know music I didn't always know what I was listening to. Thirdly, there is lots of other music that I love - that does things to me! - and lots more that doesn't but I don't see a pattern in this with the music's reputation. So I am 100% convinced that my opinion of a piece would not change if it were to be discovered that it was not by who we thought it was. It is true, though, that I do try harder with music that I don't initially like if I know that lots of people who I feel I share tastes with do like it.

I think there was a time when I didn't trust my own perceptions and feelings about music and felt somehow inadequate when my own view did not accord with the critics. But I found that repeated hearings were a much better guide to what would "light up my brain" than the opinions of others. The question, though, was what to invest time in. I have been bemused by how many people who listen to a lot of classical music do not yet trust their own feelings about what they are listening to. I wonder if they are trying too hard and not relaxing into the music.


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## Razumovskymas (Sep 20, 2016)

Enthusiast said:


> Yes. Firstly, there is much Beethoven that doesn't do much to me. Secondly, in my young days of getting to know music I didn't always know what I was listening to. Thirdly, there is lots of other music that I love - that does things to me! - and lots more that doesn't but I don't see a pattern in this with the music's reputation. So I am 100% convinced that my opinion of a piece would not change if it were to be discovered that it was not by who we thought it was. It is true, though, that I do try harder with music that I don't initially like if I know that lots of people who I feel I share tastes with do like it.
> 
> I think there was a time when I didn't trust my own perceptions and feelings about music and felt somehow inadequate when my own view did not accord with the critics. But I found that repeated hearings were a much better guide to what would "light up my brain" than the opinions of others. The question, though, was what to invest time in. I have been bemused by how many people who listen to a lot of classical music do not yet trust their own feelings about what they are listening to. I wonder if they are trying too hard and not relaxing into the music.


Ok so it's clear that you have a strong independence when it comes to you appreciation of music. But another question rises and maybe the more important question that was behind my first question: If the fact itself by whom the music is written doesn't affect you, what does? In other words, what makes you like this music an dislike other music?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Enthusiast said:


> Yes. Firstly, there is much Beethoven that doesn't do much to me. Secondly, *in my young days of getting to know music I didn't always know what I was listening to. Thirdly, there is lots of other music that I love - that does things to me! - and lots more that doesn't but I don't see a pattern in this with the music's reputation. So I am 100% convinced that my opinion of a piece would not change if it were to be discovered that it was not by who we thought it was.* It is true, though, that I do try harder with music that I don't initially like if I know that lots of people who I feel I share tastes with do like it.
> 
> *I think there was a time when I didn't trust my own perceptions and feelings about music and felt somehow inadequate when my own view did not accord with the critics. But I found that repeated hearings were a much better guide to what would "light up my brain" than the opinions of others.* The question, though, was what to invest time in. I have been bemused by how many people who listen to a lot of classical music do not yet trust their own feelings about what they are listening to. I wonder if they are trying too hard and not relaxing into the music.


Your experience is similar to mine. I got into classical music early, and as an adolescent and teenager I had little context for the music I heard and no reason to be captivated by it beyond its unmediated effect on me. No knowledge subsequently acquired could make me doubt my devotion to a composer's work, or cause me to enjoy another composer before I was ready to. This is still true, and I believe that my response to music I love or loathe is almost wholly musical. Discovering that Rachmaninoff's _Isle of the Dead_ was actually written in 1995 by Fred Finkel from the Bronx who is presently doing time on Ryker's Island for violent rape and grand theft would certainly give me a jolt and would make me wonder about Fred Finkel and what could have happened to ruin his life, but I'd be less likely to stop loving his music than to marvel at the magnificence, fragility and paradoxical nature of the human spirit and of life itself.

I suspect that three kinds of people are more likely to be influenced in their perception of music by extrinsic factors, including what they've read and been told about it: those who are innately less musically perceptive, those whose appreciation of music comes later in life, and those who don't trust their own perceptions in general.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Razumovskymas said:


> Ok so it's clear that you have a strong independence when it comes to you appreciation of music. But another question rises and maybe the more important question that was behind my first question: If the fact itself by whom the music is written doesn't affect you, what does? In other words, what makes you like this music an dislike other music?


The simple answer is that I do not know. I just rely on the feelings I receive. I am fairly uninterested in music history (even though I am very interested in general history) and very uninterested in music theory. I know a bit but I'm afraid I approach music rather in the same way that a glutton approaches food.

