# The Validity of Modern and Contemporary Music



## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

I wanted to write several very long posts concerning several topics, however, they all relate to the overall validity of modern and contemporary music. When I say validity, I mean accepting modern and contemporary music for how they are and not expecting them to be any different than on the terms they have set for themselves, and the terms history has placed on them.

The topics will cover sentimentality, beauty (which falls under the umbrella of sentimentality—at least in the context of “false beauty” (explained later)), a composer’s duties and aims in composing (and commissioning entities aims) and will look at examples from modern and contemporary music in detail.

I will begin with sentimentality. This is a key starting point, because what people who seem to be arguing for who are wanting a more film scoring/commercial arranging/pop music/faux romantic approach to the modern concert hall, is sentimentality.

Sentimentality is sweet, bland, cloying, and damp. It lacks acerbity, pungency, tartness, dryness, wit, irony, humor, and sarcasm, because exercise of these implies a degree of distance.

Sentimentality operates with stock, stereotypical narratives and cliches. It relies on overstatement and leading the listener by the nose. It achieves very little as a result. No understatement or coldness.

Sentimentality lacks freshness, novelty, and surprise, because the language of sentimentality is the language of cliches, and its concepts are cliché and obvious. Sentimentality is prone to cliches of perception as well, not just cliches of expression, because there is no distance or humility to recognize that we are susceptible to such cliches, and therefore those who favor sentimentality refuse to penetrate into any deeper level of understanding.

Those who favor cheap sentimentality will shy from the weird, the strange, the uncanny, or the grotesque, because sentimentality is profoundly reactionary, and feeds off an addiction to the status quo, the conventional, the normal and orthodox, to inoffensive prettiness rather than real beauty (which can be destabilizing), and often ignores the strangeness in the ordinary.

There is a lack of intelligible complexity, disorder, and vital messiness in sentimentality, because sentimentality assumes a phony simplicity, a refusal to explore contradictions or challenges to its point of view and imposes an order which is superficial and merely decorative rather than anything organic and load bearing.

There is often no elegance or intellectual rigor with sentimentality because the human faculty that creates formal and structural integrity also requires and nurtures an editorial distance that is antidote to the subjectivity of sentimentality. Sentimentality is more concerned with what it says rather than how it says it.

Sentimentality lacks precision and specificity, because sentimentality often goes together with abstraction and blandness. But in reality, the facts of the world, when carefully observed, are never sentimental.

Sentimentality often attempts to ignore or suppress disorderly passion or electricity. It often ignores darkness, danger, and risk and those who embrace the sentimental refuse to acknowledge any dark or negative potential in any given topic.

Sentimentality refuses to acknowledge real vulnerability, embarrassment, character flaws, or complicity with injustice, because sentimentality is often concerned to present the composer, listener, audience, etc. as a “sensitive” and completely “admirable experiencer” of vicissitudes and epiphanies (an example of a cliché of perception), rather than as a people and society as they truly are--with sometimes contradictory and even ignoble impulses.

Sentimentality wants nothing to do with ambivalence, incertitude, doubt, and ambiguity, because sentimentality traffics in certainty, preachiness, and the imperative voice and tone.

It is, of course, perfectly fine to write highly emotionally charged music. But one aspect that differentiates sentimental writing from unsentimental writing is how tension is resolved. In sentimentality, serious tension is either not allowed to arise at all or is resolved in ways that are not often mirrored in reality. Music that is not sentimental allows tensions both to arise and to continue unresolved beyond the ending of the piece, which in turn allows the piece itself to continue to resonate in the listener’s thoughts and feelings. If one takes a good look at the world, this unfortunate lack of closure is perhaps its primary quality.


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

Now to discuss beauty, or “false beauty”, because it is so badly misunderstood. Beauty has become commonly misused and cheapened. It is more philosophical than people realize. It is often a gesture by one group to raise its status of authority over another group.

California Poet Laureate and former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts Dana Gioia explains the following on beauty: It is NOT a synonym for prettiness. Or any external quality of being decorous or pleasantly attractive. Beauty is something deeper and more comprehensive. Beauty is discovered, not manufactured.

When perceiving beauty, we have the sense of seeing something perfect in its own way. A perfection apparent not only on the surface but a quality we sense in the very heart of the thing. Beauty is something we perceive both externally and internally.

We can see beauty in the way a hawk swoops down to seize and kill its prey or in the swirling cone of a tornado on the horizon or in a towering thunderstorm sweeping across a valley.

What happens when we experience beauty?


There is the arresting of attention. A moment of stillness. An unexpected slowing down to saturate ourselves in a particular phenomenon.
There is a Thrill of Pleasure. An unusual thrill that seems disproportionate to the object’s importance to us. Physical and mental pleasure, involving the senses, the mind, the emotions. A disinterested quality. A mysterious joy. A complex emotion. Unlike pleasure, it is beyond our power to summon, control, or possess.
A Heightened Perception of the Shape or Meaning of Things. The thrill of looking beyond our normal sense of the world. It may disturb us. It is linked to the sense of the truth, as when John Keats said “Truth is beauty; beauty, truth—". Think again of the example of the beauty in a hawk swooping down and seizing its prey. We see a deep and significant rightness of the patterns we perceive. We seem to see this beautiful and meaningful pattern unfolding in every aspect of the thing, creating a sense of unity in its variety, and yet variety in its unity. It can lead the listener to an expanded, shared moment, a new awareness that lives behind the sound.
The Moment Vanishes. Fleeting, beyond our power of control. The nature of experience changes. Even when looking at pictures. Recognizing nothing lasts forever and is in a constant state of change.
On an even more personal level, it can enable us to appreciate each other’s humanity and show us how people of different cultures and backgrounds have more in common than not. It humanizes abstract concepts and seemingly foreign objects, customs, and ideas, thus cultivating understanding and empathy. Used skillfully, beauty can awaken the senses and weave memorable connections in the listener’s mind.


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## Chat Noir (4 mo ago)

Torkelburger said:


> It is, of course, perfectly fine to write highly emotionally charged music. But one aspect that differentiates sentimental writing from unsentimental writing is how tension is resolved. In sentimentality, serious tension is either not allowed to arise at all or is resolved in ways that are not often mirrored in reality. Music that is not sentimental allows tensions both to arise and to continue unresolved beyond the ending of the piece, which in turn allows the piece itself to continue to resonate in the listener’s thoughts and feelings. If one takes a good look at the world, this unfortunate lack of closure is perhaps its primary quality.


Yes as you say 'if the tension is resolved at all'. Which, I would argue, _is_ mirrored in reality, whereas the expectation of released tension at the close of a work or its sections, phrases, is like scripted 'happy endings' or 'closure/deliverance' in films made primarily for entertainment. Things we don't get in life and don't _have_ to get in art. This seems to be a huge stumbling block for the aforementioned critics. It turned up in discussions of what music is apparently 'supposed to' do. As if it is some sort of self-help measure to ameliorate everything into easy pop-psychological outcomes of desired: happiness, relief or whatever.



Torkelburger said:


> When perceiving beauty, we have the sense of seeing something perfect in its own way. A perfection apparent not only on the surface but a quality we sense in the very heart of the thing. Beauty is something we perceive both externally and internally.


Indeed. There's a sort of satisfaction in having recognised and observed it and it can come from such small things. Just technically in music it could be the particular combination of instrumentation to achieve a harmonic 'moment' and it makes your heart jump and pulse race and you can't fathom it for a moment. You have to be able to engage with things to experience them.


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## composingmusic (Dec 16, 2021)

Chat Noir said:


> Indeed. There's a sort of satisfaction in having recognised and observed it and it can come from such small things. Just technically in music it could be the particular combination of instrumentation to achieve a harmonic 'moment' and it makes your heart jump and pulse race and you can't fathom it for a moment. You have to be able to engage with things to experience them.


Yes, and this can also be achieved in a formal level, or by doing something like laying out a harmonic structure that moves to a particular point in a lower register, or in a slower moving texture to achieve some kind of arrival point. There's something magical that happens when this is done really well, and that arrival point feels both unexpected and inevitable at the same time.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

This is a plausible and interesting sketch of an aesthetic theory but I find it overly specific, and the conclusions and exclusions a bit far-fetched. (E.g. obviously "sentimentality", even in the derogative sense used above, seems to be also a part of "humanity", so why is this something inferior?)
A core problem for me is, when, how and why "gestures" or tropes become stereotypical and sentimental (in the bad sense). E.g. were characters and scenes from e.g. Dickens or Puccini (little Nell, Mimi etc.) already sentimental in the bad sense 120 or 150 years ago when first performed or were they still sufficiently "fresh, authentic" (whatever)?


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## Chat Noir (4 mo ago)

Kreisler jr said:


> This is a plausible and interesting sketch of an aesthetic theory but I find it overly specific, and the conclusions and exclusions a bit far-fetched. (E.g. obviously "sentimentality", even in the derogative sense used above, seems to be also a part of "humanity", so why is this something inferior?)
> A core problem for me is, when, how and why "gestures" or tropes become stereotypical and sentimental (in the bad sense). E.g. were characters and scenes from e.g. Dickens or Puccini (little Nell, Mimi etc.) already sentimental in the bad sense 120 or 150 years ago when first performed or were they still sufficiently "fresh, authentic" (whatever)?


I think it's more the case that the demand to maintain a certain approach, as being fixed properties of 'classical music' is the problem. Little Nell can exist now in a perfectly good artistic sense, but things which are very far from Little Nell can exist and perhaps even be more in line with an epoch's sensibilities. You get both, all.

The sketch of sentimentality is hardly far-fetched. The use of the word is over two centuries old, to describe a lot of what is in the OP. I would differ and say sentimentality does pursue darker ideas, like sadness and loss, but the aim is primarily comfort. Dickens knew this. When he was attacking the excesses of Victorian society he didn't merely employ sentimentality.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

> California Poet Laureate and former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts Dana Gioia explains the following on beauty: It is NOT a synonym for prettiness. Or any external quality of being decorous or pleasantly attractive. Beauty is something deeper and more comprehensive. Beauty is discovered, not manufactured.


I strongly agree with these comments. It has bothered me when people act surprised if I don't find the music of, say, Tchaikovsky "beautiful." For me, and I am sure others, beauty is more closely linked with something less sentimental, or "pretty," and often what some might find "ugly" can strike me as beautiful. Which is also linked to an appreciation of contemporary music.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

I guess one of my problems ist the stark contrast between a rather specific theory that despite modernity or even postmodernity tries to conserve notions like the connection (or in the limit aequivalence, if we go full St. Thomas Aquinas, i.e. in God Goodness, Truth, Beauty and Being are alle One, not really distinguishable) of "beauty" and "truth" that dominated from antiquity through romanticism and the complete subjectivism of most commentators in the forum here. Even apart from the latter, how does one preserve such ancient notions in the shattered, materialist and disenchanted world of modernity?

The more specific problem is when does sentiment turn into cheap sentimentality, when does a trope become a tired clichée? There is a notorious text (IIRC called "Kitsch" or sth. like that) by Adorno where he retrospectively blames Tchaikovsky's 5th symphony for starting the cheap sentimentality Adorno and others associated with 1930s or 1950s Hollywood movies and movie music; he even makes up a silly romantic belle époque scene with fainting ladies and guys in dashing uniforms in a moonlit garden etc. for the slow movement. I find this very unfair towards Tchaikovsky but would not deny that it fits a lot of movies and their music. But I would be hard pressed to establish criteria for plausibly distinguishing the "authentic" usage of certain tropes and the "clichéed" usage.


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

Kreisler jr said:


> This is a plausible and interesting sketch of an aesthetic theory but I find it overly specific, and the conclusions and exclusions a bit far-fetched. (E.g. obviously "sentimentality", even in the derogative sense used above, seems to be also a part of "humanity", so why is this something inferior?)
> A core problem for me is, when, how and why "gestures" or tropes become stereotypical and sentimental (in the bad sense). E.g. were characters and scenes from e.g. Dickens or Puccini (little Nell, Mimi etc.) already sentimental in the bad sense 120 or 150 years ago when first performed or were they still sufficiently "fresh, authentic" (whatever)?


Thank you for this reply. I will reply to this later this week as I've been trying to finish the other posts and also busy with work. Thanks again!


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

So, to continue with my 3rd point I wanted to get to (referenced in my first post):

What do we mean when a composer writes “of his own time”? Why doesn’t a composer just continue to write symphonies in the style of Mozart, Beethoven, Sibelius, etc.?

It is impossible, no matter how hard they try, for a creator of art to separate his art from his time (more on this later). And all art, no matter its purpose, whether it makes us laugh, cry, escape, think, entertain, etc. fulfills the human need for catharsis which requires a certain degree of relatability to the subject matter. The more modern, the more relatable. So, when I listen to a new composer, I do not focus on the style as much as I am seeking to identify and relate to the following:

How do you (the composer) see the world around you? How do you feel about what is going on in the world today? What do you love? What do you hate? And why? What about today makes you happy? What makes you sad? What makes you angry? And why?

Those questions may not sound very deep at first, but consider this:

Why write another Beethoven Seventh symphony when we already have the real thing? Why write another Mozart symphony when we already have 41 of them (they are not all the same, of course, but see the next question)? Mozart composed over 600 works, why write another one? Especially when your attempts will all fall short of the real thing?

And how many Mozarts were there? Just one, right? But more importantly (and I am just using the user/username DaveM as an example), _how many DaveMs are there? _ Only one. How many DaveMs were there before DaveM was born? Zero. How many DaveMs will there be when DaveM dies? Zero. That’s right. That will be it. No more DaveMs. What we have right now is it. This is our only chance to understand who DaveM is, the world DaveM lives in, what DaveM thinks about it, how DaveM feels about it, see how DaveM is going to express it, and connect with it and experience it in a truly cathartic and beautiful (as defined previously) way. _DaveM is irreplaceable_. Even if he had a brother in the same household, their experiences, thoughts and feelings may be varied.

Only one DaveM was born in Los Angeles, California (I’m just making this history up, bear with me) at a specific time and place in a specific household and environment, during the 2nd World War, had an uncle die in the Korean War, was drafted in Vietnam, etc. etc.

Could Mozart tell us what it was like to crouch under a desk in grade school in nuclear bomb drills? Nope. But DaveM can. Does Mozart know what it feels like to live in fear of the world ending in a matter of minutes by just a few bombs? Nope. But DaveM does. Or the feeling of sending your kids off to school knowing their entire classroom could be mowed down by an automatic weapon by one flick of the finger? DaveM knows the feeling. Does Mozart know what its like to see hundreds of innocent people killed in gas chambers? How about jet planes crashing into skyskrapers live on TV as it happens and those buildings plummet killing thousands of innocent people instantly the very moment you are watching it? Nah. What about DaveM?

DaveM can express his thoughts and feelings about the women’s lib movement, the gay rights movement, right wing conservatism, liberalism, whatever he wants that Mozart had no idea about. And even science, did Mozart know about the Theory of Relativity and its implications? Did he witness the theories of Einstein influence the rise to moral relativism, existentialism, atheism, and on and on. Did he even FATHOM it? Doubt it. But DaveM did.

Let’s look at the music. Did Mozart hear jazz? Rock? Country? Rap? Did he have the whole entire world literally in his pocket like DaveM does, where he can hear any ethnic music or the latest music from other cultures on the other side of the world in a matter of seconds that someone else made a few minutes ago? Could Mozart even dream of that capability?

Does DaveM know what it’s like to live in 18th century Austria? It is impossible for him to have any idea.

We see this all the time in literature. Franz Kafka was a Jew who lived in Prague and spoke German and lived during the First World War. Is there any doubt that his works of genius could have been written by _anyone else_, at any other particular time? Are you _kidding_?

Could Lovecraft have written his masterpieces of the Cthulhu Mythos without his knowledge and fascination with astronomy and the Theory of Relativity decades before? It would have been impossible. That’s the worldview the Mythos represents for him. Is there any other time and place it could have been written? Do we know the exact thoughts and feelings of the time because of this?

I will look at specific examples of twentieth century music in a future post and how it relates to all of what’s been said so far.

But one last thing to mention about this is as follows: this is the frustration with the likes of Alma Deutcher. There is nothing there to deeply understand on a beautiful level other than trivial surface prettiness and status quo. Nothing to gain any insight from at all. It’s anyone’s guess as to how she feels about any of this, other than that she just wants to turn a blind eye to it and ignore that it even exists. But she cannot do that forever. She will some day have to pay the bills, have to deal with the world’s problems, her own personal and medical issues. And she is going to have one less method of dealing with it available to her.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Torkelburger said:


> ..And how many Mozarts were there? Just one, right? But more importantly (and I am just using the user/username DaveM as an example), _how many DaveMs are there? _ Only one. How many DaveMs were there before DaveM was born? Zero. How many DaveMs will there be when DaveM dies? Zero. That’s right. That will be it. No more DaveMs. What we have right now is it. This is our only chance to understand who DaveM is, the world DaveM lives in, what DaveM thinks about it, how DaveM feels about it, see how DaveM is going to express it, and connect with it and experience it in a truly cathartic and beautiful (as defined previously) way. _DaveM is irreplaceable_. Even if he had a brother in the same household, their experiences, thoughts and feelings may be varied.
> 
> Only one DaveM was born in Los Angeles, California (I’m just making this history up, bear with me) at a specific time and place in a specific household and environment, during the 2nd World War, had an uncle die in the Korean War, was drafted in Vietnam, etc. etc.
> 
> ...


My gawd, I’m frickin’ famous, mentioned in the same paragraphs as Mozart and yet, I checked, still no DaveM Wiki!  (Btw, Was born well after WW2 and in Canada. Will have to clear up some info before my Wiki does appear..)


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## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

It's been joked a few times that neoromanticism/neoclassicism is post-modern, whether it wants to be or not. 

Someone making a decision in 2022 to write music exactly in the style of Mozart is taking art from one period and putting it in our period. This does reflect a lot of things about our age- general alienation/nostalgia for a bygone age, or even just the widespread availability of classical art to the intended audience. I don't think it says _nothing_, but it's certainly true that no matter how well you have the style down, neoclassic art will never mean the _same_ thing as classical art, because the context is so radically different.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Why would I want to listen to a composer living today write in the style of Mozart? I have Mozart, who wrote exquisite works of genius. Why would I listen to a 21st century imitator?


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## PeterKC (Dec 30, 2016)

Torkelburger said:


> So, to continue with my 3rd point I wanted to get to (referenced in my first post):
> 
> What do we mean when a composer writes “of his own time”? Why doesn’t a composer just continue to write symphonies in the style of Mozart, Beethoven, Sibelius, etc.?
> 
> ...


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## PeterKC (Dec 30, 2016)

Why are you frustrated with the likes of Alma Deutcher and not say, Liberace, or Rieu? Is there value in this condescension? They have found their way into popular culture.... not to **** you off, but to make a pretty nice living. It may be that they will turn a good number of people to study music down the line in a more formal way. Heck, even Hemmingway wrote a good deal of marketable trash.


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## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

to be frank the only time i ever hear of Deutscher is in the context of her work being used as some kind of rhetorical football against either neoclassic/neoromantic work (trying to paint it all as pure pastiche), or against contemporary music ("why can't modern music sound like this instead?") with precious little discussion about any sort of artistic merit of the work itself


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

She and others like her remind me of painters like *Thomas Kinkaid*, whose work of popular realistic, pastoral, and idyllic subjects was bought by mall shoppers and hung on countless suburban walls. He had an entire factory churning them out. According to Kinkade's company, one in every twenty American homes owned a copy of one of his paintings.

Kinkade was criticized for some of his behavior and business practices; art critics faulted his work for being "kitsch". Kinkade died of "acute intoxication" from alcohol and the drug diazepam at the age of 54.

Hopefully Alma Deutscher will have a happier ending.


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

PeterKC said:


> Why are you frustrated with the likes of Alma Deutcher and not say, Liberace, or Rieu? Is there value in this condescension?


