# Suffering for Art



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Do you believe this is necessary to make good art, or do you LOVE works by artists that suffered little.

Mozart is probably my favorite musician/composer of all time, and he is said to have suffered greatly in life.

Deformed ear causing health issues.
Father blaming him for the death of his mother.
Tourette's Syndrome (caused lots of his quirks like blurting things out). 
Possible OCD.

etc.

https://www.grunge.com/194140/the-tragic-real-life-story-of-mozart/

I'm not sure it's needed though, but it does seem common.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

I'm wondering; what do you want from us by making threads like these? <My Love of Mozart Has Been Steady>, <Beethoven/Mozart: A Dichotomy>.



hammeredklavier said:


> I have a question; through all these years, you've been regularly making Mozart threads that are (imv) essentially just "variants" of your <Why I Believe Mozart is So Successful>, <Mozart Really is the King of Composers> -but what are your true "motivations" behind them? What sort of discussions do you wish to stimulate with threads of generic titles like "I still like Mozart"? Why not instead just revive one of the countless Mozart appreciation threads from the past, if you have something positive to say about him?
> I'm starting to wonder if they're all also just variants of your <Mozart Is My Enemy>, <Does Beethoven Have the Strongest Voice of the Big Three?>, albeit, with less explicit negativity in the title.
> I still get the impression that even in these newer threads, you're still trying to get people to express negativity about Mozart, just for you to arrive at the conclusion; "Mozart simply wrote to please his audience, and Beethoven was better as an "artist"".





Captainnumber36 said:


> do you LOVE works by artists that suffered little. Mozart is probably my favorite musician/composer of all time, and he is said to have suffered greatly in life.


You can get straight to the point if you want to. ex. "lacks the depth (through expressions of desolateness) of Schubert", like how our some of our wonderful members who are no longer here with us, namely Jacck and NLAdriaan, expressed on several occasions.



Captainnumber36 said:


> Tourette's Syndrome (caused lots of his quirks like blurting things out).


I believe this has been debunked already.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

This notion has been discussed to death on here, but I don't think there is good and bad art, just what you enjoy.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I suppose the point I'm attempting to get at is, is there such thing as better or worse in art, and if so, who claims those titles?

I having been on a Mozart kick, so he is who my threads revolve around.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I think I am struggling right now with my opinions on music. In HS I was a big Dave Matthews Band fan. In college I got really into Phish, and all kinds of other music. It was in college where I started taking myself too seriously and started basing my opinions on music on my ego rather than what I actually thought and felt.

Now I have grown out of DMB and Phish and much of the other music I heard in college, but can't seem to find a new favorite.

My mind is still a bit cluttered with all these biases I've built up during my college years.

So these threads are me battling that struggle, and Mozart is at the center since he is considered a huge genius, and I want to enjoy music of Geniuses.

I also wish for my own music to fit in with what I'm listening to, and I want to think it's great.

However, in the back of my mind, I do believe it's all opinion.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Do you believe this is necessary to make good art, or do you LOVE works by artists that suffered little.


No, suffering is not necessary. I don't keep track of suffering (except my own) when listening to and judging composers.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

EdwardBast said:


> No, suffering is not necessary. I don't keep track of suffering (except my own) when listening to and judging composers.


Exactly the way it should be. I'm way too pre-occupied with the notion of the tortured genius. It consumes me.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I do really enjoy the music of David Gray, but am allowing my mind to be concerned with his legacy when that doesn't matter at all. All that matters is that I enjoy it.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Only because it is difficult to make a living as an artist -- it is not as valued as being an investment banker or a sports star -- so a little suffering is more prevalent.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

How do you measure the suffering someone has gone through in their lives? There are a lot of different things that can cause suffering, much of it internal, not even necessarily related to X or Y events or external situations that the wider public knows about.

Going through hardships I think can build character and lead to certain insights, but depression is often related to stagnation and a lack of productivity. I suspect most artists are most productive during times they feel relatively stable and content.

There are a lot of factors that are related to creativity, the suffering artist is too simplistic a notion for me. If suffering was directly related to artistic talent, the world would be chalk full of brilliant artists.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Captainnumber36 said:


> I do really enjoy the music of David Gray, but am allowing my mind to be concerned with his legacy when that doesn't matter at all. All that matters is that I enjoy it.


Also enjoy Jack Johnson and John Mayer.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

tdc said:


> How do you measure the suffering someone has gone through in their lives? There are a lot of different things that can cause suffering, much of it internal, not even necessarily related to X or Y events or external situations that the wider public knows about.
> 
> Going through hardships I think can build character and lead to certain insights, but depression is often related to stagnation and a lack of productivity. I suspect most artists are most productive during times they feel relatively stable and content.
> 
> There are a lot of factors that are related to creativity, the suffering artist is too simplistic a notion for me. If suffering was directly related to artistic talent, the world would be chalk full of brilliant artists.


It's certainly not as simple as it is usually made to be.


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## Festus (Aug 11, 2020)

Would Mozart have produced music as good as what he produced if he had not gone thru the 'suffering' that he did?
Did he know he was suffering?
Maybe those around him suffered worse fates and he considered himself fortunate not to have to go thru what others were experiencing.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Festus said:


> Would Mozart have produced music as good as what he produced if he had not gone thru the 'suffering' that he did?
> Did he know he was suffering?
> Maybe those around him suffered worse fates and he considered himself fortunate not to have to go thru what others were experiencing.


Good points, my good sir.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Captainnumber36 said:


> So these threads are me battling that struggle, and Mozart is at the center since he is considered a huge genius, and I want to enjoy music of Geniuses.





Captainnumber36 said:


> I'm way too pre-occupied with the notion of the tortured genius. It consumes me.


I know what you're trying to say, but we must also think in terms of the proper "historical context" how Mozart and his contemporaries "thought art" in their own time.

"For God's sake, do read the bulky but very interesting book on Mozart by Otto Jahn. You will see from it what a wonderful, irreproachable, infinitely kind, and angelically pure nature he had. He was the incarnation of the ideal of a great artist who creates because of an unconscious stirring of his genius. He wrote music as the nightingales sing, i.e. without pausing to think, without doing violence to himself. [...] Everyone loved him; he had the most marvelous, cheerful, and equable temperament. There was not a whit of pride in him. Whenever he met Haydn, he would express his love and veneration for him in the most sincere and fervent terms. The purity of his soul was absolute. He knew neither envy nor vengefulness nor spite, and I think that all this can be heard in his music, which has reconciling, clarifying, and caressing properties [...]"

"Richard Wagner, the most violent spokesman of the Romantic Period, could call him 'music's genius of light and love'; and this without contradiction, for in such a view Wagner was in full agreement even with the opponents of his own art-with Robert Schumann, who called Mozart's G minor Symphony a work 'of Grecian lightness and grace' (Griechisch schwebende Grazie)."

"When Mozart's name is mentioned in association with Beethoven, however, Berlioz no longer shrinks from differentiation of grade: clearly Beethoven is superior. Speaking of Mozart's 'Prague' Symphony (no.38, K.504), he grants it some merit, but remarks that 'it seems to us infinitely removed from Beethoven's sublimities'. Mozart is 'pleasant, gentle, graceful, witty', but Beethoven 'by his majestic stature ... arouses respect not without some element of terror'." .........
"But at times he does avow it most freely: 'There is something discouraging, even irritating about the unfailing beauty of this somewhat lengthy work, always so serene and full of self-assurance, obliging you to pay it constant homage from start to finish.' This utterance appears in a generally favourable criticism about a performance of Le Nozze di Figaro cited earlier in this article. So it is this so-called classical poise and tranquility, attributed to Mozart, that irritates him above all."

Schumann hailed 'Altvater' Haydn as welcome relief from 'this chronically diseased era of music', in which one only rarely could be 'inwardly satisfied'. Haydn whose music offered satisfaction because of its conservative integrity, provided relief from a painful awareness of inadequacy by being 'clear as sunlight ... bereft of any sense of ennui with life, and inspiring nothing except for joy, love of life, and a childlike happiness about everything'.

"The church here also is wonderfully beautiful. Here, as you know, is the monument of M. Haydn. It is very fine, but is badly placed in an obscure out-of-the-way corner. The inscriptions, all about in different directions, have something childish about them; Haydn's head is contained in an urn. I thought to myself, 'May thy pure and peaceful spirit hover around me, dear Haydn! If I can ever become like thee, peaceful and guileless, in all matters none on earth has such deep reverence for thee as I have.' (Sad tears fell from my eyes, and we went on.)" -Schubert



Woodduck said:


> Beethoven was necessary, Wagner was necessary, so that those things could be said. Was the "perfect" elegance and poise of ideal Classicism violated in order to say them? Yes - and thank goodness it was! For "perfection" is itself an imperfect image of life.





fbjim said:


> generally the "revolutionary" view on Beethoven, as inflated as it is (this is not a "bringing Beet down a notch thing", more an anti-Great Man view of musical history) is less on specific formal innovation and more on a change in the view of art which was associated with his personality and music.


^I think there is some truth to these.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Just to give the perspective of a contemporary composer, here's a video from Julia Adolphe. She talks about how the tortured artist myth was in the past a burden for her, especially as someone who has mental illness, and how she learnt to deal with it:

_"I will often spend hours on thirty seconds of music and go through a variety of moods during that time. I think really great art conveys multiple moods and emotions simultaneously so you can hear a piece of music and feel great joy and wonder and then listen to it a couple of years later and feel a sense of grief with the same exact piece. So it's really no indication of what mood the artist was in.

The truth is that what makes us human is that we can create meaning out of even the most painful situations... that's part of how we survive. So I understand the attraction to this idea that there are people in society whose whole existence is about doing that, by taking the pain, discomfort and cruelty of life and turning it into something beautiful. I think that's the pressure that we put on artists of our society...

I felt that the tortured artist myth gave me permission to not take care of myself, stay up all night, eat whatever I wanted, and whenever I wanted, anything I needed to do to get through and write my music. As I've talked about, with therapy and medication, I learnt that it doesn't have to be this way...

