# Who were Beethoven nemesis = his haters among classical composers?



## deprofundis (Apr 25, 2014)

Ockay im a simple human being im not allows to discredits Beethoven talents, but i despise is joie de vivre, since i never been in sutch putrid hell financilly speaking.

But what about great composer , who said crap on Beethoven, who were is rival, who hated is Joie de vivre.

According to account, Wagner said Beethoven was gibberishness,, according to him...

Name fameous composer who said crap on beethoven or performer who would refuse to play Beethoven.

Every great soul has hater, i bet Salieri according to mythos put rat poison in Mozart wine(movie dont lie, do they???).


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Weber didn't really appreciate Beethoven -- but hate is way roo strong a word.

(And neither the play nor movie of "Amadeus"a pretended to be an actual biogrphy -- merely a scaffolding to attach Schaefer's musings on the "unfair" distribution of natural gifts to.)


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## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

The composer and virtuoso pianist Daniel Steibelt is said to have met Beethoven at the house of Count Fries. ''The immensely famous Steibelt'' had prepared a brilliant fantasy for piano and strings, the theme coming from the new Beethoven trio he had heard Beethoven play at a similar gathering the previous week. Steibelt’s admirers were enraptured. It was now Beethoven’s turn. He walked to the piano, grabbed the cello part of the Steibelt work, placed it upside down on the piano and began to improvise. Before Beethoven had finished Steibelt left the room. He refused ever to see Beethoven again and made it a condition before going anywhere in Vienna that Beethoven not be invited.


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

A conversation that Stravinsky is said to have had with Marcel Proust:

Stravinsky: "I hate Beethoven!"
Proust: "But... but... the late quartets?!"
Stravinsky: "Those are the worst of all!"
Proust: [faint]


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Ravel was not a fan, he referred to Beethoven's music as abominable.


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## WatchfulRaven (Nov 20, 2018)

I can think of specific pieces that have their critics.

Verdi disliked the Ode to Joy from Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 "Choral", though he said the symphony's first three movements were marvelous.

I remember reading about a modern conductor who dislikes Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 "Emperor" and refuses to record it. I don't remember the conductor's name, though. I also remember reading about somebody who used the Missa Solemnis as an example of how "boring" Beethoven's music is. Again, his name escapes me.

The Große Fuge was originally the final movement of Beethoven's String Quartet No. 13 and was hated by pretty much everybody until well into the twentieth century. Beethoven was even persuaded to write a substitute finale and publish the fugue as a separate work. Ouch.


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## Heliogabo (Dec 29, 2014)

Sir Thomas Beecham... called late Beethoven's composition music for deaf people. Oh sir...


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Weber is reported to have said of a passage in Beethoven's 7th Symphony that the composer was "ripe for the madhouse." And he penned a not-so-gentle satire on the 4th Symphony which you can read here:

https://sites.google.com/site/kenocstuff/weber-on-beethoven-s-fourth-symphony

Strangely, later in life Beethoven was a big fan of _Der Freischutz_ and greeted Weber warmly when they met: "There you are, you rascal; you're a devil of a fellow, God bless you! Weber, you always were a fine fellow." (October, 1823)


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

deprofundis said:


> According to account, Wagner said Beethoven was gibberishness,, according to him...


I'm sure that account is wrong. Beethoven was one of Wagner's gods (not the ones who went up in flames, of course).


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> I'm sure that account is wrong. Beethoven was one of Wagner's gods (not the ones who went up in flames, of course).


In fact, a member who wants to remain anonymous (though his name starts with "W") wrote this a couple of years ago:

"The exact contrary is true. Beethoven - especially the 9th symphony - was Wagner's greatest musical inspiration. He wrote an essay titled "Beethoven," praised him constantly, and conducted the 9th to inaugurate the Bayreuth Festival (which is why Furtwangler reopened the festival with the 9th after WW II)."

Also, Sir George Grove recounts this memory from Wagner concerning Beethoven's 5th: "Wagner, conducting a Court Concert at Dresden during the insurrection of 1848, felt his spirits sink as each number of the programme seemed to bring a deeper gloom over the audience, and gradually to extinguish all applause. Leaning down from his desk, he whispered to the leader of the violins, 'What is to be done?' 'Oh! go on,' said the leader, 'there is still the C-minor coming, and all will be right.' And so it was; for with the magic sound of the opening bars, everyone's spirit revived, applause burst from the benches, and it was as if a bright light shone into the room."


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

WatchfulRaven said:


> I can think of specific pieces that have their critics.
> 
> *Verdi disliked the Ode to Joy from Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 "Choral", though he said the symphony's first three movements were marvelous.*


When asked in 1889 to add his name to the honors list for a festival at Beethoven's birthplace in Bonn, Verdi replied, "I cannot refuse the honour that is offered to me."
"We are talking about Beethoven!" he added. "Before such a name we all prostrate ourselves reverently."


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Chopin, in general, was not sympatico with Beethoven's music. Delacroix's diary quotes him as saying that Beethoven's music on some occasions "abandoned eternal principles." Whether that was a passing comment or an abiding opinion I certainly don't know. But I would think his aesthetic was so different from Beethoven’s that a certain distaste might well be natural and even protect him from an influence that would hardly be helpful to his own music.

He was known to assign Beethoven’s Op. 26 sonata to his students for study, but I don't know of any others.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

RICK RIEKERT said:


> The composer and virtuoso pianist Daniel Steibelt is said to have met Beethoven at the house of Count Fries. ''The immensely famous Steibelt'' had prepared a brilliant fantasy for piano and strings, the theme coming from the new Beethoven trio he had heard Beethoven play at a similar gathering the previous week. Steibelt's admirers were enraptured. It was now Beethoven's turn. He walked to the piano, grabbed the cello part of the Steibelt work, placed it upside down on the piano and began to improvise. Before Beethoven had finished Steibelt left the room. He refused ever to see Beethoven again and made it a condition before going anywhere in Vienna that Beethoven not be invited.


