# Composers who are too intellectually rigorous and stifle their emotionality



## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

A classic example is Bach for many. I find that Brahms is this way too. My favorite Medtner has a tendency to be very much this way. Elgar's Symphonies are another example to my senses. Taneyev is often this way as well. Hindemith is perhaps a more modern example who seems to have an aspect like this.

These composers are all top notch intellectually, yet their hearts are not on their sleeves. Some listeners wonder whether they have much heart at all. Brahms and Bach were prolific enough all around that their greatness must be confronted like them or not. Elgar had the ability to write lighter classics. But Medtner and Taneyev don't have the luxury of as prolific of outputs and suffer more from this aspect of their music in the amount of attention they get.

Who are some other composers or compositions from a composers that you feel suffer in this way? 

I made a thread similar to this a long time ago, if you remember, called "Purely Austere Composers." This one perhaps has a less artful title, but its something that I'd like to bring to discussion again. This is the type of music that one has to give repeated listenings, where one is more apt to focus on the form before you can actually emotionally enjoy the work to its fullest. It is much harder to advertise this music it seems.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Some of the composers who are/were also academics may fit your 'intellectually rigorous' spec, though I'm not sure they 'stifled' anything. New World Records recorded a lot of their music, as did the American Recording Society before them. I enjoy much of the music of Quincy Porter, but it does exhibit a sense of restraint. Benjamin Lees' string quartets have a feeling of, hmm, formal expression about them.

I suspect you are referring to something else; those guys wrote affecting music.


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

Oh dear Clavichorder----you must listen to Brahms' songs and his Alto Rhapsody , what about the last movement of his 1st Symphony but then all his Symphonies are very emotional. The Piano Concerti pretty well flatten you with emotion not to mention the almost unbearable pathos of the violin concerto's slow movement. Give Brahms another chance, he'll grow on you.
By the way, Elgar was very emotional, more and more is coming out regarding his state of mind.
Hindemith? I don't find much there but some folks do I'm quite sure.
Are feeling more on top of things now ?


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

Not Schoenberg...?


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

Generally speaking, I don't believe that any composers are emotionally stifled; I believe instead that there are a vast number of different ways of expressing emotion in music, but because we are accustomed to Tchaikovskian melodrama and the sentimentality of film scores, we are suckered into thinking that this is what true unbridled emotion is. No, that's just one form of it.

You know I love Brahms, and I think he was _intensely_ emotional. But not in the same way as Tchaikovsky, who I love for different reasons, and not in the same way as Bach who certainly did fill his music with emotion, but a kind of emotion that I don't find appealing.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Brahms, Bach, those guys are full of emotion for me. But their hearts are not on their sleeves to many listeners who get into them. If you want to be less superficial than that and not bite the thread idea, go for it though. Really, I'm just sneaking more opinion of Taneyev and Medtner in on you. Not very subtle. 

Don't get me wrong, I love all the composers I mentioned for the emotion they offer to me. 

And I guess I was railing in response to articles I've read that tend to overemphasize Medtner's intellectual rigor without realizing that he wrote hearty harmonies and melodies.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Hmm Alto Rhapsody? I'll check it out.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

clavichorder said:


> Brahms, Bach, those guys are full of emotion for me. But their hearts are not on their sleeves to many listeners who get into them. If you want to be less superficial than that and not bite the thread idea, go for it though. Really, I'm just sneaking more opinion of Taneyev and Medtner in on you. Not very subtle.


What exactly do you mean by "heart on sleeve"? I don't think Brahms is in any way subtle in his emotions. He may _also_ have tremendous form and structure, but his themes drive you to a sense of unrelenting despair or joy (listen to the triumph of the 2nd Symphony 4th Mvt!).


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## Clementine (Nov 18, 2011)

I agree with Polednice. Brahms is very emotional _and_ very intellectual. If anything the two compliment each other rather than stifle.


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## Dodecaplex (Oct 14, 2011)

How could you guys forget about KAIKHOSRUUUUU? SHAPUUUUUUURRJI? SORAAAAAAABJI??