Now that I have a happier relationship with my creative life, I do experience catharsis when I write. I do go into the studio and I come out feeling relieved and better because I have written, and that's it... Whatever happens to the audience, happens to the audience... I think that as artists all we can really do is to create space for ourselves and for our listeners to have an emotional experience, whatever it may be."_

https://newmusicusa.org/nmbx/the-attraction-of-the-tortured-artist-myth/


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

Suffering is not needed for a piece of music to be great (I think that Mozart's _Le Nozze di Figaro_ is very fun and devoid of suffering, and also great), but dark and sad music can be extremely sublime and beautiful in the hands of a major composer (since we have been talking of Mozart in this thread, I'll cite his Requiem as a remarkable example).


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

hammeredklavier said:


> "When Mozart's name is mentioned in association with Beethoven, however, Berlioz no longer shrinks from differentiation of grade: clearly Beethoven is superior. Speaking of Mozart's 'Prague' Symphony (no.38, K.504), he grants it some merit, but remarks that 'it seems to us infinitely removed from Beethoven's sublimities'. Mozart is 'pleasant, gentle, graceful, witty', but Beethoven 'by his majestic stature ... arouses respect not without some element of terror'." .........
> "But at times he does avow it most freely: 'There is something discouraging, even irritating about the unfailing beauty of this somewhat lengthy work, always so serene and full of self-assurance, obliging you to pay it constant homage from start to finish.' This utterance appears in a generally favourable criticism about a performance of Le Nozze di Figaro cited earlier in this article. So it is this so-called classical poise and tranquility, attributed to Mozart, that irritates him above all."


It seems to me that in his music, Mozart _is_ aware of darkness, there _is_ terror there, but it is less significant to him than it is to Beethoven.

I'm reminded of something from a book I'm reading, _War and Peace_ by Tolstoy. There is a character in the book named Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, who more than anything else in the world wishes to achieve glory on the battlefield like his hero Napoleon. In battle against the French he becomes seriously wounded, has a near-death experience and is lying on his back on the battlefield wounded, looking up at the sky when Napoleon himself eventually comes across him:

" "There's a fine death!" said Napoleon, gazing at Bolkonsky. Prince Andrei realized this was said of him, and that it was Napoleon who said it. He heard the speaker of these words addressed as _sire_. But he heard the words as he might have heard the buzzing of a fly. Not only did they not interest him, but he took no notice of them, instantly forgot them. His head was burning; he felt that he was losing blood, and saw above him the remote, lofty, eternal heavens. He knew that it was Napoleon - his hero - but at that moment Napoleon seemed to him such a small, insignificant creature compared with what was taking place between his soul and that lofty, infinite sky with the clouds sailing over it."

In some ways the differences in their music is analogous to that scene. Mozart has gazed upon the infinite sky. Beethoven is gazing at the battlefield.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

tdc said:


> In some ways the differences in their music is analogous to that scene. Mozart has gazed upon the infinite sky. Beethoven is gazing at the battlefield.


In my opinion, both are giants of music and both gazed upon ineffable beauty when the time has come, albeit in distinct ways.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

I think some people are misunderstanding Captain cause he's not being clear enough, with his "hints and nudges". But I've seen him long enough to know what he's trying to say everytime he does this. This thread "Suffering for Art" is just another in his series of "Mozart threads", where his intention is to ultimately say:


hammeredklavier said:


> In your <Mozart is the Van Gogh of CM>, basically the conclusion you seemed to have reached was:
> norman bates: "In my case I have often the impression listening to his music that I'm i world of face powder, wigs, bows, confetti, lace curtains, pink and light blue satin and and I'm completely out of place. Sort of living inside Marie Antoinette"
> Captainnumber36: "How do you feel about *Beethoven* Norman Bates? I think *he's much more the expressionist when compared to Mozart. He has the tortured artist concept going for him, and much of his music is filled with a dark intellectual beauty.*"


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

All men suffer, in one way or another.
Some happen to be artists. Others do other things.
We don't seem much concerned about the quality of work from suffering plumbers, or suffering delivery men, or suffering store clerks.


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## JTS (Sep 26, 2021)

Just addressing the sort of nonsense that reckons that Mozart’s music was brought about by inordinate suffering. This is a romantic myth and it’s pretty well knocked on the head by Jan Swafford‘s latest biography. Mozart in fact lived a pretty happy life in comparison with everyone else around him at the time. He had his usual frustrations of life of a musician of the day trying to make his way but nothing out of the ordinary. He was of course a very bad manager of money but he also made plenty of it. What he did suffer from was the tendency to overwork and this is what probably eventually killed him. Mozart’s music was not a result of him suffering particularly but as a result of his immense genius. His death at the age of 35 was a great tragedy, not because it was unusual for the day, but because we are left wondering just what music he might have produced if he’d have lived another 10 years.


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## JTS (Sep 26, 2021)

SONNET CLV said:


> All men suffer, in one way or another.
> Some happen to be artists. Others do other things.
> We don't seem much concerned about the quality of work from suffering plumbers, or suffering delivery men, or suffering store clerks.


Absolutely. I knew a guy whose wife had multiple sclerosis and he will go out and he would do a full days work and then come home and look after his wife and carry her around so she could get about. His care for who killed him before she died. You might call that suffering. Because he drove an ambulance rather than was a great musician he is unrecognised. His suffering is also unrecognised as she didn't play the cello.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Do you believe this is necessary to make good art, or do you LOVE works by artists that suffered little.


Well, whilst there are some obvious examples of adversity that we would all assume cause great "suffering" (premature loss of a loved one for example), we don't really know who suffered what, do we? What constitutes "suffering", or rather, who is to say what we will recognise as suffering and what as mere inconvenience?

If we were to consider the extent of fortitude in the face of suffering, does that mitigate the suffering in some way, and therefore diminish the art? Or do we recognise that as courage in the face of adversity, and deem the art even greater? And of course, there's the usual knotty problme of deciding whether the art qualifies as 'good', or 'good enough' to be deemed remarkable considering the suffering.

Someone will, I'm sure, be able to offer actual examples that illustrate my points - I don't know enough about the personal history of the composers to comment. But I imagine any number of them had difficult relationships with their mothers and fathers, suffering great personal anguish as a consequence, without there being any obvious event in their biography.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

hammeredklavier said:


> I think some people are misunderstanding Captain cause he's not being clear enough, with his "hints and nudges". But I've seen him long enough to know what he's trying to say everytime he does this. This thread "Suffering for Art" is just another in his series of "Mozart threads", where his intention is to ultimately say:


On the other hand, we could just take the post at face value, as most have done, and not fret about any hidden motives. :tiphat:



SONNET CLV said:


> All men suffer, in one way or another.


Oh we do, we do...

Wait a minute...what about the women?


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

I tried suffering but still couldn't write my novel.


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## JTS (Sep 26, 2021)

Enthusiast said:


> I tried suffering but still couldn't write my novel.


Suffering does not help my creativity one bit


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Do you believe this is necessary to make good art, or do you LOVE works by artists that suffered little.
> 
> Mozart is probably my favorite musician/composer of all time, and he is said to have suffered greatly in life.
> 
> ...


Rossini is usually given as the greatest example of a composer who did it the easy way, long on talent, short on work ethic. After a string of successful operas culminating in William Tell, he all but retired at the age of 37 and had a long, comfortable retirement. Beethoven reportedly greatly resented his apparently easy success. But who knows how easy it really was?

I suspect the workaholic stereotype is closer to the truth in most cases. Some composers worked hard but were born into wealthy families and did not have 'hard lives'. Poulenc, for example. I know of no great hardships in his case.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Xisten267 said:


> Suffering is not needed for a piece of music to be great (I think that Mozart's _Le Nozze di Figaro_ is very fun and devoid of suffering, and also great), but dark and sad music can be extremely sublime and beautiful in the hands of a major composer (since we have been talking of Mozart in this thread, I'll cite his Requiem as a remarkable example).


_Le Nozze di Figaro_ is devoid of suffering? Has it been revised, then, since the last time I gave it a listen?


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

tdc said:


> Mozart has gazed upon the infinite sky. Beethoven is gazing at the battlefield.


Hmmm...

"Brothers, above the starry canopy
There must dwell a loving father.
Do you fall in worship, you millions?
World, do you know your creator?
Seek Him in the heavens;
Above the stars must he dwell."


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

amfortas said:


> _Le Nozze di Figaro_ is devoid of suffering? Has it been revised, then, since the last time I gave it a listen?


Is there some confusion going on between the suffering experienced by the composer prior to, or simultaneous with composing, somehow evident in the composition, and the experience of the listener as they listen to an expression of suffering?


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Forster said:


> Is there some confusion going on between the suffering experienced by the composer prior to, or simultaneous with composing, somehow evident in the composition, and the experience of the listener as they listen to an expression of suffering?


Possibly, but the post I responded to appeared to be about the emotional content of the composition itself.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

amfortas said:


> _Le Nozze di Figaro_ is devoid of suffering? Has it been revised, then, since the last time I gave it a listen?


Perhaps "devoid of suffering" is too strong an expression, but I understand that overall _Le Nozze di Figaro_ is not about suffering or tragedy. To me at least it sounds as an opera buffa filled with sharp social criticism, not a drama. According to wikipedia, the BBC News Magazine refered to it as "one of the supreme masterpieces of operatic comedy, whose rich sense of humanity shines out of Mozart's miraculous score". Am I missing something?


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## JTS (Sep 26, 2021)

amfortas said:


> _Le Nozze di Figaro_ is devoid of suffering? Has it been revised, then, since the last time I gave it a listen?


Of course there is suffering there. But that is genius to be able to convey it. As Jane Austin was able to convey emotions she maybe hadn't actually experienced herself.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Xisten267 said:


> Perhaps "devoid of suffering" is too strong an expression, but I understand that overall _Le Nozze di Figaro_ is not about suffering or tragedy. To me at least it sounds as an opera buffa filled with sharp social criticism, not a drama. According to wikipedia, the BBC News Magazine refered to it as "one of the supreme masterpieces of operatic comedy, whose rich sense of humanity shines out of Mozart's miraculous score". Am I missing something?


"Porgi amor," "Dove sono," for starters.

Yes, the opera is a comedy, not a tragedy, but what places it among the very greatest operatic comedies is precisely that "rich sense of humanity" which encompasses a wide range of emotions. All ends happily, but not without some pain along the way.

Of course, though, our takeaway from any given work will vary from one listener to the next.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

amfortas said:


> Possibly, but the post I responded to appeared to be about the emotional content of the composition itself.


