# Putative properties of modern music



## Guest (Dec 26, 2012)

In the thread about KenOC's love of Simpson's music, a supposed property of modern music is referred to.

Simpson's symphonies are characterized as "modern without the need to be 'difficult'."

But "modern" music is no more or less difficult than any other kind of music,* and difficulty is not any sort of need of any composer.

New music, on the other hand, can easily(!) be unfamiliar. And any listener can easily react to the unfamiliar as being difficult. And any listener can make the very familiar(!) category error of imputing the difficulty they're having with something to the thing itself.

I think our conversations would be a lot more fruitful if we could avoid simple category errors like this, though.

New music is new. A consequence of newness is unfamiliarity. And if unfamiliar translates for a listener to dislike, then it's dead easy for that listener to impute all sorts of motives to the perpetrators of the music and all sorts of qualities to the music itself that are simply not properties of the composers or the pieces at all. One should expect new music to be new, i.e., unfamiliar. And one should recognize that unfamiliarity means that the new thing will be difficult to understand. 

There's nothing mysterious about any of this. Nor is there any sort of conspiracy among composers to **** you off. New is new is all. If anything is certainly true about twentieth century music, it's that newness became such a bad thing that even when things are no longer literally new (like Schoenberg), a clear majority of listeners still insist that that music has the qualities associated with unfamiliarity: difficult, ugly, incomprehensible. Even though unfamiliar can hardly apply after all that time has passed.

Simply and reductively put, it is a history of attitudes that we're dealing with.

18th century--new music is expected at concerts.
19th century--a struggle begins between the traditional view (new is best) and the new view (old music is best). This was the defining struggle of the 19th century. The new view that old music is best did not become firmly established until the 1870s.
20th century--new music is bad. This started out, pre-Schoenberg, as "all new music is bad, whether it sounds old or not." This changed fairly quickly, however, to "new is only bad if it sounds new." That meant, eventually, that genuinely new music could continue to be excoriated even after it was no longer new. Some things, eventually, escaped: Stravinsky and Bartók. Some didn't: Schoenberg and Varèse. Though the latter have managed to acquire more and more fans over the years, the majority of people who can enjoy the former pair still report difficulty with the latter pair.
21st century--increasing distance between what new music composers are producing and what listeners are even aware of, a gap abetted by an increasing number of composers who are willing to produce what listeners want. If Higdon and Adès can give people "new" music that is nonetheless familiar, then it's the people producing new music who are out of step. Music is a product. The customer is king. Genuine innovation is increasingly marginalized, innovative composers dismissed as "obscure" and the consumer secure that his or her needs are paramount.

******************

*"Modern music" only became a kind of music in the last century, too, when "modern" music somehow stopped being synonymous with "current" and settled on one type of music, still called "modern" long after it was decades in the past. Berlioz called his music modern, too, but it didn't stay modern. It did stay "romantic" however, while "modern" moved on to describe Wagner and Tchaikovsky and such.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

some guy said:


> If Higdon and Adès can give people "new" music that is nonetheless familiar, then it's the people producing new music who are out of step. Music is a product. The customer is king. Genuine innovation is increasingly marginalized, innovative composers dismissed as "obscure" and the consumer secure that his or her needs are paramount.


There is a common prejudice here that the consumer (too pejorative perhaps? -- let's say "listener" instead) is not qualified to select the music that he listens to and supports. Perhaps only the composer is qualified to do that!

The whole argument reminds me of Babbitt's famous essay, which boils down to little more than an argument that society should subsidize composers whose work is not and, by his own statement, probably never will be widely enjoyed. It closes with a similar flavor and even similar language: "Admittedly, if this music is not supported, the whistling repertory of the man in the street will be little affected, the concert-going activity of the conspicuous consumer of musical culture will be little disturbed. But music will cease to evolve, and, in that important sense, will cease to live."

By which Mr. Babbitt betrays a lack of understanding of evolution, which proceeds as much by extinctions as by the arisal of new species.

The whole essay is here. It's worth reading in spite of the dismaying academese.

http://www.palestrant.com/babbitt.html


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## Guest (Dec 26, 2012)

KenOC said:


> There is a common prejudice here that the consumer (too pejorative perhaps? -- let's say "listener" instead) is not qualified to select the music that he listens to and supports. Perhaps only the composer is qualified to do that!


Let's get rid of this red herring as quickly as possible. The OP is nothing about whether the listener is or is not qualified to select what he or she listens to and supports. _Only_ the listener is qualified.

The OP is about category errors, and the attitudes that arise when the same error is made consistently over time. And about the consequences of that error, for composers and listeners alike.

If there is a disconnect between contemporary composers and any listeners other than their fans, that disconnect is not going to be repaired by trying to push composers and listeners even farther apart.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Let's not be disingenuous. You have already equated "listener" with "consumer," at least in the kinds of music you don't prefer. And let's look at another passage:



some guy said:


> 21st century--increasing distance between what new music composers are producing and what listeners are even aware of, a gap abetted by an increasing number of composers who are willing to produce what listeners want. If Higdon and Adès can give people "new" music that is nonetheless familiar, then it's the people producing new music who are out of step.


 "Abet" is of course another pejorative word: "to encourage, support, or countenance by aid or approval, usually in wrongdoing." I take your point as being that modern composers writing in a conservative idiom ("what listeners want") are somehow wrongly disadvantaging their more "advanced" contemporaries. And all because people seem to prefer that sort of music! Of course, maybe it's just a "category error" as you say...


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## Guest (Dec 26, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Let's not be disingenuous.


OK. You first.



KenOC said:


> You have already equated "listener" with "consumer," at least in the kinds of music you don't prefer.


One, I have not equated listener with consumer. I have traced a progression, chronologically, from "listener" to "consumer." But even that does not equate the two. There are still plenty of listeners who are not "consumers," as you very well know, and as you very well know that I know. Two, this is not about what kinds of music I do or do not prefer. This is first about seeing statements such as the quote in the OP as category errors and second about looking at some of the consequences of those errors.

So it's kind of like a fork, you know. One prong is about changing the discourse. The other prong is about changing the attitudes. The music is whatever it is. If it's already composed, then it's done. Deal with it. If it is yet to be composed, there are ways of encouraging and ways of discouraging new things. We've had a belly full of the discouraging ways.

This is an attempt to encourage people to give the encouraging ways a try.

[Note: I cannot, of course, keep you from trying to sabotage this attempt. I certainly wouldn't even try to convince you to change your mind about anything. I can only say that I as long as I choose to, I will remark your divagations. If I get to the point where I stop remarking them, it's not because I have started agreeing with you!]


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

some guy said:


> I can only say that I as long as I choose to, I will remark your divagations.


"Divagations" is worth the whole thread! I retire from the field, sir.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

some guy said:


> In the thread about KenOC's love of Simpson's music, a supposed property of modern music is referred to.
> 
> Simpson's symphonies are characterized as "modern without the need to be 'difficult'."
> 
> But "modern" music is no more or less difficult than any other kind of music,* and difficulty is not any sort of need of any composer.


I think most people interpret the phrase "X work is difficult" as something like "Most listeners have difficulty learning to like X work." Perhaps people should say "I have difficulty learning to like X work", but it may be useful at times to say "most listeners." If others think that's not evident, then they can discuss whether it's true. But I accept that it's useful to distinguish a work being difficult and someone having difficulty enjoying that work. The difference would emphasize that for some people work X is not "difficult" or in other circumstances (e.g. different introduction to music) work X might not be "difficult" for most people.



some guy said:


> 21st century--increasing distance between what new music composers are producing and what listeners are even aware of, a gap abetted by an increasing number of composers who are willing to produce what listeners want. If Higdon and Adès can give people "new" music that is nonetheless familiar, then it's the people producing new music who are out of step.


I agree that there appears to be an increasing distance between what new music composers are producing and what many listeners are even aware of, but why do you say that effect is abetted by an increasing number of composers who are willing to produce what listeners want? Are you suggesting that if contemporary composers did not compose music that listeners want, then those listeners would have to brave the less familiar music? My sense is that listeners (at least the more conservative listeners) will shun the less familiar music either way, and the gap between familiar music and unfamiliar music will continue to grow.

Maybe if contemporary composers did not compose familiar music, orchestras and other ensembles would have no choice but to perform the less familiar music (assuming they were willing to perform that music). I guess I'm not convinced that many ensembles would be willing to perform music that breaks too sharply from what listeners are used to hearing, but I certainly could be wrong.

I guess it boils down to how best to introduce people to less familiar music. It seems to me that no one really has a good answer to this issue (at least that I've heard). TC members are, in general, different, but I know too many people who simply are not interested in pushing themselves. My sense is that people must have an inner desire to explore (wherever that might come from), but most will not be pushed into that exploration.


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## Guest (Dec 26, 2012)

KenOC said:


> "Divagations" is worth the whole thread! I retire from the field, sir.






mmsbls said:


> I think most people interpret the phrase "X work is difficult" as something like "Most listeners have difficulty learning to like X work."


If I thought that, I would never have started this thread.

I think the difficulties are much deeper and more entrenched than the fairly positive way you're looking at it. Let's just say that I very much hope that you are right!



mmsbls said:


> I agree that there appears to be an increasing distance between what new music composers are producing and what many listeners are even aware of, but why do you say that effect is abetted by an increasing number of composers who are willing to produce what listeners want?


Because it is.

Other things may contribute as well, of course. An increasing number of composers et cetera is not an exclusive category. You are correct that "listeners (at least the more conservative listeners) will shun the less familiar music either way, and the gap between familiar music and unfamiliar music will continue to grow." This thread is just one, small attempt to try to close the gap or at least keep it from widening. Part of the reason there's a gap at all is because of the suspicion of new music that dates from the beginning of the nineteenth century if not earlier, a suspicion that suddenly deepened about a dozen years before Schoenberg's early attempts at pantonality, a suspicion that I know from personal experience is almost certainly baseless--I came to know and love twentieth century avant garde music from a fairly isolated position. I did not know the common canards about contemporary music until I'd already fallen in love with it, and so didn't believe any of them when I heard them since I knew already that they were not true. I try to understand, but it's difficult as I never went through any of the agony or the struggle that many people report as having with modern music.

I don't like everything I hear, either, as some people have concluded. But I would no more question the validity of the avant garde on the basis of not liking Henri Chopin than I would question the validity of Romantic music on the basis of not liking Frederic Chopin.



mmsbls said:


> Maybe if contemporary composers did not compose familiar music, orchestras and other ensembles would have no choice but to perform the less familiar music (assuming they were willing to perform that music). I guess I'm not convinced that many ensembles would be willing to perform music that breaks too sharply from what listeners are used to hearing, but I certainly could be wrong.


Many contemporary composers do not composer familiar music. They do have difficulties getting that music performed, but they have some successes as well. And there are two large categories that sidestep this particular issue--electroacoustics (which does not require a performer*) and composer/performers, of which there are many. And there are new music ensembles, too (an entity that was first tried out in the nineteenth century as audiences began turning away from new music).



mmsbls said:


> I guess it boils down to how best to introduce people to less familiar music.


And I'm trying out, in this thread, another idea, namely that it boils down to how to talk, how to think about music and listening. That if we can somehow manage to talk about it differently than we do, if we can tell a different story than the one in which the more outsky composers are demonized, then the listening will follow more easily. That is, it will be easier for people to listen to the new and accept its newness. Certainly exposure alone will not work. As we've seen in many threads here, exposure can just as easily simply reinforce established positions.

If you get yourself to no longer insist that any new piece has to prove something to you, has to prove itself worthy of your attention by fitting somehow your expectations of what music should be, then you will have considerably less trouble enjoying things that you're having trouble with now.

*Although diffusing a piece in a hall is just as much an art as any other kind of performance. It's just that an electroacoustic piece can be played simply by opening a sound file and clicking play.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

some guy said:


> New music, on the other hand, can easily(!) be unfamiliar. And any listener can easily react to the unfamiliar as being difficult. And any listener can make the very familiar(!) category error of imputing the difficulty they're having with something to the thing itself.


This is why I find Hummel "difficult;" I am not familiar enough with his music to understand it.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I may be retired from the field but can still kibbitz!



some guy said:


> New music, on the other hand, can easily(!) be unfamiliar. And any listener can easily react to the unfamiliar as being difficult. And any listener can make the very familiar(!) category error of imputing the difficulty they're having with something to the thing itself.


As opposed to themselves? Once again, we meet the "blame the audience" syndrome.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

KenOC said:


> As opposed to themselves? Once again, we meet the "blame the audience" syndrome.


The "blame the audience" argument is different. When someone says, "Classical music would be in much better shape if only the audience would work harder to understand the music" or "Audiences would like modern music if only they were more open to it", that person is blaming the audience.

Normally we don't think of music as difficult. Bach's music is rather complex, but most of us just like it without finding it hard. Just because music is unpleasant or unfamiliar doesn't make the music difficult. There is a distinction between understanding music, which can be rather difficult, and liking music. I do not understand Mozart's music (I am not trained in music theory or appreciation), but I love his music. I do understand some of Xenakis's music (the math and physics parts), but I do not like it. One can like Mozart and Xenakis without understanding the music. To understand the music may be difficult, but to like music does not necessarily require extensive work.

I don't really know if there's a "trick" to liking unfamiliar music, or if one can work hard and learn to like things by brute force. I struggled to learn to like Berg's Violin Concerto, but when I finally found it beautiful, I couldn't say how that happened. I listened and became more familiar with aspects of the work. Suddenly it sounded beautiful. Was it difficult to like? I guess it depends on what is meant by difficult, but it certainly wasn't difficult like learning physics or football.


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

I wonder if it was my short post on the Simpson thread that prompted some guy to start this one as it was me who described Simpson's symphonies as 'modern without the need to be difficult'. For my part, I'm not that worried whether what I wrote was flawed or just downright wrong - if anyone can understand what I was trying to say within the confines of a wee precis then I'm content with that.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

the idea that the appreciation of modern music is simply connected with familiarity with it for me is totally wrong. It means that one with a great familiarity with a piece of music has to appreciate it inevitably. I've loved music of different traditions, traditions that i didn't know at all,Ii've loved at first hearing music of modern composers that I didn't know before, I've loved music only after many hearings, and there's also a lot of music that I've listened a lot that i don't like at all. Simply put, there's good music and bad music (composers are not superior being), like there's good art and bad art, good architecture and bad architecture, good movies and bad movies, good literature and bad literature. "Modern" means nothing in this sense to me.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

elgars ghost said:


> I wonder if it was my short post on the Simpson thread that prompted some guy to start this one as it was me who described Simpson's symphonies as 'modern without the need to be difficult'. For my part, I'm not that worried whether what I wrote was flawed or just downright wrong - if anyone can understand what I was trying to say within the confines of a wee precis then I'm content with that.


"Difficult" is a fairly common, natural word and shouldn´t be errased from our language, like most adjectives.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

We all know what "easy listening" music is...don't we?


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## Guest (Dec 26, 2012)

"Only the listener is qualified".

Then why another discourse on why I should ignore my likes and dislikes in order to develop musical tastes closer to those of some guy I don't even know?

Not arguing this one - I'm bowing out immediately. Just saying.


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## xuantu (Jul 23, 2009)

mmsbls said:


> My sense is that listeners (at least the more conservative listeners) will shun the less familiar music either way, and the gap between familiar music and unfamiliar music will continue to grow.


You made it sound like the 2nd law of thermodynamics.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Every time I see this thread title, at first I think it's "Punitive properties of modern music." Totally inappropriate, I know...


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## Guest (Dec 26, 2012)

Wow.

Just "wow."

Ken: The source of the phenomena we're talking about is certain listeners, yes. Kinda hard to talk about the source without mentioning the source, eh? And correctly identifying the source is not any sort of syndrome, it's just identifying the source. And the source is not "the audience," it's certain members of the audience with particular, identifiable prejudices. How and why those prejudices arose is perhaps beyond the scope of an online discussion thread. That they arose is simply a matter of record and provides the basis for this discussion.

mmsbls: The way to like anything is to be receptive to it. Unreceptive will guarantee dislike. Receptive may or may not end up in liking. This is universally true. (It's universal simply because it's simple logic is all.) There's no guarantee at this end of the spectrum, only the possibility.

elgar's ghost: It's not whether or not your remark was flawed or wrong or even incomprehensible in the context of that discussion. Your remark was a pretty straightforward expression of a common category error and thus useful for starting this thread that we're in now.

norman: Saying that unfamiliarity is able to result in dislike is not equivalent to saying that familiarity will inevitably lead to like. Therefore I call "red herring." As for the adjectives you've put in front of various things, "good" and "bad," why, those are the very category errors I started this thing to try to eradicate. Here's a wee thought experiment for anyone interested (i.e., not just norman)--next time you call something "good" or "bad" ask yourself the epistemological question, "How do I know?" Good and bad are judgments. They are conclusions, arrived at via steps. Just because it's easy to act as if the steps do not exist (as in "jumping to conclusions") does not mean that the steps do not exist. If you've got a conclusion going, there were steps, whether you ignore them or not.

BPS: There is no discourse on why you (or anyone else) should ignore your likes and dislikes. This discussion about how turning the dislikes of some people into the properties of certain kinds of music can create an atmosphere in which those certain kinds of music can be difficult or impossible to hear sympathetically and thus, possibly, enjoy. Are your likes and dislikes static and immutable? Do they never change? Have they been etched in stone since birth? Are they encoded in your DNA, fundamental and unquestionable fibers of your very being?


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

some guy said:


> ...Simply and reductively put, it is a history of attitudes that we're dealing with.
> 
> 18th century--new music is expected at concerts.
> 
> ...


I think this reflects our attitude towards art.

18th century--it was the only game in town, like a hit parade, before democracy, a growing middle-class, and consumer culture (with its attendant media) became all-powerful. Therefore, the playing field was level.

19th century--the idea of "fine art as a contemplation of the sublime" emerges, with a growing middle class, and a shrinkage in power of Church and royal upper class. With this, an instant "history" of art is created which didn't exist before. Museums of art are created. Old is good, new is banal. This traditional view is still a traditional view as well.

20th century--the pervasive nature of media bombards us with new things. Duchamp questions our ideas of art, and thus a new distinction between highbrow art and lowbrow art is created. Popular and other forms are allowed a fighting chance, while the historically-correct Titanic of "highbrow" art is slowly sinking under the weight of its own baggage.

21st century--the postmodern view of art history, and the increasingly level playing field, in which high-brow competes with low-brow, creates an "office cubicle" environment in which each aficionado pursues his chosen "art" or entertainment in isolated freedom. Players occasionally stand up to look, and perhaps to shoot a spitball into other cubicles.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

some guy said:


> Ken: ... And the source is not "the audience," it's certain members of the audience with particular, identifiable prejudices.


