# Is consistency a hobgoblin?



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Of small minds or anything else? Certainly not of composers. I admire composers who consistently write very good or great works -- not just my favorites, but as a high percentage of their output.

From the classical period forward, who do you think are the most consistently excellent composers?


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## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

It does get a little tiring when you can see a formula underneath, and there is a lack of breathtaking melody.


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

Beethoven. Only 1 misfire--Wellington's Victory Symphony. I guess he had to write that to show that he is human


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

*Is consistency a hobgoblin? *

Sometimes.


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

Composer A writes 50 works I like and 50 I hate.
Composer B writes 49 works I like and 1 I dislike.

Given that I can be selective in what I listen to, who would be my favorite of the two? I suppose the answer is, this is why ranking composers becomes futile at some point.

So maybe it is a hobgoblin of little minds. The old timers published so much stuff, it's hard to be at top form every time.


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

GreenMamba said:


> Composer A writes 50 works I like and 50 I hate.
> Composer B writes 49 works I like and 1 I dislike.
> 
> Given that I can be selective in what I listen to, who would be my favorite of the two? I suppose the answer is, this is why ranking composers becomes futile at some point.
> ...


I'm as likely to prefer composer A over composer B, and vice versa, myself. It depends entirely on the works that I happen to enjoy. So, given that, consistency is immaterial to me.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Not sure what you're looking for. A bare cupboard or getting behind on the rent can instigate music-to-formula; Beethoven did some of that.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Triplets said:


> Beethoven. Only 1 misfire--Wellington's Victory Symphony. I guess he had to write that to show that he is human


Heh-heh. Check out his cantata _Der glorreiche Augenblick _Op. 136, written in 1814 for the Congress of Vienna.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

KenOC said:


> Of small minds or anything else? Certainly not of composers. I admire composers who consistently write very good or great works -- not just my favorites, but as a high percentage of their output.
> 
> From the classical period forward, who do you think are the most consistently excellent composers?


Mozart, Haydn brothers, Hummel, Beethoven to name some. Consistency of quality is a good sign of genius and greatness.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

ArtMusic said:


> Mozart, Haydn brothers, Hummel, Beethoven to name some. Consistency of quality is a good sign of genius and greatness.


Not according to Ralph Waldo Emerson, who said the quote which is the basis or this thread.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Triplets said:


> Beethoven. Only 1 misfire--Wellington's Victory Symphony. I guess he had to write that to show that he is human


I hate singing the same tune over and over but i agree. Beethoven is the most consistently thrilling and compelling. Haydn too. And Joseph Martin Kraus the most consistently satisfying.

Approaching more recent works I'd mention Martinu who has never failed me. Ligeti comes close too though he has written a couple of clunkers. Stravinsky is close. Post-Verklärte Nacht Schoenberg is close if we omit Pierrot Lunaire. (Am I the only person who doesn't care much for Verklärte Nacht?)


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I don't know who was most consistent, but it's never been a criterion for my preferences. Two of my favorites - Wagner and Sibelius - turned out astonishing masterpieces and, evidently to recuperate, some trivial stuff. As Wagner said about his _Philadelphia Centennial March,_ "The best thing about it is the money I got for it." I suspect it has not recently been heard in Philadelphia.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Brahms and Ravel come to mind, they both seemed to be perfectionists.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

^Right, the relentless self-critics like Brahms end up being the most consistent because they destroy so much. But I wish they hadn't! I'd probably like some stuff that didn't make the cut, just as I like a lot of Mozart pieces that are "second rate" by his standards.


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## Ilarion (May 22, 2015)

tdc said:


> Brahms and Ravel come to mind, they both seemed to be perfectionists.


Ravel was sinfully pedantic! As to Brahms? Artistic "Pflichtbewusstsein"(sense of duty) raised to the nth degree...

Seriously about Brahms: Could that man ever write a dud? A cellist friend from Stockholm who had worked for all the professional ensembles there right up until his death said to me that the Ein Deutsches Requiem is a dud. I inquired why but never received a satisfactory explanation. The best he could say was: "It is music that makes my skin crawl so much that I want to jump out of it."

Back on topic: Consistency and Hobgoblin are mutually exclusive imo. To KenOC whom I hold in great esteem: What hath thou wrought? To quote a famous writer: "A foolish consistency is a hobgoblin of little minds." Some people can churn out consistently bad work and some can churn out consistently good work. KenOC, you are not of little mind!


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

ArtMusic said:


> Mozart, Haydn brothers, Hummel, Beethoven to name some. Consistency of quality is a good sign of genius and greatness.


Amen to this :tiphat:


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

The only composer whose oeuvre I have heard completely and at least liked everything is Mahler.


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## Guest (May 11, 2016)

Woodduck said:


> I don't know who was most consistent, but it's never been a criterion for my preferences.


'Me either'! I like the music because I like it, not because it's by someone acknowledged as consistent...or a genius.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

A reminder...the question was not what or whom you like, but which composer you think wrote the most consistently excellent work (whether it's your cup of tea or not, though that part's a bit tough).


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## Guest (May 11, 2016)

KenOC said:


> A reminder...the question was not what or whom you like, but which composer you think wrote the most consistently excellent work (whether it's your cup of tea or not, though that part's a bit tough).