Yes, exactly - I took the OP to be about the composer's suffering, not about the depiction of suffering in the composition. The confusion I detected was not yours.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Forster said:


> The confusion I detected was not yours.


That would be a first, then, and a welcome change.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

amfortas said:


> "Porgi amor," "Dove sono," for starters.
> 
> Yes, the opera is a comedy, not a tragedy, but what places it among the very greatest operatic comedies is precisely that "rich sense of humanity" which encompasses a wide range of emotions. All ends happily, but not without some pain along the way.
> 
> Of course, though, our takeaway from any given work will vary from one listener to the next.


I give up. _Figaro_ was a bad example for what I meant, I agree.



Forster said:


> Yes, exactly - I took the OP to be about the composer's suffering, not about the depiction of suffering in the composition. The confusion I detected was not yours.


My opinion is that a composer won't be able to convey suffering in his work in a convincing way without having experienced suffering by himself, and thus to me the two things are interconnected. So I don't think that it was a confusion to cite suffering in a work in a thread about suffering by composers. But I may be wrong of course.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Xisten267 said:


> My opinion is that a composer won't be able to convey suffering in his work in a convincing way without having experienced suffering by himself, and thus to me the two things are interconnected, not being a conceptual confusion. But I may be wrong of course.


I get that there may be a connection...but it isn't what the OP was asking (IMO).

As an aside, I disagree. Musicians might be like actors, able to simulate suffering without having directly experienced themselves.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Forster said:


> As an aside, I disagree. Musicians might be like actors, able to simulate suffering without having directly experienced themselves.


I agree. The musical portrayal of suffering is a musical skill and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with a composer's life experience.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

^^^ +1 with Forster and EdwardB.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

mikeh375 said:


> ^^^ +1 with Forster and EdwardB.


+2. Another composer (in addition to Rossini) who had artistic, popular and financial success in his lifetime, and didn't appear to suffer unduly, was the "Waltz King", Johann Strauss II. If one counts George Gershwin as a classical composer, he certainly was rich, famous, handsome, popular with the ladies, the toast of the town and the life of every party, and in general led what appeared to be a pretty good life, until he died fairly suddenly of a brain tumor.


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## JTS (Sep 26, 2021)

Xisten267 said:


> I give up. _Figaro_ was a bad example for what I meant, I agree.
> 
> My opinion is that a composer won't be able to convey suffering in his work in a convincing way without having experienced suffering by himself, and thus to me the two things are interconnected. So I don't think that it was a confusion to cite suffering in a work in a thread about suffering by composers. But I may be wrong of course.


This whole business of the suffering artist can be much overdrawn. Like the nonsense in Werther. Get a life! Go and visit some of the places in the world where they are suffering famine, disease, war, and you'll see what real suffering is about.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

Forster said:


> I get that there may be a connection...but it isn't what the OP was asking (IMO).
> 
> As an aside, I disagree. Musicians might be like actors, able to simulate suffering without having directly experienced themselves.





EdwardBast said:


> I agree. The musical portrayal of suffering is a musical skill and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with a composer's life experience.





mikeh375 said:


> ^^^ +1 with Forster and EdwardB.





fluteman said:


> +2. Another composer (in addition to Rossini) who had artistic, popular and financial success in his lifetime, and didn't appear to suffer unduly, was the "Waltz King", Johann Strauss II. If one counts George Gershwin as a classical composer, he certainly was rich, famous, handsome, popular with the ladies, the toast of the town and the life of every party, and in general led what appeared to be a pretty good life, until he died fairly suddenly of a brain tumor.


But Rossini, Strauss II and Gershwin didn't compose anything like an _Unfinished_ symphony, a _Pathétique_ symphony or an _Appassionata_ sonata, did they? Show me someone who had a very successful life, without much suffering, and that still created a dark and very sad piece of music that is still usually cited as a masterpiece nowadays.

I think that the listeners can perceive when an expression in music is genuine and when it's a fake. To be able to portray an emotion convincingly in his music, I believe that the composer must feel it.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Xisten267 said:


> I give up. _Figaro_ was a bad example for what I meant, I agree.


All I seek is total submission. I'm a reasonable man.



Xisten267 said:


> My opinion is that a composer won't be able to convey suffering in his work in a convincing way without having experienced suffering by himself, and thus to me the two things are interconnected. So I don't think that it was a confusion to cite suffering in a work in a thread about suffering by composers. But I may be wrong of course.


I'm also inclined to think that any artist benefits from life experience--though of course, not just suffering. That said, such a claim may be a bit more problematic in an abstract, non-representational art like music, and I'm not any sure any definitive correlation can be established. Nonetheless, enough composers have been inspired by the sometimes tragic circumstances of their lives, it doesn't seem unreasonable to posit such a relationship.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Xisten267 said:


> Show me someone who had a very successful life, without much suffering, and that still created a dark and very sad piece of music that is still usually cited as a masterpiece nowadays.







I think this might be related to what we're talking about;
Bernstein: "There is a popular myth that composers write the way they feel, which is simply not true." 
0:44~1:18


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

^ I don't think that Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto is a dark and sad piece of music at all. It's passionate and fiery, with a very expressive and reflexive slow movement, but it's not the kind of piece I had in mind.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Interesting discussion.

I think that the boundary between a composer's life and music varies according to a number of factors: personal character, aesthetic approach, surrounding events and so on.

Some pieces obviously come from some dark space, and I tend to avoid these because they cut too close to the bone. The best example I can think of is Sibelius' fourth symphony, composed at a time when he was dealing with cancer and near bankruptcy, along with his ongoing alcohol addiction. However, there where also other experiences which must have informed the bleak atmosphere of this work, including a trip he took to the remote Karelia region. Its also worth noting that his symphonies tend to contrast with eachother, and perhaps he felt that he wanted to do something completely different to the previous one.

There are other examples like this which I avoid due to their connecting with a similarly dark space I don't care to go to - e.g. Bruckner's 9th, Mahler's 9th, Tchaikovsky's 6th, Shostakovich's Babi Yar, Schnittke's Piano Quintet. Needless to say, I think they are all masterpieces.

I think that in general, composers tend to want the audience to simply listen to their work and experience the emotions themselves. This was one of the points Julia Adolphe made in the video I posted earlier. I think her point applies whether or not the music comes with a program attached, or has a descriptive title.

Milhaud is an example of a composer who was an extremely positive person, despite hardships such as his chronic disability and being a refugee. It was extremely difficult for him to get the papers to leave Europe, and when he did, he was hardly able to move due to his poor physical condition and almost lost his young son in a crowd. I think it took days for his wife to locate the boy while Milhaud was confined to a hotel.

At the end of the book, he relates the following anecdote, and it speaks to the strength of his mindset and the life affirming qualities he expressed in his music:

_"In 1962 I was asked to talk about myself at an American college. I recalled my parents, who were so understanding, my wife, my son and his children, who have brought me nothing but joy. In short, I said that I was a happy man. At that moment I sensed general consternation - almost panic - in the hall. Some students came to talk to me after the conference: how had I been able to create in these conditions? An artist needs to suffer! I replied that I had managed to arrange things differently." _


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## FrankE (Jan 13, 2021)

No. I wouldn't notice someone's suffering in the release of music composed on paper (c.f. say a singer--songwriter) but if I could I wouldn't derive any satisfaction from their suffering.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Xisten267 said:


> ^ I don't think that Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto is a dark and sad piece of music at all. It's passionate and fiery, with a very expressive and reflexive slow movement, but it's not the kind of piece I had in mind.


I'm beginning to think that any piece offered either wouldn't be dark enough, it wouldn't be deemed a masterpiece (an unnecessary condition) or the composer would be deemed to have suffered.

George Crumb's _Dark Angels _is "dark" to me. But I suppose a new condition would have to be that it is written in CPT.

In any case, this is not what the thread is about.


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## JTS (Sep 26, 2021)

Bernstein: "There is a popular myth that composers write the way they feel, which is simply not true." 

Correct to a point: Beethoven wrote the Pastoral Symphony when he was going through an awful time. He wrote the fifth at the same time, of course!


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Forster said:


> Yes, exactly - I took the OP to be about the composer's suffering, not about the depiction of suffering in the composition. The confusion I detected was not yours.


It is interesting, though, to hear some of the music written by people who are in pain. Think of Agharta and Pangaea (Miles Davis) - you can feel his pain and listening is not at all comfortable ... the pain is not really sublimated. Or think of many of the symphonies of Allan Pettersson (who suffered chronic acute pain for most of his life). Is it art, is it satisfying (for the listener) to produce such raw work? But how could they avoid doing so?


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

Forster said:


> I'm beginning to think that any piece offered either wouldn't be dark enough, it wouldn't be deemed a masterpiece or the composer would be deemed to have suffered.


Exactly. And that's my point by the way.



Forster said:


> George Crumb's _Dark Angels _is "dark" to me. But I suppose a new condition would have to be that it is written in CPT.


Is _Dark Angels_ widely agreed to be a masterpiece like the _Pathétique_, the _Appassionata_ and the _Unfinished_? I don't think so, it's a piece enjoyed only by a very small circle of listeners.



Forster said:


> deemed a masterpiece (an unnecessary condition)


It's necessary because anyone can create organized sound and call it deep, dark and sad, but not anyone can create convincing music that will stand the test of time and that has these qualities.



Forster said:


> In any case, this is not what the thread is about.


There's a link between suffering by composers and suffering expressed in music, so I don't think that our little discussion is off-topic at all. Besides, discussions develop.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Xisten267 said:


> ^ I don't think that Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto is a dark and sad piece of music at all. It's passionate and fiery, with a very expressive and reflexive slow movement, but it's not the kind of piece I had in mind.


I don't think it is very sad either but one could cite the f minor quartet that was written after the death of his sister as dark and sad. But of course this was in fact a sad occasion, so the premiss cannot be applied.

Nevertheless, I think most of these tropes of art and suffering are tired clichées that do not help much with understanding art and artists. 
Loss of relatives, illness and death were som common in former times we can hardly count them as particular hardship. John Dowland was very successful in his life but supposedly in fact a melancholy character (although the melancholy mood was a bit of a fad back then as every great genius had to be that way).