Easy. Because she is seen as some kind of paragon for all composers to follow whenever modern and contemporary music is criticized for being "atonal, dissonant, serial, ugly" etc. etc. etc.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

[a


SanAntone said:


> Why would I want to listen to a composer living today write in the style of Mozart? I have Mozart, who wrote exquisite works of genius. Why would I listen to a 21st century imitator?


 What do you think of Prokofiev’s first symphony?


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

I don't really want to make this about Alma. Other than just that her music is 1) grossly sentimental, 2) not beautiful (only in the shallow, superficial sense), 3) not valid music for today.

And I wanted to show (shortly), how modern music is.


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

Mandryka said:


> [a
> What do you think of Prokofiev’s first symphony?


How well do you know that piece? REALLY know it? Have you studied the score? If someone were to ask you to compare and contrast it with Mozart, would you be able to write, say a whole paper about it? Note, that I said CONTRAST. Do you know the differences?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Torkelburger said:


> How well do you know that piece? REALLY know it? Have you studied the score? If someone were to ask you to compare and contrast it with Mozart, would you be able to write, say a whole paper about it? Note, that I said CONTRAST. Do you know the differences?


what are you trying to say?


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## PeterKC (Dec 30, 2016)

Torkelburger said:


> Easy. Because she is seen as some kind of paragon for all composers to follow whenever modern and contemporary music is criticized for being "atonal, dissonant, serial, ugly" etc. etc. etc.


She is a caricature for sure, but I don't see her as an example for any serious musician.
Let me know what conservatories are setting her up as a paragon.


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

Mandryka said:


> what are you trying to say?


Were you implying that Prokofiev's 1st symphony is 100% imitative pastiche? He's was just writing in Mozart's style as an academic exercise or something like that? As a cheap imitator? In order to counter San Antone with a "gotcha"? If not, than what were you implying. It sure seemed like it. BTW, if you were, you are dead wrong.


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

PeterKC said:


> She is a caricature for sure, but I don't see her as an example for any serious musician.
> Let me know what conservatories are setting her up as a paragon.


I agree. I hope it stays that way. Correct, no conservatories say such things, just you know, the opposite usually...people who usually don't know any theory at all or can't read music, or beginners, or novice/casual listeners, those with hubris, yada yada yada. Like the people on this site, for example.


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## PeterKC (Dec 30, 2016)

She is the Thomas Kinkade, or Greta Thunberg of classical music. There are a few others, but, I wish them their success. She may be talented, but she is surely being used.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Torkelburger said:


> Were you implying that Prokofiev's 1st symphony is 100% imitative pastiche? He's was just writing in Mozart's style as an academic exercise or something like that? As a cheap imitator? In order to counter San Antone with a "gotcha"? If not, than what were you implying. It sure seemed like it. BTW, if you were, you are dead wrong.


I've no idea, it's years since I've heard it and I don't listen to 18th century symphonies very often. I just wondered what he thought. 

By the way, I just went to the wiki on it and found this quote from Prokofiev's diaries

"When our classically inclined musicians and professors (to my mind faux-classical) hear this symphony, they will be bound to scream in protest at this new example of Prokofiev's insolence, look how he will not let Mozart lie quiet in his grave but must come prodding at him with his grubby hands, contaminating the pure classical pearls with horrible Prokofievish dissonances. But my true friends will see that the style of my symphony is precisely Mozartian classicism and will value it accordingly, while the public will no doubt just be content to hear happy and uncomplicated music which it will, of course, applaud."


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Mandryka said:


> [a
> What do you think of Prokofiev’s first symphony?


I don't think it sounds like Mozart.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Well you've studied music, I've just got my ears to go by. But listen to the first minute of these two and compare and contrast in a relevant way in no more than 100 words.

W. A. Mozart - KV 95 (73n) - Symphony in D major - YouTube 

Sergei Prokofiev - Symphony no.1, op.25 (complete) - YouTube 




SanAntone said:


> I don't think it sounds like Mozart.


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

SanAntone said:


> I strongly agree with these comments. It has bothered me when people act surprised if I don't find the music of, say, Tchaikovsky "beautiful." For me, and I am sure others, beauty is more closely linked with something less sentimental, or "pretty," and often what some might find "ugly" can strike me as beautiful. Which is also linked to an appreciation of contemporary music.


Here's an inspiring performance clip of the concerto from the movie The Music Lovers -- and then the drama of Anton Rubinstein's critique afterward. All in under 3 minutes. lol


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## composingmusic (Dec 16, 2021)

PeterKC said:


> She is the Thomas Kinkade, or Greta Thunberg of classical music. There are a few others, but, I wish them their success. She may be talented, but she is surely being used.


Yes, this is what I worry about with her. She's so young that she hasn't had time to figure out what she really wants to be as a composer yet – that's something people tend to figure out over several decades, and she's already so much in the spotlight for doing a very specific thing.


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## Chat Noir (4 mo ago)

Mandryka said:


> Well you've studied music, I've just got my ears to go by. But listen to the first minute of these two and compare and contrast in a relevant way in no more than 100 words.
> 
> W. A. Mozart - KV 95 (73n) - Symphony in D major - YouTube
> 
> Sergei Prokofiev - Symphony no.1, op.25 (complete) - YouTube


Would you say though this sort of thing can be enumerated on one hand? Maybe two. I would. And there's even evidence you posted above of his intentions. Lots of composers have been inspired by Mozart, but it's how the thing develops as your own work. At the basic level it will be pastiche; further up: homage; further still: influenced by... Or just sitting very deeply in the back of your mind. No need to reference or rewrite it or follow a 'classical' pattern at all.


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## Chat Noir (4 mo ago)

composingmusic said:


> Yes, this is what I worry about with her. She's so young that she hasn't had time to figure out what she really wants to be as a composer yet – that's something people tend to figure out over several decades, and she's already so much in the spotlight for doing a very specific thing.


This is why I think they were too quick with that 'new Mozart' label. She's a talent and prodigy, but unlike Mozart or any like composer seems to lack direction.


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## composingmusic (Dec 16, 2021)

Chat Noir said:


> This is why I think they were too quick with that 'new Mozart' label. She's a talent and prodigy, but unlike Mozart or any like composer seems to lack direction.


Well, composers in this day and age will often take a long time to figure out what their potential direction could be. Not everyone, but many regardless. Quite a few of my colleagues have slowly found what they want to write, and I'd say this is the case for me. I was also a relatively early starter, and wrote classical-period pastiche for several years to try and get the hang of how voice leading, melodic lines, and harmony all work. However, I wasn't put into the spotlight and hailed as some kind of saviour of tonal classical music, thankfully, and I was given the space and time to find what direction I eventually wanted to go in (to be fair, I'm still figuring that out – aren't we all?). Deutscher hasn't been given this space, which is unfortunate.


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## Chat Noir (4 mo ago)

composingmusic said:


> Well, composers in this day and age will often take a long time to figure out what their potential direction could be. Not everyone, but many regardless. Quite a few of my colleagues have slowly found what they want to write, and I'd say this is the case for me. I was also a relatively early starter, and wrote classical-period pastiche for several years to try and get the hang of how voice leading, melodic lines, and harmony all work. However, I wasn't put into the spotlight and hailed as some kind of saviour of tonal classical music, thankfully, and I was given the space and time to find what direction I eventually wanted to go in (to be fair, I'm still figuring that out – aren't we all?). Deutscher hasn't been given this space, which is unfortunate.


That's a fair point, though she also hasn't really had the push. Her parents seemed to encourage and facilitate her progress, but didn't go for guidance. The thing with Mozart et al is that they weren't only pushed, since this also functioned as an actual apprenticeship for doing the work of e.g. a court composer. Rather than say, writing pastiches of Bach for pleasure.

I agree though that many composers spend some time developing a voice, like writers or pictorial artists. I also did a lot of pastiche, it's how you learn. Though there has to be an awareness separating this from actual artwork. It can take a while.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Mandryka said:


> Well you've studied music, I've just got my ears to go by. But listen to the first minute of these two and compare and contrast in a relevant way in no more than 100 words.
> 
> W. A. Mozart - KV 95 (73n) - Symphony in D major - YouTube
> 
> Sergei Prokofiev - Symphony no.1, op.25 (complete) - YouTube


Well, we all know that Prokofiev was doing his send up of a Mozart-style symphony, but there are only superficial similarities. Prokofiev is doing things harmonically that Mozart would never do. 

This is a perfect example of a great composer alluding to an earlier style but making it entirely his own sound. Whereas what I was talking about was a composer merely parrotting the earlier style.

Like the saying goes: ‘Talent borrows; genius steals.’ Which usually is understood to mean, mediocre talent copies where as a genius absorbs and makes his sources his own.


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## composingmusic (Dec 16, 2021)

Chat Noir said:


> Her parents seemed to encourage and facilitate her progress, but didn't go for guidance.


Indeed. Again, I was fortunate in this regard – my parents got me a piano teacher, who then referred me to a composition teacher... and that's how things got started, pretty much. Guidance is important, although some people have more initiative for searching for stuff than others. 



Chat Noir said:


> I agree though that many composers spend some time developing a voice, like writers or pictorial artists. I also did a lot of pastiche, it's how you learn. Though there has to be an awareness separating this from actual artwork. It can take a while.


And yes, it takes quite a long time to get to a point where you have something of your own to say!


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

Mandryka said:


> Well you've studied music, I've just got my ears to go by. But listen to the first minute of these two and compare and contrast in a relevant way in no more than 100 words.
> 
> W. A. Mozart - KV 95 (73n) - Symphony in D major - YouTube
> 
> Sergei Prokofiev - Symphony no.1, op.25 (complete) - YouTube


San Antone already convered it. Look at bar 11. Bar 10 INTO 11 (rehearsal 1). Does that look like Mozart AT ALL? Why did Prokofiev do that? And that's just the start!!!

Here, let's let _Leonard Bernstein_ explain it. Do yourself a favor and watch this whole video. But pay particular SPECIAL ATTENTION to the 18:04 mark and beyond, he's talking about you-know-what.


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## Aries (Nov 29, 2012)

Torkelburger said:


> sentimentality is often concerned to present the composer, listener, audience, etc. as a “sensitive” and completely “admirable experiencer” of vicissitudes and epiphanies (an example of a cliché of perception), rather than as a people and society as they truly are--with sometimes contradictory and even ignoble impulses.


Sentimentality seems to have a negative connotation so I refuse it. But the question that is raised here is, what is the purpose of music and art? There are many hard working people in the world, which experience the true society with its ignoble impulses every day. What they need is art that actually builds them up and is useful for them, not a philosophical approch to the real life by someone better off expressed in music.

It is an interessting original post, but it supports the suspicion, that modernism in music has a political motivation or is at least somewhat connected to a political movement as the following quotes suggest (bold parts highlighted by me):



Torkelburger said:


> Those who favor cheap sentimentality will shy from the weird, the strange, the uncanny, or the grotesque, because sentimentality is profoundly *reactionary*, and feeds off an addiction to the status quo, the conventional, the normal and orthodox, to inoffensive prettiness rather than real beauty (which can be destabilizing), and often ignores the strangeness in the ordinary.





Torkelburger said:


> Sentimentality refuses to acknowledge real vulnerability, embarrassment, character flaws, or *complicity with injustice*





Torkelburger said:


> It is often a gesture by one group *to raise its status of authority over another group*.





Torkelburger said:


> On an even more personal level, it can enable us to appreciate each other’s humanity and show us how *people of different cultures and backgrounds have more in common than not*.


It should not be the purpose of music to tell listeners or to accuse them that they are accomplices of injustice. This is a political, propagandistic abuse of music.

The things you talk about in the last two quotes are actually the same. People see gratification in artistic neat expressions of their identity, because it is an affirmation of their identity what is something they need. It is the same gratification when people see what other cultures have in common, because the similarity of others is also an affirmation of the own identity, but maybe this works even better in detail. And it is fine. It is about their own identity, not about an unfair treatment of other identities. Political agitation against it is inappropriate. We should not let everything fall apart.


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## Aries (Nov 29, 2012)

Torkelburger said:


> So, to continue with my 3rd point I wanted to get to (referenced in my first post):
> 
> What do we mean when a composer writes “of his own time”? Why doesn’t a composer just continue to write symphonies in the style of Mozart, Beethoven, Sibelius, etc.?
> 
> It is impossible, no matter how hard they try, for a creator of art to separate his art from his time (more on this later).


If every music write is connected to its time, then Alma Deutschers music is connected to our time. If Alma Deutschers music is seperated from our time, then it contradicts your statement.



Torkelburger said:


> Why write another Beethoven Seventh symphony when we already have the real thing? Why write another Mozart symphony when we already have 41 of them (they are not all the same, of course, but see the next question)?


There is a simple reason to write similar music. Many like Beethovens and Mozarts music.

But it is a misconception that the results would be exactly the same. Compare it to Prokofievs 1st symphony. He wanted to write a symphony like Haydn (but with differences naturally). And there are similarities, but also differences. He did not write the 105th or 108th Haydn symphony, but his first.

So what you are talking about is basically a straw man argument. Writing within the lines of classical aesthetics doesn't mean to copy composers of the past.



Torkelburger said:


> But one last thing to mention about this is as follows: this is the frustration with the likes of Alma Deutcher. There is nothing there to deeply understand on a beautiful level other than trivial surface prettiness and status quo. Nothing to gain any insight from at all. It’s anyone’s guess as to how she feels about any of this, other than that she just wants to turn a blind eye to it and ignore that it even exists. But she cannot do that forever. She will some day have to pay the bills, have to deal with the world’s problems, her own personal and medical issues. And she is going to have one less method of dealing with it available to her.


Well, she rather writes uplifting music in a world of harm. Maybe she will once also write a second symphony like Prokofiev, but not for now. But she is a composer from our time, you can't deny that based on ideologic conceptions about how music of our time has to look like.



Torkelburger said:


> I don't really want to make this about Alma. Other than just that her music is 1) grossly sentimental, 2) not beautiful (only in the shallow, superficial sense), 3) not valid music for today.


Not valid? It doesn't really make sense to talk about this. Music can't have the property "not valid", obviously. If you want to say that she is misled, vicious or testless for example, why not say it straight? It is nonsense to talk about "validity". "Not valid" would mean that it is something else than music.


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## Denerah Bathory (6 mo ago)

Aries said:


> Sentimentality seems to have a negative connotation so I refuse it. But the question that is raised here is, what is the purpose of music and art? There are many hard working people in the world, which experience the true society with its ignoble impulses every day. What they need is art that actually builds them up and is useful for them, not a philosophical approch to the real life by someone better off expressed in music.
> 
> It is an interessting original post, but it supports the suspicion, that modernism in music has a political motivation or is at least somewhat connected to a political movement as the following quotes suggest (bold parts highlighted by me):
> 
> ...


The reason I stopped watching movies....all I see is leftist propaganda!


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

SanAntone said:


> Why would I want to listen to a composer living today write in the style of Mozart? I have Mozart, who wrote exquisite works of genius. Why would I listen to a 21st century imitator?


Because the real thing is still too uncomfortable for you?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Enthusiast said:


> Because the real thing is still too uncomfortable for you?



The reply doesn't quite make sense given the point you're responding to. There's tons of nastiness in Mozart, Don Giovanni is the nastiest music ever written, nothing more cynical than Cosi fan tutte.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

^ That was my point. San Antone asked why s/he would want to listen to a modern pastiche when s/he could have real Mozart. I answered (for others!) that Mozart might be too gritty for them whereas the modern pastiches have no grit (and no pearl).


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Enthusiast said:


> ^ That was my point. San Antone asked why s/he would want to listen to a modern pastiche when s/he could have real Mozart. I answered (for others!) that Mozart might be too gritty for them whereas the modern pastiches have no grit (and no pearl).



That's a really interesting line of thought. Maybe authentic art has asperities and art with is too smooth is art art with a bad conscience.


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

Kreisler jr said:


> This is a plausible and interesting sketch of an aesthetic theory but I find it overly specific, and the conclusions and exclusions a bit far-fetched. (E.g. obviously "sentimentality", even in the derogative sense used above, seems to be also a part of "humanity", so why is this something inferior?)
> A core problem for me is, when, how and why "gestures" or tropes become stereotypical and sentimental (in the bad sense). E.g. were characters and scenes from e.g. Dickens or Puccini (little Nell, Mimi etc.) already sentimental in the bad sense 120 or 150 years ago when first performed or were they still sufficiently "fresh, authentic" (whatever)?


There is nothing wrong with expressing feelings, even strong feelings, but there is a sentimental and non-sentimental way of going about it. There are, in general, topics which lend themselves to abuse of sentimentality, due to their usual involvement with extreme subjectivity, topics which may succumb to too much sweetness and melodrama. Such topics as a beloved child, aged relative, pet (and suffering, sickness, or death of any of those), as well as spiritual or religious subjects, nostalgic memories of happiness or sadness, natural beauty, patriotism, public tragedies, or triumph over adversity.

But again, there is nothing wrong with going there at all, just being aware of the risk of sentimentality in all its antidotes. People are of course, occasionally sentimental, and there’s no reason an artist can’t create a sentimental persona WITHOUT the actual composition itself being so, because there are devices to acknowledge and distance itself from the persona’s sentimentality.

As I mentioned previously, the resolution of tension is one. Also, in sentimentality there is a kind of disproportion between these excessive feelings and the object or situation it is expressing feelings over. Like if you’re lavishing emotion over a swatted fly or a floor lamp (using extremes here to make a point.)

The goal is not to simply refrain from expressing feelings, but to find the right balance between restraint and expressions of feelings.

Oftentimes, sentimentality happens when a composer (or writer, etc.) adds too much language (musical language in our case) that is excessive in modifiers in order to force a response. It’s like if say, Mahler had re-orchestrated the tuba solo in his first symphony with a solo cello playing molto vibrato or portamento. Saccharine and dripping with sentimentality. Something like that. Or all the overuse of “sussy”, “add 2” pop chords in film music and commercial arranging, or all that swishing of the suspended cymbal. There is a long list that would go on for pages. There are tropes that writer’s deliberately use to force a response and put a spotlight on the sentimental, "telegraphing" it. Like a writer noting, “That poor, miserable blind child with his wee little cane.” The composer and writer are simply not giving the audience credit for knowing how to respond to something without being led by the nose.

Another way of avoiding sentimentality would be to simply alter the pacing of the composition, especially when focusing on a mood. Trying to create some kind of musical scene without resorting to sentimental slaps in the face (the language of sentimentality). An excellent example of this ability to express a feeling over longer periods of time of pacing, thereby smoothing out the sentimental would be a composer such as Shostakovich.


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

There are many great musical examples of what I am discussing in the thread. One of the ones I wanted to mention is Charles Ives’ song “The Cage”, song #64 in his 114-song collection. You could argue that Ives was the Schubert of the 20th century, his songs being some of the best in modern music. Ives wrote the lyrics which are entirely as follows:

A leopard went around his cage
From one side back to the other side;
He stopped only when the keeper came around with meat;
A boy who had been there three hours
Began to wonder, “Is life anything like that?”


Much could be written on these lyrics, but just note that this defines the time of writing perfectly. We know that Ives was influenced by the Existentialism of romantic New England, Emerson and Thoreau, in particular, and here we see that influence. There is a little story in these lyrics that illustrates the point instead of just outright speaking in abstractions as much sentimentality does. He is trusting the listener to figure it out on their own, which shouldn't be too difficult. The subtext or theme of the lyrics are transparent and fall perfectly in line with existential thought.

I have posted the score and a recording below (you may want to have the score open in one window so you can follow it while you play the recording in another.) The music fits the text perfectly, on both levels: it supports the plot itself (even when the leopard stops, the music holds, and when the boy wonders, the harmony reflects his quandary) and it supports the theme/subtext. From the beginning, he illustrates the cage musically with large (tall) blocked chords in quartal harmony. Even on the written score itself the chords look like bars of a cage, and he wants us to hear it that way as well. We can even hear the hardness of the cage's bars because of the "emotionless" quartal structures. He even goes so far as to describe how to play the chords with no emotion. This is a perfect example of how well modern harmony fits with modern life. Diatonic triads just would not be nearly as effective.