It is true that I try harder with works that are critically acclaimed so if I don't initially like them I will pick them up again and again to see if I can join the critical consensus. Less known or less acclaimed works might not get so many hearings if I don't like them at first. But, often, something sticks in my unconscious mind even after one hearing and draws me back (I suppose that is "when my mood is right"). As for the case of when I like something on first hearing, I often find that later hearings of such music can be disappointing. With some it is like I gain perspective and begin to hear the work's limitations. With others I just find a failure to discover much that is memorable. In the end, though, it is all down to whether the music makes me feel something "rare" like elation, or excitement, or that I have heard something extraordinarily beautiful (each time I listen). Some music (quite a lot, actually) continually surprises me.

I expect different things from different periods of music. I don't expect Schoenberg to be hummable but I do expect that from Schubert. I often find that I like "2nd rank" baroque music at first but quickly get bored by it.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Woodduck said:


> Your experience is similar to mine. I got into classical music early, and as an adolescent and teenager I had little context for the music I heard and no reason to be captivated by it beyond its unmediated effect on me. No knowledge subsequently acquired could make me doubt my devotion to a composer's work, or cause me to enjoy another composer before I was ready to. This is still true, and I believe that my response to music I love or loathe is almost wholly musical. Discovering that Rachmaninoff's _Isle of the Dead_ was actually written in 1995 by Fred Finkel from the Bronx who is presently doing time on Ryker's Island for violent rape and grand theft would certainly give me a jolt and would make me wonder about Fred Finkel and what could have happened to ruin his life, but I'd be less likely to stop loving his music than to marvel at the magnificence, fragility and paradoxical nature of the human spirit and of life itself.
> 
> I suspect that three kinds of people are more likely to be influenced in their perception of music by extrinsic factors, including what they've read and been told about it: those who are innately less musically perceptive, those whose appreciation of music comes later in life, and those who don't trust their own perceptions in general.


Yep - that's pretty much how it is for me. I'm not sure I could suggest an understanding of why/how others' approach to music differs from mine, though. The key for me might be that I can't remember I time when I didn't listen to a lot of classical music - it has always been there for me.


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## Haydn70 (Jan 8, 2017)

One's appreciation of a piece of music (or a piece of any kind of art) should rest solely on the piece's artistic merits. For one to be influenced by the 'back story', i.e., when it was written, the composer, the composer's biographical details, etc. makes no sense to me.


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## Haydn70 (Jan 8, 2017)

When I was doing my undergraduate composition studies, one of my professors discussed a piece written in the late 1950s by Hans Werner Henze. He liked the work but, as it was a somewhat traditional/conservative piece of music, he said he would have liked it more if he hadn't known it was written in the late 1950s. Puzzling...


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## Razumovskymas (Sep 20, 2016)

Haydn70 said:


> One's appreciation of a piece of music (or a piece of any kind of art) *should rest solely on the piece's artistic merits*. For one to be influenced by the 'back story', i.e., when it was written, the composer, the composer's biographical details, etc. makes no sense to me.


should it? Why is that?

The birth of an artwork is a result of many influences, it's artistic merits isn't something "intrinsic". Why shouldn't the appreciation of that artwork be influenced by whatever there is to influence you? To be influenced doesn't mean you just start to like whatever this or that person likes, it's more complicated and subtle then that (I hope). How can you possibly NOT be influenced by the things around you when listening to music. The proces of feeling certain things when hearing music isn't possible when there hasn't been anything (influence) that makes you feel that way, makes this or that sound evoke this or that emotion. That's the essence of music in my eyes (ears).


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## JosefinaHW (Nov 21, 2015)

As far as I am able to imagine what my reaction would be, I don't think my opinion of the music would change. If I love it, I love it. BUT FOR ME the big thrill would be to find the composer! Once I found the composer I would give him/her a list of all the topics that I'd like composed to music. I'd beg, borrow or steal to get whatever conditions s/he would like under which to work and I would make sure that I have someplace to live that was on the estate of or very close to the place where the composer would be working. Then I would later open up choices to the public at large (or individually selected people).


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Haydn70 said:


> When I was doing my undergraduate composition studies, one of my professors discussed a piece written in the late 1950s by Hans Werner Henze. He liked the work but, as it was a somewhat traditional/conservative piece of music, he said he would have liked it more if he hadn't known it was written in the late 1950s. Puzzling...


People often allow judgment to affect, or even take the place of, feeling. A musically knowledgeable person who judges that a piece sounds as if it comes from an earlier era may find himself unable to hear the music except through the filter of that (generally negative) judgment. He believes, in effect, that he "should" respond to the music in a certain way. For such a person, whose responses tend to be judgmental rather than simply receptive, it may be necessary to work at suspending his preconceived ideas or, better still, re-evaluating those ideas in the light of his immediate experience. Why, for example, _shouldn't_ a piece written in the late '50s be tonal and Romantic?