And if these "certain members" were somehow to discard their "prejudices," then they would like the kinds of music you like. Ah, I get it now.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

some guy said:


> ...The source of the phenomena we're talking about is certain listeners, yes. Kinda hard to talk about the source without mentioning the source, eh? And correctly identifying the source is not any sort of syndrome, it's just identifying the source. And the source is not "the audience," it's certain members of the audience with particular, identifiable prejudices.


some guy may not ever be able to clean the mess up, but he has uncovered the attitude behind it. Howza 'bout some flip humor and short, pithy answers?:lol:


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

some guy said:


> norman: Saying that unfamiliarity is able to result in dislike is not equivalent to saying that familiarity will inevitably lead to like. Therefore I call "red herring." As for the adjectives you've put in front of various things, "good" and "bad," why, those are the very category errors I started this thing to try to eradicate.


and as you probably know, those are not errors at all for me. Sure, there are also persons who eat poo, and maybe the day that you will open a restaurant in the name of the absolute relativity you will put it on the menù, but that doesn't mean that it's considered good as chocolate.



some guy said:


> Here's a wee thought experiment for anyone interested (i.e., not just norman)--next time you call something "good" or "bad" ask yourself the epistemological question, "How do I know?" Good and bad are judgments. They are conclusions, arrived at via steps. Just because it's easy to act as if the steps do not exist (as in "jumping to conclusions") does not mean that the steps do not exist. If you've got a conclusion going, there were steps, whether you ignore them or not.


I know because i'm a human and not an alien, and even if i know that my taste has its great limits, because when i think that a piece is great because a certain aspect usually when i look for more informations on the piece i find incredibly often that other people have thought exactly the same things, and this is for me a demonstration that i'm right when i say that it's not all completely relative. Bach or Justin Bieber are not in my universe on the same musical level.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

KenOC said:


> And if these "certain members" were somehow to discard their "prejudices," then they would like the kinds of music you like. Ah, I get it now.


Certain members of the audience do hold prejudice and can't even come close to forming an objective opinion on a subset of music because of it. Some guy isn't trying to force anybody to like anything, but to drop their irrational views and misinformation about certain music in order to come to a clearer realization. If you watched _Broke Back Moutain_ or _The Birdcage_ with "gays, are icky, ew!" or "all gays should burn in hell!" in mind, I doubt you'd enjoy it. However, if you dropped said prejudices, this does not mean you'd suddenly like those movies, but you'd dislike them from reasons that had nothing to do with your prejudice.


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

There is a prejudice that all opinions that disagree with theirs are prejudices. I would like to see that prejudice dropped.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Ramako said:


> There is a prejudice that all opinions that disagree with theirs are prejudices. I would like to see that prejudice dropped.


You mean, like if I say that there's generally no difference in opera and cinema, that both are trivial entertainments and should be critiqued interchangably, then you would not say I'm prejudiced or unaware of the superiority of opera on some level? I doubt it. Your conceits are your prejudices.


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> You mean, like if I say that there's generally no difference in opera and cinema, that both are trivial entertainments and should be critiqued interchangably, then you would not say I'm prejudiced or unaware of the superiority of opera on some level? I doubt it. Your conceits are your prejudices.


If I said that opera was inherently superior to cinema then a good portion of the general population would probably believe that I was prejudiced.

Prejudice=opinion held without reason. Just because you don't like someone's opinion that doesn't make it a prejudice. The word is being thrown around quite a lot here, that's all. Usually its implication is that those who hold said opinions are thus less enlightened.


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

Ramako said:


> If I said that opera was inherently superior to cinema then a good portion of the general population would probably believe that I was prejudiced.
> 
> Prejudice=opinion held without reason. Just because you don't like someone's opinion that doesn't make it a prejudice. The word is being thrown around quite a lot here, that's all. Usually its implication is that those who hold said opinions are thus less enlightened.


Prejudice is not opinion held without reason. It is opinion based on assumptions with limited knowledge or experience with a specific thing. It is assumption via stereotypes. The reason is never particularly good with prejudice.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

BurningDesire said:


> Prejudice is not opinion held without reason. It is opinion based on assumptions with limited knowledge or experience with a specific thing. It is assumption via stereotypes. The reason is never particularly good with prejudice.


Indeed...

1) : preconceived judgment or opinion (2) : an adverse opinion or leaning formed without just grounds or before sufficient knowledge
an irrational attitude of hostility directed against an individual, a group, a race, or their supposed characteristics

Any other definition sounds like some excuse to justify your ignorance.

Reminds me of hearing this kind of stuff quite often: "I'm not prejudice/racist, I just don't believe blacks should mix with whites"


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

For all your turning definitions around my point still holds. In fact, the surprisingly strong reaction perhaps convinces me further of its validity.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Ramako said:


> Just because you don't like someone's opinion that doesn't make it a prejudice.


If somebody doesn't like the music I do, it _must _be because they're prejudiced, or perhaps out of malice! The same logic was used in the later years of the Soviet Union, when dissidents were confined in mental hospitals and forcibly drugged, because after all, if they objected to the government, then they _must _be mentally ill.


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## Guest (Dec 30, 2012)

No one who is prejudiced likes to be called prejudiced.

But if we're going to be able to distinguish between valid and invalid opinions, we're pretty much stuck with using words like "prejudice."

Perhaps certain distinguished members deprecate distinguishing between valid and invalid opinions.

No one who holds invalid opinions wants to have their opinions called invalid, though I have not noticed that their dislike noticably extends to situations in which they are the ones doing the calling.

So we're stuck. No conversation about contemporary music shall be allowed. I declare a snowball's chance in Hell to be better than the chance of a thread on contemporary music in a classical music forum.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

some guy said:


> No one who holds invalid opinions wants to have their opinions called invalid...


I don't know anyone who thinks their opinions are "invalid." Like most, I tend to ascribe that sort of thing to other people.

BTW if you make the premise of a thread that listeners (or "consumers" as you would have it) are prejudiced against the music you prefer for various bad reasons, or through logical error, some resistance might well be expected. This thread has been from the beginning not about contemporary music but about the deficiencies of those who dislike it.


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

some guy said:


> So we're stuck. No conversation about contemporary music shall be allowed. I declare a snowball's chance in Hell to be better than the chance of a thread on contemporary music in a classical music forum.


Nonsense, as you're well aware.


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## Rapide (Oct 11, 2011)

some guy said:


> But "modern" music is no more or less difficult than any other kind of music,* and difficulty is not any sort of need of any composer.


That is simply untrue, assuming you are presenting that statement as fact. Bach's fugal pieces can be difficult to understand, study and perform more so than a minuet by the boy Mozart. Boulez's abstract serialism can be difficult to understand, study and perform more so than a randomly generated noise piece by some of the noise-musicians you adore; the latter might be physically difficult to normal ears, the former might be conceptually difficult to the music student. Bach's pieces were largely written for the professional "connoisseur" of fugues alike, which explained his relatively small circulation of music compared with his contemporaries. Fact is, music was and is written by composers with different levels of artistic complexities.

As far as I am aware, you are not a composer.


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## Guest (Dec 30, 2012)

KenOC said:


> This thread has been from the beginning not about contemporary music but about the deficiencies of those who dislike it.


Not quite. This is only what the thread has become since you joined in with your perversion of the original point. Oh, right. That was the very first post after the OP.

OK, then. You have redefined it as being about the deficiencies of those who dislike it. And as you have redefined it, so it is. Ah the magical powers of language, eh?

Great job.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

Some keep insisting that proponents of contemporary music feel that there is something wrong with people who dislike contemporary music. Reasonable people do not believe that. No rational person is holding a gun to anyone's head forcing them to like music they dislike. No matter how reasonable we try to be there are those who insist that our aesthetics are destroying classical music. I have been dealing with this nonsense for years and I am getting tired of it. I have known 'some guy' for some time and I understand his frustrations.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Ah, thought better of that...


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

The term "difficult" seems to imply a failed degree of compliance in music or art, as if it were "intended" to communicate (entertain?) an observer or audience. Newsflash: not all music is created to pander to your taste!

Much of the music and art I like, such as hard-core serial music, I feel was not created with my "entertainment" in mind. I see this as no failure; I simply go to the art as it is.

One large problem I see with music is that it is (in concert halls) an "audience" experience; therefore, it is automatically a "group-think" response.

Visual art, by contrast, is usually a "solitary" experience, as when we ponder a painting. Recorded music is like this now, as we listen with headphones in isolation.

ALL of the common-practice classical music that is preferred by conservative listeners arose from the concert hall/audience/"group-think" tradition, and this tradition seems to be carried-on as part of its baggage, as a "certificate of consensus" which is part of its appeal. 

"Other people throughout history liked this, and now I like it, so I am part of a great tradition of music which we all agree is great, so this bolsters my position."

This is my approach to "difficult" music and art: "This is music (or art) which was created for itself, to propagate its own agenda, and was not created within the context, or has risen above the influence of, the "mass consumer" machine to "entertain me" or an audience. Its agenda and purpose are very likely to be more concerned with the medium itself, or as a statement "about" the medium, which adds-to or expands what was possible in the medium. This is "art about art," not art about me. If the work does communicate with me on other levels, it is because it intended to, or because I like it, not because I, or an audience, deemed it to be successful or failing in this regard."


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

millionrainbows said:


> The term "difficult" seems to imply a failed degree of compliance in music or art, as if it were "intended" to communicate (entertain?) an observer or audience. Newsflash: not all music is created to pander to your taste!


I certainly agree that not all music was created to pander to audience's taste, but I have never taken the term "difficult" as applied to classical music as implying a failure of the work. Maybe others do. Many things in life are difficult. Learning quantum mechanics and becoming a professional basketball player are examples of difficult things. Difficult things require more effort and/or ability relative to other things. That's all it means to me. Everyone I know personally and many people on TC would say the _average_ person has more difficulty (in that sense) enjoying many modern works than they do enjoying earlier works. That statement says nothing about the composers or the value of the works.

The interesting question to me is whether people today have more difficulty enjoying modern works than people at earlier times had enjoying "modern" works. If the answer is "no", then music today is simply an extension of hundreds of years of classical music composition. If the answer is "yes", then there is something fundamentally different about the interaction between people today and modern music. _That_ would be fascinating. Really fascinating. But, of course, it would still say nothing about the value of the music.



millionrainbows said:


> Much of the music and art I like, such as hard-core serial music, I feel was not created with my "entertainment" in mind.


I may be misunderstanding what you are saying here. Do you mean that many composers do not compose music with the intention of having other people enjoy or appreciate their works? If so, do you think that was true of Baroque, Classical, and Romantic composers as well? I always assumed that composers wrote music for others to hear (and presumably enjoy/appreciate/etc.). Do you think I'm wrong?


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

Ramako said:


> For all your turning definitions around my point still holds. In fact, the surprisingly strong reaction perhaps convinces me further of its validity.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

Hey guys, did you know getting actual definitions from an actual dictionary of a word is "turning definitions around", but making up your own definition for a word isn't? Oh wait... the definition of the word is his "opinion" and if I say that isn't the definition then I'm "prejudiced" and just trying to feel "enlightened". Oops... I guess I can start interpreting everybody's posts depending on how I feel like defining a word at that moment.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

I also didn't realise that giving someone the correct definition of a word--you know, spreading information--was considered a strong, and apparently hostile, reaction which "validates" someone's claims. Is that all it takes? Not the content of the post but the perceived degree of "reaction"? If the majority of people feel that way, no wonder it is nearly impossible to hold a rational debate and have an informed populace.


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

Prejudice.



> 1. preconceived *opinion that is not based on reason* or actual experience


with a subsection



> dislike, hostility, or unjust behaviour deriving from preconceived and unfounded opinions:
> accusations of racial prejudice


_Oxford Dictionary Online_


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

It's not the same, I know. BurningDesire pointed out why it was significant - the preconceived aspect of the matter.

Still, all these opinions are preconceived, on both sides of the argument. Therefore it really doesn't make any difference to my original definition given the context.

When I said you were turning definitions around, I meant that it was not significant. And while I might be ignorant, I am not a racist, so feel free to keep those matters out of the thread.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

Ramako said:


> It's not the same, I know. BurningDesire pointed out why it was significant - the preconceived aspect of the matter.
> 
> Still, all these opinions are preconceived, on both sides of the argument. Therefore it really doesn't make any difference to my original definition given the context.
> 
> When I said you were turning definitions around, I meant that it was not significant. And while I might be ignorant, I am not a racist, so feel free to keep those matters out of the thread.


Well, I never said you were racist, I just said that attitude often leads to those types of people justifying their ignorance. I didn't read the whole thread, so I'm not sure who you were talking about in your original post and perhaps you're right about people using preconceived notions themselves in their argument against the other side, but I did not approve of the way you defined prejudice so whimsically so I said so and did not appreciate your post acting like I was attempting to stick up for some viewpoint being espoused in this thread.


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

Cnote11 said:


> Well, I never said you were racist, I just said that attitude often leads to those types of people justifying their ignorance. I didn't read the whole thread, so I'm not sure who you were talking about in your original post and perhaps you're right about people using preconceived notions themselves in their argument against the other side, but I did not approve of the way you defined prejudice so whimsically so I said so and did not appreciate your post acting like I was attempting to stick up for some viewpoint being espoused in this thread.


Well then I should probably apologize for my attitude. I suppose what I was originally saying, in a far too indirect way, was basically that not all conservative listeners are just ill-informed like the ones some guy was talking about, and that we all have our prejudices on some level and that we should acknowledge that, even if we continue to support them. I am probably, as you say, being somewhat flippant with a rather loaded word.


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## Guest (Dec 31, 2012)

Ramako said:


> ...not all conservative listeners are just ill-informed like the ones some guy was talking about....


Conservative. Ill-informed. Neither of these are categories I have used in this thread. These are categories that KenOC has tried to apply (and has apparently succeeded in applying) to what I have been saying.

If you're going to reference what I've said, it's only polite to reference what I've actually said not what someone else has said that I said.

I get the feeling that you and Ken are over in one corner of the sandbox yelling at a strawman Ken has constructed while I'm over in another corner watching you with bemusement if not horror and occasionally (as now) saying "Um guys. Over here!"


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

Ramako said:


> Well then I should probably apologize for my attitude. I suppose what I was originally saying, in a far too indirect way, was basically that not all conservative listeners are just ill-informed like the ones some guy was talking about, and that we all have our prejudices on some level and that we should acknowledge that, even if we continue to support them. I am probably, as you say, being somewhat flippant with a rather loaded word.


I happen to think you're misrepresenting some guy, but overall I would agree with your point and I was echoing your point in the post that I made earlier in the thread. Overall, the point isn't having to like or even respect modern music, but if you are to disparage it then you must not rely on misinformation while doing so. I know some guy is a big proponent of "listener is king", so if his main ideology was antithetical then he would be a raving lunatic.

I happen to like noise music, but I would never expect a lot of people to be into it. On this forum, I have seen noise music being brought up quite often. There is a lot of ignorance due to unfamiliarity with it, which is to be expected. I don't have a problem with people not being into noise music, but when they say things that are blatantly untrue in order to make a mockery out of it, then I find that very wrong myself.

I would hope some guy would not say someone is just not listening "correctly" every time they call serialism boring after having informed themselves of the composition style and the works, for instance.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Cnote11 said:


> I know some guy is a big proponent of "listener is king", so if his main ideology was antithetical then he would be a raving lunatic.





some guy said:


> If you're going to reference what I've said, it's only polite to reference what I've actually said not what someone else has said that I said.


Ahem. From the OP:

"If Higdon and Adès can give people "new" music that is nonetheless familiar, then it's the people producing new music who are out of step. Music is a product. The customer is king. Genuine innovation is increasingly marginalized, innovative composers dismissed as "obscure" and the consumer secure that his or her needs are paramount."

The tone and meaning are clear enough, so I won't interpret (or misinterpret) this further. Again, for a more developed argument along the same lines, see Babbitt:

http://www.palestrant.com/babbitt.html


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

mmsbls said:


> ... Do you mean that many composers do not compose music with the intention of having other people enjoy or appreciate their works? If so, do you think that was true of Baroque, Classical, and Romantic composers as well? I always assumed that composers wrote music for others to hear (and presumably enjoy/appreciate/etc.). Do you think I'm wrong?


*I did not say it, but, yes, I think you're mistaken.*

I'd like to take that several steps further -- in the more commercially complex and driven 20th century through present, it seems an idea has taken shape that composers of 'art music' aniticipate / try to calculate what will be popular, as do film producers for the mainstream studios, or a Disney Co. team of composers of pop songs does for their on-contract performers. This is because all that business is in the modern sense in context as 'product;' and there, ancillary to product, is the calculation of what is most broadly appealing in order to make maximum revenue / profit from the least of those creative ventures... in capsule form, it is done to _"Minimize the Risks."_ [Minimizing the risk is somewhat antithetical to a 'creative' artists' intention - imho.']

The notion that 'art' composers, even those 'musical servants for hire' of the Baroque and classical eras, were intentionally composing to please an audience I think is very much off the mark. [If composers truly had an ambition to generally please, Mozart would have composed many more serenades near identical to Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, Grieg would have similarly self-pirated his big pops hits from the incidental music for Peer Gynt, and Holst would have tried to write another 'planets,' etc.]

A composer is a part of their time and despite the existence of the phrase, no one is truly "ahead of their time," no matter how 'contemporary' and 'advanced' their harmonic usage and form. The composer (consciously or not) is simply one more being of all collective beings, and will, generally, compose what they can, either assuming or merely hoping it will interest others. [If Beethoven had catered to the taste of the person who commissioned his Triple Concerto as an after-dinner concert piece, we would not have a piece which knocks the proverbial socks off of the listener....]

If any 'audience' is at all considered, that would comprise the performers: if it is not interesting to the performers, it won't get done. In a way, most composers compose, then, for other professional musicians.

*It is a conspiracy *


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Ahem. From the OP:
> 
> "If Higdon and Adès can give people "new" music that is nonetheless familiar, then it's the people producing new music who are out of step. Music is a product. The customer is king. Genuine innovation is increasingly marginalized, innovative composers dismissed as "obscure" and the consumer secure that his or her needs are paramount."
> 
> ...


This has little to do with Babbitt's argument.

Babbitt's essay is so simple that I wonder how anyone could possibly misconstrue it, but it happens all the time on the internet. I'll boil it down.