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Xisten267 said:


> There's a link between suffering by composers and suffering expressed in music, so I don't think that our little discussion is off-topic at all. Besides, discussions develop.


The OP asked:



Captainnumber36 said:


> Do you believe [suffering] is necessary to make good art


Nothing about masterpieces, or widely liked, nor any definition of suffering, nor what might be deemed 'good' enough to qualify.

The OP also asked:



Captainnumber36 said:


> or do you LOVE works by artists that suffered little.


Now, those two things aren't quite in opposition as implied by that 'or', but never mind, it's still an answerable question in its own right.

I'm happy to stick with considering these two questions. By all means pursue a different development as you see fit.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

Forster said:


> The OP asked:





Captainnumber36 said:


> Do you believe this is necessary to make *good art*





Forster said:


> Nothing about masterpieces, or widely liked, nor any definition of suffering, nor what might be deemed 'good' enough to qualify.


What is "good art"? Is any piece of music "good art"? How good is "good art"? Isn't a masterpiece "good art"?



Forster said:


> I'm happy to stick with considering these two questions. By all means pursue a different development as you see fit.


Great. Thank you.



Captainnumber36 said:


> Do you believe this is necessary to make good art, or do you LOVE works by artists that suffered little.


I think that suffering by an artist may enhance considerably his ability to compose "good art" (a masterpiece?) that represents suffering, but not necessarily other kinds of "good art". I think that there's a clear link between what a composer feels and experiences and what he is able to express authentically through his art. And yes, I love works by artists that suffered little up to certain moments in their lives (for example Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto), but not their works supposed to express suffering until that point.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Xisten267 said:


> What is "good art"? Is any piece of music "good art"? How good is "good art"? Isn't a masterpiece "good art"?


That's more like it. All I can say is that while a masterpiece is surely good art, not all good art is a masterpiece. (Lexico: "A work of outstanding artistry, skill, or workmanship"). Surely we must allow a distinction between what is satisfactory, what is good and what is outstanding, even if we continue to argue about what might qualify under each heading.

As for what is 'good art', there is little to be said that hasn't been argued over endlessly already.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Xisten267 said:


> But Rossini, Strauss II and Gershwin didn't compose anything like an _Unfinished_ symphony, a _Pathétique_ symphony or an _Appassionata_ sonata, did they? Show me someone who had a very successful life, without much suffering, and that still created a dark and very sad piece of music that is still usually cited as a masterpiece nowadays.
> 
> I think that the listeners can perceive when an expression in music is genuine and when it's a fake. To be able to portray an emotion convincingly in his music, I believe that the composer must feel it.


Well, we all have some sadness in our lives that can be tapped into for artistic inspiration, don't we? The death of the composer's mother is what inspired Brahms' German Requiem and much of what Webern wrote. It just depends on whether the artist chooses to use that emotion as a principal artistic source.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

From very close experience (my wife is a professional artist), I did not see any correlation between the quality of her work and whether or not she was having a difficult time.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

fluteman said:


> The death of the composer's mother is what inspired Brahms' German Requiem and much of what Webern wrote.


There needs to be established a scale by which we measure the degree of suffering and the degree of goodness of the art. Would we put death of a mother high up the scale? In which case, we should expect a higher quality composition!


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Xisten267 said:


> But Rossini, Strauss II and Gershwin didn't compose anything like an _Unfinished_ symphony, a _Pathétique_ symphony or an _Appassionata_ sonata, did they? Show me someone who had a very successful life, without much suffering, and that still created a dark and very sad piece of music that is still usually cited as a masterpiece nowadays.


Henry Purcell - _Dido and Aeneas_ "When I am laid in earth." For three and a half centuries acknowledged as one of the most profound expressions of despair in the history of music, written by a composer who had success and employment in music his whole life - and a loving wife as well.

And how about JS and CPE Bach?



Xisten267 said:


> I think that the listeners can perceive when an expression in music is genuine and when it's a fake. To be able to portray an emotion convincingly in his music, I believe that the composer must feel it.


No, they just have to be a competent composer, and no, you can't tell.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Rossini a) supposedly suffered from depression which was probably the real reason for his early "retirement" and b) composed a decent _Stabat Mater_ setting. Any competent composer in former times would be able to compose a decent Lamento, Requiem etc. or similarly in opera. Of course not all were similarly good, tragic, whatever.

But I seriously doubt that the "depth" of expression of a _De profundis_ or _Miserere_ setting depended more on a combination of personal suffering and piety of the composer than on his compositiorial capabilities.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Forster said:


> There needs to be established a scale by which we measure the degree of suffering and the degree of goodness of the art. Would we put death of a mother high up the scale? In which case, we should expect a higher quality composition!


OK, good luck with that. I've seen musicology PhD thesis premises more bizarre than that. I suppose.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

fluteman said:


> OK, good luck with that. I've seen musicology PhD thesis premises more bizarre than that. I suppose.


It'll need more than luck. Imagine the hours of work involved.

But at the end of it, we'd have something much more robust than the random anecdotal and subjective offerings we're getting so far...and will continue to get without some systematising of the whole process.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

EdwardBast said:


> Henry Purcell - _Dido and Aeneas_ "When I am laid in earth." For three and a half centuries acknowledged as one of the most profound expressions of despair in the history of music, written by a composer who had success and employment in music his whole life - and a loving wife as well.
> 
> And how about JS and CPE Bach?


Purcell lost his father at 5 years old, and J.S. Bach became orphan of both his parents at 10. They surely must have not been the happiest people around. And I'm not aware of any masterpiece by C.P.E. Bach, at least not anything in the level of the pieces I already cited before.



EdwardBast said:


> No, they just have to be a competent composer


I disagree. I think that a competent composer won't be able to truly achieve an emotion in his work if he didn't feel it first. And making good music is much more than just having technical expertise in my opinion - the composer that is only "competent" is soon forgotten.



EdwardBast said:


> , and no, you can't tell.


How could you know?



fluteman said:


> Well, we all have some sadness in our lives that can be tapped into for artistic inspiration, don't we? The death of the composer's mother is what inspired Brahms' German Requiem and much of what Webern wrote. It just depends on whether the artist chooses to use that emotion as a principal artistic source.


But they put emotions they felt into their music, don't you agree? They experienced some kind of suffering before creating their masterpieces that communicate these kinds of suffering.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Forster said:


> It'll need more than luck. Imagine the hours of work involved.
> 
> But at the end of it, we'd have something much more robust than the random anecdotal and subjective offerings we're getting so far...and will continue to get without some systematising of the whole process.


Yes, I know that's just some of your droll humor. But, good idea to put on the winking emoji. The droll, the wry, and the ironic do not go over well with many here. Actually, anything that isn't literal. Fortunately, all art is only meant to be taken literally.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Xisten267 said:


> Purcell lost his father at 5 years old, and J.S. Bach became orphan of both parents at 10. They surely must have known suffering. And I'm not aware of any masterpiece by C.P.E. Bach.
> 
> But they put emotions they felt into their music, don't you agree? They experienced some kind of suffering before creating their masterpieces that communicate suffering.


Everyone has experienced suffering. In the time of Purcell and JS Bach no one thought of putting their personal feelings into music. It wasn't a thing. There were conventional ways to represent dark emotions and composers studied them as they studied any other skill they learned. Is every expressive piece of music written in the Baroque and Classical eras therefore insincere? It's a silly and meaningless question because music isn't extruded personal emotion and no one before the Romantic Era thought it was. And even in the Romantic Era, as in every other, the difference between the effective expression of emotion and failed attempts has nothing to do with sincerity and everything to do with skill. The view you're backing is quaint mythologizing.


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

I deal with this silly sentiment all the time. It permeates through all forms of music, not just classical. It started for me at Berklee where I used to hear things along the lines of, “You have to feel the blues in order to play the blues, man. You’ve had to have paid your dues. You can’t play the blues unless you’ve suffered.” Etc. I acknowledge that the blues came from suffering, but even at a young age I was skeptical of the above remarks.

I always wondered, what if BB King let’s say, was to play a sell-out concert some evening but had a really good day that day? Would he cancel the concert? Play something else besides the blues? And wouldn't the sell-out concert make him happy? He had women knocking down his door throughout his super-long career, was a notorious womanizer, and was very rich and very famous. Yet, he amazingly was able to play the blues just fine upon request despite these good fortunes. Any “dues” he paid at a young age surely would have been long-forgotten or gotten-over soon after his fortunes changed. I haven’t even noticed any excessive suffering on his part, not more than what is normal in this country anyway. Besides, as was already said, no human being is immune to suffering of some kind. Some more than others of course, but still, doesn’t matter.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

EdwardBast said:


> Everyone has experienced suffering. In the time of Purcell and JS Bach no one thought of putting their personal feelings into music. It wasn't a thing. There were conventional ways to represent dark emotions and composers studied them as they studied any other skill they learned. Is every expressive piece of music written in the Baroque and Classical eras therefore insincere? It's a silly and meaningless question because music isn't extruded personal emotion and no one before the Romantic Era thought it was. And even in the Romantic Era, as in every other, the difference between the effective expression of emotion and failed attempts has nothing to do with sincerity and everything to do with skill. The view you're backing is quaint mythologizing.


"Everyone has experienced suffering."

Well, yes, to some degree. Yet as I suggested in my first response to this thread, that word really ought to be examined a bit more closely, rather than just assumed to mean, say, "having experienced some adverse event such as to impact negatively on well being."

There is obviously a range of suffering, from the discomfort of the dentist's chair to the trauma of the premature loss of a child or the experience of fighting in the trenches of WW1.

Compared to some, I've not really "suffered" at all. How would we weigh Messiaen's suffering in a concentration camp against other's experiences?

But if course, this is my attempt to give the OP some consideration. Alternatively, one could dismiss the idea out of hand.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

EdwardBast said:


> Everyone has experienced suffering.


I don't think that most people suffered greatly in the sense that the OP meant, or at least from what I understood he meant. Some people have much more luck and happiness in life than others. Think in losing both parents in the childhood, like was the case with J.S. Bach: is that kind of suffering really common?



EdwardBast said:


> In the time of Purcell and JS Bach no one thought of putting their personal feelings into music. It wasn't a thing. There were conventional ways to represent dark emotions and composers studied them as they studied any other skill they learned.