Seems Beethoven had a special talent at offending people.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Fritz Kobus said:


> Seems Beethoven had a special talent at offending people.


Beethoven was sometimes careless of his friends even when they were important patrons. In 1806 Prince Lichnowsky, Beethoven's patron for a decade, invited him for some R&R at his estates in what was then Silesia. But he and the prince had a major falling out over Ludwig's refusal to play for some visiting French officers. Beethoven actually tried to brain Lichnowsky with a chair.

He was stopped by another nobleman, Count Franz von Oppersdorff, who took Beethoven back to his own estates nearby. That worked out OK since Oppersdorff then commissioned both the 4th and the 5th Symphonies, and he paid well. But Beethoven's relations with Lichnowski were permanently severed, and the 600 florin stipend he had been getting from the prince was terminated.


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## Dimace (Oct 19, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> I'm sure that account is wrong. Beethoven was one of Wagner's gods (not the ones who went up in flames, of course).


Speak, my friend. Speak!


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

I'm one of those who say the 9th is a 3/4 success... or maybe 7/8 to be fair... up to where the caterwauling gains momentum...

He's not my favorite composer, and I rarely play Beethoven, but when I do, he is the Most Interesting Man In The World...


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

KenOC said:


> Beethoven was sometimes careless of his friends even when they were important patrons. In 1806 Prince Lichnowsky, Beethoven's patron for a decade, invited him for some R&R at his estates in what was then Silesia. But he and the prince had a major falling out over Ludwig's refusal to play for some visiting French officers. Beethoven actually tried to brain Lichnowsky with a chair.
> 
> He was stopped by another nobleman, Count Franz von Oppersdorff, who took Beethoven back to his own estates nearby. That worked out OK since Oppersdorff then commissioned both the 4th and the 5th Symphonies, and he paid well. *But Beethoven's relations with Lichnowski were permanently severed, and the 600 florin stipend he had been getting from the prince was terminated*.


He didn't know the old saying, "Don't bite the hand that feeds you"?


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

KenOC said:


> Chopin, in general, was not sympatico with Beethoven's music. Delacroix's diary quotes him as saying that Beethoven's music on some occasions "abandoned eternal principles." Whether that was a passing comment or an abiding opinion I certainly don't know. But I would think his aesthetic was so different from Beethoven's that a certain distaste might well be natural and even protect him from an influence that would hardly be helpful to his own music.
> 
> He was known to assign Beethoven's Op. 26 sonata to his students for study, but I don't know of any others.


I don't think Chopin disliked Beethoven's entire oeuvre. The most obvious Beethovenian influence is in his famous Fantasia Impromptu:




and Op.26 was his favourite Beethoven sonata and the model for his Sonata in B flat minor Op.35. Chopin got the idea for the "funeral march" from the Beethoven sonata. 
Etude Op.10 No.12 in C minor "Revolutionary" is also one of his most Beethoven-like pieces. Looking at how Chopin liked things delicate and concise, I'm guessing he considered Beethoven's other pieces like Choral Fantasia 'alien' to his style, I think.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Fritz Kobus said:


> He didn't know the old saying, "Don't bite the hand that feeds you"?


Perhaps, like some dogs, Beethoven had poor impulse control. In fact, that seems to have been the case.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

Eschbeg said:


> A conversation that Stravinsky is said to have had with Marcel Proust:
> 
> Stravinsky: "I hate Beethoven!"
> Proust: "But... but... the late quartets?!"
> ...


I am currently reading Stravinsky's autobiography, in which he expresses the most profound admiration for Beethoven and calls him one of the greatest composers ever. But perhaps his opinion varied through his life. He notes that when he was younger he didn't like Beethoven simply because the man was so hyped and, moreover, hyped for all the wrong reasons (in his opinion). Once he actually studied B's music he was won over to it very quickly.



KenOC said:


> Beethoven was sometimes careless of his friends even when they were important patrons. In 1806 Prince Lichnowsky, Beethoven's patron for a decade, invited him for some R&R at his estates in what was then Silesia. But he and the prince had a major falling out over Ludwig's refusal to play for some visiting French officers. Beethoven actually tried to brain Lichnowsky with a chair.
> 
> He was stopped by another nobleman, Count Franz von Oppersdorff, who took Beethoven back to his own estates nearby. That worked out OK since Oppersdorff then commissioned both the 4th and the 5th Symphonies, and he paid well. But Beethoven's relations with Lichnowski were permanently severed, and the 600 florin stipend he had been getting from the prince was terminated.


Beethoven could be pretty tactless and even cruel, but in this particular case he has my sympathy and indeed admiration. The French officers were members of an occupying force, and Lichnowsky basically a collaborator. Beethoven displayed great courage and integrity here.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

brianvds said:


> ...Beethoven could be pretty tactless and even cruel, but in this particular case he has my sympathy and indeed admiration. The French officers were members of an occupying force, and Lichnowsky basically a collaborator. Beethoven displayed great courage and integrity here.


When Messiaen premiered his _Quartet for the End of Time_ at the Stalag-VIIIA prison camp, the audience was composed of camp prisoners and their German guards. Messiaen seemed happy enough about both: "Never was I listened to with such rapt attention and comprehension." In fact, a German guard had provided paper and other help with the composition.

Music, one might think, can transcend national differences, even when those differences become violent. It's very hard for me to think of Lichnowsky, especially in the context of those times, as a "collaborator." I suspect that the real issue was that Lichnowsky, anxious to impress his French guests, pulled rank on Beethoven. If so, that would have been a terrible mistake! But one having more to do with Beethoven's ego than his patriotism.