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## Capeditiea (Feb 23, 2018)

To slightly change the focus.

"Don't only practice your art, but force your way into it's secrets, for it and knowledge can raise men to the Divine." - Capeditiea

see what i did there?

in this analogy, it is exactly what your thoughts would perspire upon this subject.

(i do however live by that quote... but i wasn't the one to say it.)


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## JosefinaHW (Nov 21, 2015)

Capeditiea said:


> To slightly change the focus.
> 
> "Don't only practice your art, but force your way into it's secrets, for it and knowledge can raise men to the Divine." - Capeditiea
> 
> ...


I don't understand. Please explain.


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## Guest (May 1, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> I suspect that three kinds of people are more likely to be influenced in their perception of music by extrinsic factors, including what they've read and been told about it: those who are innately less musically perceptive, those whose appreciation of music comes later in life, and those who don't trust their own perceptions in general.


Maybe. It's difficult now to untangle my conscious thoughts about music from the accumulation of now subconscious responses (thoughts and emotions). I'm sure if someone else sat me down, played me several pieces and asked for my detailed responses, they might be able to come up with some kind of analysis.

"Ah...zo...Mr MacLeod...you are zuffering from a heightened awareness of ze composer's backstory, arizing from feelings of inadequacy acquired when you vere a leetle boy at your father's knees..."

Like Enthusiast, I'll carry on listening to music because of what it "does to me", but it's also true that I might select a composer to listen to on the basis of a recommendation from someone else. I certainly don't "like" Beethoven because he was deaf, or Mozart because I've been told he was a child prodigy.

Equally, I can't claim that I respond as haydn70 does purely on the basis of the music, because I have never listened to music in a situational vacuum. I can never listen to Dvorak's 9th Symphony or Holst's Planets without the layers of meaning they have acquired since I first heard it as a 5 year old and some of the occasions since. Response to music entails not just the meaning and impact of the music now, but what it was before, and every encounter with music, familiar and strange, is a meeting of music with "Macleod-as-listener-with-baggage".


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## Haydn70 (Jan 8, 2017)

I stated: “One's appreciation of a piece of music (or a piece of any kind of art) should rest solely on the piece's artistic merits.”

Perhaps a better word than appreciation would be evaluation or assessment. And my ultimate evaluation/assessment of a piece is never connected to any backstory or to when I was listening or where I was listening or any other particular ‘non-vacuum’ listening situation.

However, how that same piece might IMPACT me, specifically on an emotional level, at different times and in different places can vary. 

For example, there are certain (good) non-musical associations for me with my favorite Schumann symphony, the Third. In one sense is it connected to a particular time and place in my life and sometimes (not always) when I listen now I am brought back to that time; I feel a certain longing and nostalgia…a bittersweet type of feeling. But even if I were to listen to it this morning and were to have that reaction, my evaluation of the work, as a piece of musical art, based on purely musical factors/elements, will be the same because those musical factors/elements haven’t changed.

Maybe over time I will change my evaluation. But if I do it will not be based on any ‘situation’ or my surroundings, or any particular nostalgic reaction I may or may not have, etc. It will be an objective assessment (or reassessment) of the symphony based on the music itself…nothing more.


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## Beet131 (Mar 24, 2018)

Allan Stephenson is a composer in South Africa. His works make me think of Late Romanticism, and I hear other composers in his music too, but I'm not put off by it because I really enjoy his compositions. Here is an example: Concerto for Cor Anglais - a very beautiful, romantic piece.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Beet131 said:


> Allan Stephenson is a composer in South Africa. His works make me think of Late Romanticism, and I hear other composers in his music too, but I'm not put off by it because I really enjoy his compositions. Here is an example: Concerto for Cor Anglais - a very beautiful, romantic piece.


One immediately thinks of Vaughan Williams...well I do...


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

janxharris said:


> One immediately thinks of Vaughan Williams...well I do...


Yes, but Third Symphony V-W, that is to say, like early 20thc French? With some Copland? Not Romantic at all to my ears.


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## Guest (May 2, 2018)

Haydn70 said:


> I stated: "One's appreciation of a piece of music (or a piece of any kind of art) should rest solely on the piece's artistic merits."
> 
> Perhaps a better word than appreciation would be evaluation or assessment. And my ultimate evaluation/assessment of a piece is never connected to any backstory or to when I was listening or where I was listening or any other particular 'non-vacuum' listening situation.
> 
> ...