Amazing composer whom I'd put somewhere in my top 5.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Polednice said:


> What exactly do you mean by "heart on sleeve"? I don't think Brahms is in any way subtle in his emotions. He may _also_ have tremendous form and structure, but his themes drive you to a sense of unrelenting despair or joy (listen to the triumph of the 2nd Symphony 4th Mvt!).


When I first heard Brahms, I thought that I always felt like I was expecting some big emotion, but it didn't lead directly to it. It took a while to get used to it.

Then again, I used to find Rachmaninoff annoying for similar reasons. This was just my younger and light classic appreciating self who was disgusted with vagueness of form or whatever I found incomprehensible at first.


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## Guest (Dec 31, 2011)

Polednice said:


> Generally speaking, I don't believe that any composers are emotionally stifled; I believe instead that there are a vast number of different ways of expressing emotion in music....


Perfect. Simply perfect.


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## brianwalker (Dec 9, 2011)

If you feel that way about Brahms, I'm terrified of what you have to say about Haydn, Mozart's works outside his operas, and Stravinsky's neoclassical period. 

Do you like Ravel? 

Martha Nussbaum said that Hindemith was emotionally stifled. Can anyone confirm? I haven't listened to any.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

Generally speaking, I don't believe that any composers are emotionally stifled; I believe instead that there are a vast number of different ways of expressing emotion in music

Nor are composers limited to a single emotion. There is joy, playfulness, sadness, melancholy, frustration, angst, anger, love, desire, fear, lust, etc.... Any one of which may be a valid inspiration for a work of music or art.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

I prefer intellectually rigorous, and I don't think it stifles anything with the exception of mediocrity.


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## Webernite (Sep 4, 2010)

As Polednice says, there are different kinds of emotion. For me:

Bach's emotion in the keyboard works is the sort I'd bracket with Chopin and Schumann. Energetic in the fast movements, contemplative in the slow movements, but rarely hyper-emotional, IMO. (The choral and violin works are more openly emotional.)

Then there's the kind of emotion I associate with Beethoven and Schubert, where there's a strong feeling of sincerity, as if you're hearing the composer's thoughts. A good example is the Cavatina from Beethoven's Op. 130, or the _Hammerklavier_ Adagio.

Brahms is sort of on his own. His emotion is a bit like Beethoven's, but more nostalgic, much less lofty, and with a more "realistic" attitude, as if at the end of each piece he's saying "That's life." Examples: the first movements of the Second and Third symphonies, and the first movement of the Double Concerto.

Wagner, Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov are more on the hyper-emotional side of things, although Rachmaninov sometimes sounds a bit like Brahms. Wagner's probably the most emotional of these.

Then you have the expressionists like Schoenberg and Berg, who tend to be violently emotional in their operas and a little ambiguous the rest of the time. Bartok can be pretty violent too.

Mozart I find emotional, but in a theatrical way. I don't feel as though the emotion in his music is about _me_ (or even about Mozart himself). It's the emotions felt by some anonymous opera character.

...And I don't know where Haydn comes into this.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

brianwalker said:


> If you feel that way about Brahms, I'm terrified of what you have to say about Haydn, Mozart's works outside his operas, and Stravinsky's neoclassical period.
> 
> Do you like Ravel?
> 
> Martha Nussbaum said that Hindemith was emotionally stifled. Can anyone confirm? I haven't listened to any.


I think there is a lot of misinterpretation going on here. And miscommunication, perhaps more of the latter. Everyone is too individualistic here, so the outcome was not what I expected...


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

And Webernite, I totally agree that Rachmaninoff sometimes has a Brahmsian quality to him.


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## Ravellian (Aug 17, 2009)

I don't understand how J.S. Bach can be considered "unemotional." What of the extended toccatas and fugues for organ, and the choral works like the Passions or the Mass in B Minor? These are works of extreme emotional and spiritual intensity. His conception of counterpoint and fugue was not simply academic (except in certain WTC cases) but a means of profundity through repetition of a melodic subject through shifting textures and densities, continuously building in drama sometimes over 8-10 minutes and often coming to a very elaborate conclusion of many voices.