I'll also mention that just two years later, Beethoven accepted an offer from Napoleon's brother Jérôme Bonaparte, then king of Westphalia, for a well-paid position as Kapellmeister at the court in Cassel. He reneged only on the award of a handsome annual stipend to remain in Vienna, with nothing else required of him. His patriotism was not much in evidence while all that was happening!


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## DBLee (Jan 8, 2018)

Eschbeg said:


> A conversation that Stravinsky is said to have had with Marcel Proust:
> 
> Stravinsky: "I hate Beethoven!"
> Proust: "But... but... the late quartets?!"
> ...





> Stravinsky's own account of the evening reframes the comment. In Conversations, he said that he would have shared Proust's enthusiasm for Beethoven's late quartets "if it had not been a commonplace among the literati of the time, not a musical judgment but a pose." And to be fair, the party followed the premiere of Stravinsky's opera Mavra, to poor critical reception - possibly not the most tactful time to bring up the big B.
> 
> Forty years later, Stravinsky was much clearer in his feelings. Particularly enchanted by the Große Fuge, he wrote, "At eighty I have found new joy in Beethoven."


https://clevelandclassical.com/clev...ven-share-a-program-and-igor-muses-on-ludwig/


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Perhaps, like some dogs, Beethoven had poor impulse control. In fact, that seems to have been the case.


We might today have said Beethoven was autistic in that certain elements of reality which most people take for granted were foreign to him. Another example was his nephew Karl. Not only because he took him away from his mother at a very bad moment, but also because he insisted that Karl, having the name Beethoven, must be a great artist, even though everyone assured him the lad was untalented. It seems that any form of reason went out the window.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

"Johann Nepomuk Hummel, born in 1778, was a fixture in the Viennese musical world. A child prodigy and former pupil of Mozart, Hummel was renowned for his incredible virtuosity at the keyboard and legendary prowess at improvisation. Alongside Beethoven, he was widely considered the finest performer of his day. For many years, Hummel enjoyed a close friendship with Beethoven.

*Several incidents, however, marred their relationship.* In one famous incident, Beethoven was invited by Prince Nikolaus II Esterhazy to write a mass for his wife in 1807. Beethoven agreed and produced the Mass in C, which was performed at the prince's estate in Eisenstadt. Hummel was at the time the Kapellmeister, having been appointed Haydn's successor to the Esterhazy court. The performance did not go well, and the prince is purported to have made a barbed remark to Beethoven afterwards. According to Schindler, Hummel laughed at the prince's words, compounding the always-sensitive Beethoven's feelings of humiliation and persecution. Beethoven promptly left Eisenstadt and carried the grudge for years afterward. This incident, however, likely did not prompt the eventual falling-out between the two men.

A more likely source of contention between them was artistic. Hummel was well known for his keyboard arrangements of Beethoven's works, particularly his symphonies. Beethoven disliked Hummel's style of performance and composition, and, according to Ignaz Moscheles, objected to Hummel's arrangements. Some time in the late 1810s, disagreement surfaced, the exact cause of which is unknown, but which may well have centered on discord over Hummel's arrangements of Beethoven's music.

Hummel spent most of the 1820s at the Weimar Court, where he was a friend of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and did not see Beethoven again until a remarkable reconciliation took place between the two men at Beethoven's deathbed. Hummel, hearing of Beethoven's serious illness, travelled from Weimar to Vienna to visit his erstwhile friend. According to the account left by Hummel's then-student Ferdinand Hiller, who accompanied his teacher, Hummel may have been motivated by more than compassion. Hummel solicited Beethoven's signature upon a petition he was taking to the Bundestag in order to protect his compositions (and those of others) from illegal copying. All told, Hummel visited Beethoven three times while he was on his deathbed, the last being on 23 March 1827, just three days before his death, and was present at his funeral."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beethoven_and_his_contemporaries#Johann_Nepomuk_Hummel


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

On Beethoven's late works: "It is true that there are people who imagine they can understand them, and in their pleasure at the claim, rank them far above his earlier masterpieces. But I am not of their number and freely confess that I have never been able to relish the last works of Beethoven. Yes, I must even reckon the much admired Ninth Symphony among these, the three first movements of which seem to me, despite some solitary flashes of genius, worse than all the eight previous symphonies. 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." -- Ludwig Spohr​


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

“the sound of the variations was so grotesque I just couldn’t see what they were all about”.

Benjamin Britten on Beethoven's Op.110


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Robert Pickett said:


> "the sound of the variations was so grotesque I just couldn't see what they were all about".
> 
> Benjamin Britten on Beethoven's Op.110


As if Britten ever wrote anything on a par with it! :lol:


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

DavidA said:


> As if Britten ever wrote anything on a par with it! :lol:


I don't think I would have been able to show quite as much diplomacy in making the same point!


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

deprofundis said:


> ...Name fameous composer who said crap on beethoven or performer who would refuse to play Beethoven...


John Cage said he'd rather listen to traffic noise than Beethoven (and threw Wolfie in for the bargain).

"The sound experience which I prefer to all others is the experience of silence. And the silence almost everywhere in the world now is traffic. If you listen to Beethoven or to Mozart you see that they're always the same. But if you listen to traffic you see it's always different."

Mind you, Cage wasn't speaking from a position of ignorance. As a teenager, he played the piano part of Beethoven's violin sonatas.