1. Contemporary music and public taste have drifted apart.

2. Given the abstruse nature of some contemporary music, this should not be surprising.

3. The contemporary composer, instead of mourning his fate, should enjoy the chance to compose without need of the public's approval.

4. Therefore the situation benefits all involved.

Some Guy may disagree with 2, but I think pretty much everyone here would agree that contemporary classical music is a minority interest.

Babbitt encouraged Steven Sondheim, who specifically chose to study with him, in his work on musical theater. He loved Jazz and the popular music of his childhood. He was not the elitist that Palestrant and others have made him out to be.

I don't even like that much of Babbitt's music (I do like All Set for Jazz ensemble), but I don't like him being set up as a straw man.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Mahlerian said:


> ...
> 3. The contemporary composer, instead of mourning his fate, should enjoy the chance to compose without need of the public's approval.
> 
> 4. Therefore the situation benefits all involved.
> ...


Well, I don't quite see how it benefits the public, who Babbitt wants to pay for all this. I believe they're part of what you speak of when you say "all involved".

The most striking similarity is the contempt Babbitt shows, at the end of his essay, for the listener. Compare this to the language at the end of the OP.

"Admittedly, if this music is not supported, the whistling repertory of the man in the street will be little affected, the concert-going activity of the conspicuous consumer of musical culture will be little disturbed."


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Well, I don't quite see how it benefits the public, who Babbitt wants to pay for all this. I believe they're part of what you speak of when you say "all involved".
> 
> The most striking similarity is the contempt Babbitt shows, at the end of his essay, for the listener. Compare this to the language at the end of the OP.
> 
> "Admittedly, if this music is not supported, the whistling repertory of the man in the street will be little affected, the concert-going activity of the conspicuous consumer of musical culture will be little disturbed."


The public is paying the Universities, who have music departments, that train musicians. Babbitt was a professor who wrote music on the side, or a composer who taught to maintain a living, take your pick. Surely you don't think that funding to Universities' music departments should be cut off? Or arts grants in general, which fund all kinds of composers, atonal or not. There was then and is now very little money going from the government to composers for their composition work.

The public also benefits, in Babbitt's view, by not being forced to listen to music it does not enjoy.

That last bit you quoted is his joking way of saying that "most people won't care".


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Well, I don't quite see how it benefits the public, who Babbitt wants to pay for all this.
> 
> ..."Admittedly, if this music is not supported, the whistling repertory of the man in the street will be little affected, the concert-going activity of the conspicuous consumer of musical culture will be little disturbed."


Raising a question which you may care to raise as an OP....

Exactly what 'benefits' do you think the public are 'entitled' to, or have a right to expect from any individual composer?

To what degree and how, precisely, is the public "paying for all this?"

Do you really think it the job, duty, ethical or personal duty of a composer to provide more hummable / whistle-able tunes and themes for the average music listener, as per the perimeters of the average listener's ability and taste?






Should I, when I compose, consider at all the tastes or limitations of the listener's ability to, say find a particular line or interval I wrote, 'catchy,' or 'hummable?'


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## Guest (Dec 31, 2012)

Interesting.

A portion of the audience for classical music is contemptuous of contemporary music.

This contempt is a historical fact with roots deep in the 19th century.

Mentioning this contemptuousness is in itself an act of contempt.

Wait a minute! Say what?

Well, what I'd really like to talk about myself is how to diminish the contempt if not eradicate it. Not to get everyone to like the same things. That's not even desirable not to mention impossible. (Hence a red herring every time it comes up, in any conversation.) But to create an atmosphere in which dislike is just that, dislike. Not contempt, not hostility, just dislike. An atmosphere in which no one feels the need to express their dislikes over and over again, as if failure to express them would mean validating evil and anti-social and immoral and just plain ugly music.

An atmosphere in which new things might be a little intimidating still but certainly not automatically rejected, just for being unfamiliar. An atmosphere in which exploration can be seen as a positive thing and not some hidden agenda of anti-traditionism. An atmosphere in which invitations to explore can be seen as just that, invitations, not as some concealed expression of contempt for inferior beings.

Nah. Just kidding. Let's fight!!*

*humor


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

PetrB said:


> To what degree and how, precisely, is the public "paying for all this?"


No idea. But the whole point of Babbitt's argument is that composers of the types of music he speaks of should be better supported by universities and other institutions. Evidently he felt that the current level of support was insufficient. Please read the whole essay, all will be clear (if you can make it through the academese).

Here's an excerpt: "But how, it may be asked, will this serve to secure the means of survival or the composer and his music? One answer is that after all such a private life is what the university provides the scholar and the scientist. It is only proper that the university, which -- significantly -- has provided so many contemporary composers with their professional training and general education, should provide a home for the "complex," "difficult," and "problematical" in music. Indeed, the process has begun; and if it appears to proceed too slowly...the various institutes of advanced research and the large majority of foundations have disregarded this music's need for means of survival."

Certainly he doesn't rely on the listener, whom he dismisses as "the conspicuous consumer of musical culture".


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

KenOC said:


> No idea. But the whole point of Babbitt's argument is that composers of the types of music he speaks of should be better supported by universities and other institutions. Evidently he felt that the current level of support was insufficient. Please read the whole essay, all will be clear (if you can make it through the academese).
> 
> Here's an excerpt: "But how, it may be asked, will this serve to secure the means of survival or the composer and his music? One answer is that after all such a private life is what the university provides the scholar and the scientist. It is only proper that the university, which -- significantly -- has provided so many contemporary composers with their professional training and general education, should provide a home for the "complex," "difficult," and "problematical" in music. Indeed, the process has begun; and if it appears to proceed too slowly...the various institutes of advanced research and the large majority of foundations have disregarded this music's need for means of survival."
> 
> Certainly he doesn't rely on the listener, whom he dismisses as "the conspicuous consumer of musical culture".


... and pray tell, (come, now,) what tenured professor is not always on the lookout for more funding for their personal interest, i.e. their academic department? Far more is probably spent on football (either sort) equipment and maintaining the grounds upon which it is played at Harvard and Yale than on their music departments. Unless all the schools your tax money goes to are vocational schools, you are funding all manner of useless things


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

PetrB said:


> *I did not say it, but, yes, I think you're mistaken.*
> 
> I'd like to take that several steps further -- in the more commercially complex and driven 20th century through present, it seems an idea has taken shape that composers of 'art music' aniticipate / try to calculate what will be popular, as do film producers for the mainstream studios, or a Disney Co. team of composers of pop songs does for their on-contract performers.


I agree with everything you say here. My point was somewhat different. I don't think composers try to please the present audience in the way pop songs or film music does. I just assumed composers do not write with the view that it doesn't matter if anyone ever hears their music. I think music is meant to be performed (and therefore heard). I also find it hard to believe that composers would simply not care if anyone _ever_ appreciated their music.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

mmsbls said:


> I think music is meant to be performed (and therefore heard). I also find it hard to believe that composers would simply not care if anyone _ever_ appreciated their music.


"The time has passed when the normally well-educated man without special preparation could understand the most advanced work in, for example, mathematics, philosophy, and physics. Advanced music, to the extent that it reflects the knowledge and originality of the informed composer, scarcely can be expected to appear more intelligible than these arts and sciences to the person whose musical education usually has been even less extensive than his background in other fields. ... And so, I dare suggest that the composer would do himself and his music an immediate and eventual service by total, resolute, and voluntary withdrawal from this public world to one of private performance and electronic media, with its very real possibility of complete elimination of the public and social aspects of musical composition."

--Milton Babbitt


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## Guest (Dec 31, 2012)

Well, I made it through the first two pages of this thread, but struggle to resist the feeling that some guy makes a reasonable point and no one actually disagrees, despite pithy one-liners that might suggest otherwise from putative opponents.

Is there actually much to disagree with? Like some guy, I listened to and liked some 'difficult' music before I knew what I was 'supposed' to like - and rejected other music, including both 'easy' and 'difficult'. But it would be difficult for me to make any such choice now without being aware of what I am doing. For example, I've not yet heard much Chopin that I like, and a lot that I dislike, but I know that in doing so, I'm rejecting one of the alleged 'greats'.

Luckily, I'm not trying to convert anyone to my way of thinking, or rejecting anyone else's right to like and reject what they please. However, I can see that one of the potential consequences of audiences always taking the 'easy listening' route is that more adventurous music will be sidelined.

[edit] Skim reading the Babbitt article and Palestrant's response, I can see that there is a gap that might never be closed: between those who insist that it is their right to compose what they want and have it recognised as 'music'; and those who insist that 'music' can only be so if it takes account of co-construction with the listener. The dictatorial approach of these extremes seems hypocritical. If the composer has rights, so has the listener. It seems to me that the real target for their criticism is the critic and musicologist who tells the listener what they must like, the composer what they must write and all of us, what music shall and shall not be.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

KenOC said:


> "The time has passed when the normally well-educated man without special preparation could understand the most advanced work in, for example, mathematics, philosophy, and physics. Advanced music, to the extent that it reflects the knowledge and originality of the informed composer, scarcely can be expected to appear more intelligible than these arts and sciences to the person whose musical education usually has been even less extensive than his background in other fields. ... And so, I dare suggest that the composer would do himself and his music an immediate and eventual service by total, resolute, and voluntary withdrawal from this public world to one of private performance and electronic media, with its very real possibility of complete elimination of the public and social aspects of musical composition."
> 
> --Milton Babbitt


Well, that's very interesting. It's true that advanced work in math and science cannot be understood by the average well-educated person, but that work certainly can strongly effect society. The arts impact on society is not through people understanding the art but rather through people experiencing the art. People do not need to understand the art (in general) to gain something from it. I do not understand Mozart's music, but my life is certainly enriched by it.

I assume that Babbitt did not believe that early music had no chance of enriching the audience. I wonder if he felt that modern music was fundamentally different from earlier music, and there was little chance of modern music enriching the average interested, educated person. Even if he felt that, did he believe that modern music would continue to have little chance of enriching future generations?

I used to work in a field (particle physics) that essentially no one outside the field understood, cared about, or was affected directly by it. Still I believe that future generations will likely be affected by the research. I would be greatly interested in the thoughts of contemporary composers on the general importance of modern classical music.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

MacLeod said:


> ...
> Luckily, I'm not trying to convert anyone to my way of thinking, or rejecting anyone else's right to like and reject what they please. However, I can see that one of the potential consequences of audiences always taking the 'easy listening' route is that more adventurous music will be sidelined.


I would not call the music of Thomas Ades easy listening. I mean his Asyla mixes modern rhythms of classical reminiscent of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring with the beats of techno. I don't think that is easy listening, not for ultra conservatives at least. I've told this anecdote many times. Last year people in Sydney walked out on Mahler's 9th symphony. Now if those types of listeners apparently can't handle Mahler, how the hell will they handle Ades? I'm not commenting on Higdon - whom some guy also mentions in his OP - because I don't know her music.


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## Guest (Dec 31, 2012)

Sid James said:


> I would not call the music of Thomas Ades easy listening. I mean his Asyla mixes modern rhythms of classical reminiscent of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring with the beats of techno. I don't think that is easy listening, not for ultra conservatives at least. I've told this anecdote many times. Last year people in Sydney walked out on Mahler's 9th symphony. Now if those types of listeners apparently can't handle Mahler, how the hell will they handle Ades? I'm not commenting on Higdon - whom some guy also mentions in his OP - because I don't know her music.


I'd probably walk out on Mahler too, but I wouldn't be there in the first place. My response would be to the emotional content of his music, not its 'difficulty'.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

MacLeod said:


> I'd probably walk out on Mahler too, but I wouldn't be there in the first place. My response would be to the emotional content of his music, not its 'difficulty'.


Well I can understand that & the 9th is a heavy work. But I would add that maybe some guy is expecting too much of some people? The reality is that concert goers here are like 50 or 60 or even much older. Overall I mean. Not all of them are ultra conservative. Not all of them walked out. But there is a contrast between places like this forum and the "real world" out there. Eg. here we got a lot of younger members, below 30 & even a teenager or two. We got people who are older than that and do like many types of music. We got people who don't like new/newer musics (& that's fine too, I think, ultimately its a matter of taste). I am all for diversity of programming but let's get real here. If I want to hear cutting edge classical, I head to a music school, not to the flagship symphony orchestra. Even groups like the Australian Chamber Orchestra incorporate a fair deal of new/newer music into their programs. I think there are differences in terms of audience and different groups cater for different audiences. I went to a Xenakis concert a couple of years ago and the audience was more mixed in terms of age. It was amazing, there was a standing ovation at the end. It was probably the best concert I went to by far. It was done by a percussion group here who do a concert like that once a year. They play modern percussion music that would not fit into the standard orchestral performance (they all play in orchestras here, that's their day job, but they do this once a year to do something different, let their hair down a bit, etc.).

So basically I'm arguing against a one size fits all dogma (with all the usual trappings and cliches of Modernist ideology attached) but of course its likely to fall on deaf ears here.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

mmsbls said:


> I would be greatly interested in the thoughts of contemporary composers on the general importance of modern classical music.


Here's a thought by one contemporary composer: "Certainly being in California has encouraged a sustained commitment to rethinking the nature, purposes, and relevance of the contemporary arts, specifically music, for a society which by and large seems to manage quite well without them." --Brian Ferneyhough


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Rereading some guy's opening post, it confirms to me that its just the same old leftist Modernist ideologies. Putitative modern music is not real modern music. Real modern music is confined to aficionados, to the intellectual elites, to the enclaves of the universities and academics. Real modern music does not include these works which have been popular ever since or near to their initial performances:

Bartok Concerto for Orchestra
Stravinsky's 3 early ballets
Holsts The Planets Suite
Britten Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge
Shostakovich 5th and 7th symphonies
Elgar's cello concerto
Gershwin's Rhapsody in blue, concerto in F, American in Paris
Bernstein's West Side Story
Puccin's and Strauss' 3 most popular operas - La boheme, Turandot, Tosca & Rosenkavalier, Salome and elektra
Copland's Appalachian Spring, Rodeo, Fanfare for the common man
Poulenc's Gloria
Music by living composers like Glass, Reich, Part, not to mention those specialised in film music

& I can go on. No these are not real 20th century &/or modern works. They don't go with the ideology that composers have to be dead, or long dead, before their works can become widely accepted.

Avant garde, experimental, more esoteric type works are the 'real deal' people. That's only one slice of the much segmented pie that is classical music - esp. since about 1945, after which audiences split up into various sections (from mainstream to fringe and in between).

In other words its the same old story. Let's deny history and go down the Alice in Wonderland route. But forget it, commonsense rarely applies on the internet. Its as if this is an academic journal or something. Or worse, a religion. We are preaching to the converted, our fellow members of the enclave.


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## Guest (Dec 31, 2012)

Sid James said:


> Rereading some guy's opening post, it confirms to me that its just the same old leftist Modernist ideologies.


Sorry Sid, I don't see it that way. But then, I'm not in the habit of characterising others' posts using political descriptors.


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## Renaissance (Jul 10, 2012)

KenOC said:


> "The time has passed when the normally well-educated man without special preparation could understand the most advanced work in, for example, mathematics, philosophy, and physics. Advanced music, to the extent that it reflects the knowledge and originality of the informed composer, scarcely can be expected to appear more intelligible than these arts and sciences to the person whose musical education usually has been even less extensive than his background in other fields. ... And so, I dare suggest that the composer would do himself and his music an immediate and eventual service by total, resolute, and voluntary withdrawal from this public world to one of private performance and electronic media, with its very real possibility of complete elimination of the public and social aspects of musical composition."
> 
> --Milton Babbitt


How snobbish ... The usual propaganda...contemporary composers...non-understandable gods which are forced to isolate themselves in order to bring their "immortal" and divine music in a place where people are so blind to appreciate  It is really sad, I wonder how could they managed to believe their own lies so well... Let's be serious, music was to support itself. A music which can't support itself on this planet, is music which doesn't deserve to be composed...pure and simple. No other musical genre in this world has a better treatment...it would be absurd to make one for contemporary "classical" music... If its fans can't support it, no one can, and it means that this music is pointless. I really find annoying all this elitist **** about how complex and sophisticated their music is. Bach was never interested to show off and supported himself financially. The same with all the composers from the past...only today we have composers which always find reasons for self-victimization as if it's public's fault that their music is not "consumed"... Let's get real...


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

KenOC said:


> "The time has passed when the normally well-educated man without special preparation could understand the most advanced work in, for example, mathematics, philosophy, and physics. Advanced music, to the extent that it reflects the knowledge and originality of the informed composer, scarcely can be expected to appear more intelligible than these arts and sciences to the person whose musical education usually has been even less extensive than his background in other fields. ... And so, I dare suggest that the composer would do himself and his music an immediate and eventual service by total, resolute, and voluntary withdrawal from this public world to one of private performance and electronic media, with its very real possibility of complete elimination of the public and social aspects of musical composition."
> 
> --Milton Babbitt


More music, of more varied style, vocabulary and genre, is available now to mass audiences than ever before.

Taking offense at Babbitt's statement is somewhat like posturing as the offended 19th century. I think you really do not care about some of the more 'complex' or 'dissonant' of contemporary music, while your 'tone' sounds as if you feel deprived, 'left out of the picture' or some such. You were invited to the party but chose to not attend, as it were.

I would think there would be a large sector of the listening population who would be absolutely relieved they will never have to confront the contemporary fare 

As to music education, at least in the States, there is not enough of it at all to even amount to a terrible joke. The classical music department of the university where I studied theory and composition had at that time a standard of excellence demanding of its students a depth of knowledge and quality on a par to some of the 'higher end' private conservatories in the states: Now, forty years on, that same music department has no strengths in the classical arena, and is a hotbed of 'world music' -- pandering rather specifically to one particular popular taste.

The separation of the general public from 'what is new in music' has a history going as far back as --at the latest -- Beethoven, who did say he could wait fifty years (meaning until after he was dead) for the public to understand what he was doing. Of course composers hope people will want to listen and enjoy what is heard, but, ala Beethoven. many of them do have that 'I don't give a damn if only one person appreciates this' mentality -- because in the light of what that great general public is, they have to.

Babbitt, it seems to me, was fighting the good fight.


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## Guest (Dec 31, 2012)

PetrB said:


> Taking offense at Babbitt's statement is somewhat like posturing as the offended 19th century.