The melody represents the leopard, because it is meandering up and down stepwise just like the leopard is walking back and forth in the cage. Even visually, we can see the leopard’s notes pacing around on the score within the cage. A magnificent touch is how the notes are strictly from the whole-tone scale (two alternating), giving us no tonic or tonality at all (and further supporting the subtext), yet there is one distinct unit and identity. There are two layers of ambiguity that is supporting the text: the whole-tone scale (mentioned above) but also its “clashing” with the quartal harmony. All of this substantiates the deep meaning of the words very effectively.

Overall, there is a sense of beauty and rightness to the music and its message, with levels of ambiguity and wit that resist sentimentality while at the same time being extremely logical. And on top of it, I enjoy the way it sounds.

Score:

File:SIBLEY1802.23812.0079-39087030301123voice & piano (1st mvt).pdf - IMSLP: Free Sheet Music PDF Download

Recording:


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

Aries said:


> What they need is art that actually builds them up and is useful for them, not a philosophical approch to the real life by someone better off expressed in music.


My point is that you can build people up without sentimentality. People who argue for sentimentality are implying that that is the only way to “build someone up”. I went to great lengths explaining why that implication is based on a misunderstanding of beauty, sentimentality, and the capabilities of modern music.



Aries said:


> It is an interessting original post, but it supports the suspicion, that modernism in music has a political motivation or is at least somewhat connected to a political movement as the following quotes suggest (bold parts highlighted by me):


Then you need to read the post again, because you have misrepresented it. The first quote is not saying the unsentimental is politically motivated. The context was sentimentality, not the opposite.

The quote about raising the status of one group over another had nothing at all to do with any of that. That quote means people who want classical music today to sound like sentimental film music, etc., are using beauty (in its misunderstood sense of “prettiness”) is better than music that is not sentimental. It means they are suggesting music with beauty (prettiness) is better than music without beauty (prettiness). It’s saying that people who do not value superficial prettiness have worse tastes or some kind of anomaly with their tastes.



Aries said:


> If every music write is connected to its time, then Alma Deutschers music is connected to our time. If Alma Deutschers music is seperated from our time, then it contradicts your statement.


That’s why it’s called pastiche. It’s a cheap, imitative copy. It trying to be of another time, but it cannot be. There is no contradiction. The point, as was implied, is that it will always be of our time, it’s poor quality pastiche. It’s affected music. Blatantly so.



Aries said:


> There is a simple reason to write similar music. Many like Beethovens and Mozarts music.
> 
> But it is a misconception that the results would be exactly the same. Compare it to Prokofievs 1st symphony. He wanted to write a symphony like Haydn (but with differences naturally). And there are similarities, but also differences. He did not write the 105th or 108th Haydn symphony, but his first.


That symphony is not pastiche. It is satire in the form of a parody. Completely different. You make it sound as though the differences are minor trifles. They aren’t. It is unmistakably modern. And written that way on purpose. The “differences” are there to make light of the very thing its pretending to look like. And he put a lot of it in there. It’s witty and at times acerbic. Things I outlined in unsentimental music.



Aries said:


> Writing within the lines of classical aesthetics doesn't mean to copy composers of the past.


What classical aesthetics are you referring to then? I am talking about deliberate pastiche, an attempt to mimic the compositional style of a period in which you do not belong.



Aries said:


> Well, she rather writes uplifting music in a world of harm. Maybe she will once also write a second symphony like Prokofiev, but not for now. But she is a composer from our time, you can't deny that based on ideologic conceptions about how music of our time has to look like.


As I was saying, there’s not much there other than surface prettiness and status quo. If writing banal, unoriginal music that has no more depth than just it’s utility as mild comfort, well, don’t expect everyone to take it seriously. And please don’t ask everyone else who doesn’t write like that to do so. I’ve never denied that she is a composer of our time. In fact, someone should tell her that.



Aries said:


> Not valid? It doesn't really make sense to talk about this. Music can't have the property "not valid", obviously. If you want to say that she is misled, vicious or testless for example, why not say it straight? It is nonsense to talk about "validity". "Not valid" would mean that it is something else than music.


Oh please Mr. Attorney. Yes, it can. Music can be spoken of in terms of logic/logical. Music can be spoken of in terms of argumentation. And music can be spoken of in terms of validity. This thread was not supposed to be about Alma anyway. I mentioned it in passing, the focus is on sentimentality and beauty in general.


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## 4chamberedklavier (12 mo ago)

No offense Torkelburger, but this post seems like a long-winded way of saying that tonal music (which I assume is what you mean by sentimental music) is incapable of the beauty and expression that modern music provides. You're technically not wrong about your descriptions of sentimentality and beauty, but your point isn't very persuasive to me because you haven't really defined what 'sentimental' music actually is (that's why I'm assuming you're referring to tonal music). So sentimental = not very good. But you haven't really shown that tonal = sentimental.

Another thing I'd like to add is why the hostility against cliches and pastiches? Everything that can be done in music has already been done (in my opinion). Everything is already a pastiche in some way. People like to tout the expressive capabilities of non-CPT, and yes, there are many ways to make non-CPT music, but if most people can't really notice the differences, then the effect is effectively the same and you still get composers who all make similar-sounding music (which is what I assume modern composers were trying to get away from in the first place).

IMO at the core of all these arguments re: modern music is whether or not people's musical tastes are a 'tabula rasa'. I'm of the opinion that they're not. Modernists usually think they are. Unless we find some common ground there then this will pretty much stay unresolved and anything you say or I say won't change either person's mind.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Indeed, IMO the Ives songs is sentimental, because of the piano part on the word “wonder” and phrase “other side.” 

A setting which seems to me more successful is Debussy’s L'ombre des arbres -- here it is with the text of Verlaine's poem. 














L'ombre des arbres | Song Texts, Lyrics & Translations







www.oxfordlieder.co.uk





The first verse seems more or less a musical setting of shadows etc. But things go off the wall as soon as we get to Te mira blême toi-même -- it's no longer musical word painting. He's expressing something beyond the words, something sublime and exalted. But not sentimental!


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## YusufeVirdayyLmao (Nov 13, 2021)

4chamberedklavier said:


> No offense Torkelburger, but this post seems like a long-winded way of saying that tonal music (which I assume is what you mean by sentimental music) is incapable of the beauty and expression that modern music provides. You're technically not wrong about your descriptions of sentimentality and beauty, but your point isn't very persuasive to me because you haven't really defined what 'sentimental' music actually is (that's why I'm assuming you're referring to tonal music). So sentimental = not very good. But you haven't really shown that tonal = sentimental.
> 
> Another thing I'd like to add is why the hostility against cliches and pastiches? Everything that can be done in music has already been done (in my opinion). Everything is already a pastiche in some way. People like to tout the expressive capabilities of non-CPT, and yes, there are many ways to make non-CPT music, but if most people can't really notice the differences, then the effect is effectively the same and you still get composers who all make similar-sounding music (which is what I assume modern composers were trying to get away from in the first place).
> 
> IMO at the core of all these arguments re: modern music is whether or not people's musical tastes are a 'tabula rasa'. I'm of the opinion that they're not. Modernists usually think they are. Unless we find some common ground there then this will pretty much stay unresolved and anything you say or I say won't change either person's mind.


The whole "sentimentality" talk is part of a more general issue, which is that whenever there's an attempt to induce certain effects or emotions through either music, or acting/cinema/storytelling/whatnot, the outcomes can vary between:
-something that comes off as if it's obviously trying to make such an impression, but not really quite succeeding - large parts of your brain just aren't buying it vs. a roaring success;
-inducing various "levels" of these effects, from the "superficial", "thin" and/or "obvious" to what's perceived as "deep", "saturated", "rich", or mystifying / not quite comprehensible in its full scope etc.

These "effects" include all sorts of stuff - "emotions" (where the less successful / more shallow / more cynicism-triggering cases can be called "sentimentality" or kitsch), aesthetical ideals, "transcendence", as well as "excitement", horror, humor or parody, and anything else one might think of.

And whether one considers a particular case a success or not, can often be muddled by cognitive dissonance, or be dependent on current mood/exposure/desentization, and isn't always a clear-cut issue (as 1 might expect).


OP's narratives around this stuff don't seem very convincing to me, and I don't know what all of this has to do with "contemporary vs. old".
Imo the uplifting ending of Mozart's Don Giovanni is a roaring success and manages to transcend the content's high kitsch potential - while Gazzaniga's could be seen as corny (though probably on purpose since it seems kinda camp).

They didn't have to wait for the 20th century and its subversion of tonic resolutions to avoid that sentimentality?


So yeah, interesting topic with countless examples one could post, but without the crude narrative-spinning and simplistic attributions like "major tonic resolution = bad naive, acerbic 20th century real life = good", or stuff along those lines.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Enthusiast said:


> ^ That was my point. San Antone asked why s/he would want to listen to a modern pastiche when s/he could have real Mozart. I answered (for others!) that Mozart might be too gritty for them whereas the modern pastiches have no grit (and no pearl).


Your speculation about why I, or hypothetically, anyone, might prefer a derivative new composer over Mozart is not relevant for myself. I very much enjoy Mozart, especially the operas. But am bored by modern derivative works. What I want from living composers writing new classical music is not a throw-back to previous periods and styles. I want something I haven't heard before.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

SanAntone said:


> Your speculation about why I, or hypothetically, anyone, might prefer a derivative new composer over Mozart is not relevant for myself. I very much enjoy Mozart, especially the operas. But am bored by modern derivative works. What I want from living composers writing new classical music is not a throw-back to previous periods and styles. I want something I haven't heard before.


Yes. I had thought we agreed. Now I know we do!


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Sometimes just taking old tropes and putting them in a new context can be quite a good thing to do. Here's Beethoven brought kicking and screaming into a brave new world

Piano Sonata No. 6: I. — - YouTube


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Mandryka said:


> Sometimes just taking old tropes and putting them in a new context can be quite a good thing to do. Here's Beethoven brought kicking and screaming into a brave new world
> 
> Piano Sonata No. 6: I. — - YouTube


I don't hear Beethoven, kicking, screaming, or in any manner.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> Sometimes just taking old tropes and putting them in a new context can be quite a good thing to do. Here's Beethoven brought kicking and screaming into a brave new world
> 
> Piano Sonata No. 6: I. — - YouTube


I don’t know why Beethoven would be associated with this work..for any reason.


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## composingmusic (Dec 16, 2021)

YusufeVirdayyLmao said:


> The whole "sentimentality" talk is part of a more general issue, which is that whenever there's an attempt to induce certain effects or emotions through either music, or acting/cinema/storytelling/whatnot, the outcomes can vary between:
> -something that comes off as if it's obviously trying to make such an impression, but not really quite succeeding - large parts of your brain just aren't buying it vs. a roaring success;
> -inducing various "levels" of these effects, from the "superficial", "thin" and/or "obvious" to what's perceived as "deep", "saturated", "rich", or mystifying / not quite comprehensible in its full scope etc.
> 
> ...


Indeed, it's quite a nuanced issue. The issue of what I think people are referring to as "sentimentality" has more to do with how the composer has taken care of their material, and whether they've really been meticulous with what they're doing (for instance do the gestures make musical sense? is there a sense of movement that makes sense?). In my experience, this has more to do with the intention and execution of the material than with anything like an individual aesthetic.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

SanAntone said:


> I don't hear Beethoven, kicking, screaming, or in any manner.


op 90

Barenboim: Beethoven - Sonata No. 27 in E minor, Op. 90 - YouTube


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## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

Mandryka said:


> op 90
> 
> Barenboim: Beethoven - Sonata No. 27 in E minor, Op. 90 - YouTube


Have tried to like Finnessy’s music, but have given up. Schnittke could deconstruct with soul and poetry, but this is just a mess.

and Beethoven does not need to be dragged anywhere


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Bwv 1080 said:


> Have tried to like Finnessy’s music, but have given up. Schnittke could deconstruct with soul and poetry, but this is just a mess.
> 
> and Beethoven does not need to be dragged anywhere


It is not music by Finnissy.


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## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

Mandryka said:


> It is not music by Finnissy.


You posted his 6th piano sonata


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Bwv 1080 said:


> You posted his 6th piano sonata


No, Finnissy is the pianist. The composer is Chris Newman.


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## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

SanAntone said:


> No, Finnissy is the pianist. The composer is Chris Newman.


Ok, sounded like Finnissy


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## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

back to the OP, think sentimentality and cliches need to be separate - you can write cliched, non-sentimental music - the Finnissy -derivative Beethoven Op 90 mashup Mandrka posted would be a good example. There are plenty of other modernist music full of what has become cliches in the genre. A cliche is simply something that, through repeated exposure, has become overly familiar and uninteresting. At some level, Beethoven and Bach are nothing but ingenious and masterful workings of what were at the time stock contrapuntal figurations, i.e. cliches. No one looks at a Rembrandt still life or portrait and says 'oh, a bowl of fruit is such a cliche' - but of course it was, even at the time.

I think the primary reason why I dont like Finnessy is actually his extreme avoidance of cliches - IMO he tries so hard to create his own language and that gives him such a narrow and marginal array of devices to work with and they mostly just sound like crap.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Have a look at Picasso’s Las Meninas and Velazquez’s - in the Picasso elements of a preexisting, “common practice” style of painting have been deployed in a new context. Similar relation, to Velazquez again, in Bacon’s Screaming Popes and Velazquez’s Innocent X portrait.

A composer may be curious to see what happens if you take the building blocks of some common practice bit of music and put them in a new context. It’s all part of seeing how it’s possible to be in relation with traditional music. Polystylism à la Georg Rochberg is maybe the most crude expression of this project.


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## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

Mandryka said:


> Have a look at Picasso’s Las Meninas and Velazquez’s - in the Picasso elements of a preexisting, “common practice” style of painting have been deployed in a new context. Similar relation, to Velazquez again, in Bacon’s Screaming Popes and Velazquez’s Innocent X portrait.
> 
> A composer may be curious to see what happens if you take the building blocks of some common practice bit of music and put them in a new context. It’s all part of seeing how it’s possible to be in relation with traditional music. I think it’s a big theme of music today.


Sure, but its possible to do this in a cliched manner. Schnittke did it well, Finnissy I dont like, but did it uniquely. There is also Berio, Rochberg, Zimmerman, Zorn etc. its probably just as difficult to write something interesting today with this technique as with a classical sonata form


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Mandryka said:


> op 90
> 
> Barenboim: Beethoven - Sonata No. 27 in E minor, Op. 90 - YouTube


I don't hear any Beethoven references in the Newman sonata. What I do hear that is derivative is closer to Hindemith's Ludus Tonalis. 

I also am confused why you wish to make a connection between the Newman work and a classical period composer. The only connection I perceived is the fact that Mr. Newman titled his work a sonata. Without having done any kind of analysis I am uncertain how appropriate that title is relative to the Classical Period sonata form.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Bwv 1080 said:


> I think the primary reason why I dont like Finnessy is actually his extreme avoidance of cliches - IMO he tries so hard to create his own language and that gives him such a narrow and marginal array of devices to work with and they mostly just sound like crap.


What do you make of this sort of thing?

Michael Finnissy, 7 Sacred Motets, No. 5. Ave regina coelorum - YouTube

or this

Finnissy: "Swanee" from Gershwin Arrangements (Live) - YouTube

or this

Grieg Quintettsatz - YouTube 

or this 

Finnissy - SKRYABIN in itself (Jared Redmond, piano) - YouTube


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Here's another way of dragging old music into the now. Richard Barrett's Machaut, Binchois and Dufay

3 Chansons, realised for Ensemble Studio 6 by Richard Barrett - YouTube


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## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

Mandryka said:


> What do you make of this sort of thing?
> 
> Michael Finnissy, 7 Sacred Motets, No. 5. Ave regina coelorum - YouTube
> 
> ...


Well the motet is just pastiche - nice, but not really Finnissy's language. Am familiar with the Gershwin Arrangements, and along with History of Photography, were the pieces around which I formed my opinions on MF's music. I dont like the aimless, navel-gazing noodling deconstruction of past works. Would rather either listen to the original or someone like Ferneyhough


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## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

Mandryka said:


> Here's another way of dragging old music into the now. Richard Barrett's Machaut, Binchois and Dufay
> 
> 3 Chansons, realised for Ensemble Studio 6 by Richard Barrett - YouTube


That was cool, sort of in the same vein as Webern's Ricercare or Stravinsky's Pulcinella. But RB does not mess with the music itself much


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Nothing has been added to or removed from the original material except that: in the first piece (Dufay), around two thirds of the notes in the opening section have been “erased”, and ornamentation has been added to the harp part in the final section; the second (Machaut) has been transposed up a major second, and its constituent voices are often transposed by octaves; the principal voice of the third (Binchois) is often not only distributed to different instruments but its constituent sounds often overlap one another, and all three parts are often doubled one or more octaves higher by string harmonics

3chansons tpg (richardbarrettmusic.com)

This is maybe a bit like what Richard Barrett does there

Spotify – Bach: Die Kunst Der Fuge, Bwv 1080


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

SanAntone said:


> I don't hear any Beethoven references in the Newman sonata.


Oh dear.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Bwv 1080 said:


> Well the motet is just pastiche - nice, but not really Finnissy's language. Am familiar with the Gershwin Arrangements, and along with History of Photography, were the pieces around which I formed my opinions on MF's music. I dont like the aimless, navel-gazing noodling deconstruction of past works. Would rather either listen to the original or someone like Ferneyhough


I guess the motets are as much pastiche of Hildegard as Prok 1 is a pastiche of early Mozart. Someone said to me once that MF uses some ideas he picked up from Japanese music in them . . . .

I like English Country Tunes a lot; I hardly know the Gershwin or History of Photography.


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## Aries (Nov 29, 2012)

Torkelburger said:


> My point is that you can build people up without sentimentality. People who argue for sentimentality are implying that that is the only way to “build someone up”. I went to great lengths explaining why that implication is based on a misunderstanding of beauty, sentimentality, and the capabilities of modern music.


What I miss is a concrete conncetion between these concepts of real beauty, prettiness, sentimentality with actual musical examples and technical musical concepts. I agree with 4chamberedklevier here.



Torkelburger said:


> That’s why it’s called pastiche. It’s a cheap, imitative copy. It trying to be of another time, but it cannot be. There is no contradiction. The point, as was implied, is that it will always be of our time, it’s poor quality pastiche. It’s affected music. Blatantly so.


Music is an abstract thing. Music evokes proecesses within the human brain and body. But our genetics didn't really changed in the last 200 years much. We are biologically basically the same. So how can there be such a conncetion between music and time if music is something about our inner? People like Beethoven and Mozart because they speak to them today, not because it is an interessting history lession.

And Alma Deutscher writes a bit different than Beethoven and Mozart. It seems like the classical period is here staring point tough, but I don't think there is an objective reason that this is bad or "not real" because of the thought above.



Torkelburger said:


> That symphony is not pastiche. It is satire in the form of a parody. Completely different. You make it sound as though the differences are minor trifles. They aren’t. It is unmistakably modern. And written that way on purpose. The “differences” are there to make light of the very thing its pretending to look like. And he put a lot of it in there. It’s witty and at times acerbic. Things I outlined in unsentimental music.


Haydn can be witty and acerbic. I would say Prokofievs 1st is much less dry than Haydn with modern flexibility.



Torkelburger said:


> What classical aesthetics are you referring to then? I am talking about deliberate pastiche, an attempt to mimic the compositional style of a period in which you do not belong.


I don't see that styles of the past don't belong to me. My interior connects very well with them, and actually much better than to modern styles like rap, hollywood movies, avantgarde music or social media. Modern styles tend to be anti-human mixed up junk imo.


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## Chat Noir (4 mo ago)

Aries said:


> I don't see that styles of the past don't belong to me. My interior connects very well with them, and actually much better than to modern styles like rap, hollywood movies, avantgarde music or social media. Modern styles tend to be anti-human mixed up junk imo.