Emotion can be extroverted or introverted. With the Germans we seem to encounter a more personalized, serious, intense form of passion. The Italians and Russians tend to be much more extroverted and obvious. The French are not as easy to characterize, since they tend to prefer subtlety in art. The stylistic period is also important - in the Classical period, for instance, composers were encouraged to promote positive emotions and downplay the negative ones. But regardless of country of origin or time period, the emotion is still there.

I also believe emotion can be fully present regardless of the compositional method - I have been moved by Bach fugues as much as the serialist Barraque Piano Sonata. At the same time, I have reason to believe that school of serialism tended to stifle the production of all emotions... at the risk of drawing the wrath of someguy, however, I won't name any names...

^ Since Webernite mentioned Haydn, I'll chime in there. Haydn's expressive goal was a medium between the galant style and CPE Bach's Empfindsamer (hyper-emotional) style. Not overly emotional, but not overly superficial - complete balance. Generally, however, the keyboard works are more expressive than the quartets or symphonies.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Okay everyone, lets not be so indignant. Miscommunications and misinterpretations.


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## Ravellian (Aug 17, 2009)

Sorry clavy, didn't mean to sound rude... I am curious as to where you got that impression about Bach though. Sometimes the WTC can seem academic, and possibly the Art of Fugue, but I'm not so sure about the other works.


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## ScipioAfricanus (Jan 7, 2010)

Draeseke is a culprit.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Ravellian said:


> Sorry clavy, didn't mean to sound rude... I am curious as to where you got that impression about Bach though. Sometimes the WTC can seem academic, and possibly the Art of Fugue, but I'm not so sure about the other works.


I don't think Bach is unemotional at all actually. But I do believe that there is a great amount of intellectual rigor in his music that can bother some listeners. I am not among those listeners, I love Bach.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

And Ravellian you weren't rude, I'm just a little flustered and disappointed that this thread was such an utter failure.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

clavichorder said:


> And Ravellian you weren't rude, I'm just a little flustered and disappointed that this thread was such an utter failure.


I'm sorry about that clavi - I think it may just be due to your choice of words. Maybe 'sentimental' would have been more appropriate and less controversial than 'emotional'.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Polednice said:


> I'm sorry about that clavi - I think it may just be due to your choice of words. Maybe 'sentimental' would have been more appropriate and less controversial than 'emotional'.


Maybe I've totally lost my point, but I'm not super invested in this thread. Sentimental might be a better choice, definitely I wasn't wording something right. Other people are free to offer views if the OP sparked thought in any direction. I can't be an OP Nazi.


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## peeyaj (Nov 17, 2010)

Schubert is the *most emotional* of the great composers. Some people think that he was *intellectually stifled* though..


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## brianwalker (Dec 9, 2011)

Webernite said:


> ...And I don't know where Haydn comes into this.


Haydn focused on a different set of emotions; even when there is tragedy and dramatic tension, there is a certain austerity and distance. His feelings are that of the stoic nobleman or duke observing the drama from the mountaintops. Like Henry James he shows restraint and pulls back his climaxes when it edges on the unwieldy.

Then again, Henry James was, and still is, disastrously unpopular. Which is weird, because Haydn was obscenely popular and successful in his lifetime. At the end of James' life his novels sold very little, and the New York Edition made almost no money.


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## brianwalker (Dec 9, 2011)

peeyaj said:


> Schubert is the *most emotional* of the great composers. Some people think that he was *intellectually stifled* though..


Wagner or Mahler would take that title. Their music has both the biggest moments (the climaxes are bigger and more prolonged) and the most intimate (all the solos within the symphonies and the preludes) and more people dying, their children dying, etc. Verdi even, in some of his duets and arias, seems to be more poignant than anything Schubert ever wrote, on a visceral level at least.