Perhaps KenOC might clarify: does he take offence? I wasn't sure what to make of his post, since he doesn't comment on what he quotes.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Renaissance said:


> How snobbish ... The usual propaganda...contemporary composers...non-understandable gods which are forced to isolate themselves in order to bring their "immortal" and divine music in a place where people are so blind to appreciate  It is really sad, I wonder how could they managed to believe their own lies so well... Let's be serious, music was to support itself. A music which can't support itself on this planet, is music which doesn't deserve to be composed...pure and simple. No other musical genre in this world has a better treatment...it would be absurd to make one for contemporary "classical" music... If its fans can't support it, no one can, and it means that this music is pointless. I really find annoying all this elitist **** about how complex and sophisticated their music is. Bach was never interested to show off and supported himself financially. The same with all the composers from the past...only today we have composers which always find reasons for self-victimization as if it's public's fault that their music is not "consumed"... Let's get real...


You want the symphony orchestra as an institution to die, then? There's no question whatsoever that it needs funding from elsewhere, and cannot "support itself".

As to Sid James's remarks on the conservatism of audiences, I remember seeing the audience walk out of a Mahler 6th performance, several after each movement. I remember a woman complaining that Stravinsky's Concerto for Piano and Winds was "really difficult" music.

The truth is, I don't think most symphony patrons want any new music. They don't care if it's Ades, Higdon, or Carter, but they want it to stay away from their Beethoven and Dvorak. That's the really ridiculous attitude in my view.


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

Ligeti can be ''difficult''...If you listened Mozart before him...


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## Renaissance (Jul 10, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> You want the symphony orchestra as an institution to die, then? There's no question whatsoever that it needs funding from elsewhere, and cannot "support itself".
> 
> As to Sid James's remarks on the conservatism of audiences, I remember seeing the audience walk out of a Mahler 6th performance, several after each movement. I remember a woman complaining that Stravinsky's Concerto for Piano and Winds was "really difficult" music.
> The truth is, I don't think most symphony patrons want any new music. They don't care if it's Ades, Higdon, or Carter, but they want it to stay away from their Beethoven and Dvorak. That's the really ridiculous attitude in my view.


To support itself means to get funding from its fans, concerts, not by begging and self-victimization... It is ridiculous to accuse the public for being too stupid to understand your music, and then to complain about how marginalized you are...really...If you think too highly of yourself, you will be ignored as a natural consequence. Symphonic Orchestra support itself as an institution, people come to concerts to hear their music, and support their funding. This is not the case with contemporary classical because there are too little concerts for it. If people want to hear Beethoven and Dvorak, that's fine ! That is what they pay for, and it means that music is OK. If no one wants to hear Babbitt you can't blame anyone, maybe only the composer, and only if he complains about this fact. Otherwise, he can't be blamed because it has the right to compose everything he can and wants. Of course that many listener are somehow lazy and prefer to hear the same works over and over again but this is the situation, and good music survives anyway through its few listeners. But if a kind of music can't survive by any mean, maybe it is just the music that have to be blamed...not the public. If contemporary classical music can't survive by itself (that is selling recordings, concerts, sponsors) then maybe isn't worth living.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Renaissance said:


> To support itself means to get funding from its fans, concerts, not by begging and self-victimization... It is ridiculous to accuse the public for being too stupid to understand your music, and then to complain about how marginalized you are...really...If you think too highly of yourself, you will be ignored as a natural consequence. Symphonic Orchestra support itself as an institution, people come to concerts to hear their music, and support their funding. This is not the case with contemporary classical because there are too little concerts for it. If people want to hear Beethoven and Dvorak, that's fine ! That is what they pay for, and it means that music is OK. If no one wants to hear Babbitt you can't blame anyone, maybe only the composer, and only if he complains about this fact. Otherwise, he can't be blamed because it has the right to compose everything he can and want. Of course that many listener are somehow lazy and prefer to hear the same works over and over again but this is the situation, and good music survives anyway through its few listeners. But if a kind of music can't survive by any mean, maybe it is just the music that have to be blamed...not the public. If contemporary classical music can't survive by itself (that is selling recordings, concerts, sponsors) then maybe isn't worth living.


Okay, then, what about the fact that much of this music has survived, by virtue of those very things? If it weren't supported by the same "machine" that supports the rest of classical music (the network of patrons, universities, and government funding), then contemporary concert music would have a hard time in the marketplace. But companies that release CDs of this music, while they do not hope to make a large or substantial profit, release it. Musicians, who have far more to gain by learning the already popular repertoire, learn and perform it. Composers, who have been shunned by the public at large, regardless of their feelings towards the public or their style, continue to compose.



Renaissance said:


> If people want to hear Beethoven and Dvorak, that's fine ! That is what they pay for, and it means that music is OK.


No it doesn't. It just means that they're willing to pay for it. People will pay for all sorts of things. They will shell out over $100 to see a popular singer lip-sync. Does that mean that the music is even more "OK" than Beethoven and Dvorak, given that it supports itself?

If you want to blame the music, come up with an argument, not a blanket denunciation.


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## Renaissance (Jul 10, 2012)

If contemporary classical music is so good as it pretends, there is impossible to disappear from marketplace. But 100 years have passed...and still no interest from the public or average classical music listener. Doesn't this very simple fact tell everything ? Why need to victimize modern composers ? They are victims of their own snobbery anyway...I don't see the point of supporting a thing which isn't wanted or useful. You can make as many analogies as you want, but not everything that flies is good as food. You can't compare old past times when music got lost after composer's death...these are modern times, with modern mean of communication and modern & contemporary music will never be more famous than it already is. 

You are making false assumptions comparing Beethoven & Dvorak with popular singers, we are talking about different categories of listeners. Contemporary classical music simply has a very small category of listeners (of which most are hipsters)... and not because of the lack of exposure of the public to such music, but because it tells nothing to them. I listen to music because it tells me something not because it "new", "complex", "cool". I can blame music with arguments, but will anyone listen to me ? It will inevitably degenerate in conceptual and word games.

Let the time to make its number, it is the best way to sort real value from crap.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Renaissance said:


> Let the time to make its number, it is the best way to sort real value from crap.


And by that measure, has not a good deal of this modern music survived? It is performed and recorded to this day. Schoenberg has more recordings on the market than CPE Bach, despite being less prolific than the latter composer.

You can't have it both ways. Either this music is clearly good because it has survived, or something has survived which is clearly not good.


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## Renaissance (Jul 10, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> And by that measure, has not a good deal of this modern music survived? It is performed and recorded to this day. Schoenberg has more recordings on the market than CPE Bach, despite being less prolific than the latter composer.
> 
> You can't have it both ways. Either this music is clearly good because it has survived, or something has survived which is clearly not good.


It did survive because it is modern, isn't it ? It would be really funny for a musical work to get lost after 100 years in these times...Schoenberg was an idol of his generation, it is quite logic that he being the first "innovator" will likely remain celebrated for a long time. But what about contemporary composers ? They are not even original in their work and how could they ? Pretty much all have been done before them. And my problem is only with people that "teaches" me what music is and what music is not. I think I have enough brain to consider what is music for me and what not, leaving aside all philosophical discussions that I don't care for at all. Why do I need Babbitt to tell me that I don't understand his music for it is only for very educated and intelligent people ? It's that snobbery ? I think it is. This is what most contemporary composers are doing : teaching others what music is.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Renaissance said:


> It did survive because it is modern, isn't it ? It would be really funny for a musical work to get lost after 100 years in these times...Schoenberg was an idol of his generation, it is quite logic that he being the first "innovator" will likely remain celebrated for a long time. But what about contemporary composers ? They are not even original in their work and how could they ? Pretty much all have been done before them. And my problem is only with people that "teaches" me what music is and what music is not. I think I have enough brain to consider what is music for me and what not, leaving aside all philosophical discussions that I don't care for at all.


Plenty of music of the last 100 years has sunk into oblivion, never recorded, never played past a single performance. There has been innovation since Schoenberg in plenty of ways. Look at Messiaen's use of rhythm, at Boulez's treatment of timbre, and these things have been very influential on the people that matter most to contemporary music, the composers.



Renaissance said:


> Why do I need Babbitt to tell me that I don't understand his music for it is only for very educated and intelligent people ? It's that snobbery ? I think it is. This is what most contemporary composers are doing : teaching others what music is.


You want snobbery?

"You are making false assumptions comparing Beethoven & Dvorak with popular singers, we are talking about different categories of listeners."

You want a distinct lack of snobbery?

"The preliminary differentiation of musical categories by means of this reasonable and usable criterion of "degree of determinacy" offends those who take it to be a definition of qualitative categories, which-of course-it need not always be."

He goes out of his way to say that these things do not imply any superiority.


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## Renaissance (Jul 10, 2012)

And Messiaen or Boulez are not famous, or what ?  Only minor or inexperienced composers got lost. 

This was not snobbery, my clever friend, it is a fact. There are differences between classical music listeners and popular music listeners, not "good" or "bad", but just differences. 

I am interested in music, not mathematics (let's be serious, how many contemporary classical listeners do understand that math ?) not ideology, not philosophy. Only music !


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Renaissance said:


> I am interested in music, not mathematics (let's be serious, how many contemporary classical listeners do understand that math ?) not ideology, not philosophy. Only music !


I don't. I'm a lay listener who only understands basic music theory.

And I'm sure that most listeners to Beethoven, Mozart, and Bach don't fully understand the inner workings of their music either, so it's a moot point. The music is comprehensible by itself.


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> "The preliminary differentiation of musical categories by means of this reasonable and usable criterion of "degree of determinacy" offends those who take it to be a definition of qualitative categories, which-of course-it need not always be."
> 
> He goes out of his way to say that these things do not imply any superiority.


He goes out of his way to make himself unintelligible. What is that even supposed to mean anyway? (don't have to answer that one) He's worse than Humphrey:






Now please continue your useful conversation while I figure out the finer details of what that quote means


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Renaissance said:


> Contemporary classical music simply has a very small category of listeners (of which most are hipsters)... and not because of the lack of exposure of the public to such music, but because it tells nothing to them. I listen to music because it tells me something not because it "new", "complex", "cool".


I admit it; I am a hipster!


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

Lol ...They usually dont admit it...


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

As a modern composer, and a listener and lover of music (all kinds of music), I don't like being called a snob or an elitist, or for people to constantly say that new music is worthless.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

PetrB said:


> Babbitt, it seems to me, was fighting the good fight.


Babbitt was pushing to get funding from society for modern music, and by doing so, he was pushing for his cause. On the other hand, one might say his approach was to simply give up (Run away! Run away!) rather than try to figure out a way to bring a larger number of classical listeners over to "his side". While increasing interest in modern music may be a daunting challenge, I think it's an important (critical?) cause for the classical music community.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Beethoven was the author of much that is pernicious in music. Never more the case than when he told a fellow assigned to work out the fingering for one of his violin sonatas, "This is not music for you but for a future generation."

Now everybody thinks they're Beethoven! But in fact he was probably the only successful composer who continually wrote music that was too difficult for his audience. Rossini was smarter; he lived better, and he ate better too.


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Beethoven was the author of much that is pernicious in music. Never more the case than when he told a fellow assigned to work out the fingering for one of his violin sonatas, "This is not music for you but for a future generation."
> 
> Now everybody thinks they're Beethoven! But in fact he was probably the only successful composer who continually wrote music that was too difficult for his audience. Rossini was smarter; he lived better, and he ate better too.


Beethoven wasn't trying to go over people's heads. He just wrote what he wanted to most. Any composer worth a damn should try to achieve this goal for themselves. Otherwise whats the point?


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

BurningDesire said:


> Beethoven wasn't trying to go over people's heads. He just wrote what he wanted to most. Any composer worth a damn should try to achieve this goal for themselves. Otherwise whats the point?


$$$$$$ Classical is a cash cow


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

^ I think you two are kidding yourselves if you don't think Beethoven wanted to make a bit of money off his compositions too though. Of course - virtually all composers want this.


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

tdc said:


> ^ I think you two are kidding yourselves if you don't think Beethoven wanted to make a bit of money off his compositions too though. Of course - virtually all composers want this.


Of course, but why pursue music if all you want is to make money? Its really hard. You do music because you have to do music, because you love music so much that you need it. Money shouldn't be the motivation, because there's way easier ways to make money.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

Beethoven should have been a lawyer


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## palJacky (Nov 27, 2010)

<<<Babbitt was pushing to get funding from society for modern music, and by doing so, he was pushing for his cause.>>>

even people who know nothing about science and mathematics benefit from advances in technology created from research in those fields.
(anyone here own a home computer?)
To me this is a serious disconnect in the analogy Babbitt uses in his argument.


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## Guest (Dec 31, 2012)

Well, if you're in the market for herrings, this thread is pure gold. Or red. Pure red.

Otherwise, you're outta luck, methinks.

Still. I feel lucky. Dunno why. Delusional most likely.

Here's my latest idea. Turn the OP on its head.

There's an idea that music in the twentieth century--with certain exceptions--is difficult and ugly and non-musical. This idea (and it is an idea, not a perception--the perceiving that some people insist upon is posterior to the idea) has a history that can be dated pretty confidently to the beginning of the nineteenth century.

Some people, however, have noticed that their experiences with the difficult, ugly, and non-musical excesses of the ideologically motivated avant garde are pretty positive ones. They hear, for whatever reason, beauty where their compatriots in the room hear hideosity.

Reporting positive experiences with listening to music that some people hate, however, enrages those some people. How dare you like that crap and how dare you talk about it! That this has often been finessed upon occasion to "Live and let live. Like that crap all you want; just don't try to force it down my throat." Which is disengenuous. Live and let live is code for "Let me say all the abusive things I feel like about you and about the music you love. There should be no consequences for my free expression of my opinions." As for the forcing, who here is even in the position of being able to force anything?

Is there any way to diminish the rage?

Is there any way to invite people to the party without being accused of snobbery and contempt?

I thought maybe, in the depths of my own personal naivete, that looking briefly at the history of attitudes, matching that up with experiences that go counter to the attitudes, and pointing out that the so-called properties of modern music are not its properties at all but the reactions of people with certain attitudes (the attitudes being antecedent to the listening) when they hear new music. The purpose being to suggest that if attitudes can change then the experiences will possibly change too.

Silly me.

Well, carry on.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

palJacky said:


> <<<Babbitt was pushing to get funding from society for modern music, and by doing so, he was pushing for his cause.>>>
> 
> even people who know nothing about science and mathematics benefit from advances in technology created from research in those fields.
> (anyone here own a home computer?)
> To me this is a serious disconnect in the analogy Babbitt uses in his argument.


I think there are some serious problems with Babbitt's argument, but I think there is a more general argument for the arts. Society is not better off solely due to material things. People's lives can be enriched by art (music, literature, art, drama, etc.). Obviously, reading _Macbeth_ doesn't put food on the table or make one live longer, but many would say their quality of life is enhanced. For thousands of years humans have valued the arts, and presumably society (the collective will of the population) will continue to support the arts for precisely this reason.

In the US many have criticized the National Endowment for the Arts because it funds work that those individuals find ugly, repulsive, or immoral. Society must make judgments about what activities to fund and at what expense. Many will criticize the decisions, but I doubt we are close to society refusing to back art at all.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

BurningDesire said:


> Of course, but why pursue music if all you want is to make money? Its really hard. You do music because you have to do music, because you love music so much that you need it. Money shouldn't be the motivation, because there's way easier ways to make money.


I completely agree, and I never suggested otherwise.



Cnote11 said:


> Beethoven should have been a lawyer


The tone of this response suggests to me a naive idea that Beethoven either cared _only_ about money, or _nothing_ for money. These types of extreme scenarios don't often play out in reality.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

I actually thought the "tone" of my post was saying something more along the lines of "Of course Beethoven cared somewhat for money, seeing as he had to make a living and those who care about just making a high-earning salary should not enter classical music and instead pursue a different field of choice in order to make a high salary if that is what they wish to do and the thought of Beethoven in court screaming 'What?!!' at people because he was deaf, combined with the common portrait of him being a bit crazy/ill-tempered is a funny picture for me", but what do I know?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

mmsbls said:


> Society is not better off solely due to material things. People's lives can be enriched by art (music, literature, art, drama, etc.). Obviously, reading _Macbeth_ doesn't put food on the table or make one live longer, but many would say their quality of life is enhanced.


I think, though, that Babbitt's argument is greatly weakened by his admission that people (in general) don't like this music and are unlikely ever to do so. But he still wants people (in general) to pay for it.

So it's a bit of a different thing...


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

some guy said:


> Some people, however, have noticed that their experiences with the difficult, ugly, and non-musical excesses of the ideologically motivated avant garde are pretty positive ones. They hear, for whatever reason, beauty where their compatriots in the room hear hideosity.
> 
> Reporting positive experiences with listening to music that some people hate, however, enrages those some people.
> 
> Is there any way to invite people to the party without being accused of snobbery and contempt?


The internet is not probably the best place to have these or many other discussions, but I think describing the positive experiences one has with music is one good way to to invite others to the party. I certainly have often used TC and people's positive endorsements of works as an invitation to listen. I can say with some certainty that if TC members had not repeatedly sang the praises of Berg's Violin Concerto, I would not have "worked" hard enough to eventually come to like it. I thank all of those members for indirectly pushing me to continue my attempts. Some people may react negatively, but I guess one can only try to ignore those responses.

I have been reading a lot about the psychology of politics. As you say, previous attitudes can strongly affect people's beliefs on new subjects. What's worse is that arguments against a person's belief can make then actually believe that thing more strongly. Very interestingly, that effect is more pronounced among more intelligent or knowledgeable people. They are more able to use their intellect to find potential problems with the new arguments, and therefore, convince themselves that their original position is truly sound.

What is needed is an argument from the perspective of the "opponent". One must in a sense side with the opponent in some manner and find a way to bridge the divide using "their beliefs". As an example, conservatives who do not believe in global warming can more easily be "reached" by having their pastor speak about the need to protect the earth, God's creation.

Perhaps one way of "inviting" people to the modern music party would be to put them in your place. Most TC members know that the majority of people do not like classical music. Those members know people who have a similar attitude towards classical music as they have towards some modern classical ("Yuk, who wants to listen to _that crap_?"). How would they get their friends to have a more open attitude towards classical music? In thinking about that question, perhaps some could see that a similar issue exists with them towards modern classical.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

Mmsbls, I am glad you came around to the Berg Violin Concerto. I think Berg's works are quite accessible.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

KenOC said:


> I think, though, that Babbitt's argument is greatly weakened by his admission that people (in general) don't like this music and are unlikely ever to do so. But he still wants people (in general) to pay for it.
> 
> So it's a bit of a different thing...