Ravel's dislike of Beethoven was mentioned by the cellist Piatgorsky. Ravel heard him play a cello sonata by Beethoven, and commented that the playing was beautiful but questioned why he wasted his time on such "abominable music." Piatigorsky was astonished but concluded that if Ravel had not rejected Beethoven then he would not have been as unique as he became.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Sid James said:


> John Cage said he'd rather listen to traffic noise than Beethoven (and threw Wolfie in for the bargain).


Well, that's OK. I'd rather listen to the screams of the dying cats that Brahms shot with Dvorak's crossbow* than anything by Cage. 

*We have this on Wagner's authority. Brahms wrote the piteous feline cries into his chamber music.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/apr/12/highereducation.arts


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## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

Sid James said:


> John Cage said he'd rather listen to traffic noise than Beethoven (and threw Wolfie in for the bargain).
> 
> "The sound experience which I prefer to all others is the experience of silence. And the silence almost everywhere in the world now is traffic. If you listen to Beethoven or to Mozart you see that they're always the same. But if you listen to traffic you see it's always different."


He's not very accurate with his language or grasp of reality, is he? Cities account for a small percentage of "the world" -- and even if you were take all busy streets there would probably still be one-hundred thousand times the acreage of forests, plains, farmland, oceans, jungles and deserts. As to the second sentence, it should be obvious that it's wrong.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Sid James said:


> John Cage said he'd rather listen to traffic noise than Beethoven (and threw Wolfie in for the bargain).


While most contemporary composers appreciate Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, etc, some others seem to display some sort of jealousy to classical music composers and the immense popularity they enjoy today. As if they (the contemporary music composers) themselves are insecure if they would be remembered (like Bach, Mozart, Beethoven are today), or fall into obscurity and forgotten (like Vincente Martin Soler) in the future. 
I've noticed some of the less popular composers say things like "people's ears aren't yet sophisticated enough to fully appreciate our music," which I think is just sheer nonsense.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

When have famous composers ever been complementary to each other? It happens, but rarely, whether it's Beethoven putting down Rossini, or Vaughn Williams or Ravel putting down Beethoven, or Peter Tchaikovsky putting down Brahms, or Brahms putting Hans Rott, etc., etc., etc. If they admitted to liking another composer it would diminish their own self-importance. Every great composer has their own unique relationship with Creative Source, so how could they ever completely understand anyone else's? In fact, I don't think they're supposed to or they wouldn't be a uniquely great composer, and one can only laugh or chuckle at what they say about each other, which is often scathing, insulting, or dismissive. Verdi may not have liked the vocal writing in the last movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony, but it wasn't his to rewrite. Gustav Leonhardt didn't like it either and yet it's the most famous movement and theme of the entire Symphony. If the entire Symphony is not performed, what movement is? It's the Ode to Joy! So who was right? Beethoven or his shortsighted critics who may have been blinded by their own light?

https://www.cmuse.org/harshest-composer-on-composer-insults-in-classical-music/


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Beethoven (occasionally) could be quite complimentary. "Among all the composers alive Cherubini is the most worthy of respect. I am in complete agreement, too, with his conception of the 'Requiem,' and if ever I come to write one I shall take note of many things."


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Beethoven (occasionally) could be quite complimentary. "Among all the composers alive Cherubini is the most worthy of respect. I am in complete agreement, too, with his conception of the 'Requiem,' and if ever I come to write one I shall take note of many things."


I tho k it's important to realise Beethoven's put down ofRossini was double edged - he actually thought the comic operas were brilliant


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## Razumovskymas (Sep 20, 2016)

I think Debussy didn't like his music a lot. I think he once said something like "why all the modulations"


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

Larkenfield said:


> When have famous composers ever been complementary to each other?


The rule is: "Never ask for the opinion of a composer about another composer." For composers there is a sense that other composers are messing with their minds.


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## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

Razumovskymas said:


> I think Debussy didn't like his music a lot. I think he once said something like "why all the modulations"


Debussy said quite a bit about Beethoven. The celebrated pianist Harold Bauer called Debussy "the most violent of all the critics I ever met". "Debussy", Bauer says, "attacked Beethoven with such bitterness and sarcasm that it made one's blood boil. Once, in my hearing, he mentioned that he had 'escaped' the previous evening from a concert where a Beethoven quartet was being played, just at the moment when the 'old deaf one' ('le vieux sourd') started to 'develop a theme'. There was something so hateful in the tone of his voice as he said this that I rose up indignantly and denounced him for his disrespect to the name of a great genius; and the result was, I regret to say, that our relations were broken on the spot and not renewed for a number of years. "

Composer Cyril Scott, who was highly regarded by Debussy, writes "Certainly, even apart from living musicians, Debussy had very pronounced dislikes, one of which was Beethoven, whom he described as le vieux sourd".

Simon Harcourt-Smith recollects "My first experience of Debussy was of this rather important, bearded figure who would explode suddenly in great indignation…seizing my arm when I was aged about six and saying: 'If you have any affection my boy, for me, NEVER play or even talk of Wagner or Beethoven to me, because it is like somebody dancing on my grave'."

According to the French pianist and teacher Marguerite Long, Debussy murmured to her one day: "I detest the concertos of Mozart," adding, "but less than those of Beethoven".

In the spring of 1901 Debussy became the music critic for La revue blanche, a leading Parisian literary and artistic journal which he forthwith peppered with a variety of snide remarks about Beethoven: "Beethoven's sonatas are very badly written for the piano, and are really more like orchestral transcriptions, especially the last ones. Often they seem to require a third hand, which I'm sure Beethoven intended, at least I hope he did."

And "Geniuses can evidently do without taste: take the case of Beethoven, for example."

Nevertheless, near the end of his life in the 'Preface in the Form of a Letter to Pour la Musique Francaise: Douze Causeries', written in December 1916, Debussy concedes "Beethoven,,,was a great musician."