--------------------

Of course everyone draws their own line between sincerity and sentimentality.


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## peeyaj (Nov 17, 2010)

brianwalker said:


> Wagner or Mahler would take that title. Their music has both the biggest moments (the climaxes are bigger and more prolonged) and the most intimate (all the solos within the symphonies and the preludes) and more people dying, their children dying, etc. Verdi even, in some of his duets and arias, seems to be more poignant than anything Schubert ever wrote, on a visceral level at least.
> 
> --------------------
> 
> Of course everyone draws their own line between sincerity and sentimentality.


Honestly, I am never touched by Mahler's prolix emotions and Wagner's music. I am more moved by intimate settings such as solo piano or chamber music.

Like this:






I found Verdi, like Puccini, too sentimental. In my opinion Schubert is the most sincere on expressing emotions. His talent of infusing joy with sadness by the effortless shift from major to minor, is breathtaking.. That's why I like him so much.  (and Richard Dawkins admired his music, he he )


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Edit: My bad, I really had nothing to offer to this discussion.


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## brianwalker (Dec 9, 2011)

clavichorder said:


> And Ravellian you weren't rude, I'm just a little flustered and disappointed that this thread was such an utter failure.


 What about you talking about? It's a roaring success, considering the length of the OP and the number of responses it generated.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

brianwalker said:


> Haydn focused on a different set of emotions; even when there is tragedy and dramatic tension, there is a certain austerity and distance. His feelings are that of the stoic nobleman or duke observing the drama from the mountaintops. Like Henry James he shows restraint and pulls back his climaxes when it edges on the unwieldy.
> 
> Then again, Henry James was, and still is, disastrously unpopular. Which is weird, because Haydn was obscenely popular and successful in his lifetime. At the end of James' life his novels sold very little, and the New York Edition made almost no money.


That's probably because Haydn was writing a century earlier, when stoicism would have been more fashionable. I haven't read that much Henry James, but if his major novels aren't as scarily juicy as the Turn of the Screw, then he probably wouldn't have much hope against the decadent drama of _fin de siecle_ Victorian literature!


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## An Die Freude (Apr 23, 2011)

If you think Elgar doesn't express emotion a lot, listen to his Cello Concerto. This may have been posted earlier, so I'm sorry if it was.


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

clavichorder said:


> And Ravellian you weren't rude, I'm just a little flustered and disappointed that this thread was such an utter failure.


Don't sound so apologetic, you wanted to say something and you did. You have sparked off all sorts of comeback which has I'm sure given you food for thought---that's what it's all about !


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## NightHawk (Nov 3, 2011)

I think it is obvious that Brahms exercised a measure of restraint in all his work except, perhaps, his folk-inspired music, but this was only in keeping with his 'classic' sensibilities.

Edit: 'exercised a measure of restraint' _as compared to many of his contemporaries_ - I am not saying he 'felt' restrained.


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## NightHawk (Nov 3, 2011)

Exactly...No one fails at making a good OP more than me  - this is a good thread! - Brahms' music in light of his DOA date (1897) should be discussed!



brianwalker said:


> What about you talking about? It's a roaring success, considering the length of the OP and the number of responses it generated.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

NightHawk said:


> I think it is obvious that Brahms exercised a measure of restraint in all his work except, perhaps, his folk-inspired music, but this was only in keeping with his 'classic' sensibilities.
> 
> Edit: 'exercised a measure of restraint' _as compared to many of his contemporaries_ - I am not saying he 'felt' restrained.


Even if he didn't feel restrained, to 'exercise' it would mean that he intentionally made his music emotionally restrained. I don't see or hear this - do you have some examples? Because I have many examples of overbearing emotion in his music! I think this notion that his music is restrained is more a biographical reflection on his comparatively uneventful life rather than his music.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Polednice said:


> Even if he didn't feel restrained, to 'exercise' it would mean that he intentionally made his music emotionally restrained. I don't see or hear this - do you have some examples? Because I have many examples of overbearing emotion in his music! I think this notion that his music is restrained is more a biographical reflection on his comparatively uneventful life rather than his music.