Yes, I agree his particular argument is unlikely to sway many people. Asking society to pay for an activity that he suggests should be private and aimed at few people is a bit much.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

Yes, what a shame that other people shouldn't be able to pursue their hobbies because other people don't particularly enjoy them.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

I actually think, in part, the strength of a society can be measured by its ability to support marginal hobbies.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

As I said earlier, the funding would go to universities, who teach musicians of all stripes. Look at a list of Babbitt's students. It's a pretty diverse bunch. If any funding goes from the universities to subsidize performances of his and his fellows' music, who are we to begrudge them the fruit of their efforts?

Yes, I agree that the argument is not perfect. Progress in the arts and progress in science/math are very different things. The former is not linear at all, can move in multiple directions at once, and does not have associated material benefits. But I think the core of Babbitt's essay is sound, because it does not depend strictly on that analogy.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Cnote11 said:


> I actually thought the "tone" of my post was saying something more along the lines of "Of course Beethoven cared somewhat for money, seeing as he had to make a living and those who care about just making a high-earning salary should not enter classical music and instead pursue a different field of choice in order to make a high salary if that is what they wish to do and the thought of Beethoven in court screaming 'What?!!' at people because he was deaf, combined with the common portrait of him being a bit crazy/ill-tempered is a funny picture for me", but what do I know?


It's a real shame that Monty Python never did that skit!


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

mmsbls said:


> I think there are some serious problems with Babbitt's argument, but I think there is a more general argument for the arts. Society is not better off solely due to material things. People's lives can be enriched by art (music, literature, art, drama, etc.). Obviously, reading _Macbeth_ doesn't put food on the table or make one live longer, but many would say their quality of life is enhanced. For thousands of years humans have valued the arts, and presumably society (the collective will of the population) will continue to support the arts for precisely this reason.
> 
> In the US many have criticized the National Endowment for the Arts because it funds work that those individuals find ugly, repulsive, or immoral. Society must make judgments about what activities to fund and at what expense. Many will criticize the decisions, but I doubt we are close to society refusing to back art at all.


The decision to fund arts, given to a populace who "Don't know art but know what they like." is a proposed formula to most certainly kill 'fine art' altogether. Back to the drawing board, then.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

PetrB said:


> The decision to fund arts, given to a populace who "Don't know art but know what they like." is a proposed formula to most certainly kill 'fine art' altogether. Back to the drawing board, then.


Well, even Beethoven was a fan of the money trough: "There should be a single Art Exchange in the world, to which the artist would simply send his works and be given in return as much as he needs." Sadly, he never discussed the details...


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

KenOC said:


> I think, though, that Babbitt's argument is greatly weakened by his admission that people (in general) don't like this music and are unlikely ever to do so. But he still wants people (in general) to pay for it.


It seems this has revealed what for you is an severe itch you cannot scratch!

You sound here like an arch-capitalist businessman who would not voluntarily spend on any development of a product which does not have the clear and near-certain promise of a profitable success, which is of course the soundest of outlooks if one is looking to monetarily profit from the making of a product.

The arts, in general, have always been 'financial deficit accounts,' _because they are the fine arts, and have never been "popular" or "Populist Entertainment."_ They have always had patronage or funding of some sort -- and funding with no intent of making profit but rather of helping reduce the losses, and so the artist can make enough to continue to live and carry on.

One of the most successful of corporations was Hewlitt Packard. They were known to never 'jump on a bandwagon' to make a product they usually did not just in order to grab a corner of that market, unless they were convinced they could produce a far superior model. They were famous, in-house, for letting their engineers and designers be creative.... some of which led nowhere: they were funding their own research and products 'not consumed or liked by anyone.'

Funding of the arts still works in a similar fashion, yet you are surprisingly offended that one person of those funded has the gall to say, in essence, 'who cares if you like what I make. Fund me anyway.'

That Hewlitt-Packard business model was dismantled for the more pedestrian 'every department must show a profit each quarter' business model, which is infamous for not cultivating innovation, and often is more of a loser than the former and more ideal model.

Your outrage seems to have a subtext crying out for 'profit from each individual and department in each quarter year,' within the context of arts funding.

I do wonder why you are so outraged. Babbitt was always known as being not less than blunt. In his years teaching at The Juilliard School, he is on record having said of the students who were supposed to be la crème de la crème of those many talented and well-prepared the school does admit into the composition department, _"Most of my students could not even write a simple piano piece."_

I happen to think he was pretty correct on that score as well.... [Mr. Politically correct Mr. Babbit was not....]

Yet it is not just from you that we hear this loud squeaking noise about a fine art entertainment -- for which we personally do not care -- getting funding: it is plain that enough people thought it "important," and realize there are many 'who do not care,' so it gets the funding in lieu of 'the peoples' lack of support.

Somewhere, someone thinks your nation should have a high-standard cultural legacy kept and maintained, even though the majority of the nation does not consume or care about the production of 'homeboy' made fine art. Call that funding money spent on good national PR.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

PetrB said:


> Your outrage seems to have a subtext crying out for 'profit from each individual and department in each quarter year,' within the context of arts funding.


Outrage? Strange I don't feel that way, but perhaps it's subconscious. Do you think so?

In any event, no, I don't believe in subsidizing the arts except to the extent that the people in general might want to do so. In the case in question here, that wouldn't seem to be the case. But perhaps there is an "aristocracy of aesthetics" that feels otherwise and judges itself more qualified to determine such things than the people in general. And perhaps, just perhaps, you are a member of that aristocracy. But I feel a bit more Jeffersonian...


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## Guest (Jan 1, 2013)

KenOC said:


> Outrage? Strange I don't feel that way, but perhaps it's subconscious. Do you think so?


In order to work, plausible deniability has to be um plausible.

But hey, how about that local sports team, huh? Pretty sweet.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Outrage? Strange I don't feel that way, but perhaps it's subconscious. Do you think so?
> 
> In any event, no, I don't believe in subsidizing the arts except to the extent that the people in general might want to do so. In the case in question here, that wouldn't seem to be the case. But perhaps there is an "aristocracy of aesthetics" that feels otherwise and judges itself more qualified to determine such things than the people in general. And perhaps, just perhaps, you are a member of that aristocracy. But I feel a bit more Jeffersonian...


There are a handful of areas wherein democracies around the world have realized those areas are best left 'not democratic.' 'Not democratic' in this case means 'not left to the people to decide.'
_Those are: public transport; public education; social security (social as in 'socialism'); and the arts._
(add - some civilized nations even thought to include 'national health care.' Imagine. End Add.)

Call it elitist if you must, though it is more truly a matter of _'not everyone or thing is equal,'_ a fact most adults recognize yet, currently, a tenet (well, really, a highly unpopular truth) which seems nonetheless to be rather desperately buried -- or suppressed whenever it is mentioned -- under a tidal wave of political correctness.

The Aaron Coplands and John Williams of the world don't generally need much funding, now do they? And those are the first that 'float to the top' in a free-market everyman society, are 'the most socially relevant' if you will. Whether it is cream floating on that top or something else is I suppose for any individual to decide for their self.

[To which limned portrait of Jefferson do you refer? The Aristo Jefferson who owned plenty land, slaves, and never dreamed of a democracy where non-landowning, non-white, non-males would have the vote... or much say in anything? That Jefferson? Yeah, I'll go with that.]


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

PetrB said:


> There are a handful of areas wherein democracies around the world have realized those areas are best left 'not democratic.' 'Not democratic' in this case means 'not left to the people to decide.'Those are: public transport; public education; social security (social as in 'socialism'); and the arts.


Public transport and public education are always managed by elected boards or boards made up of elected officials from the polities concerned. Social Security is managed by laws enacted by elected officials. Sounds pretty democratic to me. Art? Obviously it can be funded (and, if funded, certainly managed) to the extent elected officials want. So I'm not sure what your point is.



PetrB said:


> To which limned portrait of Jefferson do you refer? The Aristo Jefferson who owned plenty land, slaves, and never dreamed of a democracy where non-landowning, non-white, non-males would have the vote... or much say in anything? That Jefferson? Yeah, I'll go with that.


I hope it was obvious that I was speaking of Jefferson's stated political views. If you're not familiar with these, Wiki is a good starting point, but there are several good biographies too. I can recommend one if you like. Jefferson's views are still relevant, though not in the ascendant right now.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Public transport and public education are always managed by elected boards or boards made up of elected officials from the polities concerned. Social Security is managed by laws enacted by elected officials. Sounds pretty democratic to me. Art? Obviously it can be funded (and, if funded, certainly managed) to the extent elected officials want. So I'm not sure what your point is.
> 
> I hope it was obvious that I was speaking of Jefferson's stated political views. If you're not familiar with these, Wiki is a good starting point, but there are several good biographies too. I can recommend one if you like. Jefferson's views are still relevant, though not in the ascendant right now.


I was referring, as I thought you were, to those who evidently decide to take the taxpayer's hard earned ten thousandth percentile or less of penny and those who decide to funnel it to 'ingrates' such as Babbitt, who, from your tone, seem to owe you both music to your taste and 'gratitude.' Perhaps you might have thought it better if Babbitt had spent more than that thousandth percentile of a penny he was funneled, which came from you (or your parents), on a postage stamp to write you or they a deeply ingratiating personal letter of thanks. That, fellow, was my perceived tone of your 'outrage' over Babbitt's attitude toward getting funding and what he owed, or did not owe, the listener.

As per Jefferson, let us please not be coy. He no more conceived of a democracy where non land owners or black women could vote or hold office any more than he would have conceived of publicly funded art - such is the world he lived in. That reality is not in any way a conflict with his remarkably 'modern' political / idealistic mind.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

PetrB said:


> That, fellow, was my perceived tone of your 'outrage' over Babbitt's attitude toward getting funding and what he owed, or did not owe, the listener.


I don't feel Mr. Babbitt (or any other composer) "owes" me anything, nor I him. If he were in a position to demand my financial support (as you seem to think desirable) I would probably be more insistent that he deliver something of value to me. Take the King's shilling, play the King's tune, after all.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

KenOC said:


> I don't feel Mr. Babbitt (or any other composer) "owes" me anything, nor I him. If he were in a position to demand my financial support (as you seem to think desirable) I would probably be more insistent that he deliver something of value to me. Take the King's shilling, play the King's tune, after all.


And there it is. That wasn't so really painful, now was it. 
The servant, if public, should obey the master. 
Check. 
Thought so.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

PetrB said:


> And there it is. That wasn't so really painful, now was it. The servant, if public, should obey the master. Check. Thought so.


So that's what you want for music? There's no avoiding that public (the "masses" if you will) funding of music entails public control, just as it did in the visual arts. Remember Mapplethorpe? Just another reason that public funding seems VERY undesirable to me. (The primary reason, of course, is that it's a self-defined elite taking money from those who have no interest and gain no benefit.)


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

KenOC said:


> So that's what you want for music? There's no avoiding that public (the "masses" if you will) funding of music entails public control, just as it did in the visual arts. Remember Mapplethorpe? Just another reason that public funding seems VERY undesirable to me. (The primary reason, of course, is that it's a self-defined elite taking money from those who have no interest and gain no benefit.)


Mapplethorpe was a commercial photographer with a gift for making really polished and slick prints... I have no interest either, in a portrait of a cucumber next to a ***** (o.k. 'phallus' - the very sort of inappropriate prudishness of which I speak). I must add the whole kerfuffle would not have happened if the general American mentality over sex were less prudish and instead more adult: If it were, Mapplethorpe would have not had that career with the content those photos have, nor titillated so many, nor been selected for a museum exhibit. The guy would have had to come up with something else. To an ironic degree, that showing was 'socially relevant' -- more about American prudery steering a photographer to think the subject as presented interesting, or 'shocking', and a number in the art world to capitulate.

_I am talking prudery on the childish level of a high-ranking southern states politician (of that same time and part of the objecting group) who had the statue of justice in his workplace draped because, classical Greco-Roman style as she was, the breasts were bare!_ Compared to Europe's acknowledgement of sex as part of human nature, the American preoccupation is a nearly universal tween / adolescent mentality.

There is so much gratuitous sex in American pop and non-pop culture because, just behind England and its other 'children,' is a seemingly near eternal non-adult frame of mind over sex in each of those cultures. If, as a people, more were 'over it' or more matter of fact, the constant presentation of it in films, song lyrics, would no longer have the sensational effect, and everyone using sex as subject or to cause controversy would have to come up with another gimmick. _(Collectively, Europe consumes the tiniest amount of pornography compared to the States. The reason for that? Europe is way more 'over' sex than America.)
_

_I cannot, by the farthest of far stretches, equate the Mapplethorpe kerfuffle to the funding of absolute, or abstract music, and that was, I believe, the topic._

Maybe it is not important that America have anything but a pop and populist culture. I believe to not have a fine arts culture is a bad sign for the overall health of any nation having a pretense of being 'civilized,' -- as much as art has an intangible 'value,' and that value cannot be proven.

Every older piece you do like, or any of the newer stuff, if 'classical,' was in one way or the other 'funded.' In Beethoven's lifetime, his Op 29 quintet was the most popular and in-circulation of all his works, the public, after that, finding his music less and less to their liking, stranger, etc. If he had not had patronage, funding, he might have had to perform more and compose much less. People in the past have paid for what you enjoy now, and if they hadn't, it might not have been here now.

The funding goes on, a few monied families 'the aristocrats,' corporations and governments taking over the previous roles of monarchs and aristocrats. (Recall that Wagner, that sly hustler, got a good chunk of change out of the Bavarian principality's coffers to fund his work.) Today, the public at large is not 'the King' or President who is in control of paying out that penny. They are the everyman from whom taxes are collected, and the King, or president, disburses those funds. 'Take the King's penny' is all fine and good, but in this situation, you and I are not the king, and it seems the king feels it better not to tell his artisans what to make, or how to make it.

My most negative anticipation: first, exclude any and all TC members, regardless of how modern or conservative their taste, as being an underwhelming percent (2%) of the general American public. Imagine that remaining 98% determining to whom, and what, arts funding goes. I fear we would get as a result perhaps John Williams, Danny Elfman and Howard shore as the sum total of American 'new' 'classical' music. Then we have none, really, at all, and will have become a 'classical music museum' at best.


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## Rapide (Oct 11, 2011)

PetrB said:


> There is so much gratuitous sex in American pop and non-pop culture because, just behind England and its other 'children,' is a seemingly near eternal non-adult frame of mind over sex in each of those cultures. If, as a people, more were 'over it' or more matter of fact, the constant presentation of it in films, song lyrics, would no longer have the sensational effect, and everyone using sex as subject or to cause controversy would have to come up with another gimmick. _(Collectively, Europe consumes the tiniest amount of pornography compared to the States. The reason for that? Europe is way more 'over' sex than America.)
> 
> _


_

All that sex in pop-culture just makes it junk art._


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## Guest (Jan 1, 2013)

Rapide said:


> All that sex in pop-culture just makes it junk art.


Is sex junk, then? Is sex and sexuality not a valid topic for artistic consideration?


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Rapide said:


> All that sex in pop-culture just makes it junk art.


If the public grew up and got over it, it would not sell as it is generally presented, misused as a sensational draw.

Have a look at the censored word in the above - a clinical matter of fact word for a body part, completely relevant to what is discussed -- Asterisked out -- exactly what I'm talking about in matters of sex and attitudes about it.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

MacLeod said:


> Is sex junk, then? Is sex and sexuality not a valid topic for artistic consideration?


[Unless it is opera or song, or some music with vocally delivered text or a contextual title - I find no direct 'correlation' or 'sexuality' a directly detectable quality in absolute music, from any composer. I would be hard pressed to guess, without the Romeo and Juliet reference, if that particular Tchaikovsky overture would have its full effect, which was 'in your face' emotional and physical longing unprecedented as to having been so overtly expressed in music, especially to its first Russian audience who were that much more straight laced and embarrassed about physical love than the rest of Europe.]

In those media using textual context or visual reference, the topic would have to be handled in a far more interesting and better than gratuitous manner than it often presently is -- and I am speaking more of its use in American pop culture than anywhere else.

Sex, or its absence, sublimation, a person ignoring or denying its presence,etc. accounts for a great deal of what people do and how they act, a completely genuine part of a subject in any story involving people. This is so strong, to a degree whether it is ever spoken of or not, that about every author, librettist, playwright or screenplay writer is conscious of what is driving those characters, including sex and all its attendant tensions.


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## SottoVoce (Jul 29, 2011)

KenOC said:


> I don't feel Mr. Babbitt (or any other composer) "owes" me anything, nor I him. If he were in a position to demand my financial support (as you seem to think desirable) I would probably be more insistent that he deliver something of value to me. Take the King's shilling, play the King's tune, after all.


"People nowadays think that scientists exist to instruct them, poets, musicians, etc. to give them pleasure. The idea that these have something to teach them - that does not occur to them." - Wittgenstein


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## Guest (Jan 2, 2013)

KenOC said:


> [P]ublic funding seems VERY undesirable to me. (The primary reason, of course, is that it's a self-defined elite taking money from those who have no interest and gain no benefit.)


This is pretty feeble. And its feebleness consists largely of one salient fact--you do not know. You do not know who will benefit, either now or later. You do not know which of the people who have no interest now will have an interest later on. Unless you're God, you simply do not know.

So there's this idea that art is generally good. That it does something valuable. That anyone can get something from it, even though many choose to get nothing. (Probably be better to figure out how to get people to prefer choosing something to choosing nothing.) In any case, people are going to do it, regardless. That's a sign of its value, I'd say, though cynical economists would say that that's an excuse not to have to fund it at all.

In any case, it's not about elitism. It's about acknowledging that no one can predict who will benefit. That someone will benefit is certain.

As for the recipients of public largesse, how do you decide? People that don't like Cage might choose Copland. People that don't like Copland might choose Cage. Since you don't know who will benefit, you pretty much have to choose as many people as possible, as many different people as possible.

The goal is not to please KenOC personally. To justify choices to KenOC, whose tax pennies (and it's only pennies) are going to fund the arts. The goal is to make the best guesses possible, to cast the net as widely as possible. You might fail; you might succeed. Probably you will not ever know which. Probably the results won't be in until after you've died. So long as you don't try to please KenOC, you'll probably do fine.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Rapide said:


> All that sex in pop-culture just makes it junk art.


So is Messiaen's Turangalila-Symphonie. Seriously. Boulez said that he would not conduct it - or the movements that obviously refer to lovemaking - because it was "brothel music." I read this in a source about 10 years ago. Maybe he's changed his tune on that since so to speak. Dunno.

I had this 'ammunition' in reserve just for you, rapide. But noooo, you are not ideological, neither is Boulez. Modernists CANNOT be ideological. Never.

Fact is that hard core Modernist dogma denies pleasure of the senses. Denies money/profit as part of the reasons behind music being written. Denies any questioning or even touching of sacred cows, dogmas and fetishes.