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

KenOC said:


> Well, that's OK. I'd rather listen to the screams of the dying cats that Brahms shot with Dvorak's crossbow* than anything by Cage.
> 
> *We have this on Wagner's authority. Brahms wrote the piteous feline cries into his chamber music.
> 
> https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/apr/12/highereducation.arts


Well, that one came out of left field, to which I can only add that I'd rather listen to Brahms, Dvorak, even Cage (or probably anything) than big bad Mr. R. W.



regenmusic said:


> He's not very accurate with his language or grasp of reality, is he? Cities account for a small percentage of "the world" -- and even if you were take all busy streets there would probably still be one-hundred thousand times the acreage of forests, plains, farmland, oceans, jungles and deserts. As to the second sentence, it should be obvious that it's wrong.


I get what Cage is saying, but I had to read a whole book on him to be able to decifer such things. I am not a fan, but it did make me understand him more. His big idea was that art equals life, there are no boundaries between the two. The second sentence just means that noises coming from technology - like traffic noise - is a constant background to our lives.



hammeredklavier said:


> While most contemporary composers appreciate Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, etc, some others seem to display some sort of jealousy to classical music composers and the immense popularity they enjoy today. As if they (the contemporary music composers) themselves are insecure if they would be remembered (like Bach, Mozart, Beethoven are today), or fall into obscurity and forgotten (like Vincente Martin Soler) in the future.
> I've noticed some of the less popular composers say things like "people's ears aren't yet sophisticated enough to fully appreciate our music," which I think is just sheer nonsense.


I don't think that it was jealousy on Cage's part, he just came to reject the traditional canon because it was about goal-oriented music. His biggest musical hero of the past was Satie, one of the pioneers of music without boundaries or goals.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Sid James said:


> I don't think that it was jealousy on Cage's part, he just came to reject the traditional canon because it was about goal-oriented music. His biggest musical hero of the past was Satie, one of the pioneers of music without boundaries or goals.


I think the most amazing thing about Satie's music was that, even though it had no goals, it failed to achieve them.


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## Red Terror (Dec 10, 2018)

*The man who challenged Beethoven to a musical duel in Vienna - and what happened*

Beethoven-gotta love him.

https://www.classicfm.com/composers/beethoven/guides/daniel-steibelt/

An interesting fact:

_"Beethoven hated giving piano lessons unless they were for exceptionally talented students or attractive young women of whatever talent."_


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Red Terror said:


> Beethoven-gotta love him.
> 
> https://www.classicfm.com/composers/beethoven/guides/daniel-steibelt/


The Steibelt-Beethoven duel took place in 1800, and the only surviving account comes from Ferdinand Reis. Reis at that time was not Beethoven's student and was not present at the duel. He wrote of it 37 years later, depending on the memory of somebody who was there.

A better-documented duel took place a year or so earlier and was written up at the time in the journal AMZ Leipzig. Some liner note writers present this as another unalloyed Beethoven triumph, but the results were actually more ambiguous. Here's the portion of the write-up that I have:

"...After we have featured the ladies first, as we should, let us discuss the gentlemen. Among these, Beethoven and Wölffl create the most excitement. Opinions as to the advantages of the one over the other are divided here. However, it appears as if the larger party is tending towards the latter. I want to try to point out the characteristics of both, without taking part in the ensuing argument.

"Beethoven' s play is exceedingly brilliant, but less delicate and at times somewhat unclear. He shows himself to best advantage in free improvisation. And here the lightness and at the same time firmness in the sequence of his ideas is really quite extraordinary. B. instantly varies every theme, and not only in its figures. Since the death of Mozart who will always remain the non plus ultra in this, I have never found this kind of pleasure to the degree with which B. provides it. In this, Wölffl is inferior to him.

"However, Wölffl has at his disposal a thorough musical learnedness and true dignity in composition. He performs movements that appear nearly impossible to execute with a lightness, precision, and distinctness that is truly amazing. Of course, the large structure of his hands is an advantage in this. His performance is purposeful everywhere, pleasing and caressing in the adagios and equally far from the extremes of sparseness and overcrowding-this is why one can not only admire him but also enjoy him. That Wölffl's unassuming and pleasing behavior gains over Beethoven with his sometimes haughty manner is very natural..."


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Sid James said:


> His big idea was that art equals life, there are no boundaries between the two. The second sentence just means that noises coming from technology - like traffic noise - is a constant background to our lives.


I like to think of Cage as the musical equivalent of Jackson Pollock


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

RICK RIEKERT said:


> "Geniuses can evidently do without taste: take the case of Beethoven, for example."


But then Debussy loved and revered Chopin and called him "the greatest of them all", "in piano alone, he achieved everything" (despite all his 'fillers' and 'banality') which, together with Debussy's own music, tells me a lot about his taste.

"Beethoven's sonatas are very badly written for the piano, and are really more like orchestral transcriptions, especially the last ones. Often they seem to require a third hand, which I'm sure Beethoven intended, at least I hope he did."

and at the same time he thought the composer of these works as the "greatest of them all"




















if you ask me, these sound like piano transcriptions of music written for a monophonic instrument


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

...............


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

hammeredklavier said:


> I like to think of Cage as the musical equivalent of Jackson Pollock


That's a good enough fit, because Cage was allied to the Abstract Expressionists. Some, like Robert Rauschenberg, where close friends. His blank white canvas is the nearest equivalent to Cage's 4'33". Cage's relationship with Pollock was strained, they did everything they could to avoid eachother. Pollock was a deeply troubled man, and even worse for Cage, a homophobe.