Y'know, it is possible to be 'intellectually rigorous' _and_ compose emotion-laden music. Brahms is a good example of that possibility. _And_, his penchant for taking melodies onto side-roads can be considered 'restraint', at least until you are no longer distracted by it.

It is easy enough to hear Brahms' heart, but the blood remains in the vessels, rather than pooling on the floor around him. That's one of the reasons I regard him so highly: he isn't messy.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I think there is something to be said for Hindemith's music often lacking emotion or drama (which I don't want to confuse with specific gravity), but maybe this was due to the man himself being a musical theorist who often maintained strict adherence to his own compositional methods and principles. His voluminous output has also given rise to accusations that it all probably sounds the same and that it's basically bland, solid earth without the nutrients. The difference with Hindemith is that this alleged 'coolness' or 'diffidence' actually benefits the music in the same kind of way that lack of histrionics and intensity brought out the best in bands like Kraftwerk. Works such his sonatas for piano and various wind instruments do show a lighter and more 'informal' side, if this is the right expression (which it probably isn't!).


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Hilltroll72 said:


> It is easy enough to hear Brahms' heart, but the blood remains in the vessels, rather than pooling on the floor around him. That's one of the reasons I regard him so highly: he isn't messy.


Refined metaphors that I did not have the creative energy to stir up, speak excellently for my case.


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

peeyaj said:


> Honestly, I am never touched by Mahler's prolix emotions and Wagner's music. I am more moved by intimate settings such as solo piano or chamber music.
> 
> Like this:
> 
> ...


You are quite right regarding Schubert, but please don't compare the Hollywood tinsel town Puccini with Verdi who is so noble !


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

elgars ghost said:


> I think there is something to be said for Hindemith's music often lacking emotion or drama (which I don't want to confuse with specific gravity), but maybe this was due to the man himself being a musical theorist who often maintained strict adherence to his own compositional methods and principles. His voluminous output has also given rise to accusations that it all probably sounds the same and that it's basically bland, solid earth without the nutrients. The difference with Hindemith is that this alleged 'coolness' or 'diffidence' actually benefits the music in the same kind of way that lack of histrionics and intensity brought out the best in bands like Kraftwerk. Works such his sonatas for piano and various wind instruments do show a lighter and more 'informal' side, if this is the right expression (which it probably isn't!).


 No, the right expression is probably boring. ( In my opinion of course, I have to say that in case the thought police get me.)


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## Klavierspieler (Jul 16, 2011)

clavichorder said:


> And Ravellian you weren't rude, I'm just a little flustered and disappointed that this thread was such an utter failure.


What are you talking about?!? This thread has sparked some great discussion!


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## kv466 (May 18, 2011)

clavichorder said:


> I'm just a little flustered and disappointed that this thread was such an utter failure.


Same goes for me and all threads I start, señor...I'm with KS, though...this one went fine.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

kv466 said:


> Same goes for me and all threads I start, señor...I'm with KS, though...this one went fine.


Yeah, nothing wrong with this thread. BTW nearly all of my threads go nowhere, but that's because the subjects are too deep for 99% of the members (or the mods kill the thread immediately).


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

elgars ghost said:


> I think there is something to be said for Hindemith's music often lacking emotion or drama...Works such his sonatas for piano and various wind instruments do show a lighter and more 'informal' side, if this is the right expression (which it probably isn't!).


Agreed, his_ Kammermusik _for wind instruments is a very whimsical work. In the league of any work in the genre one would care to mention, eg. Janacek's _Mladi_, Barber's _Summer Music_, or Ligeti's _Bagatelles_.

Also, some of his orchestral works, eg. the showpiece _Symphonic Metamorphoses _or the _Pittsburgh Symphony_, written after 1945 and giving a picture of that city without relying on the old impressionist cliches.