Then what are we left with? A religion, and a puritanical and extreme one at that!

But you know, I don't care. At least pop music was not the soundtrack to certain events in European history that we like to forget or shove under the carpet around here. Classical music is pure. Or does it just look pure since its now virtually a museum piece? Take your pick.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

some guy said:


> This is pretty feeble. And its feebleness consists largely of one salient fact--you do not know. You do not know who will benefit, either now or later. You do not know which of the people who have no interest now will have an interest later on. Unless you're God, you simply do not know.


So I should be happy investing my money in an opportunity where the benefit is unknown? Or society at large should? That would seem just a wee bit irrational. I'm sure that we both can think of many things society needs that have better-defined benefits. Those would appear (to me at least) to have priority.


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## Guest (Jan 2, 2013)

Sid James said:


> But you know, I don't care.


Posting over and over and over and over again about "modernist ideology" is a funny way of showing you don't care. You obviously care deeply. Obsessively.

And your facts are false. Well, that may need some finessing, actually. I want to be convinced that there really is such a thing as "hard core Modernist dogma" before I'd start saying which facts are false or not. One thing I do know, that because of how I post on TC, Sid has singled me out as the hard core Modernist par excellence. But I am very firmly and consistently on the side of pleasure of the senses. I'm always talking--I'd do it a lot more if I could get a chance, too--about how pleasurable noise music and eai (electroacoustic improv) and turntablism and so forth all are.

You don't find them pleasurable? Fine. But my enjoying them is not on some non-pleasure, non-sensual plane. I enjoy them because they give me sensual pleasure. Period. The problem as I've observed over the years is getting people who don't enjoy those things to believe that they _are_ enjoyable. No, it's not possible. Favoring that must come from somewhere else than sensual enjoyment. Desire to impress, maybe. (Impress whom?) Desire to be unique and distinctive. (Again, to whom?) Desire to see oneself as superior or more sophisticated or more educated.

Balls to that, mate. Incapacitants is fun to listen to. Andrea Neumann is fun to listen to. Karkowski and Yoshihide are fun to listen to. End of story.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

some guy said:


> Posting over and over and over and over again about "modernist ideology" is a funny way of showing you don't care. You obviously care deeply. Obsessively.
> 
> And your facts are false. Well, that may need some finessing, actually. I want to be convinced that there really is such a thing as "hard core Modernist dogma" before I'd start saying which facts are false or not. One thing I do know, that because of how I post on TC, Sid has singled me out as the hard core Modernist par excellence. But I am very firmly and consistently on the side of pleasure of the senses. I'm always talking--I'd do it a lot more if I could get a chance, too--about how pleasurable noise music and eai (electroacoustic improv) and turntablism and so forth all are.
> 
> ...


Again you demolish me. How sad. We're not good enough for your religion, are we, some guy? Or of rapide's religion, or of stlukes, Couchie's and sundry others. We're just 'petit bourgeois' fools who have not converted to what you all believe in. Art cannot be questioned. Art is devoid of any context or history. The white cube. The canon. Whatever.

Well, I many have straw men, I may be shadow boxing but so are you. Go to the current listening thread on this forum and you'll see, many people (including myself) listen to new/newer musics on a regular basis.

& if what you are saying is true - eg. that since early 19th century, with Beethoven and Schubert, you got composers writing music that was not appreciated by audiences - well, fine. I would agree that many of their late works where like that (the late quartets and piano sonatas). But I think that's only part of the picture, many pieces since then have been popular virtually since they where written.

But if you are right, then this decline of appreciation for more experimental or challenging new music has been a long term trend. So maybe its like the decline of the Roman empire, or indeed the current decline of America as a stable economy, another recession looming there. So we got to face the facts, the writing is on the wall. Maybe for classical music it was 200 years ago. I for one think that Wagner moved classical into extreme highbrow territory, an enclave from which it has never fully recovered. But I still like music of the last 200 years, its my favourite period in music history. However, people have different tastes and areas of focus. The 'mainstream' or 'bourgeois' taste is how it is, but it does not mean other smaller groups can't have more esoteric tastes. I just don't know why you are singling out the mainstream. All the time. Its like those dictatorships of the 20th century. Both Hitler and Stalin hated the bourgeois, they denied certain realities with their ideology. Was that realistic? Did that lead to joy and utopia? I'll leave that for you and others to ponder. Its no use.


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## Guest (Jan 2, 2013)

Wow, Sid. You got all that out of my last post?

Amazing.

Did you even read what I wrote?

Heigh ho.

As for Mr. Ken,



KenOC said:


> So I should be happy investing my money in an opportunity where the benefit is unknown?


This changes the terms of the discussion pretty radically. How you invest your money is entirely up to you. It's private.

But side issue we've been pursuing recently has been public funding. Public. It's not private any more. Things are not entirely up to you any more. And public means more people than just KenOC. It means more than just the people who agree with KenOC. It means everyone. People with different needs, different desires, different capacities, different ideas. Public.

Your latest side-step puts you firmly in the camp of those who go to concerts and whinge about "all the modernist crap" that gets played there. But when you go to a concert, you're no longer private. You no longer have complete control of what's played, as you do in your own house. You're in public now. You're with different people with different needs. You want to band together with others like you? Sure. Who doesn't. Fact is, there are people in that symphony hall, still, who actually enjoy (sensually!!) all that modernist crap. Public is where one has to compromise. Everyone has needs. Everyone wants their needs met.

If you're in a concert hall where you want to hear only Xenakis and Lachenmann, you're going to have to put up with some Tchaikovsky and Beethoven. If you want to hear only Tchaikovsky and Beethoven, you probably won't even be asked to put up with Xenakis or Lachenmann. Britten maybe. Ades. Higdon. Muhly. The reality is, the T and B group have already won. (Which makes Sid's savaging of the losers kind of embarrassing at the very least.) People who want to hear Xenakis and Lachenmann in the US can go whistle for it. No symphony in the US is gonna play any of it. Tough for you if that's what you like. Sucks to be you. Why don't you go to Europe, ya wierdo? Maybe they'll play some of your modernist crap for you.

Jeez guys? Whatever happened to collegiality? Whatever happened to understanding that the rules for private are different from the rules for public? Whatever happened to live and let live? I mean really living and letting others live and not constantly slamming others for not living the way you want them to live?

Well, Sid did say a true word, I think. It is no use.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

some guy said:


> Wow, Sid. You got all that out of my last post? ...


I did address one of the core issues of this thread at least. Your position that since 200 years classical listeners have not liked, tended not to like, more experimental or challenging music.

It was a volcanic torrent rant but the fact is that ideology is central to this, to what everyone says here. Its not only me that has ideology or bias (a thing which you and those other people I mentioned always don't hesitate to point out - or rather, imply).



> ...
> 
> Did you even read what I wrote? ...


Yes, basically the implication being that if people on this forum do not for example value what you do, they are not up to scratch. & putitative means something like apparent or ersatz, doesn't it? So things like Ades or Higdon, they're not what you think of as real new music? That's fine, its an ideological position just like anyone else's position here.



> ...
> Jeez guys? Whatever happened to collegiality? Whatever happened to understanding that the rules for private are different from the rules for public? Whatever happened to live and let live? I mean really living and letting others live and not constantly slamming others for not living the way you want them to live?


I never slammed you for what you listen to, I am questioning your conclusions/opinions about certain things, that's it. But yeah, I can take the advice of cooling down about these things, there is no use slamming others, no use in it at all.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

some guy said:


> Public. It's not private any more. Things are not entirely up to you any more. And public means more people than just KenOC. It means more than just the people who agree with KenOC. It means everyone. People with different needs, different desires, different capacities, different ideas. Public.


It's sad the way you keep making this personal (and not just my posts!) It's degrading and discourteous. But yes, we're talking about public (which includes me, by the way, and you as well). If congress votes to grant money to composers, then so be it. I'm willing to live with that because it is, after all, a democracy. Are you?

If I have the unlikely opportunity to vote directly, my vote is no.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

censored / censured myself.


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## Rapide (Oct 11, 2011)

MacLeod, Sid James

If you care to see for yourselves the context of my comment in response to PetrB's comment, it should be clear I was referring to the relentless use of sex out of context in innumerable examples of popular culture when the underlying artistic endeavours are verging on cheap pornography.


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## Guest (Jan 2, 2013)

Rapide said:


> MacLeod, Sid James
> 
> If you care to see for yourselves the context of my comment in response to PetrB's comment, it should be clear I was referring to the relentless use of sex out of context in innumerable examples of popular culture when the underlying artistic endeavours are verging on cheap pornography.


Why should "sex" be singled out for condemnation? Pop culture contains many topics that are cheaply used - love, violence, romance...in fact, I might suggest that one of the definitions of 'pop' culture is the cheap use of themes and ideas that are intended to have mass, immediate appeal.


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## Rapide (Oct 11, 2011)

MacLeod said:


> Why should "sex" be singled out for condemnation? Pop culture contains many topics that are cheaply used - love, violence, romance...in fact, I might suggest that one of the definitions of 'pop' culture is the cheap use of themes and ideas that are intended to have mass, immediate appeal.


"Mass, immediate appeal" - there you go - you said it yourself. Perhaps that is not surprising for one new to classical music, which I presume you are, and I am sure you know (or I hope you would discover), that classical music does not necessarily have "mass, immediate appeal" without recourse to violinist or singers in a concert hall dressed up looking like hookers to promote their art / performance.


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## Guest (Jan 2, 2013)

Rapide said:


> "Mass, immediate appeal" - there you go - you said it yourself. Perhaps that is not surprising for one new to classical music, which I presume you are, and I am sure you know (or I hope you would discover), that classical music does not necessarily have "mass, immediate appeal" without recourse to violinist or singers in a concert hall dressed up looking like hookers to promote their art / performance.


I don't understand - what are you not surprised about because I'm 'new' to classical music? (I'm not, by the way).


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

MacLeod said:


> I don't understand - what are you not surprised about because I'm 'new' to classical music? (I'm not, by the way).


Its the oldest trick in the book, McLeod. It was used against me too recently. I criticsed (dared to criticise) Picasso's Bulls head made out of bicylce parts sculpture and I got the same thing thrown in my face (not by Rapide, I must say). The insinuation that I don't know about art, esp. modern/contemporary art. & while not claiming to be an uber expert on it (I haven't got a PHD in it or anything, but I have studied it formally) I do know what I need to know about it (and then some) if you get the drift.

Let's face it, there's all these tricks people play to get the upper hand.

As for prostitutes (or sex workers as they are referred to more often nowadays - its been legalised here for a long time, they pay tax like any other worker) I have more respect for them than people of some other professions who don't sell their bodies but their souls to various interests that are just toxic. Go to the Vienna New Year's Day anniversary thread to get my lowdown on that.

But again, we got to believe that classical music is purer than pop or other types of musics. Classical music is 'real' music not 'putative' music like all that other junk.

Yeah right.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Sid James said:


> I criticsed (dared to criticise) Picasso's Bulls head made out of bicylce parts sculpture and I got the same thing thrown in my face...


Sid, I though the bicycle seat made into a bull's head was kind of cool. But hey, don't try to sit on it, if you catch my drift.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

KenOC said:


> So I should be happy investing my money in an opportunity where the benefit is unknown? Or society at large should? That would seem just a wee bit irrational. I'm sure that we both can think of many things society needs that have better-defined benefits. Those would appear (to me at least) to have priority.


There is nothing rational about fine art, or investment in it., Ask anyone who has backed a film, Broadway musical or opera production, or commissioned a new piece of classical music. -- regardless of all that is written about its 'social relevance' blah blah blah it is an abstract arena which has no concrete or truly tangible value.

Your approach is that of a very pragmatic businessman. The arts, how they have been funded for about four centuries at least, have nothing to do with pragmatic business models.

You are out of your areas of familiarity, then, in speaking on arts funding.

You will be more comfortable, and find more agreement in the realms of real properties, stocks and bonds. Really.

Purchase what music you will. It is a relatively free society.

You have every right to speak out against funding in the arts. At the same time, you really have no idea 'how it goes or has gone' for about three or more hundred years, those years which produced 'products' you do happily consume. You are, then, completely unaware of what you are suggesting unplugging. Not knowing what that would do, you also have no proposal of what is to take its place, nor, I believe, any idea of what would happen if you 'just unplugged' the funding.

When there was an 'aristocracy' there was a sense of obligation to 'higher things' than the profit line, and that meant the arts, which they happily subsidized even if they cared little for them: it was an obligatory part of their social role; it used to bring them a certain credible and tangible amount of prestige. That class and that mentality are gone, replaced by people in business without any such sense of obligation, or the education to feel cultivating the abstract and less than profitable worthwhile.

So -- here and now it sits.

You're making something the populace likes well enough, you're John Williams and ridiculously well remunerated. I'd wager the equivalent of a 'next Beethoven' - i.e. contemporary, tonal, and fantastic, would die in an unfunded free-market popular takes the brass ring environment. But what matter, one Beethoven is enough, I suppose... unless, oh, Brilliant! Outsource the commissions to second and third world nations, cutting the cost by 9/10ths


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Sid, I though the bicycle seat made into a bull's head was kind of cool. But hey, don't try to sit on it, if you catch my drift.


Well, you'd have to take it down off the wall and remount it to a bicycle to do that... and by all accounts (I won't repeat his comment on the work yet again) the artist would have been pleased if you had done so.

It is heavily ironic that the artist, matter of fact about this piece, should find, over half a century later, two grown men acting rather much like elitist snobs over it.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

PetrB said:


> You are out of your areas of familiarity, then, in speaking on arts funding.You will be more comfortable, and find more agreement in the realms of real properties, stocks and bonds. Really.
> 
> Purchase what music you will. It is a relatively free society.
> 
> You have every right to speak out against funding in the arts. At the same time, you really have no idea 'how it goes or has gone' for about three or more hundred years, those years which produced 'products' you do happily consume. You are, then, completely unaware of what you are suggesting unplugging. Not knowing what that would do, you also have no proposal of what is to take its place, nor, I believe, any idea of what would happen if you 'just unplugged' the funding.


Thank you for enlightening me as to my ignorance. I'm sure this will be helpful. May I assume I still have some right to an opinion as to how my tax dollars are spent? After all, suffrage is granted even to the dull and slow of thought!


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Sid James said:


> So is Messiaen's Turangalila-Symphonie. Seriously. Boulez said that he would not conduct it - or the movements that obviously refer to lovemaking - because it was "brothel music." I read this in a source about 10 years ago. Maybe he's changed his tune on that since so to speak. Dunno.
> 
> I had this 'ammunition' in reserve just for you, rapide. But noooo, you are not ideological, neither is Boulez. Modernists CANNOT be ideological. Never.
> 
> ...


It would help to know that from youth on, Boulez is known as either asexual or keeping some kind of sexuality in some kind of closet. He earned the epithet of 'Neuter Computer' decades ago. No surprise he would have real aesthetic trouble with something less than obliquely sensual. I'm sure by that criteria, Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Overture is also on his 'do not conduct' list. And, he studied under Messiaen, so there is yet another personal layer we can only guess at there.

Messiaen, another 'modernist in extreme' had no problem with sensuality. Berg, if not a womanizer, had a wife and an affair with the singer whom he had in mind when composing 'Lulu.' You really, Mr. context, seem to also like to craft that context by ignoring all other relevant contextual events and facts which do not agree with that which you wish to present. You should have been a statistician, and worked for some government....

If you would avoid picking up the little bits that fit as supportive argument while omitting the rest, and still came up with a good argument, you might convince. Each time you take one of these tidbits in isolation, the more the complete story often enough weakens or destroys your argument.

"Buy a red automobile, notice all the other red automobiles." (of course that means you notice 'all the rest' far less


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Sid James said:


> So is Messiaen's Turangalila-Symphonie. Seriously. Boulez said that he would not conduct it - or the movements that obviously refer to lovemaking - because it was "brothel music." I read this in a source about 10 years ago. Maybe he's changed his tune on that since so to speak. Dunno.
> 
> I had this 'ammunition' in reserve just for you, rapide. But noooo, you are not ideological, neither is Boulez. Modernists CANNOT be ideological. Never.
> 
> ...


From me, who is more than ready and willing to go much further in following a way less than conventional thread of thought in either direction, this is beginning to sound very weirdly like an extreme reactionary right wing / left wing (take your pick) "man ranting while standing on a soapbox."

The syntax, the sardonic, "Oh No, you can't possibly think this or that," Subtext = You are stupid or Naive because you do not believe what I say or do not agree with me.

It is astonishingly snarky, and rude to the maximum. When controverted, that comeback approach either ramps up or converts to a welling pout where he who did not find agreement takes a posture as the persecuted.

It is shamefully unattractive, I find it truly intolerable, and I really think it has to stop.


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## Rapide (Oct 11, 2011)

I thought some wrote very recently about New Year's resolution on not ranting. I guess not. It might as well be 2030, not 2013. Sure, I have no standards. Sex sells. It's all no different - no such thing as low art or high art. Prostitutes are just as talented as professionals trained in universities and professional institutions.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Thank you for enlightening me as to my ignorance. I'm sure this will be helpful. May I assume I still have some right to an opinion as to how my tax dollars are spent? After all, suffrage is granted even to the dull and slow of thought!


It is right there, bud, "You have every right to speak out against funding in the arts." Fire away at it, really, it was, after all nearly a direct suggestion I made, thinking it might be more your kind of thing than not.

And _you're welcome. It is always good to know one's stronger suites._


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## Guest (Jan 2, 2013)

Rapide said:


> I thought some wrote very recently about New Year's resolution on not ranting. I guess not. It might as well be 2030, not 2013. Sure, I have no standards. Sex sells. It's all no different - no such thing as low art or high art. Prostitutes are just as talented as professionals trained in universities and professional institutions.


A rather more modest rant on your part, then. But a rant, nevertheless. Or am I too new to ranting to be entitled to comment?


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## Rapide (Oct 11, 2011)

MacLeod said:


> Or am I too new to ranting to be entitled to comment?


Leave that for yourself to decide.


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## Guest (Jan 2, 2013)

Rapide said:


> Leave that for yourself to decide.


I'm beginning to notice a pattern. You like to comment on what others say, but offer limited options to actually converse. In two threads, I ask questions and, in response to your posts, offer clarifications. In return, I might expect at least some kind of recognition, or acknowledgement, or even an "Ah, yes, I see what you're saying now, and I agree/disagree."