Getting back to Beethoven, Cage made similar comments about him throughout his long life. The first time was a lecture at an American university in the 1950's, the audience being made up of academics who where very much of the Austrian-Germanic tradition. In challenging that, Cage (similar to Debussy and Ravel before him) saw Beethoven not as an individual but as a representative of that whole tradition.

It's also significant that Cage's view of his teacher Schoenberg was very mixed, he even had less guarded praise of Stravinsky and was a fan of Webern. Cage is a bundle of contradictions, both frustrating and fascinating. A famous quote which sums him up is "I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones." Of course it's contradicted by his interest in such old ideas as Zen Buddhism.


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## DBLee (Jan 8, 2018)

RICK RIEKERT said:


> Debussy said quite a bit about Beethoven. The celebrated pianist Harold Bauer called Debussy "the most violent of all the critics I ever met". "Debussy", Bauer says, "attacked Beethoven with such bitterness and sarcasm that it made one's blood boil. Once, in my hearing, he mentioned that he had 'escaped' the previous evening from a concert where a Beethoven quartet was being played, just at the moment when the 'old deaf one' ('le vieux sourd') started to 'develop a theme'. There was something so hateful in the tone of his voice as he said this that I rose up indignantly and denounced him for his disrespect to the name of a great genius; and the result was, I regret to say, that our relations were broken on the spot and not renewed for a number of years. "
> 
> Composer Cyril Scott, who was highly regarded by Debussy, writes "Certainly, even apart from living musicians, Debussy had very pronounced dislikes, one of which was Beethoven, whom he described as le vieux sourd".
> 
> ...


Debussy's antipathy toward Beethoven probably had more to do with Debussy's strong French nationalism than Beethoven's compositional sensibilities. He lived during a time of French-German hostility and abhorred the way his countrymen adored Beethoven and Wagner. He believed French people should have an appreciation for the refinement of French music.

"For many years now I have been saying the same thing: that we have been unfaithful to the music tradition of our race for more than a century and a half … since Rameau we have had no purely French tradition … Today, when the virtues of our race are being exalted, the victory should give our artists a sense of purity and remind them of the nobility of French blood."

http://www.academia.edu/503090/Debussys_Nationalism


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

I would agree that Claude Debussy was all about Music Française, considering that Wagner had tremendous success in Paris. I side with Debussy. I’d hate to see the subtleties of the French aesthetic swallowed up by the Germanic tradition and its much heavier overall density and texture of sound. I do believe there are national characteristics and traits in the arts, and the French have a genius for subtlety, nuance, charm, color and delicacy—as different as champagne is to beer or French pastry to a bowl of sauerkraut, not that there’s anything wrong with either.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Sid James said:


> That's a good enough fit, because Cage was allied to the Abstract Expressionists. Some, like Robert Rauschenberg, where close friends. His blank white canvas is the nearest equivalent to Cage's 4'33". Cage's relationship with Pollock was strained, they did everything they could to avoid eachother. Pollock was a deeply troubled man, and even worse for Cage, a homophobe.
> 
> Getting back to Beethoven, Cage made similar comments about him throughout his long life. The first time was a lecture at an American university in the 1950's, the audience being made up of academics who where very much of the Austrian-Germanic tradition. In challenging that, Cage (similar to Debussy and Ravel before him) saw Beethoven not as an individual but as a representative of that whole tradition.
> 
> It's also significant that Cage's view of his teacher Schoenberg was very mixed, he even had less guarded praise of Stravinsky and was a fan of Webern. Cage is a bundle of contradictions, both frustrating and fascinating. A famous quote which sums him up is "I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones." Of course it's contradicted by his interest in such old ideas as Zen Buddhism.


I see no contradiction between Cage and Zen Buddhism, and Cage was positively and heavily influenced by its teachings-its focus on inner stillness, silence, and the quietude of the mind-teachings which he sincerely studied for years in New York with DT Suzuki. Zen Buddhism explores 'states of being' and qualities of 'acceptance' that are just as true today as they were yesterday and which influenced many of Cage's controversial works, such as 4:33.

https://www.brainpickings.org/2012/07/05/where-the-heart-beats-john-cage-kay-larson/


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Larkenfield said:


> Good until the last sentence.  I see no contradiction with Zen Buddhism, and Cage was positively and heavily influenced by its teachings-its focus on inner stillness, silence, and the quietude of the mind-teachings which he sincerely studied for years in New York with DT Suzuki. Zen Buddhism explores 'states of being' that are just as true today as they were yesterday and which influenced many of Cage's controversial works, such as 4:33.
> 
> https://www.brainpickings.org/2012/07/05/where-the-heart-beats-john-cage-kay-larson/


Good including the last sentence. That's the very book I read. It presents a well rounded view of him in a positive way. As I said, I read it not as a fan but as someone who wanted to understand where Cage came from.

Cage emerged from the modern world and his opinions reflected its contradictions. Interest in Zen emerged as a response to dilemmas of the time, such as the Holocaust and atom bomb. Prior to the 1930's, Cage was heavily influenced by technological Utopianism of the Italian Futurists. His and others approach to Zen was an attempt to deal with a world where ego had run rampant and led to tragedies on a scale never before envisaged.

There where personal aspects too, such as Cage's coming to terms with his bisexuality, especially in relation to the trial and incarceration of his mentor Henry Cowell. Cage also broke up with his wife and formed a partnership (both personal and professional) with Merce Cunningham.

Zen isn't, strictly speaking, purely a philosophy but a way of life and an extremely rigid one at that. Despite his macrobiotic diet and minimalist apartment overlooking the river in New York, Cage didn't live the life of a Zen monk. Nevertheless, as you say, Zen influenced Cage's music in a profound way.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

...............