I sent a copy of David Oistrakh's account of Hindemith's _Violin Concerto _to a friend living overseas, she had little experience with modern music. Her response by email was "this music is so emotional." The _Mathis der Maler _symphony was also on the disc, as was the_ Symphonic Metamorphosis_.

My impression of Hindemith's chamber works I've heard, like some of his violin sonatas, string quartets, the one for solo harp and the 2nd piano sonata is that they do have strong counterpoint and multiple voicings but there is also a light and airy feel in them too. It comes out strongly for me. It's not leaden and heavy. I guess it's also to do with how these things are performed.

Maybe people are complicating things too much and not just listening to the music at hand. Always analysing it to death (analysing their emotions as well, or lack of them, whatever, then attaching it to the music, for good or ill).

That's not to say that there is no validity in the criticism of Hindemith being a bit too dry and technical. That's why I don't have all his works, or boxed sets of them. The more overkill you do, the more a composer becomes mundane and run of the mill. The way I combat this is with a "less is more" philosophy. In any case, things like that violin concerto blow out of the water totally some others in the genre, incl. some by very big names, but I won't name names to start yet another controversy, in any case, it's just my opinion...


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

The charge that Bach is stifled emotionally is utterly bizarre. It's like complaining that Wagner is too subtle.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

clavichorder said:


> A classic example is Bach for many...


With Bach I agree, he was for me, but now it's getting better. I'm getting into stuff like his solo instrumental things again and enjoying them. Some of his things I don't have much time for, eg. the Brandenburgs or his choral. But I'm being flexible and getting into what areas I like, which is solo & chamber things.

But it's not emotion that I like in Bach, or not that thing the most, but his dazzling technique. Eg. the counterpoint, even with one instrument, giving the illusion of multiple instruments. & many other things, too many to mention, he was a major innovator of his time, amazing composer for sure. But as with many others, some of his things click with me, others not.



> ...I find that Brahms is this way too. My favorite Medtner has a tendency to be very much this way. Elgar's Symphonies are another example to my senses. Taneyev is often this way as well. Hindemith is perhaps a more modern example who seems to have an aspect like this....


Disagree about Brahms and Elgar, I hear plenty of emotion in their music, but I value their chamber music above all their other things, and also their concertos.

Medtner and Taneyev I cannot comment on, don't know their stuff that much. I will be aiming to get into them at some stage, but later.

With Hindemith, my lengthy reply is above.



Couchie said:


> The charge that Bach is stifled emotionally is utterly bizarre. It's like complaining that Wagner is too subtle.


These are just generalisations, basically. Depends on many factors, incl. individual listener, what emotions one values, the performance - what it brings out, etc. AS people have said above.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

Some composers have deliberately written complex and abstruse works which do not
appeal to listener's emotions , and which may seem dry as dust to many listeners .
However, I would not describe Elgar's music as unemotional in the least !
In fact, his major works are highly emotional, though never with the kind of cloying
sentimentality which makes the music of his contemporary Delius so difficult to take, at 
least for me .


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

Couchie said:


> The charge that Bach is stifled emotionally is utterly bizarre. It's like complaining that Wagner is too subtle.


No, it's me who is stifled emotionally after listening to him and I've tried over a period of over sixty years. I will not say that I admire him because I'm afraid to look gauche in front of the so-called intelligentsia here and elsewhere .


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

Hearts not on their sleeves? Preposterous. That's what adagios are for, my dear man.


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## Philip (Mar 22, 2011)

the epitome of emotionally stifled music is algorithmic composition, that's right -- music composed by computers.

David cope - glasswork for two pianos and computer-generated tape


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

moody said:


> No, it's me who is stifled emotionally after listening to him and I've tried over a period of over sixty years. I will not say that I admire him because I'm afraid to look gauche in front of the so-called intelligentsia here and elsewhere .