Yet their music may evoke unique profound feelings that, I think, didn't just came out of nowhere for no reason. They must have felt what their music can express, even if they may have included these feelings unconsciously in their works. I don't think that creating a Toccata and Fugue in D minor or a St. Matthew Passion is just a matter of raw, learned technique.



EdwardBast said:


> It's a silly and meaningless question because music isn't extruded personal emotion and no one before the Romantic Era thought it was.


I too don't think that music is only about emotions - it's much more than that. My point is that when music truly portrays a kind of emotion, it comes from the composer's own experience - to me, he felt it somehow before putting it in his art. True artists live their art, I believe.



EdwardBast said:


> And even in the Romantic Era, as in every other, the difference between the effective expression of emotion and failed attempts has nothing to do with sincerity and everything to do with skill. The view you're backing is quaint mythologizing.


Perhaps, but I disagree nonetheless. I think that perceived sincerity and authenticity plays a great hole in how people respond to music. If skill was everything, then Ferneyhough's works would be much more admired by experienced listeners than Kurt Cobain's, wouldn't them? But I don't think that this is the case at all.


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

Is music that either depicts suffering or comes from a feeling of suffering of better quality than music which does not? Why is expressing one particular emotion more important above all others? A lot of people like depressing music, while a whole lot like the opposite. Why is one better than the other?


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Xisten267 said:


> Yet their music may evoke unique profound feelings that, I think, didn't just came out of nowhere for no reason. *They must have felt what their music can express, even if they may have included these feelings unconsciously in their works. *I don't think that creating a Toccata and Fugue in D minor or a St. Matthew Passion is just a matter of raw, learned technique.


Composers writing intentionally expressive music like Purcell's "When I am laid in earth" no doubt routinely put themselves in the position of the listener by imagining something like: "If I were in an audience hearing this would I be appropriately moved by it in a way consistent with the dramatic situation portrayed?" That is, they tried it out on themselves the same way an orator would test a speech in front of a mirror. And while testing it they no doubt registered some kind of simulated fictional emotion (There is a whole body of literature on whether or not and to what extent emotions evoked by art objects are like real-life emotions). Obviously some normal capacity for understanding emotion might be required to do this kind of testing, but almost everyone has this capacity. So, I'd say creating the St. Matthew Passion might have required a normal, mundane understanding of human emotion, but all the rest is raw musical technique and imagination.

By the way, the example of an orator was not chosen lightly. The whole Doctrine of the Affections at the basis of Baroque musical aesthetics was drawn from classical rhetorical theory. In that era the composer was consistently likened to an orator trying to move an audience to a particular affect. They never worried about whether the orator or composer actually sincerely felt the emotion themselves. That was and remains irrelevant.


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## FrankE (Jan 13, 2021)

Forster said:


> "
> 
> Compared to some, I've not really "suffered" at all. How would we weigh Messiaen's suffering in a concentration camp against other's experiences?
> 
> But if course, this is my attempt to give the OP some consideration. Alternatively, one could dismiss the idea out of hand.


Messiaen was in a POW camp, not a concentration camp.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

I agree with Eddie for the most part, however, with certain masterpieces, it's still interesting to imagine what was going on in the composers' minds, based on the circumstances they were facing at the time of their composition. For example, Schubert string quartet "Death and the Maiden" was composed in 1824, after the composer suffered a serious illness and realized that he was dying. Étude Op. 10, No. 12 (Chopin) appeared around the same time as the November Uprising in 1831. Upon the conclusion of Poland's failed revolution against Russia, he cried, "All this has caused me much pain. Who could have foreseen it?"

Also, speaking of requiems, 
"On the very eve of his death, [Mozart] had the score of the Requiem brought to his bed, and himself (it was two o'clock in the afternoon) sang the alto part; Schack, the family friend, sang the soprano line, as he had always previously done, Hofer, Mozart's brother-in-law, took the tenor, Gerl, later a bass singer at the Mannheim Theater, the bass. They were at the first bars of the Lacrimosa when Mozart began to weep bitterly, laid the score on one side, and eleven hours later, at one o'clock in the morning (of 5 December 1791, as is well known), departed this life.
Biographer Niemetschek relates a vaguely similar account, leaving out a rehearsal:
On the day of his death he asked for the score to be brought to his bedside. 'Did I not say before, that I was writing this Requiem for myself?' After saying this, he looked yet again with tears in his eyes through the whole work."





 (the trombonist at 13:21 is on the verge of tears, lol)
"composed on the occasion of the death of his employer, Prince Bishop Sigismund Count Schrattenbach, who was beloved among the people and was a great patron of the arts, the work was written under the impression of personal tragedy: Haydn's only child, Aloisia Josepha, died in January 1771, before completing her first year of life."
This is an interesting case because he wrote another requiem (his second) 35 years later, right before his own death; although it is largely left unfinished, one can notice on the first glance that it is much more conciliatory and celebratory in character. With the first requiem I imagine in my mind his feelings from his "personal tragedy", but with the second requiem, I picture in my mind a prayer of the then tired old man: "I've spent all my life glorifying you, Lord. Now grant me rest."
I sometimes wonder how much his feelings about his "personal tragedy" of 1771 "shaped" the character of his first requiem.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

EdwardBast said:


> Obviously some normal capacity for understanding emotion might be required to do this kind of testing, but almost everyone has this capacity. So, I'd say creating the St. Matthew Passion might have required a normal, mundane understanding of human emotion, but all the rest is raw musical technique and imagination.


I agree that most people have the ability to recognize emotions in music when they appear, but to create a composition that is at the same time authentic, original and deeply moving I believe that the author needs more than technique and some degree of imagination: he has to really feel what he is trying to portray. J.S. Bach seems to have been a deeply religious man and I think that this religiosity and the transcendent feelings that he may have experienced through it can be perceived in his music. I don't think that his two passion settings would work so well as music if Bach himself didn't experience a passion for Christ and the Bible.



EdwardBast said:


> By the way, the example of an orator was not chosen lightly. The whole Doctrine of the Affections at the basis of Baroque musical aesthetics was drawn from classical rhetorical theory. In that era the composer was consistently likened to an orator trying to move an audience to a particular affect. They never worried about whether the orator or composer actually sincerely felt the emotion themselves. That was and remains irrelevant.


On the contrary, I think that authencity and sincerity in what a composer expresses in his music is quite important if what he is communicating is an emotion. Otherwise, his music may sound shallow and pretentious to his audience. I don't think that it's a coincidence that some of the major sad pieces in music came from composers who had some kind of tragedy or great problem in their lives.



Torkelburger said:


> Is music that either depicts suffering or comes from a feeling of suffering of better quality than music which does not? Why is expressing one particular emotion more important above all others? A lot of people like depressing music, while a whole lot like the opposite. Why is one better than the other?


I believe that all musical compositions have a meaning - even if it's just "to sound good" sometimes, or just to display some technical aspects of music in other occasions - and that this meaning is very important to the piece. I also think that certain meanings are more fundamental, more necessary than others. Our world is very unequal and life can be very unfair, so it's my opinion that the feeling of suffering is very important to us, actually central in the lives of many people. Music that can show suffering and then a creative and valid response to it may be seem as uplifting and comforting, and for this I think that it can generate a passionate response from the listeners, as such meaning is so dear to many. Also, I think that many can sympathize with others for their suffering. This sensation is more important in my perspective than for example the sensation of fear, or of just some strange but interesting sonorities.

So, being more objective to your questions:

i) Yes, I think that the sensation of suffering is more important than many others, despite the fact that there may be other sensations (such as joy) just as appealing;

ii) Because certain sensations are much more central and fundamental to our lives than others (but I would change the "above all others" to "above some others");

iii) I understand that it isn't. Joy and suffering can be equally powerful sensations in my opinion.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

FrankE said:


> Messiaen was in a POW camp, not a concentration camp.


Thanks .


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## Ariasexta (Jul 3, 2010)

This is a "deep dark" mystery. The concept of misery is sacred to religious people, Sophocles, the founding father of western drama, wrote exclusively tragedies. The misery, tragedy signify a kind of devinity in human destiny, like Hamlet said:" There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow." But naturally, conscientious people are tended to suffer more than indifferent people, but not always, like Iago who suffered the painful death through torture in Othello. 

All people suffer misery it is true, but most of the time, indifferent people enjoy greater excess of luxuries than conscientious people, it is a fact. Just not to immerse oneself within the excess of unnecessary luxury, it would inspire any talented person to become a great artist, suffering is not mandatory, but not to be indulgent in meaningless funs and luxuries will be just be OK.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Xisten267 said:


> On the contrary, *I think that authencity and sincerity in what a composer expresses in his music is quite important if what he is communicating is an emotion. *Otherwise, his music may sound shallow and pretentious to his audience. I don't think that it's a coincidence that some of the major sad pieces in music came from composers who had some kind of tragedy or great problem in their lives.


This is another tired saw of popular musical aesthetics: that music is a form of emotional communication - that the composer feels a sincere personal emotion and somehow encodes it in notes and then communicates it to the listener. There are several grave errors in this view. First is the assumption that emotions are the subjects or "content" of music and the notes are the vehicle by which this content is communicated. Hanslick dismantled this more than 150 years ago in The Beautiful in Music. He argued that emotions beyond the most basic, that is, higher emotions like hope, love, and envy, require objects and are defined by intellectual content and concepts that music simply can't capture; Hope requires the imagining of a future state more desirable than a current one, envy requires the desire for something possessed by another, and so on. And if all music can express or communicate is the most basic states like happy and sad, then it really isn't communicating anything significant. If, on the other hand, one believes that music embodies complex states that just can't be distilled from or expressed in words (or, more Romantically and Mendelssohnianly, states too definite for words) emotions that only exist or are exemplified by a musical idea, then there's no way to demonstrate that what the composer supposedly expressed has been understood by the listener and thus no verifiable communication.

A more modern and defensible view is to regard the expressive states in music as inhering in the music itself; to attribute them to a fictional persona created by the composer and inhabiting the musical work. Edward T. Cone's _The Composer's Voice_ is a brilliant and engaging argument for this view of music as expressive fiction.