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## Red Terror (Dec 10, 2018)

Beethoven’s enemies were ants. Their work never came near surpassing the master’s own.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

RICK RIEKERT said:


> Debussy said quite a bit about Beethoven. The celebrated pianist Harold Bauer called Debussy "the most violent of all the critics I ever met". "Debussy", Bauer says, "attacked Beethoven with such bitterness and sarcasm that it made one's blood boil. Once, in my hearing, he mentioned that he had 'escaped' the previous evening from a concert where a Beethoven quartet was being played, just at the moment when the 'old deaf one' ('le vieux sourd') started to 'develop a theme'. There was something so hateful in the tone of his voice as he said this that I rose up indignantly and denounced him for his disrespect to the name of a great genius; and the result was, I regret to say, that our relations were broken on the spot and not renewed for a number of years. "
> 
> Composer Cyril Scott, who was highly regarded by Debussy, writes "Certainly, even apart from living musicians, Debussy had very pronounced dislikes, one of which was Beethoven, whom he described as le vieux sourd".
> 
> ...


I think that Debussy's intense dislike for german music may have had causes that were extramusical, mainly the defeat of France in it's war against Prussia in 1870. The then seven years old Debussy had to flee desperately from his house in Paris with his pregnant mother during the siege of the city, and his father was sentenced for imprisonement due to have been enlisted to the French army. He may have had a tendency to hate the germans and, for extension, their music for that.

"_In 1870, to escape the Siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War, Debussy's pregnant mother took him and his sister Adéle to their paternal aunt's home in Cannes, where they remained until the following year. During his stay in Cannes, the seven-year-old Debussy had his first piano lessons; his aunt paid for him to study with an Italian musician, Jean Cerutti. Manuel Debussy remained in Paris and joined the forces of the Commune; after its defeat by French government troops in 1871 he was sentenced to four years' imprisonment, although he only served one year. Among his fellow Communard prisoners was his friend Charles de Sivry, a musician. Sivry's mother, Antoinette Mauté de Fleurville, gave piano lessons, and at his instigation the young Debussy became one of her pupils._" - extracted from here.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

The spectre of Richard Wagner. Debussy’s relationship with Wagner began with infatuation, and ended (as so often) in open rebellion. The young decadent who declared Parsifal ‘one of the loveliest monuments of sound ever raised to the serene glory of music’ later ranted that ‘30 million Boches cannot destroy French thought’ even while, tormented by cancer, he laboured to complete three late sonatas of near-infinite subtlety and grace. I believe Debussy’s objections to Wagner we’re based more on having musical differences than non-musical in support of French culture and creativity.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

Larkenfield said:


> The spectre of Richard Wagner. Debussy's relationship with Wagner began with infatuation, and ended (as so often) in open rebellion. The young decadent who declared Parsifal 'one of the loveliest monuments of sound ever raised to the serene glory of music' later ranted that *'30 million Boches cannot destroy French thought'* even while, tormented by cancer, he laboured to complete three late sonatas of near-infinite subtlety and grace.


He said that during Word War I while, again, France was being battered by German troops.


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## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

Allerius said:


> I think that Debussy's intense dislike for german music may have had causes that were extramusical


That may be, but it makes for lousy criticism. One German composer who managed to escape Debussy's wrath was J.S. Bach, who Debussy called "a benevolent god to which all musicians should offer a prayer to defend themselves against mediocrity - on each page we discover things which we thought were born only yesterday, from delightful arabesques to an overflowing of religious feeling greater than anything we have since discovered. And in his works we will search in vain for anything the least lacking in good taste."
.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Red Terror said:


> Beethoven's enemies were ants. Their work never came near surpassing the master's own.


Debussy and Ravel "ants"? I think not.

I'll take Debussy or Ravel's music over Beethoven any day. In the vertical sense Beethoven had no good harmonic sense he is far out classed by these two French masters.


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## Aegimius (Dec 19, 2018)

MarkW said:


> Weber didn't really appreciate Beethoven -- but hate is way roo strong a word.


Hi all! First time posting here though I've been lurking for many years.

Another composer who didn't like Beethoven was Franz Danzi, who happened to be a friend, mentor, and promoter of Weber.

"Danzi lived and worked during a transitional, yet highly significant time in the history of music. He knew and adored Mozart, equally disliked the music of his contemporary Ludwig van Beethoven, and his efforts on behalf of Carl Maria von Weber significantly aided the establishment of serious German Opera." (can't post links yet but found this on a site called "Interlude")

After years of only knowing his wind quintets I've started exploring Danzi's other music and so far I enjoy what I am hearing. If he is familiar at all it's mainly for his wind quintets, or as a mentor to Weber, but he is otherwise an "obscure" composer whose main instrument was the cello. I recently listened to Danzi's cello concerto in E minor and I was entranced by this somewhat dark, early Romantic piece. Since I love cello concertos I'm surprised it took me so long to discover this work. I see it as a hidden gem that deserves to be played more often(very few recordings exist). It doesn't come close to Dvorak's or Elgar's cello concertos, but I think it beats Robert Schumann's cello concerto which just bores me. I also find Danzi's four flute concertos delightful; the latter two are more Romantic sounding.

What's funny is that in spite of Danzi not liking Beethoven, his style is similar, though not as bold or profound, at least in my opinion.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

To add to what’s been said about Debussy, started to depart from Wagner’s influence with Pelleas. He felt forced to do this, in order to compose an entirely new kind of opera. It was hugely successful, but any money that came Debussy’s way merely helped cover his debts.

There where other influences, namely Asian music, Liszt, Palestrina and Satie. Despite a genuine sense of national pride, he was quite a cosmopolitan composer. He was never much interested in politics, and even signed a joint letter supporting the Dreyfus case to conform with others rather than any deeply held anti-Semitic convictions.