That's an interesting take, _moody_. How one is stifled by the Chaconne (played by dam near anybody) or the cello suites (played by Schiff) is a non-reaction that surprises me, although my first reaction to the Chaconne was mostly awe. It was a Francescatti recording. _One violin is doing all that?!_


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

Hilltroll72 said:


> That's an interesting take, _moody_. How one is stifled by the Chaconne (played by dam near anybody) or the cello suites (played by Schiff) is a non-reaction that surprises me, although my first reaction to the Chaconne was mostly awe. It was a Francescatti recording. _One violin is doing all that?!_


I know, I know, and I'm sure I would find things to like, I suppose nothing caught my eye or my ear and now I do not really want to bother. You will note that unlike some of our friends here I did not say ,"Bach is rubbish " I'm sure it is my loss .Also do you know how much music there is from composers I do like that I have never heard ! tThat's not a question but a statement because of course you know. the other thing is that I will not be around much longer to take up anything new.
I knew I should not of said it but, hey ho that's the story of my life.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

moody said:


> [...]
> I knew I should not of said it but, hey ho that's the story of my life.


Hah. Of course you 'should have said it'. Matter of fact, The Art Of Fugue pretty much 'stifles' me too. The WTC did for a long time, until I heard a few recordings by people who were willing to 'bring out' some voices (a practice much frowned upon by the cognoscenti).

As I commented to _Polednice_ the other day, it's all good.

But some of it is gooder, and we ought to listen to that while we got time.


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## Lisztian (Oct 10, 2011)

Couchie said:


> The charge that Bach is stifled emotionally is utterly bizarre. It's like complaining that Wagner is too subtle.


I find Bach to be stifled emotionally and just plain boring a lot of the time, although I do like some of his stuff a lot. But Bach is a composer I can only listen to in small doses. It's funny how most people say they can only listen to Liszt in small doses and that Bach is their daily bread, while i'm the opposite.  But yeah i'm weird like that. But yes people always tell me that Bach is extremely emotional, but I just don't see it. Not yet at least.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I can tell you *moody*, in my circle of friends, acquaintances into the classical, I was like in the minority in that I didn't like Bach, or thought I didn't like him. I work with a lady who used to be a keyboard player and of course she loves Bach, loved to play his things, esp. his organ music. But she also likes many other things like film music, eg. Howard Shore. She isn't highbrow. My suggestion is just to get to know Bach through people who aren't highbrow and ramming him down your throat as the best thing since sliced bread or whatever. I think most Bach lovers, or a good amount of them, come across as not highbrow or like that. Air who just became a moderator is such a person, he kind of re-opened aspects of Bach for me a while back and more recently I've gone "back to Bach" in my own way. A concert here last year incl. his _Double Violin Concerto _moved me to tears and opened his music up to me a good deal.

But online, it's often the Bach + Wagner combination that I'm boggled by. Not necessarily on this forum, but on another one I left ages ago. The people there, or a lot of them, who were huge fans of these two composers came across as really objectionable & full of hubris. They did nothing to further the cause of these two composers music, speaking personally they turned me off. For some people at least, this seems to be a toxic combination. Not all people who love both these composers, but at least some, but I haven't come across such people in real life (thank god for that, if I did, I'd avoid them like the plague, I hate highbrows to the max)...


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

_Sid_:
"They did nothing to further the cause of these two composers music, speaking personally they turned me off. For some people at least, this seems to be a toxic combination. Not all people who love both these composers, but at least some, but I haven't come across such people in real life (thank god for that, if I did, I'd avoid them like the plague, I hate highbrows to the max)..."



_Sid_, sometimes you are 'a breath of fresh air'.

How about Groucho Marx, whose brow tended to alternate high and low?


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Hilltroll72 said:


> ...
> How about Groucho Marx, whose brow tended to alternate high and low?


Well, the film he did with that blonde, Mae West was a classic. She really got into the highbrows. She kind of did a p*ss take or send up of glamour. Her witty one liners just cut through the cr*p and jargon. So did Groucho's. We need people like that now, thin on the ground now, real character. Perfect combination with the Marx brothers, but ages since I've seen it. Funny how your mention bought that up. Man, they don't make them like that anymore!...