Tough indeed. If it's not my cup of tea, the best I can do is recognise that it's the cup of tea of a lot of other folk. How can I honestly call it excellent, just because others do, when I myself don't like it?


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

KenOC said:


> A reminder...the question was not what or whom you like, but which composer you think wrote the most consistently excellent work (whether it's your cup of tea or not, though that part's a bit tough).


For me, appreciation of music, like any art, is subjective. So I do not make a distinction between subjective "what I like" and the would-be (and as always undefined) "objective" excellent.


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## Orfeo (Nov 14, 2013)

isorhythm said:


> ^Right, the relentless self-critics like Brahms end up being the most consistent because they destroy so much. But I wish they hadn't! I'd probably like some stuff that didn't make the cut, just as I like a lot of Mozart pieces that are "second rate" by his standards.


Paul Dukas comes to mind. So obsessed with perfectionism and stricken with self-doubt that he destroyed most of his compositions. Sibelius, as mentioned earlier, is another example. And Goldmark, such a very fine craftsman and melodist that he took a long time to finish some of his works (took him about twelve years to finish "The Queen of Sheba").


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

Glass is pretty consistent

whether that is a good thing or not depends on whether you like it or not


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## Headphone Hermit (Jan 8, 2014)

tdc said:


> Brahms and Ravel come to mind, they both seemed to be *perfectionists*.


Ravel? Maurice Ravel? The one who composed _Bolero_? Even he despised it, didn't he?


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

I think consistency is just a goblin, rather than a hobgoblin.

I'll get my wizard cloak.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

The composers to worry about would be those who spend a long time agonising over something and when they do finish it and let us hear it, we, the listener, think that maybe they should have spent a little longer on it!


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Headphone Hermit said:


> Glass is pretty consistent


Consistent throughout the same piece.


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## gardibolt (May 22, 2015)

To be pedantic, the quote is "a _foolish_ consistency" is the hobgoblin of little minds. It's not that consistency is itself necessarily a bad thing.


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## Hildadam Bingor (May 7, 2016)

Headphone Hermit said:


> Glass is pretty consistent


Is he though? I mean ymmv obviously, but is that the commonly held view? Like, it's not Alex Ross' opinion:



> There are some gems in Glass's later output-the Études for piano, the Fifth String Quartet, the recent "Songs and Poems" for solo cello-as well as a fair number of middling, self-derivative pieces, which make heavy use of a few set formulas: minor-mode sequences chugging toward a dominant chord; bouncy syncopations over a thudding beat; "world music" episodes decorated with exotic percussion.


And then some people think he just sold out after Einstein o t B. (I guess that's BAD consistency, or is it inconsistency if you were once at least sometimes good and later on always bad?)


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## Hildadam Bingor (May 7, 2016)

To answer the OP, I think it depends. Like, some composers maybe disappear up their own butts and hardly write anything because they're trying so hard to be perfect, but then maybe being perfectionists is the only way they can write anything and if they were't perfectionists they wouldn't even have written what they wrote. And either way, then you have somebody like Brahms, insanely perfectionist but still puts out a large quantity of product on a regular schedule.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Hildadam Bingor said:


> To answer the OP, I think it depends. Like, some composers maybe disappear up their own butts and hardly write anything because they're trying so hard to be perfect, but then maybe being perfectionists is the only way they can write anything and if they were't perfectionists they wouldn't even have written what they wrote. And either way, then you have somebody like Brahms, insanely perfectionist but still puts out a large quantity of product on a regular schedule.


For this reason, love his music as I do, I can't help but find Brahms rather irritating.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Headphone Hermit said:


> Ravel? Maurice Ravel? The one who composed _Bolero_? Even he despised it, didn't he?


Well, I don't think consistency in this context means every composition is a master work otherwise there are no composers who would qualify.

Besides, I think of Bolero as an interesting experiment, and he never again wrote any pieces like it. I don't think it is flawed because he meant to compose it that way. To me the piece is rather humorous, and I think its good for what it is - kind of a musical joke (with a great theme and clearly the piece was a major success in terms of popularity). It only irks me when people think it is among his greatest works.


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

Ilarion said:


> Seriously about Brahms: Could that man ever write a dud? A cellist friend from Stockholm who had worked for all the professional ensembles there right up until his death said to me that the Ein Deutsches Requiem is a dud. I inquired why but never received a satisfactory explanation. The best he could say was: "It is music that makes my skin crawl so much that I want to jump out of it."


Wow, my perspective is so opposed to his statement there that it makes my brain hurt trying to understand it.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Not everybody loves the German Requiem. George Bernard Shaw said, "I do not deny that the Requiem is a solid piece of musical manufacture. You feel at once that it could only have come from the establishment of a first-class undertaker."


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## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

I am just now listening to this Requiem and stumbled upon this thread. I am listening to it at a rather low level, and loving it. It seems to work good at an ambient level for me right now. I can imagine it would be a bit overpowering louder.


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## kartikeys (Mar 16, 2013)

Consistency doesn't mean sameness. 
Beethoven consistently wrote great music. 
By employing experimentation (or despite it).


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