In any case, the emotional communication model was declared dead and interred long ago.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Torkelburger said:


> I deal with this silly sentiment all the time. It permeates through all forms of music, not just classical. It started for me at Berklee where I used to hear things along the lines of, "You have to feel the blues in order to play the blues, man. You've had to have paid your dues. You can't play the blues unless you've suffered." Etc. I acknowledge that the blues came from suffering, but even at a young age I was skeptical of the above remarks.
> 
> I always wondered, what if BB King let's say, was to play a sell-out concert some evening but had a really good day that day? Would he cancel the concert? Play something else besides the blues? And wouldn't the sell-out concert make him happy? He had women knocking down his door throughout his super-long career, was a notorious womanizer, and was very rich and very famous. Yet, he amazingly was able to play the blues just fine upon request despite these good fortunes. Any "dues" he paid at a young age surely would have been long-forgotten or gotten-over soon after his fortunes changed. I haven't even noticed any excessive suffering on his part, not more than what is normal in this country anyway. Besides, as was already said, no human being is immune to suffering of some kind. Some more than others of course, but still, doesn't matter.


Charlie Parker famously said, "if you haven't lived it, it won't come out of your horn."

Your casual dismissal of what B.B. King may have suffered shows a staggeringly lack of appreciation of what any black man goes through and, in particular, one from a poor family in Mississippi. That aside, Blues, as is the case of any music, requires thousands of hours spent developing the skills to play a style, hours which King has put in. He is a professional and will turn in a good performance no matter "how his day went." This is also true for any professional musician.

The statement from Bird I began with is a high altitude idea of how your life experience will inform your art. Pretty basic stuff, IMO.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I definitely don't think it's necessary to make art and because what is deemed good is subjective, you can't say the best ones do.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Captainnumber36 said:


> I definitely don't think it's necessary to make art and because what is deemed good is subjective, you can't say the best ones do.


Look at all the pop stars in modern music, not many of them have suffered greatly for their art. I don't think Bach did either, and his music represents to me ultimate perfection.


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## JTS (Sep 26, 2021)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Look at all the pop stars in modern music, not many of them have suffered greatly for their art. I don't think Bach did either, and his music represents to me ultimate perfection.


Popstars tend to suffer because of their art


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

JTS said:


> Popstars tend to suffer because of their art


awwwwwww, don't be unkind now.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Look at all the pop stars in modern music, not many of them have suffered greatly for their art. *I don't think Bach did either,* and his music represents to me ultimate perfection.


Yeah. Bach had a great job, as does anyone who can support a large family playing and teaching music. He was doing what he loved and he had a whole stable of brilliant little copyists and proof-readers under his roof to help him. It's all relative, of course, but that's a pretty sweet gig for that day and age and I doubt Bach (or his wives, heh heh) had time to moan about their sufferings.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Art is pretty obviously - at least to an artist - not a transmission of emotions in real time, as any painter or composer who has spent days, weeks or months producing a work knows. Having to sustain any sort of emotional state during such a prolonged period of exacting labor is unthinkable. What actually happens is that the artist, playing with ideas and with the materials of his medium, imagines forms that evoke for him - as they will for an audience, if he's successful - certain emotions or concepts, and he tries to put these together in a way that constitutes an integrated entity of a certain kind. The result can be extremely effective and compelling, and can lead us to feel that we're in the presence of the person who created the work. But this is to a great extent an illusion, similar to the illusion of watching a great actor portray a role so effectively that we imagine the actor to be the sort of person he's playing. Actors do have to draw on their life experience in order to portray fictional characters convincingly. But how much they derive from their own experiences and how much from observing the experiences of others varies. In most cases they do both, and I think this applies to the creation of most art in other mediums as well.

The relationship between the feelings a composer experiences in life and the feelings his work evokes in listeners is not straightforward or obvious. It may be tempting to say that, at a minimum, a composer must be human and capable of feeling to compose music that conveys any sort of feeling at all. But even such an apparently obvious notion overlooks the evocative power of sounds themselves. Can you listen to the howling of wolves or the song of a thrush and feel nothing? Isn't a simple triad, played by an organ in the vast spaces of a cathedral, capable of inspiring awe? Sounds have power, and composers harness the powers of sound in fulfillment of artistic goals that may have no direct relationship to anything in the composer's personal experience. But here's where it gets complicated. The important word in that statement is "direct." It would be to err in the other direction to say that the emotional experience of music is unrelated to _anything_ in the composer's subjective experience. But that "anything" which the artist feels may be something very subtle, undeveloped, embryonic, or generalized. Beethoven didn't have to experience the death of a hero to compose what may be the greatest of all funeral marches, the second movement of his "Eroica" symphony, and in composing it he didn't have to be motivated by a desire to communicate any feelings he was experiencing prior to or outside of the act of producing a piece of music. But he did have to be a person whose subjective experience of life could lead him to value the things which that music expresses, and he did have to have the imagination and skill to find the notes which felt to him like an affirmation of his values. He had, in short, to be Beethoven and not someone else, and to that extent - but only to that extent - we can identify him with the fallen hero he presents to us in music. Heroism and death are elements of general human experience which humans share in different ways and to varying degrees, and Beethoven had no more profound a personal experience of them than innumerable other people who have simply lacked the ability to express them in music.


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

> Charlie Parker famously said, "if you haven't lived it, it won't come out of your horn."


He can say that all he wants, doesn't make it true. Sure, it can be cathartic for all those involved, but it is simply not a necessity to have lived through any great tragedy or suffering in order to convey emotionally charged music. I mean, I'd have to see actual evidence that the assertion he's making is true. Would he really be able to tell beyond the level of chance, (like in a double-blind test of 100 musicians LOL), exactly which ones were privileged, and which were truly great sufferers?



> Your casual dismissal of what B.B. King may have suffered shows a staggeringly lack of appreciation of what any black man goes through and, in particular, one from a poor family in Mississippi.


Yes, he, as well as millions of other African-Americans, had it much worse than whites no doubt (again, some more than others), however, relatively speaking, it could have been worse (just ask a Native-American, if you can find one, that is). And not all of those other millions of people got to make millions of dollars and live a life of luxury womanizing fans for decades in that same exact environment (mid-late 20th cent. America).



> That aside, Blues, as is the case of any music, requires thousands of hours spent developing the skills to play a style, hours which King has put in.


Exactly, which is why I disagree with the notion that none of what you just said matters "if you haven't lived it".



> He is a professional and will turn in a good performance no matter "how his day went." This is also true for any professional musician.


Which was precisely my point. A professional musician can turn in a good performance, period, while things such as suffering (at any time or form), is not necessary (it doesn't "matter" as you said).



> The statement from Bird I began with is a high altitude idea of how your life experience will inform your art. Pretty basic stuff, IMO.


Yes, but the problem is when people say someone's art is not good unless you have certain life experiences in accordance with their personal whims. It's a form of elitism and discrimination. Yes, I know. I'm not one to talk.


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

> I also think that certain meanings are more fundamental, more necessary than others. Our world is very unequal and life can be very unfair, so it's my opinion that the feeling of suffering is very important to us, actually central in the lives of many people.


But you insinuated that the level of suffering Bach endured is NOT central in the lives of many people. This now sounds like suffering on the level of Bach is rather commonplace after all.



> Music that can show suffering and then a creative and valid response to it may be seem as uplifting and comforting, and for this I think that it can generate a passionate response from the listeners, as such meaning is so dear to many.
> Also, I think that many can sympathize with others for their suffering. This sensation is more important in my perspective than for example the sensation of fear, or of just some strange but interesting sonorities.
> 
> So, being more objective to your questions:
> ...


All of the above shows no objective basis for valuing one emotion in music over another, just your personal preference and speculation. Some may feel that such music you are describing is overly pathetic, naïve, saccharine, and sentimental; and that dwelling on such things is counterproductive. Some people, especially today, may wish to dwell on other things, such as existentialism, nihilism, positivism, and so forth. It's all subjective. Just ask Alma Deutcher.

And wouldn't you have to make sure all of the performers in the orchestra/ensemble were great sufferers too (on the JS Bach and BB King level)? Otherwise, how would it come through their horn/instruments if they haven't lived it themselves?



> ii) Because certain sensations are much more central and fundamental to our lives than others (but I would change the "above all others" to "above some others");


Yeah, it is just "above some others", just not to the point of the pedestal you're putting it on, IMO. Certainly not to the point of saying some piece of art is suboptimal just because the composer/musician didn't suffer enough.
And why not the reverse? Why is happy music not criticized for coming from someone who didn't lead a life of privilege?


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

EdwardBast said:


> Everyone has experienced suffering. In the time of Purcell and JS Bach no one thought of putting their personal feelings into music. It wasn't a thing. There were conventional ways to represent dark emotions and composers studied them as they studied any other skill they learned. Is every expressive piece of music written in the Baroque and Classical eras therefore insincere? It's a silly and meaningless question because music isn't extruded personal emotion and no one before the Romantic Era thought it was. And even in the Romantic Era, as in every other, the difference between the effective expression of emotion and failed attempts has nothing to do with sincerity and everything to do with skill. The view you're backing is quaint mythologizing.


I don't think that's quite right. Bach's music is full of emotion which he wanted to impart to his listeners. The problem is that the basis of this emotion is so distasteful to some sophisticated, "modern" sensibilities. In German it's referred to as "Jesusminne". The view of Bach as some cooly disconnected artist producing his music through various personae just doesn't hold water for me. Now that sort of thing does apply to, say, the poetry of Herrick and some of Donne. But Bach? No.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

,,................ deleted..........


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

I think the people in the 'suffering for art' side essentially feel that an individual who has a wide range of experiences (including hardship) will have more to draw from when creating their music or art. I don't think they actually think a person has to be in a constant state of suffering when creating or performing music to draw from those experiences. 

As far as Bach not suffering, how about both his parents were dead by the time he was 10, his first wife died while he was away on a trip and many of his children died young. So clearly not all was just easy in his life. But as I said before I think it is foolish to try to guess at the level of suffering anyone has endured.

Also the creative process is a mysterious thing that isn't exactly the same for different composers. It requires something outside of just trained skill and outside of just hardship or suffering.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

"Suffering" is not something that can be quantified simply by adding up the positive and then subtracting the negative life experiences as if it's some formula.

Well, not without next multiplying by the relative depth of each experience and dividing by the measure of the individual's resilience or stoicism.

Then we need to factor in tendencies to overreact to the slightest adversity....