Unlike the voluntary contract between artist and consumer, I would suggest that there _is _an obligation between participants in a discussion form to exchange opinions and ideas meaningfully, not merely take turns on a soapbox.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Re this post of yours, petrb -
http://www.talkclassical.com/23002-putative-properties-modern-music-10.html#post399402

I can't put everything in one post. I know re Boulez's sexuality, that he was taught by Messiaen, etc.

In any case, it seems this thread has gone the way most of some guy's threads tend to go. Into a huge ***** fight. The result is usually it getting so nasty and personal, it has to be locked. In the past it was usually between some guy and stlukes, and their hangers on on either side. Now it looks like we are the so called entertainers.

Well I'm jumping off this merry go round.


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## Rapide (Oct 11, 2011)

MacLeod said:


> I'm beginning to notice a pattern. You like to comment on what others say, but offer limited options to actually converse. In two threads, I ask questions and, in response to your posts, offer clarifications. In return, I might expect at least some kind of recognition, or acknowledgement, or even an "Ah, yes, I see what you're saying now, and I agree/disagree."
> 
> Unlike the voluntary contract between artist and consumer, I would suggest that there _is _an obligation between participants in a discussion form to exchange opinions and ideas meaningfully, not merely take turns on a soapbox.


No, I think it is you, MacLeod who don't follow the trust of my opinion. That's fine.


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## Guest (Jan 2, 2013)

I think I must be losing my faculties. I find more merit and less contradiction in the postings of Petr B, KenOC, Sid and someguy than seem to be imagined.


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## Rapide (Oct 11, 2011)

MacLeod said:


> I think I must be losing my faculties.


:tiphat: Good for you, sir.


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## Guest (Jan 2, 2013)

Rapide said:


> No, I think it is you, MacLeod who don't follow the *trust of my opinion*. That's fine.


No, it's not fine. I want to follow, but evidently don't (or can't).


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

I for one, and others I think as well, became 'senseless' in this thread almost from the beginning. Here it is now, on electronic record for some time to come. You've missed little or nothing, including, IMHO, the content of the original OP.

On the other hand, in a somewhat perverse and decadent way, some of what is here has a rather odd 'entertainment' value.

But, if you are 'new' to engaging in this way, I heartily advise maintaining your innocence and purity, and not engaging, this one derailed almost from the start, perhaps the OP setting it up in hopes it would do just that, and all the rest of us merely having swallowed the bait


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Thank you for enlightening me as to my ignorance. I'm sure this will be helpful. May I assume I still have some right to an opinion as to how my tax dollars are spent? After all, suffrage is granted even to the dull and slow of thought!


Ken, you are one of the most knowledgeable non-musicians I have ever had contact with. I freely admit that there are many areas of classical music where your knowledge is superior to mine. I have difficulty when your observations run counter to my experiences. One does not become an expert on the funding of the arts by reading a few editorials in the New York Times and proclaiming to the world, "I have a right to my opinion." Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.

I have discussed one of my experiences with a commission with the following post in another thread. See: http://www.talkclassical.com/23100-do-composers-have-any-3.html#post399371

Part of the funding for the above work came from a grant from the Virginia Commission of the Arts. As a non-resident of the Commonwealth of Virginia we can be spared of your complaining about the misuse of your precious tax dollars.

It appears that you want to "Throw the baby out with the bath water." You find a few examples of arts funding you dislike and you want to dismantle the entire system. An example is the complaints that you had that the state may have supported Milton Babbitt.

The United States Marine Corps Band is entirely supported by appropriated funds. A few years ago they commissioned a work by the American Composer David Rakowski: _Ten of a Kind-Concerto for Ten Clarinets and Wind Ensemble_. It was a finalist for the Pulitzer. It was an atonal work so you would have had a fit if you heard it. I attended the premier and most of the audience liked it.

I concur with the responses that 'PetrB', 'Some Guy' and others to many of your comments.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

Arguing over KenOC's 5 tax dollars is a completely worthy endeavor.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

arpeggio said:


> I have difficulty when your observations run counter to my experiences. One does not become an expert on the funding of the arts by reading a few editorials in the New York Times and proclaiming to the world, "I have a right to my opinion." Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.


Arpeggio, I don't think I ever claimed to be an expert in arts funding. What I did do was express an opinion (counter to Babbitt's) that composers who wrote music with no audience, now or ever, should not be subsidized. I also opined more generally that tax revenues should not be used to support an art of interest and value to so small a portion of the populace.

None of this has anything to do with my knowledge (or ignorance) of the mechanisms of arts funding, or whether the money comes out of my pocket or not, or whether it's five dollars or five cents, or what some state is doing, or whether such-and-such a work was commissioned with public money.

But these opinions seem pretty unpopular in some quarters, even calling down streams of abuse. Perhaps some of our members are beneficiaries of public funding? That would certainly explain the strong reaction!

Added: I graciously except our establshed military bands, because we need stirring music to march off to war. I also except school bands and orchestras because...well, because.


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

I keep reading the title of this thread as Potato Properties of Modern Music.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

As if that last paragraph was necessary. 

Perhaps some of our members *coughKenOCcough* are Nazi sympathizers. That would certainly explain why they wish to suppress the arts.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

BurningDesire said:


> I keep reading the title of this thread as Potato Properties of Modern Music.


Honestly, that sounds like a better idea for a thread at this point.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Cnote11 said:


> Arguing over KenOC's 5 tax dollars is a completely worthy endeavor.


It has become wildly inflated from a fraction of a percent of one or two cents within hours! Soon we'll all be paying for a loaf of bread with a bushel basket full's worth of deflated currency.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Cnote11 said:


> Perhaps some of our members *coughKenOCcough* are Nazi sympathizers. That would certainly explain why they wish to suppress the arts.


Actually I haven't yet proposed suppressing classical music entirely. That's because I haven't decided whether I want to be a plain garden-variety nazi, a neonazi, a protonazi, a cryptonazi, or whatever.

So we'll just have to wait and see how that develops. But my plans are already being made. Were you aware that classical music can be played even in private homes? Yes, innocent-seeming instruments such as pianos, violins, even bassoons can, in the wrong hands, start an infection that may quickly turn into an epidemic! In the future, all such instruments must be registered with the government and wireless listening devices attached, to allow the authorities to keep a wary eye out for such dangerous subversion...


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## Guest (Jan 2, 2013)

MacLeod said:


> I think I must be losing my faculties. I find more merit and less contradiction in the postings of Petr B, KenOC, Sid and someguy than seem to be imagined.


This is probably a good time to remind everyone, and I mean every literal one, from the most die-hard, reactionary conservative to the most hard core modernist ideologue, that we, all of us, constitute a very small group out of the total population.

We are the 2%. Or maybe the 3%. And unlike the 1%, we have neither very much money or very much power. We do seem to have quite a lot of rancor, however. And, also unlike the 1%, we expend much of our energies into squabbling amongst ourselves. It is as if we feel very secure that our weak and tiny group is actually so robust that we can afford to engage in internecine warfare with impunity.

Truly, if all of us and all the arts we value--painting, sculpture, literature, music, dance--were to vanish suddenly and completely off the face of the earth, none of the 98% would notice. No more than a flicker of recognition from isolated individuals. Gone. Forever. No one would care.

Just a little perspective, there.

Oh, and MacLeod. Far from losing your faculties, you seem to me to be one of the few posters here that is always in possession of all of his faculties.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

*Bassoon gas*



KenOC said:


> Yes, innocent-seeming instruments such as pianos, violins, even bassoons can, in the wrong hands, start an infection that may quickly turn into an epidemic!


Really? Thanks for enlightening me. I have been playing the bassoon for forty years and I had no idea that in the wrong hands it would sound like a burping bedpost. No wonder people make faces when I play a solo. They must think it is my dinner.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

KenOC said:


> What I did do was express an opinion (counter to Babbitt's) that composers who wrote music with no audience, now or ever, should not be subsidized.


In theory I agree that composers with no audience now or ever should not be subsidized. The problem is knowing that music with no (or more practically - little) audience today will not have a reasonable audience later. I have my guesses about contemporary music and its popularity in the future, but they are little more than lightly informed guesses.



KenOC said:


> I also opined more generally that tax revenues should not be used to support an art of interest and value to so small a portion of the populace.


By this statement, I assume you believe that classical music ought not be publicly funded today. Would you be sorry to see all contemporary classical music disappear? I know that in the real world there would be some continued funding from private sources, but I'm asking a hypothetical question.


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## Renaissance (Jul 10, 2012)

Cnote11 said:


> As if that last paragraph was necessary.
> 
> Perhaps some of our members *coughKenOCcough* are Nazi sympathizers. That would certainly explain why they wish to suppress the arts.


And what do you think about those who force a man to pay for something he dislikes and doesn't need ?  Fascists ? It is easy to make such claims about people with different opinions. I do no not wish to pay a single cent for a so-called composer just to mutilate art and to make non-sense claims about his public. Not because I am greed or something, but I can't stand this kind of behavior. Beethoven never made money from people who didn't like his music. Arvo Part is not making money from people who don't like his music. Why should Babbitt be different ??  I don't understand. It is not my fault that his music fails for me.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

arpeggio said:


> Really? Thanks for enlightening me. I have been playing the bassoon for forty years and I had no idea that in the wrong hands it would sound like a burping bedpost. No wonder people make faces when I play a solo. They must think it is my dinner.


Hah! I knew the mention of the basson would draw you out! But the real danger is that you'll play well, hastening the spread of the classical music infection through the body politic. :trp:


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

There are many experienced musicians, amateur, students and professional, who participate in these forums. If one presents an uninformed opinion which runs counter to their experiences, it will provoke a spirited response.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

mmsbls said:


> By this statement, I assume you believe that classical music ought not be publicly funded today. Would you be sorry to see all contemporary classical music disappear? I know that in the real world there would be some continued funding from private sources, but I'm asking a hypothetical question.


??? I assume your question is, "Would you oppose public funding if you knew that it would cause all contemporary classical music to disappear?" Well, the short answer is, of course not. However, I know no such thing. Since the days of aristocratic commissions and stipends, which largely ended in the 1820s, composers have survived (and a few prospered) by their talents, skills, and wits in the real world. They may receive an occasional government commission for a public work (fair enough) or may even be employed by the state, like Shostakovich. The disadvantages of that arrangement are obvious.

If the absence of tax-based funding has any effect at all, it may be to encourage composers to consider their audiences more carefully, something not entirely bad IMO.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

KenOC said:


> If the absence of tax-based funding has any effect at all, it may be to encourage composers to consider their audiences more carefully, something not entirely bad IMO.


I couldn't disagree with that sentiment more.


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## Guest (Jan 3, 2013)

KenOC said:


> Since the days of aristocratic commissions and stipends, which largely ended in the 1820s, composers have survived (and a few prospered) by their talents, skills, and wits in the real world....


I know dozens of living composers. They survive mainly by having jobs. Most of them are employed by universities. Not sure if that qualifies as "the real world," but then I'm not sure that the words "the real world" point to anything.



KenOC said:


> If the absence of tax-based funding has any effect at all, it may be to encourage composers to consider their audiences more carefully, something not entirely bad IMO.


In the first place, no composer (no one I know) relies on tax-based funding. Composers may be all sorts of things, including idiots, but even the dimmest composer can do simple math. This tax-based funding issue is a largely made up topic, made simply--far as I can see--in order to have something to be angry at.

In the second place, composers are very much aware of their audiences. Why wouldn't they be? But of course, the real issue is not "do composers consider their audience," which all of them do, all the time, but "do composers consider me," with the "me" being someone who is not a member of certain composers' audiences. The "me" is a member of some audience. Just not of the audience of the composer or composers in question.

The only way one can claim that composers do not consider their audiences is to redefine "their audiences" so that it now means "someone else's audiences" and then to find fault with them for not considering someone else's audience, meaning, ultimately, not considering _you._


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

*Musical Legacy*



millionrainbows said:


> I couldn't disagree with that sentiment more.


I am with you on this one.

'mmsbls' made an excellent point when he stated, "The problem is knowing that music with no (or more practically - little) audience today will not have a reasonable audience later. I have my guesses about contemporary music and its popularity in the future, but they are little more than lightly informed guesses."

I was at a keyboard conversation recital in the spring of 2011 with the pianist Jeffrey Siegel which feature works that were composed in Paris in 2011 that are still performed today. One of the points that he made was the large number of works that were premiered in Paris in 1911 that are no longer performed. One member of the audience asked Mr. Siegel what contemporary works he thought may be remembered 100 years from now. His response is that it is impossible to know.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

some guy said:


> ...
> In the second place, composers are very much aware of their audiences. Why wouldn't they be? But of course, the real issue is not "do composers consider their audience," which all of them do, all the time, but "do composers consider me," with the "me" being someone who is not a member of certain composers' audiences. The "me" is a member of some audience. Just not of the audience of the composer or composers in question.
> 
> The only way one can claim that composers do not consider their audiences is to redefine "their audiences" so that it now means "someone else's audiences" and then to find fault with them for not considering someone else's audience, meaning, ultimately, not considering _you._


In other words, you are rooting for the audiences of more experimental/esoteric types things (most likely played at universities) while KenOC is rooting for mainstream (eg. the flagship symphony orchestras). Sorry to use the possibly vulgar term of rooting but here I mean it to be something like cheering your team at a sport game or something like that. But my theory is that these two can and do coexist in reality. I myself sometimes go to concerts at music schools here, sometimes I go to more 'mainstream' venues and also to concerts done out in the suburbs (which are becoming more common here). There's a mix of things played at these concerts, I think classical is like a smorgasbord, you pick what you want. You can focus on the university based groups/concerts, or the more mainstream things or the suburban things and then some. There's a lot of choice. Some audiences stick to one thing, others like me go to different things, pick and choose. That's diversity. So I don't know what's the big deal really.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Sid James said:


> In other words, you are rooting for the audiences of more experimental/esoteric types things (most likely played at universities) while KenOC is rooting for mainstream (eg. the flagship symphony orchestras).


Sid, did I ever say anything like that? The issue has been public funding of composers. In general the "flagship symphony orchestras" receive little or no public funding -- the average nationwide has been about three percent of costs (and zero for my local orchestras).

In fact, if I'm "rooting" for them, then my cause is likely to fail me. Each year there are fewer and fewer full-time orchestras, in the US at least, or orchestras that can pay musicians a living wage. And no, I don't want to subsidize them either.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

KenOC said:


> Sid, did I ever say anything like that? The issue has been public funding of composers. In general the "flagship symphony orchestras" receive little or no public funding -- the average nationwide has been about three percent of costs (and zero for my local orchestras).
> 
> In fact, if I'm "rooting" for them, then my cause is likely to fail me. Each year there are fewer and fewer full-time orchestras, in the US at least, or orchestras that can pay musicians a living wage. And no, I don't want to subsidize them either.


Well it looks like I was conflating things across many pages back, which I've been reading on and off today. Its difficult coming here and not having the time to look at things in as much detail as I could.

However my comment on all this is that America to me appears to have problems with these issues, and it goes way back. On the other hand, Australia is not in as much trouble with funding music and the arts in general. Its too complex to go into in detail. As I've said before the Australian Chamber Orchestra is a good model. It makes a profit and mostly is run on private donations/corporate funding. Its programming is pretty good mix of old things (c.1750-1950) and post-war/new music. It seems to have worked and it proves that a group like that can work to satisfy needs of its audience, a broad mix of people, a largish array of needs.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

*Experimental vs. Mainstream*



Sid James said:


> In other words, you are rooting for the audiences of more experimental/esoteric types things (most likely played at universities) while KenOC is rooting for mainstream (eg. the flagship symphony orchestras). Sorry to use the possibly vulgar term of rooting but here I mean it to be something like cheering your team at a sport game or something like that. But my theory is that these two can and do coexist in reality. I myself sometimes go to concerts at music schools here, sometimes I go to more 'mainstream' venues and also to concerts done out in the suburbs (which are becoming more common here). There's a mix of things played at these concerts, I think classical is like a smorgasbord, you pick what you want. You can focus on the university based groups/concerts, or the more mainstream things or the suburban things and then some. There's a lot of choice. Some audiences stick to one thing, others like me go to different things, pick and choose. That's diversity. So I don't know what's the big deal really.


I feel as if I am repeating myself but the majority of us who are proponents of experimental/esoteric music are not rooting for it over mainstream music. We enjoy mainstream music as much as anybody here. It appears to us that there are some who want to suppress certain forms of contemporary music that they do not approve of. Like you we believe that there should be room for both. This is a point many of us keep repeating to no avail.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

arpeggio said:


> I feel as if I am repeating myself but the majority of us who are proponents of experimental/esoteric music are not rooting for it over mainstream music. We enjoy mainstream music as much as anybody here. It appears to us that there are some who want to suppress certain forms of contemporary music that they do not approve of. Like you we believe that there should be room for both. This is a point many of us keep repeating to no avail.


Well I agree with you, & I'd elaborate that the 'art' of programming for generalist groups is to satisfy a broad array of needs. I mean I read about it in magazines and books on classical music. I can tell you I don't envy the work of a programmer. They of course got to juggle many things. Its linked to both the art side (eg. getting the repertoire mix right) and the business side (maintaining financial viability, balancing the books, etc.).

I want to do a thread on programming, a general thread on it (not just to do with inclusion of new music) but it will have to wait. But from what I know, good programming goes something like this:

- Warhorses and classics: esp. for those new to classical, not everyone has heard Beethoven live for example
- Less known works by major dead composers: Eg. Bach's Brandenburgs are always played, but there's also equally good but lesser played things by him
- Lesser known dead composers
- Newer music by dead composers
- New music by living composers

These are what the Australian Chamber Orchestra does. Some years their programming has been more to my liking than others. My liking being an emphasis on modern music with a mix of the older stuff. They do try hard to get the good mix. And I think that's part of their recipe for success. I see it as more pragmatic and less ideological, which is how things tend to be in Australia, our arts budget isn't big either. Programmers have to think outside the box, so to speak.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Sid James said:


> As I've said before the Australian Chamber Orchestra is a good model. It makes a profit and mostly is run on private donations/corporate funding.


Funding of the Australian Chamber Orchestra: 1) Performances - 41%. 2) Fundraising - 36%. 3) Government - 16%. (Source: Givewell, Australia)

Good numbers. 41% from performances is higher than most major orchestras in the US. But no major US orchestra to my knowledge covers 16% of its costs from government sources.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

KenOC said:


> Funding of the Australian Chamber Orchestra: 1) Performances - 41%. 2) Fundraising - 36%. 3) Government - 16%. (Source: Givewell, Australia)
> 
> Good numbers. 41% from performances is higher than most major orchestras in the US. But no major US orchestra to my knowledge covers 16% of its costs from government sources.