This is not the implication. I can e.g. read Oscar Wild or Aeschylus and connect with it, but it's still not of my time. There may be things which I might find similar to now; which run through human behaviour, and possibly even just coincidence or reading the now into the past (or vice-versa). However Oscar Wilde and Aeschylus are of their time and the subjects and details of their work reflect this.
Every epoch's artists reflect their time and period and re-imagining methods and approaches is not unusual.


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## Aries (Nov 29, 2012)

Chat Noir said:


> This is not the implication. I can e.g. read Oscar Wild or Aeschylus and connect with it, but it's still not of my time. There may be things which I might find similar to now; which run through human behaviour, and possibly even just coincidence or reading the now into the past (or vice-versa). However Oscar Wilde and Aeschylus are of their time and the subjects and details of their work reflect this.


But music is much more abstract than literature. Literature speaks to the intellect and is therefore much more connected to the time. Music speaks to the soul, the subconcious, the feeling more, and is therefore much less connected to a time. There may be time associations connected with musical styles, but these associations are not within the music itself, they are made up by our experiences which vary from person to person.


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## Chat Noir (4 mo ago)

Aries said:


> But music is much more abstract than literature. Literature speaks to the intellect and is therefore much more connected to the time. Music speaks to the soul, the subconcious, the feeling more, and is therefore much less connected to a time. There may be time associations connected with musical styles, but these associations are not within the music itself, they are made up by our experiences which vary from person to person.


I don't buy this idea. Music is also of a time, it's exactly how we are able to classify it. When you listen to it some of that is, exactly like literature, reliving the time the art was created. It doesn't mean it is disconnected entirely or you wouldn't be able to listen and 'decode'. This is rather obvious because it represents things with which we are familiar.

Can't for the life of me think why any of that is some sort of argument against the artist of today making his/her own way. You know, if I was happy just reading Aeschylus I'd do that and accept that even though the work lives on through readers, there will be other things written which are entirely different and that they are both legitimate expression. The latter though, belongs to the _now_.


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## Aries (Nov 29, 2012)

Chat Noir said:


> I don't buy this idea. Music is also of a time, it's exactly how we are able to classify it.


Music does not have direct graspable meaning like language. We can classify the time of literature by abstract non-art related general ways of thinking within it and then comparing it to the ways of thoughts in history. In the case of music you can not abstract the same. What you can abstract from music are art related ways of thinking and personal ways of thinking (like character types which remain over the span of history). 

You can classify the time of composition of a piece of music with knowledge of the musical styles in history. But this knowledge is about the music but not within the music.
But you can classify the time literature was written by abstracting historical non-art related thoughts that are inherent in the literature.

The way music and literature have emotional effects are different. 
If someone describes how someone died, it can be contentually reasoned why it is perceived as sad. 
If someone describes how someone survived, it can be contentually reasoned why it is perceived as happy.
Why a minor chord sounds saddened can not be contentually reasoned.
Why a major chord sounds happy can not be contentually reasoned. Chords don't have an intellectual meaning, they just have an physical-neuronal effect on us.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

*Aries*

Mozart never heard The Beates, or Chopin, or Wagner, or Schoenberg, or any of the music we have heard since 1790. Nor did Mozart live along side and involve himself with the harmonic, melodic, rhythmic, stylistic, and formal, developments music has undergone since his time.

A composer alive today cannot simply "write like Mozart" and create something approaching a valid classical work. There has been too much music since Mozart which has been imprinted on every composer's aural psyche for him to occupy the same aesthetic territory as Mozart. He might create a nice pastiche, or superficial facsimile of a Mozart symphony - but it will essentially be meaningless as classical music art.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

I don’t see why Georg Rochberg’s Caprice Variations isn’t as valid a classical work today as Dusapin’s 7th quartet is today.


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## Aries (Nov 29, 2012)

SanAntone said:


> Mozart never heard The Beates, or Chopin, or Wagner, or Schoenberg, or any of the music we have heard since 1790. Nor did Mozart live along side and involve himself with the harmonic, melodic, rhythmic, stylistic, and formal, developments music has undergone since his time.


But do these newer developments make music objectively better? What if a composer disagrees with these developments or does not even study them (because of a too young age for example or other reasons)? There are people who don't see a progress in the romantic era compared to the classical. And there are people who don't see progress in modernism compared to romanticism. At the end it is primarily a subjective evaluation what style is the best and what is real progress.



SanAntone said:


> A composer alive today cannot simply "write like Mozart" and create something approaching a valid classical work. There has been too much music since Mozart which has been imprinted on every composer's aural psyche for him to occupy the same aesthetic territory as Mozart.


The later music will have an effect on composers alive today, but the degree will vary a lot. Some are heavily influenced, some are just slightly influenced like Alma Deutscher or Thomas Schmidt-Kowalski. And it is not really possible to determine what the objectively right amount of influence is.

It is ridiculous to say that because Schönberg lived before someone his styles has to be influenced by Schönberg. This logic falls again into the context of the avantgarde hijacking classical music. Some deny it again and again, but this is certainly the implication here.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

While not all composers are "influenced" by every composer that came before them - I am using the few examples I listed as a microcosm of our world which has changed since the time of Mozart. I could just as easily listed the telephone, the phonograph, the camera, the car, the airplane, and the Internet.

It isn't about which music is "better." It is about how our culture, technology, and even how we think, that has changed over the last 200 years. Mozart's music is still relevant because Mozart wrote great music and has universal qualities which transcend its time. However, if Mozart were alive today there is no question but that he would write different music from what he wrote in the 18th century.


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## Aries (Nov 29, 2012)

SanAntone said:


> While not all composers are "influenced" by every composer that came before them - I am using the few examples I listed as a microcosm of our world which has changed since the time of Mozart. I could just as easily listed the telephone, the phonograph, the camera, the car, the airplane, and the Internet.
> 
> It isn't about which music is "better." It is about how our culture, technology, and even how we think, that has changed over the last 200 years. Mozart's music is still relevant because Mozart wrote great music and has universal qualities which transcend its time. However, if Mozart were alive today there is no question but that he would write different music from what he wrote in the 18th century.


There is a difference between someone imitating Mozart or genuinely considering his style the best and therefore applying the style according to their own understanding. The latter allows for originality. But with the talk of lack of validity and pastiche, it seems that everything is being lumped together and devalued here, which inevitably does injustice to some composers. 

As for a living Mozart, there would be more or less differences to be expected compared to his style in the 18th century, but more detailed statements are speculative and not appropriate. This question must remain open out of respect for Mozart.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

SanAntone said:


> Mozart's music is still relevant because Mozart wrote great music and has universal qualities which transcend its time.


What is this "relevance" in essence anyway? One could say Mozart simply has a lot of fans today due to the exposure of his music to the public and the extra-musical elements such as his interesting life-story that has stimulated our imagination.




(typical portrayal of Mozart in the media and public (BBC Genius of Mozart), trying to attribute _"Why do I have to go now? When I'm no longer enslaved to fashion."_ as something Mozart actually said himself.)
Depending on perspective, all the stuff, business, phenomena can be viewed as simply "sentimental".

I'm not trying to condemn anything as overrated. I'm just saying how we interpret things like these is subjective.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

hammeredklavier said:


> What is this "relevance" in essence anyway? One could say Mozart simply has a lot of fans today due to the exposure of his music to the public and the extra-musical elements such as his interesting life-story that has stimulated our imagination.


This is a recurring trope in your posts, and one which I wholly disagree with. While Mozart's music is certainly popular, it is also highly regarded by classical musicians, conductors, singers, and scholars, hence its universality, i.e. transcending Mozart time to our own and beyond. 

His music has survived not by an accident of taste or hype concerning extra-musical elements such as his interesting life-story, or brainwashing by critics and others. Mozart's music has survived and prospered because it is among the greatest ever composed in the Western classical music tradition. And this judgment was made during his lifetime by his peers, e.g Joseph Haydn and others, in a number of documented instances.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

It seems to me obviously true that a significant reason why Mozart has a lot of fans today due to the exposure of his music to the public and the extra-musical elements such as his interesting life-story that has stimulated our imagination. If this is what @hammeredklavier is suggesting then I think he's right.

Note I took out the word "simply" from hammeredklavier's post -- it's over to him to say if and how that alters the sense.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Popularity among "fans" is not of interest to me and IMO superficial and unimportant. What is significant is the respect and continuing power his music enjoys among the professional classical music community, i.e. musicians, conductors, singers, and scholars.

And this community is not moved by the issues you and HK point to. Either you truly do not understand why Mozart is considered great, or are parading a stalking horse.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

SanAntone said:


> And this community is not moved by the issues you and HK point to.



I think you should think again about that claim actually., Musicians, conductors and singers are making a living through performance, hence they often have a tendency to try to perform what sells. Mozart sells, and the claim is that an important reason for this is exposure and extra musical elements.

Now, before you jump up and down and shout "no!", let's stand back a bit and consider the meta question. How are we to decide whether you're right about musicians conductors and singers or I am? By a survey? By anecdotes? It is, after all a contingent, empirical, sociological question I think.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

SanAntone said:


> This is a recurring trope in your posts, and one which I wholly disagree with. While Mozart's music is certainly popular, it is also highly regarded by classical musicians, conductors, singers, and scholars, hence its universality, i.e. transcending Mozart time to our own and beyond.


If those musicians, conductors, singers, and scholars only study and listen to Mozart mostly when it comes to his era, how is it any more meaningful than random fans on youtube and elsewhere, for instance. The "snowball effect" (of "only the ones who get any attention will continue to get more attention") would only keep getting bigger as time goes on, in the general public.
Also, we know what "argumentum ad populum" is. Just cause there are many fans of something, it doesn't mean what they say is absolute truth. Even if they're professional or knowledgeable, they can use their knowledge and expertise in a biased way to suit themselves as fans of the stuff.
How can you argue that Hazlewood is not being corny in that BBC Mozart documentary?

I think there's a reason why in history the group, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Weber, Bruckner, differed significantly from the group, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Wagner, Brahms, in judgement of Mozart, for instance. The latter at least implied Mozart was the best of his time, whereas the former never did. The latter was more limited than the former in knowledge of Mozart's German contemporaries, due to certain knowledge being lost due to passing of time, or not being accessed to their places. (Knowledge of composers who didn't have their music printed or widely distributed would more likely have been lost or limited).



> And this judgment was made during his lifetime by his peers, e.g Joseph Haydn and others, in a number of documented instances.


Others? Such as? (Only Haydn did in 1785, according to Leopold Mozart. We don't know what he thought in 1805, for instance) Who specifically thought Mozart was a greater opera composer than Paisiello in Mozart's time? What evidence suggests Mozart ever thought "even though I'm so much less popular than Paisiello, I'm much more an artist, less an entertainer than him. The posterity will judge accordingly."
Maybe we should move into another thread to discuss this further?


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## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

Both can be true - Mozart was both the greatest composer of his generation and had an interesting and ultimately tragic backstory that people identify with


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

I don't think any early-late 19th century composer or professional musician was moved to study, be inspired by or play Mozart's music because of his early death and "tragic life story". (The story is something that was used to popularize Mozart in the 20th century but it would not have worked if at least some Mozart had not been well established before. It also did not work with Schubert to the same extent, and I don't know if it was ever tried with Purcell, Mendelssohn or Bizet.)
I think we have enough evidence that Haydn, Dittersdorf, Beethoven, Weber, Count Waldstein, E.T.A. Hoffmann and plenty of more musicians around 1800 or later thought that Mozart was better than Paisiello. He was obviously far superior in instrumental music. But even restricted to opera, Paisiello was good but Don Giovanni was considered sublime by the romantics and the Magic Flute became the beginning of German opera, whereas Paisiello was just one among a bunch of Buffa-composers; I think objectively Mozart's operas are more distinctive (although admittedly I have heard only one by Paisiello ("Nina")).

I agree that speculations about self-image as artist or entertainer are difficult in the case of Mozart. They are pretty clear, though, for many later composers beginning with Beethoven who thought of himself as a more serious artist than many musicians around him, or e.g. most of the Italian opera composers of his time like Rossini


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Bwv 1080 said:


> Both can be true - Mozart was both the greatest composer of his generation and had an interesting and ultimately tragic backstory that people identify with


That’s why I raised the point about hammeredklavier’s word “simply” If he means “only” the the proposition is harder to argue for.


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## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

I don’t think mitsuko uchida on her deathbed will mourn that popular taste prevented her from devoting her career to Michael Haydn or Dittersdorf


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Kreisler jr said:


> whereas Paisiello was just one among a bunch of Buffa-composers; I think objectively Mozart's operas are more distinctive (although admittedly I have heard only one by Paisiello ("Nina")).


Paisiello seems to have been more influential to the Bel Canto practice of the later era.





But what evidence is there those musicians did not think Paisiello was simply "different" (like apples and oranges) from Mozart? Just cause each of them made one flattering comment about Mozart?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Bwv 1080 said:


> I don’t think mitsuko uchida on her deathbed will mourn that popular taste prevented her from devoting her career to Michael Haydn or Dittersdorf


Ah well she’s a piano player who’s decided not to give any of her time to Josef Haydn or any of the Bachs. For some reason WA Mozart and Schubert and Beethoven and Schumann fitted the bill. She even had a go at Chopin. But J Haydn, C P E Bach, J S Bach etc have been rejected. Why? Fashion? Taste? Money? Time? Temperament?


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Bwv 1080 said:


> I don’t think mitsuko uchida on her deathbed will mourn that popular taste prevented her from devoting her career to Michael Haydn or Dittersdorf


Isn't what you're saying -_it's all about popularity in the end_. Uchida could have been a performer who always intended to make money off of what her audience wanted. Never really giving serious thought to questions like The Myth of Greatness, for example.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

How do you explain that Mozart had clearly "won" vs. Paisiello by the mid-19th century or so? Life story? Mysterious dominance of "German/Austrian" influencers, despite French/Italian opera still dominating Europe at the time? Both not plausible.
The problem with "snowballing" as explanation is that if the Paisiello snowball is a bit bigger in 1790 but the Mozart snowball is MUCH bigger 1890 (not to mention 1990) there must be reasons for the difference in growth of the snowballs. 
It's clearly not automatic and it becomes HARDER, not easier to explain if the Paisiello snowball was bigger 1790. Why is the slope they roll down different and the accretion rate of additional snow? I'd say the Mozart snowball is "more sticky" and this is because his music is in the end more interesting/more entertaining/deeper/better/attribute of choice.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Kreisler jr said:


> How do you explain that Mozart had clearly "won" vs. Paisiello by the mid-19th century or so? Life story? Mysterious dominance of "German/Austrian" influencers, despite French/Italian opera still dominating Europe at the time? Both not plausible.
> The problem with "snowballing" as explanation is that if the Paisiello snowball is a bit bigger in 1790 but the Mozart snowball is MUCH bigger 1890 (not to mention 1990) there must be reasons for the difference in growth of the snowballs.
> It's clearly not automatic and it becomes HARDER, not easier to explain if the Paisiello snowball was bigger 1790. Why is the slope they roll down different and the accretion rate of additional snow? I'd say the Mozart snowball is "more sticky" and this is because his music is in the end more interesting/more entertaining/deeper/better/attribute of choice.


It’s a historical question, empirical. Not to be answered a priori. To explain why Mozart won someone would have to look at exactly what happened in the reception history. It may be judgements about quality, it may be to do with the availability of scores in domestic editions, or the way a performer’s review caused a demand for Mozart, it may not, you can’t guess, you have to do the work.

What you can’t do is assert that Mozart wrote more complex, or more surprising, or more melodic music, so he became popular. That would beg the very question at issue.

Someone really should lift this discussion into another thread.


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## YusufeVirdayyLmao (Nov 13, 2021)

Torkelburger said:


> What classical aesthetics are you referring to then? I am talking about deliberate pastiche, an attempt to mimic the compositional style of a period in which you do not belong.


Wait I thought pastiche meant creating a piece out of direct copies and references of elements (like phrases etc.)? 
So completely different from "writing in the style of"? (Although that of course can easily result in an accidental or subconscious pastiche.)


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## YusufeVirdayyLmao (Nov 13, 2021)

Mandryka said:


> I don’t see why Georg Rochberg’s Caprice Variations isn’t as valid a classical work today as Dusapin’s 7th quartet is today.


Ah very cool, I remember being hyped about Hamelin's new caprice variations some few years ago.

Does anyone know if there's other, sewing machine type performances of this Rochberg version that one could compare/contrast this one with?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

@YusufeVirdayyLmao There are two commercial recordings, Skaerved and Marillier

https://www.chandos.net/chanimages/Booklets/TR1883.pdf


| Peter Sheppard Skærved | name George Rochberg’s ‘Caprice Variations’: A Resource Page |


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## YusufeVirdayyLmao (Nov 13, 2021)

Ah, I'll check that out then!


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

In a classical music forum, when it is implied that the reason for the present status of Mozart has more to do with a superficial view of popularity rather than the reason for his many original/unique accomplishments then the whole concept of great composers is turned upside down and the believers who are nodding their heads are drinking the kool-aid.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

Torkelburger said:


> How well do you know that piece? REALLY know it? Have you studied the score? If someone were to ask you to compare and contrast it with Mozart, would you be able to write, say a whole paper about it? Note, that I said CONTRAST. Do you know the differences?


I would be interested in reading such a paper comparing & contrasting this piece stylistically to the First Viennese School (the more technical and in-depth, the better, just for context I find most academic musical papers very underwhelming in their level of depth and rigor).

Does anyone have any recommendations?


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## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> I would be interested in reading such a paper comparing & contrasting this piece stylistically to the First Viennese School (the more technical and in-depth, the better, just for context I find most academic musical papers very underwhelming in their level of depth and rigor).
> 
> Does anyone have any recommendations?


it’s not that complicated- just look at the score, Prok 1 does not have the expected cadential forms and has this abupt modulation from D to C after 10 bars - so right from the start is in very different territory than Mozart or Haydn


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

Having subjected myself to reading _most_ of this thread, here's the conclusion I've come to:

On an emotional level, I resonate very much with the points made here, and the language surrounding the dichotomies drawn around sentimentality vs beauty, or borrowing vs stealing, or pastiche vs parody, etc. But logically, I recognize that like all else in aesthetics, this is all fundamentally subjective. My main issue with the OP is that they seem to be using these distinctions which are valid for themselves to establish some sort of "validity" in their own outlook of (modern) music. While I happen to personally agree with many of the OP's opinions and tastes, I refrain from generalizing these personal observations making broader, normative implications.

Let's go back to the example of Alma Deutscher. Someone (I think it was @SanAntone) said earlier that truly imitating Mozart (iirc she expressely said in an interview that this was NOT her intent, but let's even assume it is) is impossible, as our 21st century aesthetics and global culture have been marred by centuries of both music and human history. But then according to the OP is this melting pot of aesthetics not a very manifestation of the ideal of _beauty_? And also does it not imply the creation of new and original sounding music?

So is it unreasonable that someone may find beauty, and not mere sentimentality, in Alma Deutscher's music? Not as a copy of Mozart, but just for what it is? (NOTE: I'm not personally a fan of Deutscher's music nor the marketing campaign surrounding it).

And so we're left asking the same tired questions. Where do we draw the line on these matters? Who has the ultimate authorityItand as always, the answer is that it's all subjective.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

Bwv 1080 said:


> it’s not that complicated- just look at the score, Prok 1 does not have the expected cadential forms and has this abupt modulation from D to C after 10 bars - so right from the start is in very different territory than Mozart or Haydn


Yes I can obviously hear the differences myself, and see them in the score. There's also a lot more than just harmonic and tonal differences. Im not trying to ask whether or not there ARE differences, just for an extensive study of them, both apparent and subtle, probably intentional and possibly coincidental. I just think it's an interesting case study and would be interested in reading more about it.