Now I think about it, I'm sure we could produce a measurable "Composer's Suffering-O-Meter" with some BODMAS equation to apply.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Forster said:


> "Suffering" is not something that can be quantified simply by adding up the positive and then subtracting the negative life experiences as if it's some formula.
> 
> Well, not without next multiplying by the relative depth of each experience and dividing by the measure of the individual's resilience or stoicism.
> 
> ...


I like the way your mind works dude!


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## trazom (Apr 13, 2009)

Forster said:


> Now that I think about it, I'm sure we could produce a measurable "Composer's Suffering-O-Meter" with some BODMAS equation to apply.


At least that sounds far more ethical than my initial idea which was to randomly assign composition students of various ages and ethnicities across the country to various control groups, one getting no treatment, and one in a group that would receive a standardized dose of cholera or syphilis, with the quality of their music being assessed at 1 week intervals after that and correlated with their self-assessed level of suffering on a survey ranking from 1 to 10, 10 being the greatest amount of suffering.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

trazom said:


> At least that sounds far more ethical than my initial idea which was to randomly assign composition students of various ages and ethnicities across the country to various control groups, one getting no treatment, and one in a group that would receive a standardized dose of cholera or syphilis, with the quality of their music being assessed at 1 week intervals after that and correlated with their self-assessed level of suffering on a survey ranking from 1 to 10, 10 being the greatest amount of suffering.


That's some deep dark energy you channeled there.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

trazom said:


> At least that sounds far more ethical than my initial idea which was to randomly assign composition students of various ages and ethnicities across the country to various control groups, one getting no treatment, and one in a group that would receive a standardized dose of cholera or syphilis, with the quality of their music being assessed at 1 week intervals after that and correlated with their self-assessed level of suffering on a survey ranking from 1 to 10, 10 being the greatest amount of suffering.


No, I like your experimental approach much better than my dry maths. You could really get something to chew on, and maybe some absolute crackers of compositions from those unfortunate enough to contract the pox!


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

Forster said:


> No, I like your experimental approach much better than my dry maths. You could really get something to chew on, and maybe some absolute crackers of compositions from those unfortunate enough to contract the pox!


Whatever you and trazom decide on Forster, don't forget the booze or the results will be misleading.....:cheers:


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

Forster said:


> "Suffering" is not something that can be quantified simply by adding up the positive and then subtracting the negative life experiences as if it's some formula.


Well, nobody said the opposite in the thread. Nonetheless, some suffer more than others in life, and if they are composers, I believe that this may affect their music, not only in terms of chosen subjects for their pieces but also in the quality of what they can communicate through it.



Torkelburger said:


> But you insinuated that the level of suffering Bach endured is NOT central in the lives of many people. This now sounds like suffering on the level of Bach is rather commonplace after all.


There are many fortunate people in the world, and there are many unfortunate. There's no contradiction in what I've said.



Torkelburger said:


> All of the above shows no objective basis for valuing one emotion in music over another, just your personal preference and speculation.


Yes, it's my opinion, and I've made it clear that it is by inserting terms such as "I believe", "I think", "in my opinion" etc. in what I wrote.



Torkelburger said:


> And wouldn't you have to make sure all of the performers in the orchestra/ensemble were great sufferers too (on the JS Bach and BB King level)? Otherwise, how would it come through their horn/instruments if they haven't lived it themselves?


I think that those with a more complete life experience will yes be able to understand better the many facets of emotion that a piece of music may evoke, and yes I believe that they will have a better potential to play it really well, as long as of course they have the technique.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Xisten267 said:


> *Well, nobody said the opposite in the thread. *Nonetheless, some suffer more than others in life, and if they are composers, I believe that this may affect their music, not only in terms of chosen subjects for their pieces but also in the quality of what they can communicate through it.


The opposite to what?

I've said more than once that suffering is a concept that requires exploration to make sense of your claim. My last post, though tongue in cheek, made the same point. It's plain from the discussion about Bach, for example, that there are different views on the extent to which he "suffered" as a result of the various life events cited. You can't simply say that because Mahler's daughter died, he suffered to a greater/lesser extent than Bach who lost half his children, or that you can hear the suffering of his daughter's death in his 6th symphony.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

Forster said:


> The opposite to what?


To your claim that "'suffering' is not something that can be quantified simply by adding up the positive and then subtracting the negative life experiences as if it's some formula".



Forster said:


> I've said more than once that suffering is a concept that requires exploration to make sense of your claim. My last post, though tongue in cheek, made the same point. It's plain from the discussion about Bach, for example, that there are different views on the extent to which he "suffered" as a result of the various life events cited. *You can't simply say that because Mahler's daughter died, he suffered to a greater/lesser extent than Bach who lost half his children, or that you can hear the suffering of his daughter's death in his 6th symphony.*


I think I can attribute extra-musical significance to music yes, particularly (but not exclusively) for that of the Romantic era where programmatic content tended to be viewed as an important building block of it.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

tdc said:


> Also the creative process is a mysterious thing that isn't exactly the same for different composers. It requires something outside of just trained skill and *outside of just hardship or suffering.*


And what would that be? For instance, I still remember the following, which you said about a certain composer:
"I don't listen to his music, because I find it dull and with respect to dissonance, impotent. He uses dissonance, but not effectively in my view. It is like food without spice. *His music strikes me as the kind of thing a man would write who has never himself experienced anything in life one could call 'deep' or 'profound'.* It seems he resorts to humor, because there is nothing else of substance he has to say."
something 'deep' or 'profound' that's not just hardship or suffering?


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

hammeredklavier said:


> And what would that be? For instance, I still remember the following, which you said about a certain composer:
> "I don't listen to his music, because I find it dull and with respect to dissonance, impotent. He uses dissonance, but not effectively in my view. It is like food without spice. *His music strikes me as the kind of thing a man would write who has never himself experienced anything in life one could call 'deep' or 'profound'.* It seems he resorts to humor, because there is nothing else of substance he has to say."
> something 'deep' or 'profound' that's not just hardship or suffering?


Sometimes it seems like you just want an excuse to post that old quote of mine again and again. What is that like 20 times in the last year or so?

My point is pretty straight forward is it not? I did not say that skilled training and life experience are not elements of what can lead to a great composition. I said that it requires more than _just_ that? How many people in the world have studied composition and also have suffered in their lives? Are all of those people great composers?


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

dissident said:


> I don't think that's quite right. Bach's music is full of emotion which he wanted to impart to his listeners. The problem is that the basis of this emotion is so distasteful to some sophisticated, "modern" sensibilities. In German it's referred to as "Jesusminne". The view of Bach as some cooly disconnected artist producing his music through various personae just doesn't hold water for me. Now that sort of thing does apply to, say, the poetry of Herrick and some of Donne. But Bach? No.


Your post doesn't respond in any way to the text you quoted from me. And you're mixing up Baroque and Romantic views on expression, which I addressed in different posts. First, you are literally wrong with respect to Bach, who obviously created numerous personae in his texted works, fictional (and according to some, real) characters whose words are sung. But in his instrumental music it was the Doctrine of Affections and analogies to rhetoric that governed expression. Bach wasn't encoding personal emotion, he was trying to evoke it in his listeners as an orator would. See post #72.

The Romantic view, the one that applies to Beethoven and later CP music, was addressed in post #78. This is the era to which Cone's ideas about musical personae in instrumental music apply.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Xisten267 said:


> Well, nobody said the opposite in the thread.





Forster said:


> The opposite to what?





Xisten267 said:


> To your claim that "'suffering' is not something that can be quantified simply by adding up the positive and then subtracting the negative life experiences as if it's some formula".


But that is exactly what is _implied _by your view of 'suffering' in music: that there is some kind of tariff that can be set out once we've analysed the music for the suffering it contains and the story of the composer and their negative life events.* You want to put these composers in order of their greatest suffering as shown by their music and their life story. Not only that, unless _you _have deemed the music great, neither the composition nor the composer will be admitted to your list.

(* And in your post #75, you even want to put the emotions in order of importance, with "suffering" at the top.)


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

Xisten267 said:


> I think that those with a more complete life experience will yes be able to understand better the many facets of emotion that a piece of music may evoke, and yes I believe that they will have a better potential to play it really well, as long as of course they have the technique.


You might be surprised at how well music looks after itself in the composing and the performing.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

Forster said:


> But that is exactly what is _implied _by your view of 'suffering' in music: that there is some kind of tariff that can be set out once we've analysed the music for the suffering it contains and the story of the composer and their negative life events.* You want to put these composers in order of their greatest suffering as shown by their music and their life story.
> 
> (* And in your post #75, you even want to put the emotions in order of importance, with "suffering" at the top.)


I don't think that suffering is objectively quantifiable and I don't know why would you think that I implied this in what I wrote. But I think that we all can agree that some people suffer more than others in life nonetheless. My point is that those who suffered more tend to have more to say, the "meaning" of their music (yes, I think that music is a kind of language that communicate something, even if only basic sensorial perceptions) has a greater potential of being richer due to their experience. In post #75 I argued that suffering is a fundamental feeling and in this way music that can communicate it and a creative response to it may have a more valuable meaning than music that portrays (some, not all) other sensations*, but I didn't say that any of this is objectively quantifiable.

*: I define music as "organized sounds that communicate sensations". The sensations can be emotions, but not necessarily are.



Forster said:


> Not only that, unless _you _have deemed the music great, neither the composition nor the composer will be admitted to your list.


Actually this is false. I just asked for a consensus. And I deem both Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto and Purcell's _Dido and Aeneas_ as great music by the way.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

"But I think that we all can agree that some people suffer more than others in life nonetheless. My point is that those who suffered more"

Your very use of the word "more" is an act of quantifying.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

Forster said:


> Your very use of the word "more" is an act of quantifying.


But not of _objective_ quantifying. I can't put numbers on it. And I understand that by saying that "'suffering' is not something that can be quantified simply *by adding up the positive and then subtracting the negative life experiences as if it's some formula*" you're arguing against objective quantification of suffering, and I agree with you on that.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Xisten267 said:


> But not of _objective_ quantifying. I can't put numbers on it. And I understand that by saying that "'suffering' is not something that can be quantified simply *by adding up the positive and then subtracting the negative life experiences as if it's some formula*" you're arguing against objective quantification of suffering, and I agree with you on that.