Well we are different from the USA, very different. Much smaller population for one thing. The ACO is in effect - as its name suggests - a national orchestra. It does concerts in all Australian major cities (state capitals) as well as some smaller cities (eg. Newcastle and I think Wollongong). It also has special programs where they visit remote areas to play there. & also an arm called ACO2 which is made up of students who study with musos in the orchestra. They also give concerts that are different from the ACO - ACO2 does gigs at universities for example. I'm just unpacking this to show how the Australian Chamber Orchestra works. They have been called by one non-Aussie reviewer (can't remember, either American or British) "the best chamber orchestra in the world." So maybe the Australian government is seeing them as like musical ambassadors for Australia. Your country did that too in the postwar era, the Jazz at the Philharmonic series went all around the world, the likes of Louis ARmstrong, Coleman Hawkins and Dizzy Gillespie entertained audiences everywhere as cultural ambassadors for the USA. But that era seems largely over. The USA is now in serious decline, its another ballgame entirely, and I think economic management overall there has to be improved. But that's not my area of focus/knowledge by far.


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## Guest (Jan 3, 2013)

Sid James said:


> In other words, you are rooting for the audiences of more experimental/esoteric types things (most likely played at universities) while KenOC is rooting for mainstream (eg. the flagship symphony orchestras).


No, that is not at all what is going on in that exchange.

Read it again, maybe? That exchange is about claiming something about one audience and applying the answer to a completely different audience. I wasn't rooting or not rooting for anything and neither was KenOC. The disagreement there was entirely about what the word "audience" can be made to point to. He implied that contemporary composers were not considering their audiences carefully. My response was that they ARE considering their audiences carefully. The point being that KenOC was simply criticizing them for not considering people who are not a part of their audience and doing so by using "audience" as if there were really only one, or only one that really counts.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

^^Ok well thanks for the clarification.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

Renaissance said:


> And what do you think about those who force a man to pay for something he dislikes and doesn't need ?  Fascists ? It is easy to make such claims about people with different opinions. I do no not wish to pay a single cent for a so-called composer just to mutilate art and to make non-sense claims about his public. Not because I am greed or something, but I can't stand this kind of behavior. Beethoven never made money from people who didn't like his music. Arvo Part is not making money from people who don't like his music. Why should Babbitt be different ??  I don't understand. It is not my fault that his music fails for me.


Siiiiigggghhhh


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

some guy said:


> The point being that KenOC was simply criticizing them for not considering people who are not a part of their audience and doing so by using "audience" as if there were really only one, or only one that really counts.


My words were: "If the absence of tax-based funding has any effect at all, it may be to encourage composers to consider their audiences more carefully." Are you purposely misconstruing what I say?


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

KenOC said:


> My words were: "If the absence of tax-based funding has any effect at all, it may be to encourage composers to consider their audiences more carefully." Are you purposely misconstruing what I say?


Now I really fail to understand. You guys are obviously not speaking the same language. What's going on?


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## Guest (Jan 3, 2013)

KenOC said:


> My words were: "If the absence of tax-based funding has any effect at all, it may be to encourage composers to consider their audiences more carefully." Are you purposely misconstruing what I say?


No. I'm disagreeing.

Composers already consider their audiences carefully.


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## Guest (Jan 3, 2013)

some guy said:


> No. I'm disagreeing.
> 
> Composers already consider their audiences carefully.


That's right: they want to drive them right out of the venue - fast!! And it's VERY effective.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

*Audience Music*



CountenanceAnglaise said:


> That's right: they want to drive them right out of the venue - fast!! And it's VERY effective.


I have been involved with two premiers over the past few years. In neither case was composer wanting to drive the audience out of the venue. See http://www.talkclassical.com/23100-do-composers-have-any-3.html#post399371

I have also performed concerts with the following guest composers/conductors: W. Francis McBeth, James Barnes and David R. Holsinger. These are all noted band composers. They did not want to drive the audience out either.

Samples of their music:

W. Francis McBeth: _Of Sailors and Whales_. Piece based on _Moby Dick_






James Barnes: _Third Symphony_. Barnes had a daughter who died of cancer when she was a child. The symphony was composed as a memoriam to her. (Note: The YouTube Files were too big, so I had to provide links.)















Note the cello solo. As the old saying goes, there is always room for cello.






David Holsinger: _To Tame the Perilous Skies_






Oh my gosh. Lock up your women and children. What are we to do? Contemporary tonal music that is suppose to appeal to audiences.

(Note: The Barnes and Holsinger works were commissioned by the United States Air Force. I wonder if anyone would disapprove of this use of our tax dollars.)

I also attended a concert that featured the music of Elliott Carter where he was present. In the end he received a thunderous standing ovation. Of course that concert was not in Macon, Georgia.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

arpeggio said:


> I was at a keyboard conversation recital in the spring of 2011 with the pianist Jeffrey Siegel which feature works that were composed in Paris in 2011 that are still performed today. One of the points that he made was the large number of works that were premiered in Paris in 1911 that are no longer performed. One member of the audience asked Mr. Siegel what contemporary works he thought may be remembered 100 years from now. His response is that it is impossible to know.


I have read, FWIW, that 99% of the new works given first performance each year are never performed again. Not sure what that statistic is worth, or what it implies, but it's interesting. I'd love to see a historical time series of new works each year vs. survival in the repertoire...not at all sure that times have changed.


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## Guest (Jan 3, 2013)

some guy said:


> Truly, if all of us and all the arts we value--painting, sculpture, literature, music, dance--were to vanish suddenly and completely off the face of the earth, none of the 98% would notice. No more than a flicker of recognition from isolated individuals. Gone. Forever. No one would care.


The doomsday scenario! I wouldn't take such a gloomy view (because I'm an optimist) and I wouldn't take such a gloomy view (because it wouldn't happen). But I can see that if some parts of the artistic world were to die off it would barely be noticed.



some guy said:


> I know dozens of living composers. They survive mainly by having jobs. Most of them are employed by universities. Not sure if that qualifies as "the real world," but then I'm not sure that the words "the real world" point to anything.


They don't. My world is real to me: it's the only one I've got, and I daresay that yours, Ken's and Sid's is pretty real to you too, setting aside the fact that this engagement is happening in a partly virtual partly private world!



KenOC said:


> If the absence of tax-based funding has any effect at all, it may be to encourage composers to consider their audiences more carefully, something not entirely bad IMO.


This is an interesting proposal, Ken. Do you think it might be appropriate for it to apply to all artistic endeavours?

A point often discussed along these lines is the programme offered by concert halls, and whether it should include stuff that joe public is happy to listen to along with stuff that only 'claude classical' is sufficiently discerning to really, and I mean deeply understand. Throw in the consideration that some venues are funded or subsidised by the taxpayer and you have a real world problem. Artists can squabble all they like about Xenakis v Xenophobe, so long as they do it in their own time using their own money, but once they start using some of the pennies that I've contributed, they'd better watch out. Personally, I've no problem with public funding for publicly available art work - galleries, craft halls, concert venues etc - and although I would prefer that music venues offer a mixed programme, I'm not going to rant with a placard if they only offer 'mainstream' or 'niche'.

However, I don't think there should be public funding for the artist who works in private, without public recognition (yet) and who has no intention of going public. If someone wants to doodle in their garret without offering their work for public scrutiny, they can do that off their own bat.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

*Dustbin of History*



KenOC said:


> I have read, FWIW, that 99% of the new works given first performance each year are never performed again. Not sure what that statistic is worth, or what it imples, but it's interesting. I'd love to see a historical time series of new works each year vs. survival in the repertoire...not at all sure that times have changed.


Well Ken you have finally read an article that coincides with our experiences. We do not need to read an article. We know that 99% of the music that was composed in 18th and 19th centuries has been forgotten, except by stodgy musicologists. We understand that the vast majority of contemporary music that we like 100 years from now will be relegated to the dustbin of history. Without that 99% we would never get the 1%.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Curious...where my observations do not coincide with your experience. Please advise!

Direct quotes would be good, because I've had some trouble recently with people misrepresenting what I've said. Thanks.


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## Rapide (Oct 11, 2011)

some guy said:


> I know dozens of living composers. They survive mainly by having jobs. Most of them are employed by universities....


Why is it that "most of them are employed by universities"? Are their music largely limited to academics/university circles? Outreach is critical if their art is to survive, like I said many times, it must be a living art in experience for artists and art consumers by and large not just "for some". Otherwise, it indeed ends up as a peculiar and very putative aspect of modern music that "only some" claim that modernism and its music is still of "relevance".


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## Guest (Jan 3, 2013)

Rapide said:


> Why is it that "most of them are employed by universities"? Are their music largely limited to academics/university circles?


Ah come on, Rapide. Surely you must have noticed the huge logical hole here. If you had a Mack truck, you might even try driving it through there.

Truly.

Hawthorne worked at the custom house in Boston. Were his novels largely limited to customs circles?

Ives was the Ives of _Ives and Myrick Insurance Company._ Was his music largely limited to life insurance circles?

In other news, Ken has read a statistic that "99% of the new works given first performance each year are never performed again." He's "not sure what that statistic is worth, or what it implies," but I must say, since he never gave us the source, that I'm not sure if that's even a real statistic.

Where did you read this? What works are counted? Professional and amateur alike? Student works? What were the sources of this statistic? Indeed, how does one know if a piece has been performed more than once? What if the first time were at a student recital with a printed program, but the second and third times were at private events with no programs? (What if the first time with a printed program were really the fifth time that piece was performed. Seems like a lot of work to make that statistic reliable. Now I'm starting to wonder who would do that.)

And what about recordings? What if a composer has a public performance which is recorded, likes it, and then publishes that recording online, thus obviating the need to get musicians together again and do rehearsals and all that. (When you have music performed at a university, the musicians are part of the scene and are working for credit themselves, not for money. Outside the university, you've got to come up with some money from somewhere. And time. And people willing to play new stuff. So if you've got a decent recording, it's tempting to just let things ride.) How does that factor?


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## Rapide (Oct 11, 2011)

Unfortunately, my experience does not quite match the rosy picture you are suggesting/implying outside of academia. The actual experience of composers employed by academic institutions (often called the "dumping ground" for trained folks) are far more limiting than composers/artists who are out of the university comfort nest. 

And is this a 21st century trend of composers and universities? It must be. Historically it never was. Composers were out in the fields - practising and inventing their art - without or without degrees.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

100% of people who listen to Billy's compositions never listen to them again

http://www.talkclassical.com/22967-jesus-christ-moved-north.html


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

(undisclosed) said:


> Curious...where my observations do not coincide with your experience. Please advise! Direct quotes would be good, because I've had some trouble recently with people misrepresenting what I've said. Thanks.


Perhaps that is because these statements are intentionally rather vague. It's the old martial arts technique of letting your opponent make the first move. Then move in and pummel the weaknesses; that way the nice, white business shirt remains clean.


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

CountenanceAnglaise said:


> That's right: they want to drive them right out of the venue - fast!! And it's VERY effective.


So you've figured it out. >8D MWAAHAHAHAHAHAHA you'll never stop us!


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Here's a series of concerts from the early 20th century, detailed in the 3rd La Grange Mahler tome (pp 213-214). The following comment is his.

_____________________

The final program for the Graz Festival was as follows:

1st June, at 6PM
Roderich von Mojsihovics: Romantic Fantasy for organ, Op. 9
Guido Peters: Symphony No. 2 in E minor: 1st and 4th movements
Gustav Mahler: Thirteen Lieder
Paul Ertel: Der Mensch, Symphonic Poem, Op. 9

2nd June at 11AM
Max Reger: Variations and fugue on a theme by Bach, Op. 81
Emile Jaques-Dalcroze: Serenade for string quartet
otto Taubmann: Three Lieder
Max Reger: Variations and fugue on a theme by Beethoven, Op. 86
Rudolf Buck: Two Choruses

2nd June at 6PM
Anton Bruckner: Symphony No. 8
Otto Naumann: Der Tod und die Mutter for soloists and chorus

4 June at 11AM
Felix Draeseke: Quintette, with violetta
Hans Pfitzner: Quartet, Op. 13, in D major
Hugo Wolf: Fourteen Lieder

4 June, at 6PM
Franz Liszt: Die Ideale, symphonic poem no. 12
Max von Schillings: Dem Verklarten, Hymnal Rhapsody, Op. 21
Richard Strauss: Ein Heldenleben
Ernst Boehe: Odysseus's Heimkehr, episode from a Symphony in 4 mvts
Siegmund von Hausegger: Lieder der Liebe, for tenor and orchestra
Theodor Streicher: Two Kriegerchore for chorus and wind instruments
Julius Weissmann: Fingerhutchen, for baritone, chorus, and orchestra
Richard Wagner: Kaisermarsch

It is sad to find on this programme so many composers who have since fallen into oblivion, but it is also more than likely--and a reflection of the evolution of musical taste--that a festival programme of contemporary music today will surely prduce a similar impression some ninety years hence!


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> Perhaps that is because these statements are intentionally rather vague. It's the old martial arts technique of letting your opponent make the first move. Then move in and pummel the weaknesses; that way the nice, white business shirt remains clean.


A rhetorical tactic I learned from the legal staff where I used to work is to only ask questions you already have an answer for.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> Here's a series of concerts from the early 20th century, detailed in the 3rd La Grange Mahler tome (pp 213-214). The following comment is his.
> 
> _____________________
> 
> ...


Right on!!!! There is one problem with your post. It is introducing historical facts into the equation. We can't have that.


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> 1st June, at 6PM
> Roderich von Mojsihovics: Romantic Fantasy for organ, Op. 9
> Guido Peters: Symphony No. 2 in E minor: *1st and 4th movements*
> Gustav Mahler: Thirteen Lieder
> Paul Ertel: Der Mensch, Symphonic Poem, Op. 9


This is curious. Was this a common practice in the past, or is there something about Mr. Peters' work that made performing only the outer movements desirable? This seems like the type of thing we'd never do today.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

GreenMamba said:


> This is curious. Was this a common practice in the past, or is there something about Mr. Peters' work that made performing only the outer movements desirable? This seems like the type of thing we'd never do today.


It was done far more often then than today. It was even more common in the 19th century, when the most popular items on concert programs were potpourris of opera hits arranged for piano (hence the proliferation of them in Liszt's catalogue).


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

some guy said:


> In other news, Ken has read a statistic that "99% of the new works given first performance each year are never performed again." He's "not sure what that statistic is worth, or what it implies," but I must say, since he never gave us the source, that I'm not sure if that's even a real statistic.Where did you read this? What works are counted? Professional and amateur alike? Student works? What were the sources of this statistic? Indeed, how does one know if a piece has been performed more than once? What if the first time were at a student recital with a printed program, but the second and third times were at private events with no programs? (What if the first time with a printed program were really the fifth time that piece was performed?


Sadly, my memory fails me totally, and only the statistic remains. I didn't invent it, though it may well be invented -- I'm sure you are aware the 47% of statistics are made up on the spot.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Sadly, my memory fails me totally, and only the statistic remains. I didn't invent it, though it may well be invented -- I'm sure you are aware the 47% of statistics are made up on the spot.


Why the smiley face? You must think this is all a big joke.


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

But in poor countries across the world who will support classical music but the state...Ppl dont have three decent meals per day and they should go listen to Mozart or Strauss...


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

millionrainbows said:


> Why the smiley face? You must think this is all a big joke.


Well, I did find it amusing that some guy would ask all those questions about a statistic when I already said I had no idea where it came from or if it was right. But of course we all have a lot of time on our hands, or we wouldn't be here...


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

Why would you quote a statistic that you have no recollection of where you even heard it from?

I think I should adopt that as my new posting style. 

I once read that 75% of people who go to the concert hall would rather hear a piece by Xenakis than Mozart. 

Interesting, isn't it? I think this turns the whole discussion on its head.


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## Guest (Jan 3, 2013)

KenOC said:


> Well, I did find it amusing that some guy would ask all those questions about a statistic when I already said I had no idea where it came from or if it was right.


Actually, you said you didn't know where it came from after I had asked all those questions. So your amusement is at a totally made up situation. Still, whatever keeps you amused.

Anyway, back to thread. (Not again!)

"It is sad to find on this programme so many composers who have since fallen into oblivion, but it is also more than likely--and a reflection of the evolution of musical taste--that a festival programme of contemporary music today will surely prduce a similar impression some ninety years hence!"

Yes, this seems an inevitable consequence of the 19th century idea of greatness.

Several years ago, a TCer asked me if it didn't bother me that some of the stuff I was talking about--electronic improvisation, experimental stuff--would be totally forgotten fifty years from now. My response? I'm not planning on being around fifty years from now. Well maybe. But I'll be 110. And probably deaf (among other things). But probably not, in which case none of any of this will matter.

But I am alive today. And I enjoy things today, not for their putative value but for their real value to me. I'm alive. I have two ears. I can only listen to anything with these two ears of mine. It is enough.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

some guy said:


> Actually, you said you didn't know where it came from after I had asked all those questions. So your amusement is at a totally made up situation. Still, whatever keeps you amused.
> 
> Anyway, back to thread. (Not again!)
> 
> ...


Great response!!! I love it. Excellant post.
For the record, I also remember reading that 99% statement. I can not remember were either.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

Cnote11 said:


> Why would you quote a statistic that you have no recollection of where you even heard it from?
> 
> I think I should adopt that as my new posting style.
> 
> ...


Actually it has been statistically proven that there are two type of people in the world: Those who understand Xenakis and those who do not. I am one of the latter.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

If we have to cite our sources for everything, then frankly I'm not sure who composed Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

It's a friendly discussion, not an academic shoot-out.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

science said:


> If we have to cite our sources for everything, then frankly I'm not sure who composed Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.
> 
> It's a friendly discussion, not an academic shoot-out.


I'm not sure of the source, but 97.354% of the members here think otherwise. 99.578% of them further stated that they don't appreciate being bull-dozed with bogus statistics.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

some guy said:


> Simpson's symphonies are characterized as "modern without the need to be 'difficult'."


Who is this Simpson? I intend to explore his music.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Ah! It's Robert Simpson. 

Good. I look forward to this.


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## Dustin (Mar 30, 2012)

Oh perfect! This thread should do just fine for resurrecting the "21st century composer, Alma Deutscher" conversation. (Kidding of course:angel


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Too late, it's already being resurrected in this thread.

http://www.talkclassical.com/34956-stylistic-diversity.html


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## Dustin (Mar 30, 2012)

violadude said:


> Too late, it's already being resurrected in this thread.
> 
> http://www.talkclassical.com/34956-stylistic-diversity.html


Oh! Missed that.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Dustin said:


> Oh! Missed that.











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


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