By the way, that "abrupt modulation" may not be in Mozart or Haydn, but you can find it - to much the same effect - in somewhat early Beethoven (op 31 no 1), written well before Haydn's death.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

Very frustrating trying to have intelligent discussion here sometimes, feels a lot like the culture at a Silicon Valley tech startup. Everyone thinks they know a lot more than they really do, every discussion needs to turn into an argument, and most meetings don't serve much of a purpose.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Bwv 1080 said:


> it’s not that complicated- just look at the score, Prok 1 does not have the expected cadential forms and has this abupt modulation from D to C after 10 bars - so right from the start is in very different territory than Mozart or Haydn


Consider the beginning of K.475







BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> By the way, that "abrupt modulation" may not be in Mozart or Haydn, but you can find it - to much the same effect - in somewhat early Beethoven (op 31 no 1), written well before Haydn's death.


Also, btw, for 19th-century "free fantasy" style modulations, Reichardt (born in 1752, and was well-known to Schubert and Mendelssohn) is noteworthy. For instance, this opera of his, written around the time of Mozart's death- www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsh7xnPS4bw&t=4m20s


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> Let's go back to the example of Alma Deutscher. Someone (I think it was @SanAntone) said earlier that truly imitating Mozart (iirc she expressely said in an interview that this was NOT her intent, but let's even assume it is) is impossible, as our 21st century aesthetics and global culture have been marred by centuries of both music and human history. But then according to the OP is this melting pot of aesthetics not a very manifestation of the ideal of _beauty_? And also does it not imply the creation of new and original sounding music?


What I said was that even if a composer's career were devoted to writing music in the 18th century style of Mozart or Haydn, his music would either be superficial imitation with hacks, or with talented composers inherently different (in kind, not degree) because of the world in which he lived, as opposed to, the world of Mozart and Haydn. And this crucial and unavoidable gap between the two periods would make any attempt at truly writing in the 18th century false in a way it wasn't false for Mozart and Haydn.

But this is not to say that composers do not draw inspiration from the music of the 18th century (or others) and use it as a jumping off point for a new work, e.g Prokofiev or Stravinsky. But take note that Prokofiev's 2nd symphony was nothing like his first, and Stravinsky spent only one part of his career writing what has been called "neoclassical" works. And in any event no one would ever mistake one of these works by Prokofiev or Stravinsky with the 18th century models they chose.

I see this entire line of argument just another attempt to discredit the music of the 20th century, and now 21st, which departed from common practice styes and forms, and a nostalgic longing for some new living composers to write in styles which are comfortable for that segment of the classical music audience which has trouble reconciling the newer more experimental styles with the classical music tradition.


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## composingmusic (Dec 16, 2021)

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> Having subjected myself to reading _most_ of this thread, here's the conclusion I've come to:
> 
> On an emotional level, I resonate very much with the points made here, and the language surrounding the dichotomies drawn around sentimentality vs beauty, or borrowing vs stealing, or pastiche vs parody, etc. But logically, I recognize that like all else in aesthetics, this is all fundamentally subjective. My main issue with the OP is that they seem to be using these distinctions which are valid for themselves to establish some sort of "validity" in their own outlook of (modern) music. While I happen to personally agree with many of the OP's opinions and tastes, I refrain from generalizing these personal observations making broader, normative implications.
> 
> ...


Indeed, it’s subjective and I also think the issue of beauty vs sentimentality has to be approached on a case by case basis. I don’t think there are clear lines for this, and people are inevitably going to have different perspectives on where they would personally draw the lines.

I suppose that for me, the issue with Alma Deutscher isn’t so much whether her music is sentimentality or beauty. The issue I have is that she’s still very young and based on what I’ve seen of other composers, people her age are typically still searching for what their identity as a composer is. It seems to me as though there are older influences in her life, who are telling her that a lot of newer classical music is “ugly”, which may discourage her from discovering this music on her own terms. This, combined with the large amount of exposure she’s getting with her early work, can create problems for her later. To be clear, I have no issues with her writing in whatever aesthetic she wants to write in; rather, I think she should have the space and freedom to discover things, and to listen to a variety of music.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

SanAntone said:


> What I said was that even if a composer's career were devoted to writing music in the 18th century style of Mozart or Haydn, his music would either be superficial imitation with hacks, or with talented composers inherently different (in kind, not degree) because of the world in which he lived, as opposed to, the world of Mozart and Haydn. And this crucial and unavoidable gap between the two periods would make any attempt at truly writing in the 18th century false in a way it wasn't false for Mozart and Haydn.
> 
> But this is not to say that composers do not draw inspiration from the music of the 18th century (or others) and use it as a jumping off point for a new work, e.g Prokofiev or Stravinsky. But take note that Prokofiev's 2nd symphony was nothing like his first, and Stravinsky spent only one part of his career writing what has been called "neoclassical" works. And in any event no one would ever mistake one of these works by Prokofiev or Stravinsky with the 18th century models they chose.
> 
> I see this entire line of argument just another attempt to discredit the music of the 20th century, and now 21st, which departed from common practice styes and forms, and a nostalgic longing for some new living composers to write in styles which are comfortable for that segment of the classical music audience which has trouble reconciling the newer more experimental styles with the classical music tradition.


I guess where I disagree is that I don't see why modernist 20th / 21st century music and Alma Deutscher can't co-exist peacefully, with listeners enjoying them for what they are. Derision towards Alma Deutscher is no more or less justified than derision towards Boulez or Cage or Finnissy.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

hammeredklavier said:


> Consider the beginning of K.475
> 
> 
> 
> ...


To be fair HK, I think this kind of affective modulation would be much more normalized in a Fantasy than in a the beginning of a movement in strict Sonata form.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

composingmusic said:


> . It seems to me as though there are older influences in her life, who are telling her that a lot of newer classical music is “ugly”, which may discourage her from discovering this music on her own terms. This, combined with the large amount of exposure she’s getting with her early work, can create problems for her later. To be clear, I have no issues with her writing in whatever aesthetic she wants to write in; rather, I think she should have the space and freedom to discover things, and to listen to a variety of music.


I can see where you're coming from. It's been a while since I've listened to or followed AD, but I do remember her describing modern music as people writing ugly music to describe an ugly world, and by contrast she wanted to write beautiful music.

This is an ignorant take which has probably been spoonfed to her by adults, I can agree with you on that. But I see nothing wrong with finding beauty in her music.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

SanAntone said:


> And this crucial and unavoidable gap between the two periods would make any attempt at truly writing in the 18th century false in a way it wasn't false for Mozart and Haydn.


I agree with this point by and large. BUT, if it's not Mozart, it's still something else, and I think it's possible to just appreciate that _something_ for what it is, even if that wasn't the composer's original intent (I do not place any value on the composer's intent when it comes to my enjoyment of music).


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## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

hammeredklavier said:


> Consider the beginning of K.475
> 
> 
> 
> ...


But thats just a variant of the lament bass, a common galant device


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> I agree with this point by and large. BUT, if it's not Mozart, it's still something else, and I think it's possible to just appreciate that _something_ for what it is, even if that wasn't the composer's original intent (I do not place any value on the composer's intent when it comes to my enjoyment of music).


I never said or implied that music written in a style from a previous period cannot be appreciated for what it is. But what "it is" is not music from the 18th century. 

Written in the 20th century it is either hommage or pastiche or just inspired by but not exactly in the same style, and those examples can be valid artistically. Or in lesser hands, it would be the superficially derivative work of a hack.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> I agree with this point by and large. BUT, if it's not Mozart, it's still something else, and* I think it's possible to just appreciate that something for what it is,* even if that wasn't the composer's original intent (I do not place any value on the composer's intent when it comes to my enjoyment of music).


Yes, I agree with the bolded, but for my ears, stylistic writing has to be done incredibly well, balancing the strictures of the style with paradoxically, some added individual invention, especially if it is to garner any appreciation from me. Otherwise there is a danger that one might question how the music relates in terms of personal expression to the composer, especially if the music draws closer in all aspects to its source or inspiration.
Today the composer's issue is that CP alla Mozart has been done and dusted to sheer excellence, even so, many a trained composer can noodle in the style. Of course finding its beauty and simple essence is not an ability every composer will have, but the fact is that the more you technically advance, the less exciting it becomes to write that way.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

hammeredklavier said:


> Consider the beginning of K.475
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Free fantasy is really interesting in 18th century music. Were there any rules?


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Bwv 1080 said:


> But thats just a variant of the lament bass, a common galant device


At around 1:25, there is a shift from F sharp to G for instance


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## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

hammeredklavier said:


> At around 1:25, there is a shift from F sharp to G for instance


F# dominant 7th chord to Bm then to G, so its still not as abrupt as Prokofiev (and its constantly chromatic, unlike Prok where there are long static sections that shift without the preparation that you see even in a piece like this)


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

It occurs to me that composers of the past, directly or indirectly, wanted to or had to, find new and exciting ways to compose music for the listeners, publishers and benefactors. Even manufacturers of instruments were constantly looking for ways to enhance them for the benefit of composers and listeners, particularly the development of the modern grand in the first part of the 19th century: the addition of 2 octaves, the double-escapement, the iron frame, felt-covered hammers etc.

Now there are relatively few improvements made in instruments and composers appear (according even to those here) to be motivated more by finding new and exciting ways to compose for themselves. While I don’t think anyone foresees a return to the composition of pre-1900 CM, at least Alma Deutscher‘s motivation seemed to be, to some extent, composing music for the public as much as for herself. Any composers criticizing her music or raising theoretical issues of something in the realm of brainwashing from her parents or a need to acquaint herself with newer music may be confused as to why she is filling concert halls and they aren’t.


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## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

DaveM said:


> It occurs to me that composers of the past, directly or indirectly, wanted to or had to, find new and exciting ways to compose music for the listeners, publishers and benefactors. Even manufacturers of instruments were constantly looking for ways to enhance them for the benefit of composers and listeners, particularly the development of the modern grand in the first part of the 19th century: the addition of 2 octaves, the double-escapement, the iron frame, felt-covered hammers etc.
> 
> Now there are relatively few improvements made in instruments and composers appear (according even to those here) to be motivated more by finding new and exciting ways to compose for themselves. While I don’t think anyone foresees a return to the composition of pre-1900 CM, at least Alma Deutscher‘s motivation seemed to be, to some extent, composing music for the public as much as for herself. Any composers criticizing her music or raising theoretical issues of something in the realm of brainwashing from her parents or a need to acquaint herself with newer music may be confused as to why she is filling concert halls and they aren’t.


Alma Deutcher recently began composing in a serial style, citing Boulez and Stockhausen as inspiration


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## composingmusic (Dec 16, 2021)

Bwv 1080 said:


> Alma Deutcher recently began composing in a serial style, citing Boulez and Stockhausen as inspiration


That's quite interesting. I can't say I particularly follow her work, but this is quite interesting to see. Ultimately, I hope she finds a way of writing that she's personally happy with – of course, this takes time and patience.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Bwv 1080 said:


> Alma Deutcher recently began composing in a serial style, citing Boulez and Stockhausen as inspiration


It remains to be seen where that goes. At the moment, it is formative at best. What would be intriguing would be to see the public‘s response to Alma Deutscher works in the manner of Boulez and Stockhausen.


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## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

Actually just made that up, I really doubt she has embraced integral serialism. If she wants to write in a traditional style, then more power to her, but that hardly invalidates 120 years of modernism


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## composingmusic (Dec 16, 2021)

DaveM said:


> Now there are relatively few improvements made in instruments and composers appear (according even to those here) to be motivated more by finding new and exciting ways to compose for themselves.


This isn't the case. Yes, some things are more standardized, but instrument makers are also experimenting with lots of new things. For example, there's been new developments with instruments like the contraforte and various Kingma flute systems, not to mention all kinds of exciting percussion instruments...



DaveM said:


> While I don’t think anyone foresees a return to the composition of pre-1900 CM, at least Alma Deutscher‘s motivation seemed to be, to some extent, composing music for the public as much as for herself. Any composers criticizing her music or raising theoretical issues of something in the realm of brainwashing from her parents or a need to acquaint herself with newer music may be confused as to why she is filling concert halls and they aren’t.


I don't think people here are making claims of her parents brainwashing her. I know that my own point was that she's still quite young and it takes a long time for composers to figure out what kind of music they want to write, and if other older people are feeding her their opinions, that could potentially affect her wanting to listen to newer music in a detrimental way. The way she presented her point of view regarding "ugly newer music" didn't sound like she had come up with that point on her own. 

I suppose my personal philosophy regarding enjoying or not enjoying things is that I have to listen to it first – I take issue with forming opinions on music that I haven't heard yet.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

composingmusic said:


> This isn't the case. Yes, some things are more standardized, but instrument makers are also experimenting with lots of new things. For example, there's been new developments with instruments like the contraforte and various Kingma flute systems, not to mention all kinds of exciting percussion instruments...
> 
> 
> 
> I don't think people here are making claims of her parents brainwashing her. I know that my own point was that she's still quite young and it takes a long time for composers to figure out what kind of music they want to write, and if other older people are feeding her their opinions, that could potentially affect her wanting to listen to newer music in a detrimental way. The way she presented her point of view regarding "ugly newer music" didn't sound like she had come up with that point on her own..


The young woman is a precocious prodigy. When you hear her talk, she doesn’t come across as someone who has been conditioned to think a certain way or who is parroting what her parents or others are saying. You seem to be looking for, as they say, a flea in the ointment.


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## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

DaveM said:


> The young woman is a precocious prodigy. When you hear her talk, she doesn’t come across as someone who has been conditioned to think a certain way or who is parroting what her parents or others are saying. You seem to be looking for, as they say, a flea in the ointment.


And her training by Robert Gjerdingen is not that different from how Schoenberg, Stravinsky or Carter were taught, with an emphasis on counterpoint and improv


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## composingmusic (Dec 16, 2021)

Bwv 1080 said:


> And her training by Robert Gjerdingen is not that different from how Schoenberg, Stravinsky or Carter were taught, with an emphasis on counterpoint and improv


Indeed, this is quite typical for composers who are starting out. Composers who go to conservatoire for undergraduate studies will typically have some sort of foundational training in harmony and counterpoint. What exactly this training involves, and how thorough it is, depends quite a lot on the school, the country said school is located in, and a bunch of other factors. 

When I was starting out, I wrote quite a lot of music in a common practice style. This is not uncommon, and I'd like to think that I can write reasonably well within various stylistic idioms. However, I would not say that this music is representative of what I want to do as a composer. To make it clear, I'm not looking to compare myself to anyone – this is just to put some of my previous remarks regarding personal stylistic idiom and the journey to finding that into perspective.


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## composingmusic (Dec 16, 2021)

DaveM said:


> You seem to be looking for, as they say, a flea in the ointment.


I don't think that's the case at all. I'm simply stating that she's still quite young and the journey to finding what a composer wants to write takes a long time. Most people I know who started writing quite young were not writing the same music at age 18 as they were at age 28, no matter how good they were as children or in their teenage years. 

Deutscher is undoubtedly very smart and capable – I'm not questioning that at all. What I'm questioning is the inflexibility of some of her claims, and I have to wonder whether she came up with these claims on her own, or whether these have been reinforced by those around her.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Bwv 1080 said:


> And her training by Robert Gjerdingen is not that different from how Schoenberg, Stravinsky or Carter were taught, with an emphasis on counterpoint and improv


Either that’s in doubt or something in the direction was ignored given the difference in the result.


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## Aries (Nov 29, 2012)

SanAntone said:


> What I said was that even if a composer's career were devoted to writing music in the 18th century style of Mozart or Haydn, his music would either be superficial imitation with hacks, or with talented composers inherently different (in kind, not degree) because of the world in which he lived, as opposed to, the world of Mozart and Haydn.


It is a made up artificial classification. It is often true, but it just needs one counterexample to collapse this unneccessary house of cards.



SanAntone said:


> I see this entire line of argument just another attempt to discredit the music of the 20th century, and now 21st, which departed from common practice styes and forms, and a nostalgic longing for some new living composers to write in styles which are comfortable for that segment of the classical music audience which has trouble reconciling the newer more experimental styles with the classical music tradition.


Why is there so much self-confidence missing? A composer writing in a different style does not invalidate other styles.



SanAntone said:


> I never said or implied that music written in a style from a previous period cannot be appreciated for what it is. But what "it is" is not music from the 18th century.
> 
> Written in the 20th century it is either hommage or pastiche or just inspired by but not exactly in the same style, and those examples can be valid artistically. Or in lesser hands, it would be the superficially derivative work of a hack.


This is just theoretical. To which composers does it apply? The style of Alma Deutscher is clearly different to that of Mozart. For me the approch of theme constructions seems influenced by music of the last 90 years and the romantic music. Compared to Mozart there is much less playfulness with motifs and less sweetness, instead more drama. However the aestetics are classicist nonetheless. So what style is it. It is the classicist style developed into a direction.

Another example is Thomas Schmidt-Kowlaski who wrote in romantic style at the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century. His style sounds like composed in 1870, and reminds somewhat of composers like Bruch and Raff. Maybe there is some modern influence to but I don't see it yet. But the forced classification as either "different to the past" or "pastiche" is total nonsense. There is no reason to even think about it. Listen to it try to enjoy it. Some will like the style, others won't. For me it is a bit mediocre, but just because I think it is mediocre music compared to greater composers, not because of some made up ideologic nonsense:


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## Aries (Nov 29, 2012)

Bwv 1080 said:


> If she wants to write in a traditional style, then more power to her, but that hardly invalidates 120 years of modernism


Yes, it does not invalidate other styles. But it invalidates an exclusive mandate or sole representation claim of other styles for our time.


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## YusufeVirdayyLmao (Nov 13, 2021)

SanAntone said:


> I never said or implied that music written in a style from a previous period cannot be appreciated for what it is. But what "it is" is not music from the 18th century.
> 
> Written in the 20th century it is either hommage or pastiche or just inspired by but not exactly in the same style, and those examples can be valid artistically. Or in lesser hands, it would be the superficially derivative work of a hack.


Isn't it true though that 18th century style music "never stopped being written", and was merely just overshadowed by later developments? At least I read that was the case in the 1800s.

(I.e. the way "the swing era" etc. never stopped, just wasn't as mainstream/ubiquitous/default anymore.)


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## YusufeVirdayyLmao (Nov 13, 2021)

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> I can see where you're coming from. It's been a while since I've listened to or followed AD, but I do remember her describing modern music as people writing ugly music to describe an ugly world, and by contrast she wanted to write beautiful music.
> 
> This is an ignorant take which has probably been spoonfed to her by adults, I can agree with you on that. But I see nothing wrong with finding beauty in her music.


Idk that sounds like the stereotype that all "modern music" is like Atmospheres - i.e. chrom cluster horror music;
don't need to go any further than Lontano to know that only a part of New Music is like that lol

And Lontano is famous and osmotic, so most people who stereotype New Music that way probably just aren't thinking clearly at the moment - and if you asked them "well what about that though" they'd be like "oh, oh yeah lol, guess I forgot nvm then"


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## composingmusic (Dec 16, 2021)

YusufeVirdayyLmao said:


> Idk that sounds like the stereotype that all "modern music" is like Atmospheres - i.e. chrom cluster horror music;
> don't need to go any further than Lontano to know that only a part of New Music is like that lol
> 
> And Lontano is famous and osmotic, so most people who stereotype New Music that way probably just aren't thinking clearly at the moment - and if you asked them "well what about that though" they'd be like "oh, oh yeah lol, guess I forgot nvm then"


And this is two pieces from the same composer! If you look at later Ligeti, you have something completely different – much more rhythmic and atomised. If we look at other composers, there’s an even more vast array of variety: the precise luminous music of Dutilleux and Takemitsu, the extraordinary coloured harmonies of Messiaen, the slowly evolving refined sound world of the spectralists, the process-based rhythmic music of the minimalists, the timbrally rich music of Lachenmann, Xenakis, and others, the chance music of Cage… the list goes on and on, and I’m making some big generalisations here. There’s so much to discover with these composers.


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## YusufeVirdayyLmao (Nov 13, 2021)

composingmusic said:


> And this is two pieces from the same composer! If you look at later Ligeti, you have something completely different – much more rhythmic and atomised. If we look at other composers, there’s an even more vast array of variety: the precise luminous music of Dutilleux and Takemitsu, the extraordinary coloured harmonies of Messiaen, the slowly evolving refined sound world of the spectralists, the process-based rhythmic music of the minimalists, the timbrally rich music of Lachenmann, Xenakis, and others, the chance music of Cage… the list goes on and on, and I’m making some big generalisations here. There’s so much to discover with these composers.