Good. I'm glad we agree that you can't quantify it. Please stop saying that some suffer more than others. It's an inaccurate analysis of composers' lives, just because we can point to x and say, "Look at what s/he had to suffer."


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Forster said:


> "But I think that we all can agree that some people suffer more than others in life nonetheless. My point is that those who suffered more"
> 
> Your very use of the word "more" is an act of quantifying.


I think the people who suffer the most don't write music. They're too busy just trying to survive.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

Forster said:


> Good. I'm glad we agree that you can't quantify it. *Please stop saying that some suffer more than others*. It's an inaccurate analysis of composers' lives, just because we can point to x and say, "Look at what s/he had to suffer."


But some people _do_ suffer more than others. This is obvious, isn't it? Why would this be different with composers?

The fact that one can't measure something objectively and precisely doesn't mean that there are no degrees of this something. No one can say exactly how great is Bach's St. Matthew Passion and how great is the Minuet in G BWV Anh 114, but I think that most can agree that the former is greater than the latter.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Xisten267 said:


> But some people _do_ suffer more than others. This is obvious, isn't it? Why would this be different with composers?
> 
> The fact that one can't measure something objectively and precisely doesn't mean that there are no degrees of this something. No one can say exactly how great is Bach's St. Matthew Passion and how great is the Minuet in G BWV Anh 114, but I think that most can agree that the former is greater than the latter.


How do you know how much people suffer?


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

Forster said:


> How do you know how much people suffer?


Based on my perception of their lives, like you.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Xisten267 said:


> Based on my perception of their lives, like you.


So in truth, you have no more idea than I do, who suffers what. You can make assumptions, but have no firm evidence, other than in documented cases.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

Forster said:


> So in truth, you have no more idea than I do, who suffers what. You can make assumptions, but have no firm evidence, other than in documented cases.


I don't know what is your method, but I try to form my perception with facts, even when I have only a few in my possession. If for example I read that a person lost both her parents at ten years old, this suggests to me that this person must have suffered a great deal. But I cannot of course know for sure the exact reaction that an event brought to the life of a person (I'm not her), and I base my perception of the degree of this reaction partly on subjective assumptions, like anybody else.

Also, we can't have documented proof for everything in life. Sometimes we have to try to infer what is the truth without the support of robust evidence, as long as of course we have _some_ kind of evidence.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Xisten267 said:


> I don't know what is your method, but I try to form my perception with facts. If for example I read that a person lost both her parents at ten years old, this suggests to me that this person must have suffered a great deal. But I cannot of course know for sure the exact reaction that an event brought to the life of a person (I'm not her), and I base my perception of the degree of this reaction on subjective assumptions, like anybody else.
> 
> Also, we can't have documented evidence for everything in life. Sometimes we have try to infer what is the truth without the support of robust evidence.


My concern is less about those where there is documented evidence of adverse life events, more about those where there is no evidence of any such event.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Suffering is subjective and voluntary. We cannot control what life throws at us, but we can control our response.

What one person considers suffering another person may be more resilient and shrug it off. Someone who grew up in poverty may deal with hard times better than someone who grew up comfortably. Some people suffer if their phone's battery is dead.

IMO suffering is not something to brag about.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Xisten267 said:


> No one can say exactly how great is Bach's St. Matthew Passion and how great is the Minuet in G BWV Anh 114, but I think that most can agree that the former is greater than the latter.


What kind of emotions do you think works like the Art of the fugue express, if you think they're so apparent? I think you once said something to the effect that its depth comes more from its "abstractness" and "difficulty in comprehensibility". Is it more about suffering than, say, Hasse misereres?


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Now, this isn't classical music, but I find the comments interesting. This is a musician widely recognized as among the greatest of the 20th century.

(The interviewer is beyond stupid) 
I tried to time stamp this, relevant quotes begin at about 1:47:





Interviewer: "Because black musicians hurt more?"
Davis: "Its not that cliché"

Later in the interview (at 2:30)

*Davis:* *"My father is rich my mom is good looking, I never suffered a day in my life and I don't intend to, and I can play the blues."*


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

I think that people are misreading what I'm saying here. My point isn't that all great music is about suffering, nor that suffering is required to make great music. I already admitted that Mendelssohn's violin concerto is great music in my view, and I stated that it isn't dark or sad in my opinion. The point is that, to me, those who experience a high degree of suffering have much more _potential_ to create great music _about_ suffering, and that the major masterpieces of music that portray this kind of emotion were written by people who experienced it in their lives. I also argued that the feeling of suffering is of high value to music, but feel free to disagree.



hammeredklavier said:


> What kind of emotions do you think works like the Art of the fugue express, if you think they're so apparent? I think you once said something to the effect that its depth comes more from its "abstractness" and "difficulty in comprehensibility". Is it more about suffering than, say, Hasse misereres?


What exactly the art of fugue expresses? Even if I knew, I don't think I would be able to properly articulate it in words. J.S. Bach once said that "the aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul", and he often signed S.D.G. ("Soli Deo Gloria", i.e., "To God alone, the glory") in his works, so I suppose that those trying to understand the meaning of his works should take these facts into account. But music can be something very complex, particularly masterpieces such as _The Art of Fugue_, and I don't think that it would be possible to express in words _exactly_ what it means if it's instrumental only and the author gave no clue about what he meant.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Xisten267 said:


> I think that people are misreading what I'm saying here. My point isn't that all great music is about suffering, nor that suffering is required to make great music. I already admitted that Mendelssohn's violin concerto is great music in my view, and I stated that it isn't dark or sad in my opinion.* The point is that, to me, those who experience a high degree of suffering have much more potential to create great music about suffering, and that the major masterpieces of music that portray this kind of emotion were written by people who experienced it in their lives.* I also argued that the feeling of suffering is of high value to music, but feel free to disagree.


Apologies if I missed this earlier in the thread, but what works do you consider examples of masterpieces about suffering?


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

tdc said:


> Apologies if I missed this earlier in the thread, but what works do you consider examples of masterpieces about suffering?


I cited Schubert's _Unfinished_ symphony, Tchaikovsky's _Pathétique_ symphony, Beethoven's _Appassionata_ sonata and Mozart's _Requiem_ as examples. These works are widely regarded as masterpieces by many music enthusiasts and critics alike and did incredible well in the test of time in my opinion.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Xisten267 said:


> I cited Schubert's _Unfinished_ symphony, Tchaikovsky's _Pathétique_ symphony, Beethoven's _Appassionata_ sonata and Mozart's _Requiem_ as examples. These works are widely regarded as masterpieces by many music enthusiasts and critics alike and did incredible well in the test of time in my opinion.


These are all great works, and all unique. I think it is a simplistic view and short changing them to say these works are just about suffering, though I don't think that is exactly what you are saying.

My hypothesis is that a lot of different experiences are something that likely help with creative depth, including some suffering, though I suspect happiness is probably more important than suffering. I also think there is something else I alluded to earlier that is even more important than either of these things, a mysterious element, where composers seem to be antennas of sorts, essentially like channels. Perhaps some of them are old souls? As I said I am only speculating.

I will say when I think about suffering expressed in music, the first composers that come to mind for me would be guys like Shostakovich and Schnittke. Though again I think its dangerous to be too reductive in these things.


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## JTS (Sep 26, 2021)

Xisten267 said:


> I cited Schubert's _Unfinished_ symphony, Tchaikovsky's _Pathétique_ symphony, Beethoven's _Appassionata_ sonata and Mozart's _Requiem_ as examples. These works are widely regarded as masterpieces by many music enthusiasts and critics alike and did incredible well in the test of time in my opinion.


The Mozart Requiem is romantically regarded as an example of suffering but actually it isn't it is a example of a Requiem. If you look at the music it is in the same vein as music by the same composer for his C minor Mass. different but in the same sort of vein. That was the time when Mozart was very happy and just married and as a promised wedding gift to his wife. 
What is probably the greatest music ever written, the St Matthew Passion, did not come out I'm an exorbitant life of suffering but out of tremendous life experience and a tremendously developed musical technique and enormous musical genius


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

JTS said:


> The Mozart Requiem is romantically regarded as an example of suffering but *actually it isn't it is a example of a Requiem.* If you look at the music it is in the *same vein as music by the same composer for his C minor Mass.* different but in the same sort of vein.


I'm not sure what these are supposed to mean. Are you aware of the late 18th century Germanic practice of dramatic requiem settings by Hasse, Gassman, Weinrauch, Haydn, Pasterwitz, etc, and the commonalities Mozart's requiem has with the other composers' requiems, and the commonalities Mozart's K.427 has with the other composer's masses of the ordinary? Mozart's requiem is about as different to his K.427 as other composers' requiems are to their masses of the ordinary.


hammeredklavier said:


> (1764; notice the "typical sound" of post-Baroque basso continuo / orchestration)
> 
> 
> 
> ...


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

JTS said:


> The Mozart Requiem is romantically regarded as an example of suffering


Wouldn't Schubert's Unfinished symphony, Tchaikovsky's Pathétique symphony, Beethoven's Appassionata also be examples of works "romantically regarded as examples of suffering" then? I mean how is Mozart's requiem different from theirs in that regard?


hammeredklavier said:


> "On the very eve of his death, [Mozart] had the score of the Requiem brought to his bed, and himself (it was two o'clock in the afternoon) sang the alto part; Schack, the family friend, sang the soprano line, as he had always previously done, Hofer, Mozart's brother-in-law, took the tenor, Gerl, later a bass singer at the Mannheim Theater, the bass. They were at the first bars of the Lacrimosa when Mozart began to weep bitterly, laid the score on one side, and eleven hours later, at one o'clock in the morning (of 5 December 1791, as is well known), departed this life.
> Biographer Niemetschek relates a vaguely similar account, leaving out a rehearsal:
> On the day of his death he asked for the score to be brought to his bedside. 'Did I not say before, that I was writing this Requiem for myself?' After saying this, he looked yet again with tears in his eyes through the whole work."


Bernstein: "Tchaikovsky wrote his Pathétique when he was suicidal - Not at all."


hammeredklavier said:


> Bernstein: "There is a popular myth that composers write the way they feel, which is simply not true."
> 0:44~1:18


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

When I saw the title of this thread I wondered if it was ArtRock or ArtMusic we were suffering for!


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