I don't think I can separate my response from "evaluation or assessment", but I suspect we're in different places anyway. I don't think I 'evaluate or assess' at all. I'm not looking for a dispassionate, objective analysis of what is 'good' (or 'great'), though as already noted, I'll have absorbed some of the debate and some of the presumptions about what others have done to evaluate. I can hardly listen to Bach, Mozart and Beethoven _without _being aware that claims are made they are the greatest composers etc. But I don't have to yield to others views, or to the tyranny of ranking.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Haydn70 said:


> I stated: "One's appreciation of a piece of music (or a piece of any kind of art) should rest solely on the piece's artistic merits."


I read once that whenever you see the word "should," it's followed almost invariably by a value judgment.


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## Stavrogin (Apr 20, 2014)

In my opinion, saying that "only the music matters, not the composer, the process etc" equals saying that a photograph that perfectly portrays a fresco by Michelangelo has the same artistic value as the fresco itself.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Stavrogin said:


> In my opinion, saying that "only the music matters, not the composer, the process etc" equals saying that a photograph that perfectly portrays a fresco by Michelangelo has the same artistic value as the fresco itself.


The ideal should be that only music matter then there are extramusical factors that comes in and affects our appreciation.


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## Haydn70 (Jan 8, 2017)

Sloe said:


> The ideal should be that only music matter then there are extramusical factors that comes in and affects our appreciation.


Yes you are correct about the ideal. And some listeners (not many) can adhere to that ideal and not be affected by extramusical factors. I am one of those listeners.


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## Haydn70 (Jan 8, 2017)

KenOC said:


> I read once that whenever you see the word "should," it's followed almost invariably by a value judgment.


Like the many value judgements you have posted throughout this site Ken?


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Stavrogin said:


> In my opinion, saying that "only the music matters, not the composer, the process etc" equals saying that a photograph that perfectly portrays a fresco by Michelangelo has the same artistic value as the fresco itself.


Could you explain, please. The photo is a poor replica of the original whereas the music is the original and, I guess, a performance of it is an original even if you don't know who wrote/performed it or anything about the circumstances of the writing and performing.


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## Stavrogin (Apr 20, 2014)

Enthusiast said:


> Could you explain, please. The photo is a poor replica of the original whereas the music is the original and, I guess, a performance of it is an original even if you don't know who wrote/performed it or anything about the circumstances of the writing and performing.


Sorry, I hadn't noticed this question.

Well, a photo that "perfectly portrays" a work of art is not a "poor replica", is a formally equivalent representation of it.
If the only thing that matters in a work of music (figurative art, in the metaphor) is the combination of sounds (of light, in the metaphor), then you can fully appreciate the work via the combination of sounds (of light) alone.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Stavrogin said:


> Sorry, I hadn't noticed this question.
> 
> Well, a photo that "perfectly portrays" a work of art is not a "poor replica", is a formally equivalent representation of it.
> If the only thing that matters in a work of music (figurative art, in the metaphor) is the combination of sounds (of light, in the metaphor), then you can fully appreciate the work via the combination of sounds (of light) alone.


I had forgotten it, too!

It seems to me that it is impossible for a major Beethoven or Mozart masterpiece to be written now so the thought experiment is asking us what we would do in a situation that could not occur in the real world. So it seems clear that the work would be the same work that we revere and we would love it the same. I think the same is true for your photograph. It is impossible to have a photo of a painting that perfectly portrays - is indistinguishable from - a great painting. But, for the sake of this thought experiment, it seems to me that if such a thing did occur then the result would be as great as the painting. It doesn't matter in the end how much work went into it, how revolutionary it was, what was going on in history or any of that: if (impossible though it be) that something as great suddenly appeared it would still be as great and we would still obtain the same pleasure and meaning from it.


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## Eva Yojimbo (Jan 30, 2016)

mmsbls said:


> Basically I want to know if the knowledge that the work is a pastiche (essentially written "out of time") would color your feelings towards it such that:
> 1) you would listen to it less often,
> 2) you would find the work less enjoyable,
> 3) you would think less highly of the musical value.


My prediction is that my answer would be "no" to all three. To begin with, I have nothing against pastiches, or any art imitating older art styles. One of my favorite current filmmakers is Guy Maddin who regularly makes films that look (and sound) exactly like silent films. His The Heart of the World (2000) is one of my favorite short films ever, and it looks like it was made in the mid-to-late 20s.


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## Prat (Jun 15, 2018)

I like music either composed or played on a Horse


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