So far only barely familiar with most of those, unfortunately - gonna have to catch up.
Got some blurry memories of Messiaen, and heard a few symphonic pieces by Xenakis which happened to fall into the "cosmic horror" category though ("Keqrops" for instance, woah), etc.

Ligeti seems like the go-to NM composer to directly insert in movies, Lontano was used in Shutter Island off the top of my head.
His Coullée (as well as the other organ etude, that one's left up to the pitch controllers though) and parts of the Continuum are also of the "ethereal" variety;

the "Autumn in Warsaw" piano etude is mostly chromatic tritones, so unsettling but not dissonant/"ugly" etc.


On a very basic level, everyone knows which kinds of intervals/chords/otherwise produce sharp dissonance, and which produce harmonic but "surreal" sounds, and then which ones sound "tonal" and "common practice" and "normal" - and that NM composers generally use all of those, in various ways.
However the particular dissonant type is just a widespread cultural notion I guess, so some just roll with it. Oh well


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Torkelburger said:


> When I say validity, I mean accepting modern and contemporary music for how they are and not expecting them to be any different than on the terms they have set for themselves, and the terms history has placed on them.





> ...what people who seem to be arguing for who are wanting a more film scoring/commercial arranging/pop music/faux romantic approach to the modern concert hall, is sentimentality.


I think there's a contradiction here. I think that all types of music can be accepted on their own terms. If a certain type of music is worth something on its own terms, it doesn't need a dichotomy set up to elevate it in comparison to other music.


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## composingmusic (Dec 16, 2021)

YusufeVirdayyLmao said:


> So far only barely familiar with most of those, unfortunately - gonna have to catch up.
> Got some blurry memories of Messiaen, and heard a few symphonic pieces by Xenakis which happened to fall into the "cosmic horror" category though ("Keqrops" for instance, woah), etc.
> 
> Ligeti seems like the go-to NM composer to directly insert in movies, Lontano was used in Shutter Island off the top of my head.
> ...


A big reason for the Ligeti movie trope is that Stanley Kubrick was a fan. Interestingly, he ended up in a lawsuit because he used Ligeti’s music without his permission in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

As for the dissonance trope, composers in the 20th and 21st century use a wider range of harmonic language than what was available in the common practice area. If one is used to common practice harmony, it can take a moment to get used to 20th century harmony, but imo it’s a journey well worth exploring!


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

composingmusic said:


> A big reason for the Ligeti movie trope is that Stanley Kubrick was a fan. Interestingly, he ended up in a lawsuit because he used Ligeti’s music without his permission in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
> 
> As for the dissonance trope, composers in the 20th and 21st century use a wider range of harmonic language than what was available in the common practice area. If one is used to common practice harmony, it can take a moment to get used to 20th century harmony, but imo it’s a journey well worth exploring!


I think the composers on TC (and everywhere else) have stimulated thoughts about the fundamentals of music that non-musicians will need years of such unique (composing and exploring) experiences to understand and appreciate.

Here I am speaking for composers (I've composed very little), but I can't shake this thought. If it's true, then it's logical to have members talking past each other resulting in many threads (of course, it's not that bad, but I don't have better words to describe it). I'm not complaining..


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Luchesi said:


> I think the composers on TC (and everywhere else) have stimulated thoughts about the fundamentals of music that non-musicians will need years of such unique (composing and exploring) experiences to understand and appreciate..


I don’t understand the point. Does it imply that composers on TC are so far ahead of the rest of us in some sort of highly profound territory that we minions have a lot of catching up to do? If that is the point then I disagree.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

The irony for me in terms of the recurring debate about modernism on this forum is that it’s so rooted in the past. I think most would agree that modernism has been over for quite a long time. Depending on who you ask, that happened 50 to 70 years ago, and since then we've entered postmodernism.

I think this is obvious, but modernism had certain features such as formalist theory, the creation of a canon of works, critical methods grounded in a linear view of progress, and so on. With the decline of modernism, postmodernism formulated what I call an anything goes philosophy. In other words, anything can be art, anyone can be an artist, any language is acceptable. It validates the diversity of what's happening on the ground, values different viewpoints and local (or smaller scale, meta) narratives, questions the meaning of the canon, accepts blurred boundaries, including between high and low art, seeks to include context, and so on.

I think that the polarising nature of these debates is based not necessarily on what music music people listen to, what they find acceptable or reject, it's more about the fact that they're trying to reimpose modernism rather than accepting the implications of what has been happening in music and the other arts for over half a century. It's a really odd phenomenon which I've only come across to this extent on this forum.

I think that on the whole, most people are comfortable with postmodernism. In terms of its acceptance of diversity, the two recent bones of contention on this forum - avant-garde and film music - have found a common home under the broad classical umbrella. Music ensembles devoted to new music coexist beside mainstream orchestras which are increasingly playing film music.

This diversity has practical implications in relation to what's happening right now, post-covid. Music groups across the industry will need to focus on keeping the music scene alive and keep attracting audiences. If anything, I think that the current situation will encourage further breaking of boundaries and creative ways of thinking to deal with these, as well as other, challenges.

As far as I'm concerned, the supposed certainties of modernism look even less relevant now than before. While it's been absorbed into the wider culture, looking at things now through a modernist lens just doesn't make sense to me.


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

DaveM said:


> I don’t understand the point. Does it imply that composers on TC are so far ahead of the rest of us in some sort of highly profound territory that we minions have a lot of catching up to do? If that is the point then I disagree.


oh, sorry


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

DaveM said:


> Does it imply that composers on TC are so far ahead of the rest of us in some sort of highly profound territory that we minions have a lot of catching up to do?


IMO the only area where you might have to "catch up" is with cultivating a wider ranging sense of curiosity. 

For me the most important aspect for having a positive interaction with new music is first being curious about it. *Wanting to hear what new composers are writing*; with an open mind not given to judging what you are hearing. But if you come to the experience with preconceived notions about what is classical music, or that the avant-garde is not included in classical music; then you place obstacles between you and the opportunity of having a musical experience that often can be exciting and enjoyable.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

SanAntone said:


> IMO the only area where you might have to "catch up" is with cultivating a wider ranging sense of curiosity.
> 
> For me the most important aspect for having a positive interaction with new music is first being curious about it. *Wanting to hear what new composers are writing*; with an open mind not given to judging what you are hearing. But if you come to the experience with preconceived notions about what is classical music, or that the avant-garde is not included in classical music; then you place obstacles between you and the opportunity of having a musical experience that often can be exciting and enjoyable.


‘_The meaning of PRECONCEIVE is to form (an opinion) prior to actual knowledge or experience.’_

That’s the same old argument that it is the listener that has the problem. I have decades of experience listening, playing and even doing a little composing. I’ve formed my opinion from long experience and knowledge. While you may think that you have the wisdom of the musical ages to talk down to me, I have never seen any indication that you know more on the subject than I do. My issue has been with avant-garde -which to me is that particular music that is more an experiment with presenting random different sounds that one does not ordinarily expect a given instrument to make.

I’ve pointed out that IMO, when one removes melody, harmony and structure, then you are in a different category of music. But there is another issue with avant-garde: there are no rules. As such, contrary to both music of the CP era and other modern non-AG music, one can’t tell good avant-garde music from bad. Whenever this subject has come up, no one promoting AV has been able to come up with parameters that distinguish a good AV composer from a bad one. That would seem to lower the bar to a minimum that an AV composer has to measure up to. (That is the territory that resulted in the Bubbles Experiment.) Personally, I prefer being able to distinguish well-composed music.

Another thing: I challenge anyone who listens to AV music as I have defined it above to be able to pick out wrong notes made by the player(s). For that matter, with some works, to be able to tell if the stringed instruments are in or out of tune.

And no one need bother responding with the ‘well, you just don’t like it’ as if that is the point. No it isn’t the point. No I don‘t like it. I don’t like a number of modern works. I totally understand that there are those who enjoy AV music. What I don’t understand is why there is the demand to link it to classical music. Is it because it has come from the same academic sources as original CM? Well, if so, a pox on their houses. Is it because tying AV to CM gives it some sort of gravitas? Well, why can’t it stand on its own?


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## That Guy Mick (May 31, 2020)

An attempt to validate a music piece belies its unworthiness for the masses and the critical ear. It is an exercise born of vanity, qualified with pseudo-intellectual disguises that pollute the digital discussion sphere. The discovered quality piece is the rare exception.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Sid James said:


> The irony for me in terms of these neverending debates about modernism on this forum is that they're so rooted in the past. I think most would agree that modernism has been over for quite a long time. Depending on who you ask, that happened 50 to 70 years ago, and since then we've entered postmodernism.
> 
> I think this is obvious, but modernism had certain features such as formalist theory, the creation of a canon of works, critical methods grounded in a linear view of progress, and so on.


The music from the second half of the 20th century is quite diverse and much of it isn’t like what you describe. Think Cardew’s The Great Learning, Cage’s music with flexible time brackets, Feldman’s intuitive compositions, Radigue’s Triptych, Skempton’s piano music. None of these are based on a formalist theory.

As far as the idea that modernism is over is concerned - in the sense of using system to structure a composition - I need to think about that. There’s a world of computer aided composition -like Tenney’s Spectrum pieces and Mazulis’s Twittering Machines, Bernhard Lang’s Monadologies are possibly an example. And there’s process music, like Reich’s. Conceptual music too like Peter Ablinger’s transcriptions of the rain.


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## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

DaveM said:


> Another thing: I challenge anyone who listens to AV music as I have defined it above to be able to pick out wrong notes made by the player(s). For that matter, with some works, to be able to tell if the stringed instruments are in or out of tune.


Boulez famously could, as can any musician today who specializes in this music. How many could hear a wrong note in the middle of a Bach piece if that note followed the harmonic conventions of the style, say playing a ii6 instead of a IV?


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

Bwv 1080 said:


> Boulez famously could, as can any musician today who specializes in this music. How many could hear a wrong note in the middle of a Bach piece if that note followed the harmonic conventions of the style, say playing a ii6 instead of a IV?


yep. He was known as 'the French Correction' by UK musos. Although his hearing did let him down once when player addressed him as Mr Bootlace during a rehearsal, much to the giggling amusement of others.

@DaveM , Dave you say you've done some composing in the past, may I ask what kind of composing, just curious.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Sid James said:


> The irony for me in terms of the recurring debate about modernism on this forum is that it’s so rooted in the past. I think most would agree that modernism has been over for quite a long time. Depending on who you ask, that happened 50 to 70 years ago, and since then we've entered postmodernism.
> 
> I think this is obvious, but modernism had certain features such as formalist theory, the creation of a canon of works, critical methods grounded in a linear view of progress, and so on. With the decline of modernism, postmodernism formulated what I call an anything goes philosophy. In other words, anything can be art, anyone can be an artist, any language is acceptable. It validates the diversity of what's happening on the ground, values different viewpoints and local (or smaller scale, meta) narratives, questions the meaning of the canon, accepts blurred boundaries, including between high and low art, seeks to include context, and so on.


The irony seems that the first post of the thread followed the maxim "offense is the best defense" and more clearly attacked what he sees as sentimental and bad music, in any case it was to me much clearer and more explicit about what was "bad" (sentimental, clichéed, "fake" etc.) in some music than about what was good or "valid" about the other music. This seems very far from an "anything goes" stance. I am not saying that the OP was wrong but he was not pro "anything goes", if "anything goes" there should be no problem with Alma Deutscher or Lion King or whatever film music.
Additionally, the common ground between tradition (roughly, anything before modernity), modernity, "common sense", and the OP that is not shared by postmodernity is that "anything goes" is wrong. They former positions may all have different criteria (tradition tends to universal, "timeless" ones, modernity to historical/"diaclectical" ones, common sense rarely has explicit criteria but certainly does not find that "anything goes") but they all do distinguish between "good" (interesting, authentic....) art works and "bad" (sentimental, superficial...)


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

I can assure you that in today’s music many things do not go, no more today than in the 19th century. The musical establishment - university people, press, publishers, concert impresarios etc - can oppose eccentrics vociferously and make continuing hard for them.

A friend of mine, a composer, made music out of the sound of himself pissing. And another piece out of the sound of scotch tape being slowly unrolled. He was cancelled by the establishment. Needing to put bread on the table he now writes more conventional pieces for conventional ensembles, pieces which get performed in festivals and on the radio.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

DaveM said:


> ‘_The meaning of PRECONCEIVE is to form (an opinion) prior to actual knowledge or experience.’_
> 
> That’s the same old argument that it is the listener that has the problem. I have decades of experience listening, playing and even doing a little composing. I’ve formed my opinion from long experience and knowledge. While you may think that you have the wisdom of the musical ages to talk down to me, I have never seen any indication that you know more on the subject than I do. My issue has been with avant-garde -which to me is that particular music that is more an experiment with presenting random different sounds that one does not ordinarily expect a given instrument to make.


There are two ways to look at this, I think. One is that an experienced listener who fails to register and respond to music that many others love _*is *_failing to get what they get from the music. The other is that you (and those who have similar tastes) are right and all those who like or love modern music are wrong. You seem to argue for the latter which seems to me to be arrogance. I think you _are _failing to get what lovers of modern music get but don't get too upset by the word "failing" - we all have blind spots and many of us feel that we are right in those and all those who disagree are wrong. It's hard not to _feel _any other way. But what we _know _from applying logic to the situation is that tastes vary and often we share more enthusiasms than we fail to share.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> A friend of mine, a composer, made music out of the sound of himself pissing.


well that's surely just taking the ****....


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

mikeh375 said:


> well that's surely just taking the ****....


I once asked him whether performing fluxus type pieces is hard. He said, much harder than you might think, when you've got an audience watching you . . . .


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> I once asked him whether performing fluxus type pieces is hard. He said, much harder than you might think, when you've got an audience watching you . . . .


lol...good one.


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## YusufeVirdayyLmao (Nov 13, 2021)

composingmusic said:


> A big reason for the Ligeti movie trope is that Stanley Kubrick was a fan. Interestingly, he ended up in a lawsuit because he used Ligeti’s music without his permission in 2001: A Space Odyssey.


Yeah but then he also ended up appreciating what Kubrick did with his compositions lol - the contradictions of being a professional artist, I suppose.



> As for the dissonance trope, composers in the 20th and 21st century use a wider range of harmonic language than what was available in the common practice area. If one is used to common practice harmony, it can take a moment to get used to 20th century harmony, but imo it’s a journey well worth exploring!


Given the wide cultural exposure that NM and stuff influenced by it has, I doubt there's too many people nowadays truly unfamiliar with post-common-practice harmony etc. - however every now and again, many will get temporary early onset dementia and forget stuff that they already know;
_or_, they have a dog in the fight and will purposefully disregard/forget the stuff that they know, in order to win some kinda battle.

Those 2 probably account for a lot of the comments that seem to stem from lack of basic familiarity - but don't really know for sure.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

DaveM said:


> ‘_The meaning of PRECONCEIVE is to form (an opinion) prior to actual knowledge or experience.’_
> 
> That’s the same old argument that it is the listener that has the problem. I have decades of experience listening, playing and even doing a little composing. I’ve formed my opinion from long experience and knowledge. While you may think that you have the wisdom of the musical ages to talk down to me, I have never seen any indication that you know more on the subject than I do. My issue has been with avant-garde -which to me is that particular music that is more an experiment with presenting random different sounds that one does not ordinarily expect a given instrument to make.


The problem with your view is that you talk about "the avant-garde" as if it were one monolithic thing and all of the composers wrote the same kind of music. This is the preconceived notion itself. If you had spent any significant time with the music you would know that the only thing that is true for all of the music is that it is incredibly varied, and wide ranging regarding the plethora of styles which composers embrace and represent. It is vastly preferable to discuss a single piece of music, one work at a time, and not attempt to describe, especially negatively, an entire period or genre of music.

You also appear to have a chip on your shoulder and are defensive in how you responded to my simple request to you and all listeners, myself included, to keep an open mind when listening to any music we are unfamiliar with. And above all to nurture curiosity about new music.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Kreisler jr said:


> Additionally, the common ground between tradition (roughly, anything before modernity), modernity, "common sense", and the OP that is not shared by postmodernity is that "anything goes" is wrong. They former positions may all have different criteria (tradition tends to universal, "timeless" ones, modernity to historical/"diaclectical" ones, common sense rarely has explicit criteria but certainly does not find that "anything goes") but they all do distinguish between "good" (interesting, authentic....) art works and "bad" (sentimental, superficial...)


How we perceive things has to do with how we were educated. Even things like the slow movement of Beethoven's Op.132 (I'm not picking on Beethoven; I'm just taking an example of a work highly valued); if we were constantly educated from youth that it is an expression of sentimentality, that it is, for example, in the same vein of "sentimentality" as Max Richter's famous string work (I'm not arguing that it is; I'm just hypothesizing), our perception of it in our adulthood would have been different. Things can be "profound" in the eyes of one person, but "sentimental" in the eyes of another.
A ton of human _creativity and ingenuity_ went into inventing ice cream. Do we all have to acknowledge its value and the inventor's "achievement" in inventing it even if we don't care for its taste? Just cause something was created by rules of good taste and has been appreciated by many, it doesn't mean it has everlasting intrinsic value to be acknowledged by everyone.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

SanAntone said:


> Like the saying goes: ‘Talent borrows; genius steals.’ Which usually is understood to mean, mediocre talent copies where as a genius absorbs and makes his sources his own.


But aren't you letting your knowledge of history affect your perception of a work? What if you were "fooled" to believe something like the Max Richter string work (that sounds like late Beethoven) was composed in the 18th century, and what if you never learned of Beethoven Op.132? Somehow the value of a work are not "intrinsic in itself", but dependant on context of things like historical understanding?


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

The problem with "subjectivism" is that it should lead to "anything goes" (same with postmodernity although they use lots of fancy words instead). But as others have said, in practice, there rarely is "anything goes". That's why people have to invoke ersatz or external mechanisms for why not anything goes or why so many people agree when they should not from a subjectivist standpoint. But the external mechanisms (and there are of course many) are not always a better explanation, quite to the contrary. (They could usually explain the opposite of the historical facts as well, because the external factors, like fashion pressure could have produced a totally different result, e.g. Wölfl could have become as famous as Beethoven and vice versa. Late Beethoven could have been considered trite and Silcher or Moscheles sublime etc. because the forces of fashion would not care for aesthetic value (as the latter doesn't really exist anyway for honest subjectivists.))

The "education" point hardly helps. We believe many correct things because we have been educated to do so, e.g. most of established science. Nobody could do all the experiments himself (and usually nobody would pay a physicists or chemist to re-do experiments for bits of knowledge established long ago and not in doubt) and many would not be educated and smart enough to understand more involved proofs or derivations, so they basically have to believe the results from textbooks or popular science books. Which is usually rational (partly because there is no real alternative) as long as one can generally assume that the "system" and the institutions of science work as they should. (Sometimes they don't, for recent examples from science, watch the Weinstein/Heying podcasts.) So "they think x is good/correct only because they are educated thus" is not a very good argument. It doesn't at all debunk the content in question because it holds also for many undoubtedly true beliefs, e.g. in maths.
(A similar point could be made with pure conventions, like language. There might be historical reasons why "knight" is spelled like that (it's a cognate of "knecht" and long ago was probably pronounced more like that) but it doesn't matter much. If a kid writes "nyte" instead, that's simply wrong in modern English and there's no discussion about it. One should write it like learned and if learned correctly, it will be correct and even with illogical spellings (like "friend"), no amount of logic or history of language will change that (or only in a process of decades).)

All this is besides my point, which was that the OP clearly speaks against "anything goes" and seems to have a rather precise set of criteria (and does not think they are his personal, subjective opinions, but at least something valid for now because of a preceding historical development) for what is sentimental or clichéed and what is surprising, daring and humanizing (or whatever the positive attributes were).