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Sid James said:


> Well, the film he did with that blonde, Mae West was a classic. She really got into the highbrows. She kind of did a p*ss take or send up of glamour. Her witty one liners just cut through the cr*p and jargon. So did Groucho's. We need people like that now, thin on the ground now, real character. Perfect combination with the Marx brothers, but ages since I've seen it. Funny how your mention bought that up. Man, they don't make them like that anymore!...


Mae West was a fine jewel _and_ a unique personality. I play the Windows version of Hearts frequently; Mae West is the opponent to my left. (Ollie North and Ben East are the others.)


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

I'll have to go here (in this old thread - does anyone see if something is added to an old thread, any software signals to the poster or contributors?) with Stravinsky's famous / infamous statement that music is incapable of expressing anything, to which he much later added the comment that it can say nothing but does evoke the strongest of emotions in us.

Some were not interested in EMO, as it were. For others, it was their prime concern.

For the listener, it is all, by my reckoning, a Rorschach blot, the listener reaction (regardless of the repertoire) being just about any and everything in the panoply of emotion or thought of that individual.

We all have some habituated set of expectations, dependent upon what we've been exposed to and choose to consume. I think that is more the issue you 'have' vs. any of the composers you think were 'too much in their head.'

Sorabji strikes me, intellectual or no, as someone who had nothing to say with music, but to be generous, perhaps something about its theoretic mechanics.

Stravinsky is one who I find profoundly expressive, even at his most 'detached' classically restrained, in any phase of his varied output - that includes the final serial chapter. I am moved, excited, one way or the other, about almost all of it and it makes me 'feel' something.

Barber's Adagio for strings has me only able to receive it as a mechanical and technical problem addressed and well-solved, and does not move me at all. Now popularly rated as 'the saddest' of pieces, I leave the loopy syntax on purpose 

I would not credit or discredit the composers at all. I'm convinced it is almost always the listener, and their perspective, which affects a thought as you've posed as a question.


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## regressivetransphobe (May 16, 2011)

Sid James said:


> Well, the film he did with that blonde, Mae West was a classic. She really got into the highbrows. She kind of did a p*ss take or send up of glamour. Her witty one liners just cut through the cr*p and jargon. So did Groucho's. We need people like that now, thin on the ground now, real character. Perfect combination with the Marx brothers, but ages since I've seen it. Funny how your mention bought that up. Man, they don't make them like that anymore!...


Never saw the appeal of Mae West. She strikes me as someone whose dime-a-dozen attitude was in the right place at the right time to get quoted by vaguely feminist teachers for decades. She also helped tie female "independence" to promiscuity (disguised as some banal send-up of it). It's crazy to me nobody sees the problem there.

Different strokes I guess.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Crudblud said:


> Not Schoenberg...?


Schoenberg IS Brahms.

When Elliott Carter was asked why, even as a phase, he had never tried or written any serial music, he said, "I looked into it. The more I looked into it, it seemed like it was just all that old Brahms stuff."


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## jalex (Aug 21, 2011)

PetrB said:


> When Elliott Carter was asked why, even as a phase, he had never tried or written any serial music, he said, "I looked into it. The more I looked into it, it seemed like it was just all that old Brahms stuff."


Yeah, I was listening to Boulez's second piano sonata the other day and the resemblance to Brahms' early sonatas is quite apparent.

Seriously, even Schoenberg doesn't sound _that_ much like Brahms. People love to stress this resemblance because it makes Schoenberg seem more firmly in the 'great classical tradition, stretching from Bach to blah blah blah...'. Schoenberg himself over-emphasised his similarities to the old masters for the same reason, to 'soften the blow' (this is not to say that he did not have a large debt to them, just that this is often overplayed relative to his revolutionary traits).

Obviously, the serial method itself has no precedent in Brahms and using it will not force anyone to sound even remotely like Brahms.


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