It’s also significant that Debussy chose his targets wisely. He never publicly countered any of the constant attacks from Saint-Saens, and was diplomatic in his dealings with other establishment figures like Massenet and Gounod. He was pragmatic in criticising mainly dead composers, often under the pseudonym of Monsieur Croche. 

By the end of his career, Debussy was financially stable (thanks to his cashed up second wife), and establishment enough to be criticised by the very clique (called Debussyistes) who had supported him. He came to dislike them as much as the conservatives, for they constantly raised the bar in pushing him to innovate beyond his limits.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

As much as Debussy denigrated Wagner after his initial infatuation with the German composer, I never felt that he had entirely escaped Wagner's influence, something commented on by Pierre Boulez:

'Boulez's rejection of the tradition of _Pelléas_ conducting caused controversy among critics who accused him of "Wagnerising" Debussy, to which Boulez responded that the work was indeed heavily influenced by Wagner's _Parsifal_.'

I believe that true, which suggests that Wagner left an indelible impression on Debussy even if he later consciously rejected it. On the subconscious or unconscious level, he may have still embraced it in _Pelléas et Mélisande_ but within his French aesthetics and subtle sensibilities. Even if one tries, I doubt if any composer can entirely escape the influence of others when the initial impression is so moving and profound. But on the conscious level, I believe Debussy did try.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

RICK RIEKERT said:


> That may be, but it makes for lousy criticism. One German composer who managed to escape Debussy's wrath was J.S. Bach, who Debussy called "a benevolent god to which all musicians should offer a prayer to defend themselves against mediocrity - on each page we discover things which we thought were born only yesterday, from delightful arabesques to an overflowing of religious feeling greater than anything we have since discovered. And in his works we will search in vain for anything the least lacking in good taste."
> .


I guess going so far as to mock J.S. Bach driven by his patriotic fervor would have made him look like an ultra-nationalist troll by the music community. Also, none of J.S. Bach's works concerns itself with German nationalism as much as Mozart's Die Zauberflote or Beethoven's 9th and Germania. It wasn't until the Age of Enlightenment and the American and French Revolutions, nationalism really became a thing for common citizens. Mozart and Beethoven actually referred to Germany as their Fatherland in their letters.

Note that Debussy called Chopin the greatest, meaning that Chopin is greater a deity than the benevolent god. If Chopin was a greater god than Bach, why should he offer the lesser god a prayer to defend himself against mediocrity. Now that's a contradiction.

Debussy was enemies with his own fellow countryman Saint-Saens, who called his music noise and whose music he called by similar insults. I guess Debussy was a difficult man, as was his music.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

hammeredklavier said:


> ...Debussy was enemies with his own fellow countryman Saint-Saens, who called his music noise and whose music he called by similar insults. I guess Debussy was a difficult man, as was his music.


"The Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun has pretty sonority, but one does not find in it the least musical idea, properly speaking; it resembles a piece of music as the palette used by an artist in his work resembles a picture. Debussy did not create a style; he cultivated an absence of style, logic, and common sense." -- Camille Saint-Saëns


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Larkenfield said:


> As much as Debussy denigrated Wagner after his initial infatuation with the German composer, I never felt that he had entirely escaped Wagner's influence, something commented on by Pierre Boulez:
> 
> 'Boulez's rejection of the tradition of _Pelléas_ conducting caused controversy among critics who accused him of "Wagnerising" Debussy, to which Boulez responded that the work was indeed heavily influenced by Wagner's _Parsifal_.'
> 
> I believe that true, which suggests that Wagner left an indelible impression on Debussy even if he later consciously rejected it. On the subconscious or unconscious level, he had still embraced it in _Pelléas et Mélisande_ but within his French aesthetics and subtle sensibilities. Even if one tries, I doubt if any composer can entirely escape the influence of others when the initial impression was so moving and profound. But on the conscious level, I believe Debussy tried.


It's not hard to hear parallels between Wagner and Debussy, comparing say the atmospheric effects and vague tonality. I'm thinking Siegfried Idyll and Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun. As to Wagner's sense of drama and overwhelming sense of emotion, there's less of that in Debussy, including Pelleas.

I think Boulez's statement makes sense. Of course I am not as qualified to comment in as much depth on Pelleas, but it was only Debussy's first big departure from Wagner. What was to follow further cemented his disinterest in continuing some sort of Austrian-Germanic lineage. The best example being how Debussy avoided attaching symphony as title to La Mer.


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## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

hammeredklavier said:


> Note that Debussy called Chopin the greatest, meaning that Chopin is greater a deity than the benevolent god. If Chopin was a greater god than Bach, why should he offer the lesser god a prayer to defend himself against mediocrity. Now that's a contradiction.


Nay, Chopin had been laid low with a severe case of Choroba Bogów, so Debussy called on Bach who, though a lesser god, was always obliging and a well-known workaholic.


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## gellio (Nov 7, 2013)

DavidA said:


> As if Britten ever wrote anything on a par with it! :lol:


Exactly. Haha. I've tried to get into Britten - dreadful.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

gellio said:


> Exactly. Haha. I've tried to get into Britten - dreadful.


The War Requiem, parts of Peter Grimes, the Seranade and the Young Person's Guide. After that, pretty much zero.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

DavidA said:


> The War Requiem, parts of Peter Grimes, the Seranade and the Young Person's Guide. After that, pretty much zero.


... that you are aware of, it seems. There are many great works by Britten (including quite a few that are greater than some you list). The Violin Concerto, Les Illuminations, Sinfonia da Requiem, Cello Symphony, Spring Symphony, the quartets, Midsummer Night's Dream, Albert Herring, Curlew River ... and many more. You may not like his music that much but there is a huge body of his work that is up there with the greats of any period.


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