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

What determines whether a work is classified as good, authentic etc is not intrinsic to the work, and is not to do with the effects the work produces on the people who experience it. It’s a social judgement - the judgement of academics, journalists etc.

Take Manet’s déjeuner sur l’herbe, a work which broke all the establishment rules - rules of perspective, narrative coherence etc. Done in a different time and a different place by a different person, it would be judged as a poor work. As it is, it is a major work of art.

Same for, let’s say, The Eroica Symphony or The Jupiter Symphony.


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

Kreisler jr said:


> The problem with "subjectivism" is that it should lead to "anything goes" (same with postmodernity although they use lots of fancy words instead). But as others have said, in practice, there rarely is "anything goes". That's why people have to invoke ersatz or external mechanisms for why not anything goes or why so many people agree when they should not from a subjectivist standpoint. But the external mechanisms (and there are of course many) are not always a better explanation, quite to the contrary. (They could usually explain the opposite of the historical facts as well, because the external factors, like fashion pressure could have produced a totally different result, e.g. Wölfl could have become as famous as Beethoven and vice versa. Late Beethoven could have been considered trite and Silcher or Moscheles sublime etc. because the forces of fashion would not care for aesthetic value (as the latter doesn't really exist anyway for honest subjectivists.))
> 
> The "education" point hardly helps. We believe many correct things because we have been educated to do so, e.g. most of established science. Nobody could do all the experiments himself (and usually nobody would pay a physicists or chemist to re-do experiments for bits of knowledge established long ago and not in doubt) and many would not be educated and smart enough to understand more involved proofs or derivations, so they basically have to believe the results from textbooks or popular science books. Which is usually rational (partly because there is no real alternative) as long as one can generally assume that the "system" and the institutions of science work as they should. (Sometimes they don't, for recent examples from science, watch the Weinstein/Heying podcasts.) So "they think x is good/correct only because they are educated thus" is not a very good argument. It doesn't at all debunk the content in question because it holds also for many undoubtedly true beliefs, e.g. in maths.
> (A similar point could be made with pure conventions, like language. There might be historical reasons why "knight" is spelled like that (it's a cognate of "knecht" and long ago was probably pronounced more like that) but it doesn't matter much. If a kid writes "nyte" instead, that's simply wrong in modern English and there's no discussion about it. One should write it like learned and if learned correctly, it will be correct and even with illogical spellings (like "friend"), no amount of logic or history of language will change that (or only in a process of decades).)
> ...


As usual I mostly agree with you, but making a technical field a part of your life, as they say, requires that the fundamentals are understood in all their guises. 
"Education' is the shortcut way of doing this for people who don't have the time or the inclination to explore and learn the fundamentals, but as you say I don't think it's the best way. I don't know what can be done about this, except to get the kids early and get them into the fundamentals, no matter what the field of study is.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Kreisler jr said:


> How do you explain that Mozart had clearly "won" vs. Paisiello by the mid-19th century or so? Life story? Mysterious dominance of "German/Austrian" influencers, despite French/Italian opera still dominating Europe at the time? Both not plausible.
> The problem with "snowballing" as explanation is that if the Paisiello snowball is a bit bigger in 1790 but the Mozart snowball is MUCH bigger 1890 (not to mention 1990) there must be reasons for the difference in growth of the snowballs.
> It's clearly not automatic and it becomes HARDER, not easier to explain if the Paisiello snowball was bigger 1790. Why is the slope they roll down different and the accretion rate of additional snow? I'd say the Mozart snowball is "more sticky" and this is because his music is in the end more interesting/more entertaining/deeper/better/attribute of choice.


I've thought of this question, and I think it has something to do with the Romantic era's infatuation and manufacture of images like the "first Romantic", "tortured artist", "progenitor [of something]", which still subconsciously affect us to this day. Someone mentioned in another thread that the statistical popularity of Mozart in terms of number of mentions in newspapers of the late 19th century and early 20th century was surprisingly very low compared to that of Wagner, for example.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Is this pastiche, for example?








How many of these excerpts are music by Mozart?







www.talkclassical.com




How come everyone backs away (from answering this question)?


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

hammeredklavier said:


> Is this pastiche, for example?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Show me the scores and I'll attempt to answer the questions. But just listening, that's problematic. I need objective facts.

But if I'm good at it or I'm bad at it, I don't know what the point is, beyond that.

For me, the appreciation of CM is in the history and the development and the progress toward increasing effectiveness and the human details (from science).


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Enthusiast said:


> There are two ways to look at this, I think. One is that an experienced listener who fails to register and respond to music that many others love _*is *_failing to get what they get from the music. The other is that you (and those who have similar tastes) are right and all those who like or love modern music are wrong. You seem to argue for the latter which seems to me to be arrogance...


That hasn’t been my message. It has been about the classification. Instead of responding to the points I made, you resort to ad hominem.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

SanAntone said:


> The problem with your view is that you talk about "the avant-garde" as if it were one monolithic thing and all of the composers wrote the same kind of music. This is the preconceived notion itself. If you had spent any significant time with the music you would know that the only thing that is true for all of the music is that it is incredibly varied, and wide ranging regarding the plethora of styles which composers embrace and represent. It is vastly preferable to discuss a single piece of music, one work at a time, and not attempt to describe, especially negatively, an entire period or genre of music.


I defined the parameters pretty clearly and the works I am referring to have most of them. Name one of them that doesn’t.


> You also appear to have a chip on your shoulder and are defensive in how you responded to my simple request to you and all listeners, myself included, to keep an open mind when listening to any music we are unfamiliar with. And above all to nurture curiosity about new music.


Another one of your posts that blame the listener. Has it ever occurred to you that you may be the one who is mistaken?


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Bwv 1080 said:


> Boulez famously could, as can any musician today who specializes in this music..


So you say. Sounds highly anecdotal including the Boulez comment. I’d love to place a bet on that if there was a way of testing it on a forum.


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## Aries (Nov 29, 2012)

hammeredklavier said:


> Is this pastiche, for example?


100% no pastiche. A pastiche self-identifies as such.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

DaveM said:


> So you say. Sounds highly anecdotal including the Boulez comment. I’d love to place a bet on that if there was a way of testing it on a forum.


Perhaps you missed my post above Dave. Rest assured that I heard about Boulez's ear from some musos who worked with him. They are people who's expertise and experience I trust and they should know. If you think it still sounds anecdotal then there's nothing more to say. Like I said, 'the French Correction', a moniker given by professionals and for good reason.

_......Yet, there he was on Dick Cavett's late-night TV show, the music director of the New York Philharmonic and soon-to-be founder of France’s IRCAM (Institute for the Research and Coordination of Acoustics and Music), allowing himself to be tested on his perfect pitch (the host kept asking someone in the orchestra play a note and asked Boulez to identify it, which he repeatedly and graciously did)._

A Loving Look At The Late Pierre Boulez, The Incandescent Master Of Modernism


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

DaveM said:


> That hasn’t been my message. It has been about the classification. Instead of responding to the points I made, you resort to ad hominem.


Oh Dave, Dave. There's no attack on you: merely a statement of where reasoning took me. By all mean point out the wrong in my reasoning.


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

DaveM said:


> I defined the parameters pretty clearly and the works I am referring to have most of them. Name one of them that doesn’t. Another one of your posts that blame the listener. Has it ever occurred to you that you may be the one who is mistaken?


DaveM, I think you have some legitimate concerns here and are also running into the limitations of what can be accomplished in a TC discussion. First, I think overall you've earned your stripes as a commentator and don't need to respond to people who seem to suggest otherwise. We're anonymous and no one submits resumes here. Music preference is subjective and yours should be respected; you've made it quite clear. But we also live in the age of the influencer and there are many ways of promoting or suppressing different types of music; I'm still finding out about new ones. As far as a categorization of music that separates classical and avant-garde goes, it is plausible but I think there are too many factors, some complex, to deal with for even a long TC discussion. In the end it boils down to what real-world decisions are made in important sectors. Anyway, that's it for now.


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## YusufeVirdayyLmao (Nov 13, 2021)

hammeredklavier said:


> I've thought of this question, and I think it has something to do with the Romantic era's infatuation and manufacture of images like the "first Romantic", "tortured artist", "progenitor [of something]", which subconsciously affects us to this day. Someone mentioned in another thread that the statistical popularity of Mozart in terms of number of mentions in newspapers of the late 19th century and early 20th century was surprisingly very low compared to that of Wagner, for example.


Paisiello's Barber was successful until Rossini's came along (which was way after Mozart - whereas Paisiello's came out before Mozart's Figaro) and then started getting displaced by it.

The other 2(+? - not counting that one guy with the bad timing, think his just got lost didn't it?) Barbers I don't think I've even managed to find any recordings of - so Paisiello is still quite up there as far as fame goes, but if he lost the fame competition to any 1 guy that'd probably be Rossini, right?

So idk, maybe further information on how that happened would answer this question; Rossini's version had more fireworks obviously - not sure if that could be the only factor though..


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## composingmusic (Dec 16, 2021)

mikeh375 said:


> Perhaps you missed my post above Dave. Rest assured that I heard about Boulez's ear from some musos who worked with him. They are people who's expertise and experience I trust and they should know. If you think it sounds anecdotal then there's nothing more to say. Like I said, 'the French Correction', a moniker given by professionals and for good reason.


I can vouch for this as well. I didn’t personally interact with him, but I know people who have. Boulez is also far from the only composer currently or recently alive with an extraordinarily precise ear: a few people who immediately come to mind are Péter Eötvös, Oliver Knussen, and George Benjamin.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

I think there's nothing surprising about being able to hear false notes in music where there's an audible structure. It's the way memory works, like chess players can remember whole matches because they understand the logic, the thinking. I am sure that many people could hear false notes in, for example, Pli selon Pli or in the Schoenberg quartets. Where it may be more of a problem is in dense longish pieces with no audible structure, where the pitches are or appear to be random. Things like the first movement of the Barraqué sonata. 

Anyway, the discussion seems to be a bit pointless to me -- nothing follows, whether people can reliably hear false pitches or not. Pitch is only one element of music, no more or less important than any other. A composer may chose to use definite pitches primarily to build textures, for example. What the pitches are _exactly _is less important in the passage -- that may be the case in the Barraqué for all I know. It's analogous to the way timbre is less important in, for example, a Mozart keyboard sonata, which can work in a stimulating way on many types of keyboard instruments.


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## YusufeVirdayyLmao (Nov 13, 2021)

"_allowing himself to be tested on his perfect pitch (the host kept asking someone in the orchestra play a note and asked Boulez to identify it, which he repeatedly and graciously did)._"

Being able to pick out 1 note is a pretty common ability, I can do it too - however going by the context in which this was brought up, I'm assuming he could like tell a wrong note in fast-paced cluster heavy pieces/passages, which sounds insane.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Roger Knox said:


> DaveM, I think you have some legitimate concerns here and are also running into the limitations of what can be accomplished in a TC discussion. First, I think overall you've earned your stripes as a commentator and don't need to respond to people who seem to suggest otherwise. We're anonymous and no one submits resumes here. Music preference is subjective and yours should be respected; you've made it quite clear. But we also live in the age of the influencer and there are many ways of promoting or suppressing different types of music; I'm still finding out about new ones. As far as a categorization of music that separates classical and avant-garde goes, it is plausible but I think there are too many factors, some complex, to deal with for even a long TC discussion. In the end it boils down to what real-world decisions are made in important sectors. Anyway, that's it for now.


Those are good balanced points. The fact is that I’ve lost some patience when it comes this subject. After a good harangue, I feel surprisingly better now.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> I think there's nothing surprising about being able to hear false notes in music where there's an audible structure. It's the way memory works, like chess players can remember whole matches because they understand the logic, the thinking. I am sure that many people could hear false notes in, for example, Pli selon Pli or in the Schoenberg quartets. Where it may be more of a problem is in dense longish pieces with no audible structure, where the pitches are or appear to be random. Things like the first movement of the Barraqué sonata.
> 
> Anyway, the discussion seems to be a bit pointless to me -- nothing follows, whether people can reliably hear false pitches or not. Pitch is only one element of music, no more or less important than any other. A composer may chose to use definite pitches primarily to build textures, for example. What the pitches are _exactly _is less important in the passage -- that may be the case in the Barraqué for all I know. It's analogous to the way timbre is less important in, for example, a Mozart keyboard sonata, which can work in a stimulating way on many types of keyboard instruments.


That makes sense, but IMO it, for the most part, supports my premise that the more true it is, the more one has moved into an entirely different category of music.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

YusufeVirdayyLmao said:


> "_allowing himself to be tested on his perfect pitch (the host kept asking someone in the orchestra play a note and asked Boulez to identify it, which he repeatedly and graciously did)._"
> 
> Being able to pick out 1 note is a pretty common ability, I can do it too - however going by the context in which this was brought up, I'm assuming he could like tell a wrong note in fast-paced cluster heavy pieces/passages, which sounds insane.


...apparently he did catch some mistakes during a rehearsal of 'Gruppen' once. It's not hard to grasp how good an ear he had because at my Alma Mater in aural classes, there where a few of us who could write down complex chords. I always needed a reference to keep up but still held my own with the perfect pitchers until the densest of tests - probably because of my composer training. Of course to compose atonally, the piano is a big help and with the physical sound literally to hand, the manipulation can take place intellectually and emotionally on the manuscript. Any attempt at invalidating atonality in these pages because of the aural complexity as perceived by a listener is a non starter, not that you yourself are attempting to do so.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Mandryka said:


> The music from the second half of the 20th century is quite diverse and much of it isn’t like what you describe. Think Cardew’s The Great Learning, Cage’s music with flexible time brackets, Feldman’s intuitive compositions, Radigue’s Triptych, Skempton’s piano music. None of these are based on a formalist theory.


I was saying that formalist theory grew out of modernism and was challenged by postmodernism. It could be argued that the composers who came to the fore during the 1950's acted like a transition between one and the other. So, that's why the boundary between modernism and postmodernism can be argued, and of course it can be different in terms of what we're talking about (e.g. music, visual art, literature).

In any case, there's a clear departure from what the generation of Stravinsky, Schoenberg and Bartok where doing and many of those who where born after 1900. I think that some from before, like Satie and Varese, where already thinking along postmodern lines or at least don't fit comfortably into modernism (e.g. in terms of developing new forms, methods of performance, concepts of sound and so on).



> As far as the idea that modernism is over is concerned - in the sense of using system to structure a composition - I need to think about that. There’s a world of computer aided composition -like Tenney’s Spectrum pieces and Mazulis’s Twittering Machines, Bernhard Lang’s Monadologies are possibly an example. And there’s process music, like Reich’s. Conceptual music too like Peter Ablinger’s transcriptions of the rain.


The legacy of modernism lives on in various ways, for example some of what you mention probably comes out of Futurism and Dada, but most would say that it's over as some sort of general direction with an overarching set of values. There are some theorists who believe the modernist project is continuing (e.g. Habermas), but they're in the minority.

Modernism can't accomodate the diversity which emerged after 1945. Some say that postmodernism came out of the trauma of modernism. Norman Mailer for example said that for his generation, Hiroshima and the Holocaust forced a change, a massive shift in ways of seeing and thinking about art.

I think one key aspect here is that the performance canon to a large extent is built out, and has been since around that period of change in the '50's. If it where a city, it would be something as dense as Hong Kong, maybe in terms of the heritage nature of classical music, Venice. Maybe there are aspects of the canon still developing (e.g. in terms of the development of a recording repertoire versus live, and the repertoire of specialised ensembles like new music and HIP, perhaps even the entry of film music and musicals in the concert hall and opera), but largely I see it as a closed shop.

My opinion is that after roughly 1945, it's better to include everything which reasonably emerges under the classical umbrella than exclude it. One reason is because building walls is difficult enough in terms of a single composer's output or even within the same work, let alone between the different approaches in a time where schools are obsolete. If we exclude the likes of avant-garde and film music, we may as well say that everything which doesn't relate to modernism should be excluded.

If we go with that alternative, we could exclude virtually everything post-1945 or thereabouts - not only classical, but also jazz, rock, pop, whatever - and label it as being various subsets or subgenres of postmodern music. This could arguably include pastiche, which seems to be an object of fascination for many members here.

I think that either way, what you get is something different from modernism. Most general histories of classical music include a chapter on what happened post-1945. If I wrote such a book, I would attempt to include the postmodern era, as well as the transitional period some call high modernism. I would try to look at things from a viewpoint of today, not over half a century ago. I think that many things are going on which warrant attention, even though most of the core classical repertoire comes from before the mid 20th century.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Kreisler jr said:


> The irony seems that the first post of the thread followed the maxim "offense is the best defense" and more clearly attacked what he sees as sentimental and bad music, in any case it was to me much clearer and more explicit about what was "bad" (sentimental, clichéed, "fake" etc.) in some music than about what was good or "valid" about the other music. This seems very far from an "anything goes" stance. I am not saying that the OP was wrong but he was not pro "anything goes", if "anything goes" there should be no problem with Alma Deutscher or Lion King or whatever film music.
> Additionally, the common ground between tradition (roughly, anything before modernity), modernity, "common sense", and the OP that is not shared by postmodernity is that "anything goes" is wrong. They former positions may all have different criteria (tradition tends to universal, "timeless" ones, modernity to historical/"diaclectical" ones, common sense rarely has explicit criteria but certainly does not find that "anything goes") but they all do distinguish between "good" (interesting, authentic....) art works and "bad" (sentimental, superficial...)


You probably missed this earlier post, where I made it clear that I don't agree with the OP's approach:









The Validity of Modern and Contemporary Music


But thats just a variant of the lament bass, a common galant device At around 1:25, there is a shift from F sharp to G for instance




www.talkclassical.com


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## composingmusic (Dec 16, 2021)

Sid James said:


> My opinion is that after roughly 1945, it's better to include everything which reasonably emerges under the classical umbrella than exclude it. One reason is because building walls is difficult enough in terms of a single composer's output or even within the same work, let alone between the different approaches in a time where schools are obsolete. If we exclude the likes of avant-garde and film music, we may as well say that everything which doesn't relate to modernism should be excluded.


Yes, I agree for several reasons. I don't think composers of this era see different facets of contemporary classical music as belonging to different genres. If we look at the network of who's been influenced by what, and where different strands of musical aesthetics grew out from, it looks like an extremely complicated web rather than neat categories. Yes, there are clear differences in aesthetics, working methods, priorities, etc. but I think there's some quite large grey areas in between these neat categories, which can imo be quite interesting. 

Going off of this earlier point, the modernist idea of music evolving in a straightforward linear fashion does not apply here. Again, it's more of a complex, weblike form where people are being influenced by each other and by external factors, and there's multiple different types of simultaneous aesthetic evolutions taking place.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Enthusiast said:


> Oh Dave, Dave. There's no attack on you: merely a statement of where reasoning took me. By all mean point out the wrong in my reasoning.


You throw around terms like ‘arrogance’ and then attribute it to ’reasoning’ along with (paraphrasing) ‘what attack can you possibly be talking about’. Get over yourself. And how’s your elephant painting collection coming?


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## Vasks (Dec 9, 2013)

About Boulez. I saw him twice in my life rehearsing. The first was with the Eastman Philharmonic. They were running through a Webern work. He stopped at one point and said that the chord was not quite in tune. He then identified one of the second violinists as the culprit who was a slightly flat. And when the player adjusted that atonal chord, it indeed sounded better to me. The second time he was rehearsing some of his own players of the Ensemble Intercontemperain and he frequently would point out minutiae of tempo, attacks, intonation. His ear was incredible.


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## composingmusic (Dec 16, 2021)

Vasks said:


> About Boulez. I saw him twice in my life rehearsing. The first was with the Eastman Philharmonic. They were running through a Webern work. He stopped at one point and said that the chord was not quite in tune. He then identified one of the second violinists as the culprit who was a slightly flat. And when the player adjusted that atonal chord, it indeed sounded better to me. The second time he was rehearsing some of his own players of the Ensemble Intercontemperain and he frequently would point out minutiae of tempo, attacks, intonation. His ear was incredible.


I haven't seen him rehearse, but have heard a number of similar anecdotes from several people.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Regarding the ability to hear wrong notes, I believe DaveM was not wondering if there are people who are able to hear wrong notes in music they know or are familiar with. I believe he was saying that one could properly hear every note in a performance of an avant-garde work but not know if those notes were played correctly. In other words, as opposed to CPT music, people would not have a sense of what many notes should actually be.


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

mmsbls said:


> Regarding the ability to hear wrong notes, I believe DaveM was not wondering if there are people who are able to hear wrong notes in music they know or are familiar with. I believe he was saying that one could properly hear every note in a performance of an avant-garde work but not know if those notes were played correctly. In other words, as opposed to CPT music, people would not have a sense of what many notes should actually be.


I've thought that the notes 'should' be in a pattern that at least 'reminds' the brain of tonality, or merely a logical sounding pattern (more primitive). This is the humanness of new music. It results in an added layer of artistically constrained ambiguity for the aware listener. AND this is the marvelous logic of all preceding music and attempts at musical expression. We can be reconciled back through the history of CM and the rise of dissonance, which is so foundational, with parallels in all the arts (of the same time, coincidentally).


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

YusufeVirdayyLmao said:


> "_allowing himself to be tested on his perfect pitch (the host kept asking someone in the orchestra play a note and asked Boulez to identify it, which he repeatedly and graciously did)._"
> 
> Being able to pick out 1 note is a pretty common ability, I can do it too - however going by the context in which this was brought up, I'm assuming he could like tell a wrong note in fast-paced cluster heavy pieces/passages, which sounds insane.


In a cluster he probably got a slightly different feeling if a note was incorrect. It's quite difficult to convey to others.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

DaveM said:


> ...
> I’ve pointed out that IMO, when one removes melody, harmony and structure, then you are in a different category of music. But there is another issue with avant-garde: there are no rules. As such, contrary to both music of the CP era and other modern non-AG music, one can’t tell good avant-garde music from bad. Whenever this subject has come up, no one promoting AV has been able to come up with parameters that distinguish a good AV composer from a bad one. That would seem to lower the bar to a minimum that an AV composer has to measure up to. (That is the territory that resulted in the Bubbles Experiment.) Personally, I prefer being able to distinguish well-composed music. ...


Dave, I feel I may have asked something like this before, and I apologize for not remembering. Often when people talk about particular types of music there is confusion about exactly what that music is. You have carefully dissociated what you call avant-garde from atonal and from modern music with harmony and melody, but I'm still not sure where you draw the line. I certainly understand your view of works such as Cage's Water Walk that seem completely divorced from classical music, but do you view works such as Boulez's Sur Incises, Anthemes 2, Stockhausen's Gruppen, Ligeti's Atmospheres, and Takemitsu's A Flock Descends into the Pentagonal Garden also avant-garde? Would you include much of Penderecki, Varese, and Gubaidulina avant-garde?


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Mandryka said:


> I can assure you that in today’s music many things do not go, no more today than in the 19th century. The musical establishment - university people, press, publishers, concert impresarios etc - can oppose eccentrics vociferously and make continuing hard for them.


No doubt they can, and to an extent that's unavoidable since protecting one's territory and cliquishness has always been part of the art world. At the same time, there have been a good number of eccentrics and outsiders who've reached the point of being a cliche - we can probably include Satie and Cage among them.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

DaveM said:


> I’ve pointed out that IMO, when one removes melody, harmony and structure, then you are in a different category of music. But there is another issue with avant-garde: there are no rules.


Would you include Perotin (who lacks recognizable melody and functional harmony) as a part of what you mean by "original CM"?
You have a positive view of the Beatles (right?) What do you think of-




"Are The Beatles Avant-Garde?"


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## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

I think the word sentimentality has a negative sound to it, creating mostly negative connotations. Then again I am sure different people will name different things as sentimental. For example, people who love and value cerebral structures in music above everything else will probably despise Tchaikovsky, and are more likely to reject most Tchaikovsky ever did as sentimental.

I do not really care about isms that much. I can well picture a piece that is sentimental to the max but still works perfectly well.

Authenticity, sincerity of expression and some sense of balance are more important values to me than avoiding sentimentality. Being clever and cerebral helps to widen the tool box but those attributes sure are not enough in themselves either.

Music is art that reflects the existence of us humans, so I welcome in music basically every aspect that is human. No gatekeeping required -- your music is welcome.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

Vasks said:


> About Boulez. I saw him twice in my life rehearsing. The first was with the Eastman Philharmonic. They were running through a Webern work. He stopped at one point and said that the chord was not quite in tune. He then identified one of the second violinists as the culprit who was a slightly flat. And when the player adjusted that atonal chord, it indeed sounded better to me. The second time he was rehearsing some of his own players of the Ensemble Intercontemperain and he frequently would point out minutiae of tempo, attacks, intonation. His ear was incredible.


Well hopefully between you Vasks, @composingmusic and myself, we'll have convinced our CP friend that his doubts are unfounded and that Boulez knew what he was doing.


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## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

mikeh375 said:


> Well hopefully between you Vasks, @composingmusic and myself, we'll have convinced our CP friend that his doubts are unfounded and that Boulez knew what he was doing.


I have heard similar anecdotes of Ligeti. My first teacher in composition told that during the rehearsals of Atmospheres Ligeti had stopped the playing and said that something is wrong in the strings. Supposedly one group of the divisi inside a huge texture cluster was playing a wrong note.

Haven’t read the whole discussion yet but I have never ever had any doubts about the professionalism of these major modernist composers — although serialism is not close to my heart, by Boulez or anyone else.

Serialism has still contributed a lot to certain technics and aesthetics so I have nothing against it.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

DaveM said:


> You throw around terms like ‘arrogance’ and then attribute it to ’reasoning’ along with (paraphrasing) ‘what attack can you possibly be talking about’. Get over yourself. And how’s your elephant painting collection coming?


OK. I guess you don't do reasoning any more. Bye.


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## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

I just listened to Repons by Boulez. This work sure is gorgeous! And the tone colours truly are magnificent. 

Doesn’t sound serialist at all, at least the textures and instrumental combinations are ”hand made” for sure, directed by the will of the composer.

(On a side note.)


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## Aries (Nov 29, 2012)

Enthusiast said:


> There are two ways to look at this, I think. One is that an experienced listener who fails to register and respond to music that many others love _*is *_failing to get what they get from the music. The other is that you (and those who have similar tastes) are right and all those who like or love modern music are wrong. You seem to argue for the latter which seems to me to be arrogance.


He argues that avantgarde is a different kind of music, not that those who like it are wrong in liking it. The fact that opinions are much split about avantgarde music, show that it is a different kind of music. All music needs some understanding, and avantgarde music apparently needs a different kind of understanding. I for example fail to understand it, however it doesn't appear to me that this is a problem. What could avantgarde music give to me that other music can not?


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## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

Aries said:


> He argues that avantgarde is a different kind of music, not that those who like it are wrong in liking it. The fact that opinions are much split about avantgarde music, show that it is a different kind of music. All music needs some understanding, and avantgarde music apparently needs a different kind of understanding. I for example fail to understand it, however it doesn't appear to me that this is a problem. What could avantgarde music give to me that other music can not?


Freedom, utter freedom! Because it is a totally new language in a way, there is healthy boldness to it. I need modern music to reset my ears and listening. I find it relaxing even, the contrast to thick late romantic chords.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

DaveM said:


> I’ve pointed out that IMO, when one removes melody, harmony and structure, then you are in a different category of music. But there is another issue with avant-garde: there are no rules.


Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm sure you also lump things like twelve-tone compositions into "music without recognizable melody and functional harmony". But things like that also have rules (the use of the twelve tones of the chromatic scale), they're just not tonality and voice-leading. Beethoven, whom you frequently cite as your exemplar, also anticipate the avant-garde in his later works. youtube.com/watch?v=FwZsDzGY1XA&t=44m44s (Beethoven Sonata N° 29 'Hammerklavier' Daniel Barenboim, timestamped to 44:44)


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

Waehnen said:


> Freedom, utter freedom! Because it is a totally new language in a way, there is healthy boldness to it. I need modern music to reset my ears and listening. I find it relaxing even, the contrast to thick late romantic chords.


Yes, people who spend hours every day studying, analyzing and exploring music are likely to avoid so much 'sweet' tonality and heavy, (predictable), late romantic walls of sound. It's inevitable, isn't it?

Miles Davis famously said, don't play the sweet notes.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

hammeredklavier said:


> Correct me if I'm wrong..


You‘re wrong. And it would be more appropriate to not post as if you’re right if you’re not sure. I’ve been very clear on the distinction. Where have you been?


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Waehnen said:


> Freedom, utter freedom! *Because it is a totally new language in a way*, there is healthy boldness to it. I need modern music to reset my ears and listening..


That is an interesting and, from my view, a good way of describing it.


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## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

DaveM said:


> That is an interesting and, from my view, a good way of describing it.


As a composer I have many mindsets in this regard:

Tonal — for wider audience, family, music for occasions (in the past, also my progressive rock)

Freetonal — a healthy mix of tonal/modal/chromatic and modernistic techniques and gestures, where I feel the absolute freedom, my art music

Not tonal — when I have to severe my bounds to tradition in order to express something specific or explore something new, my art music


As a listener and composer, I need all the 3 elements above, otherwise I would not be true to myself.


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## Vasks (Dec 9, 2013)

Waehnen said:


> As a composer I have many mindsets in this regard:
> 
> Tonal — for wider audience, family, music for occasions (in the past, also my progressive rock)
> 
> ...


That's me too. I get just as much enjoyment and challenge in writing a Grade 2 string orchestra piece for young players (which I just did last week) as writing an quasi-atonal work for organ (like I did last month)


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Atkinson discusses the "serialism" of Beethoven's Grosse fuge (32:30)





"incomprehensible, like Chinese" and "a confusion of Babel" -A reviewer writing for the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung in 1826
"[The Grosse fuge is] an absolutely *contemporary* piece of music that will be *contemporary* forever." -Stravinsky
"Works of art make rules; rules do not make works of art." -Debussy


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

On the Grosse fuge:



hammeredklavier said:


> "incomprehensible, like Chinese" and "a confusion of Babel" -A reviewer writing for the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung in 1826


This was my view on my first listenings. I was stunned that Beethoven could write such a thing. Now it is one of my favorite quartets.



> "[The Grosse fuge is] an absolutely *contemporary* piece of music that will be *contemporary* forever." -Stravinsky


I'd heard this quote before and understand Stravinsky's feeling though I'm not sure about the forever part.



> "Works of art make rules; rules do not make works of art." -Debussy


Very nice and wonderfully appropriate.


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## composingmusic (Dec 16, 2021)

I’ve been reading a book that basically consists of a set of discussions between Julian Anderson and Christopher Dingle, and there’s a very poignant chapter on the late Oliver Knussen. Knussen had just passed away when Dingle and Anderson were discussing him, his life, and his music. Anderson and Knussen had been good friends for a number of years. 

Something that came up in this discussion was a discussion that Anderson had with his teacher John Lambert, who also taught Knussen. I’ll quote Anderson’s thoughts on how Knussen was exposed to the field at an incredibly early age:

“At this point I guess we have to get into [Knussen’s] background and how that impacted upon things. A friend of my father’s family in the Jewish quarter of Newcastle was the composer Wilfred Josephs, who wrote mainly for film and TV while also doing concert music. Because he was the only composer that anybody in the family knew, when I started writing music I was taken round to see him, which was rather terrifying (I must been about 15). One thing that shocked me greatly was that he asked me early on “Which contemporary composers do you like?” and when I mentioned Olly Knussen I got a terrible reaction. He almost shouted that I shouldn’t take Olly seriously, and suddenly all this business about the business of Olly’s first symphony came up. I was told how he was pushed by his father, who was principal double bass in the LSO, and made into some kind of ridiculous wunderkind figure. Until then I’d not appreciated the music profession’s distaste for that whole episode. Many years later, I was in Albemarle street in 1999 at the Royal Institution with Olly and another friend of his. We were going to hear a lecture by Robert Kraft for the Royal Philharmonic Society. We entered the entrance foyer to the hall and Olly simply froze. He blanched, and we both asked if he was ok. The foyer was full of old men in their 80s, most of whom I’d never met. Olly said “Those are all the people who used to run the British music profession and who told me I couldn’t have a career in it.” That is what the early exposure of his music had done to Olly Knussen. I had already realised this was a difficult memory for him but that was when I really saw what a terrible trauma it was in his life. I realised that this had nearly ruined him, cut him up, and just what a terrible business that had been.”


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## composingmusic (Dec 16, 2021)

And on Knussen and John Lambert: 

“Later on, in one of the last interviews he gave, for Andrew Palmer’s book of conversations, his advice to young composers was to try and get as much as you can written and enjoy doing it while you’re young and out of the limelight, before things get difficult later – he emphasised that they would certainly do so. Many years ago when Olly gave me the same advice, that’s just what I did. I had my student years to muck about with experimental music and spectral music, to write my bad Lachenmann pieces, my bad Olly pieces and my bad everyone else pieces for a few years that were very valuable – and you don’t get that back. It was very good advice. John Lambert, who taught us both, told me about that whole business with Olly’s First Symphony and he said, “There wasn’t any stopping it. Once it emerged that Olly at the age of 14 could write symphonic music fluently, they commissioned him and there was nothing I could do except protect him as much as I could from the reaction.” So, he did what he could, but there was an unpleasant backlash which took years to dissipate, and my opinion is that this permanently scarred Olly.”

This whole passage ties into my earlier thoughts about Alma Deutscher – she’s still very young, and no matter how competent a teenage composer is, they’re still trying to figure out who they are. Knussen went on to withdraw his first symphony from his catalogue and this seems to have had a lasting impact on his music in coming years.


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## Chat Noir (4 mo ago)

DaveM said:


> You‘re wrong. And it would be more appropriate to not post as if you’re right if you’re not sure. I’ve been very clear on the distinction. Where have you been?


Still at it? Denying positions you hold, then claim not to hold? It's good that others also see this.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Chat Noir said:


> Still at it? Denying positions you hold, then claim not to hold? It's good that others also see this.


So all these days (6) through the holiday period since that post and you wake up one day and feel the need to post that warm fuzzy?


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

composingmusic said:


> I’ve been reading a book that basically consists of a set of discussions between Julian Anderson and Christopher Dingle, and there’s a very poignant chapter on the late Oliver Knussen. Knussen had just passed away when Dingle and Anderson were discussing him, his life, and his music. Anderson and Knussen had been good friends for a number of years.
> 
> Something that came up in this discussion was a discussion that Anderson had with his teacher John Lambert, who also taught Knussen. I’ll quote Anderson’s thoughts on how Knussen was exposed to the field at an incredibly early age:
> 
> “At this point I guess we have to get into [Knussen’s] background and how that impacted upon things. A friend of my father’s family in the Jewish quarter of Newcastle was the composer Wilfred Josephs, who wrote mainly for film and TV while also doing concert music. Because he was the only composer that anybody in the family knew, when I started writing music I was taken round to see him, which was rather terrifying (I must been about 15). One thing that shocked me greatly was that he asked me early on “Which contemporary composers do you like?” and when I mentioned Olly Knussen I got a terrible reaction. He almost shouted that I shouldn’t take Olly seriously, and suddenly all this business about the business of Olly’s first symphony came up. I was told how he was pushed by his father, who was principal double bass in the LSO, and made into some kind of ridiculous wunderkind figure. Until then I’d not appreciated the music profession’s distaste for that whole episode. Many years later, I was in Albemarle street in 1999 at the Royal Institution with Olly and another friend of his. We were going to hear a lecture by Robert Kraft for the Royal Philharmonic Society. We entered the entrance foyer to the hall and Olly simply froze. He blanched, and we both asked if he was ok. The foyer was full of old men in their 80s, most of whom I’d never met. Olly said “Those are all the people who used to run the British music profession and who told me I couldn’t have a career in it.” That is what the early exposure of his music had done to Olly Knussen. I had already realised this was a difficult memory for him but that was when I really saw what a terrible trauma it was in his life. I realised that this had nearly ruined him, cut him up, and just what a terrible business that had been.”


This account rings true to me and we should never minimize the potential for trauma to young musicians as they near or begin their entry into the profession -- a profession that strives to limit the competition.


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## composingmusic (Dec 16, 2021)

Roger Knox said:


> This account rings true to me and we should never minimize the potential for trauma to young musicians as they near or begin their entry into the profession -- a profession that strives to limit the competition.


Exactly – this is the problem I have with super young musicians being put into the spotlight before they’ve found themselves. I’m glad I personally never had to go through this, but I know others who’ve been through this and it’s definitely had an effect on them.


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## composingmusic (Dec 16, 2021)

DaveM said:


> So all these days (6) through the holiday period since that post and you wake up one day and feel the need to post that warm fuzzy?


I’m guessing my reviving the thread by posting the earlier account from Christopher Dingle and Julian Anderson’s discussion had something to do with this.


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## Chat Noir (4 mo ago)

DaveM said:


> So all these days (6) through the holiday period since that post and you wake up one day and feel the need to post that warm fuzzy?


Couldn't that also be said of yours? hammeredklavier hit the nail squarely on the head.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Chat Noir said:


> Couldn't that also be said of yours? hammeredklavier hit the nail squarely on the head.


No, because he invited me to respond to his post and the same day, I did. On the other hand, your post seems to be meant to stir up trouble.


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

DaveM said:


> My gawd, I’m frickin’ famous, mentioned in the same paragraphs as Mozart and yet, I checked, still no DaveM Wiki!  (Btw, Was born well after WW2 and in Canada.)


"... and in Canada." Oh-oh, that'll do it. "Blame Canada ...". No Wiki for DaveM! But Canadians march to a different drum than the inhabitants of the USA and the British Isles -- on the rare-to-non-existent occasions that we march together on anything. And a pompously-worded issue like "The Validity of Modern and Contemporary Music" gets the hackles of one Canadian (me) raised as it perhaps does those of DaveM. My issue is that of course it plods toward the inevitable, trite conclusion that "yes, we'll allow that Modern and Contemporary Music can be Valid," _because it's already happened_. Big deal.


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## Chat Noir (4 mo ago)

DaveM said:


> No, because he invited me to respond to his post and the same day, I did. On the other hand, your post seems to be meant to stir up trouble.


I see. I didn't realise I needed an invitation/appointment to respond.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Roger Knox said:


> This account rings true to me and we should never minimize the potential for trauma to young musicians as they near or begin their entry into the profession -- a profession that strives to limit the competition.





composingmusic said:


> Exactly – this is the problem I have with super young musicians being put into the spotlight before they’ve found themselves. I’m glad I personally never had to go through this, but I know others who’ve been through this and it’s definitely had an effect on them.


Even worse than competitiveness or being put into the spotlight is becoming a pawn in some ideological war.


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## composingmusic (Dec 16, 2021)

Sid James said:


> Even worse than competitiveness or being put into the spotlight is becoming a pawn in some ideological war.


Agreed.


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## cybernaut (Feb 6, 2021)

SanAntone said:


> Why would I want to listen to a composer living today write in the style of Mozart? I have Mozart, who wrote exquisite works of genius. Why would I listen to a 21st century imitator?


You wouldn't. But I would. As long as the music is beautiful and/or compelling.

Personally, I could care less when a work was composed. All I care about is how the notes are arranged.

Just as I could care less when a recipe was written. All I care about is how the food tastes.


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## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

Sid James said:


> Even worse than competitiveness or being put into the spotlight is becoming a pawn in some ideological war.


I felt I was a pawn in an ideological war at the turn of the century as a student. It was traumatising for some time but I made my own conclusions and decisions. I haven´t looked back.


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## composingmusic (Dec 16, 2021)

Waehnen said:


> I felt I was a pawn in an ideological war at the turn of the century as a student. It was traumatising for some time but I made my own conclusions and decisions. I haven´t looked back.


Sorry to hear you had this experience, but I’m happy that you’ve moved on!


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