# Expectations and subsequent experience



## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

I often approach a composer new to me with expectations as to how the music will be and when my expectations seem to be wrong it can block my appreciation of that composer for quite some time. This happened to me a long time ago, now, with Brahms' orchestral music which I expected to be very robust and expressive rather than warm and rather disciplined. Only Klemperer gave me something close to what I expected and his set - which is great but also, I now feel, a bit extreme - and it was quite a while before I got Bruno Walter's Brahms ... and all the other great Brahms interpreters. These days it happens mostly with much newer music but it is the same effect - if I have an expectation that is wrong I can be disappointed for quite a while. Are others like this or can you listen with open ears from the start?


----------



## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

I have had the effect work both ways. Reading a lot of books about music, I came away with the feeling that the Elgar symphonies were just awful: long-winded, thick and murky orchestration, dull, and every other negative you can imagine. Typical Edwardian English bloat as one critic put it. But then one night I was driving in western Wyoming and the classical station out of Rexburg was playing one of the magnificent, powerful, exciting things I'd ever heard. When it was announced at the end it was the Elgar 1st I was blown away. The critics were dead wrong. The same thing happened with Rachmaninov; the only reason he was mentioned in the Penguin books The Symphony is because of the First! The other two were worthless dreck. Wrong again, critics.

Then there are the works the critics just rave about. They declare something brilliant, breathtaking, masterful and other such enconiums. So I buy the cd only to be thoroughly disappointed. The Corigliano 1st was one of them. Andre Previn's opera A Streetcar Named Desire another.

Listening with open ears is easier said than done, but I don't trust critics too much. David Hurwitz is currently becoming quite popular and relevant on Youtube, but sometimes (often!) his recommended Best Recording of something is way down my list. And sometimes his top choice is a revelation but can also be a dud. Expectations ruined.


----------



## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

I had the same experience with Brahms as you, but for a different reason. I had heard all the "Beethoven's Tenth" stuff and had expected a dry neoclassicist. "Dry" is definitely not how I'd describe what I'd heard.


----------



## Amadea (Apr 15, 2021)

Enthusiast said:


> I often approach a composer new to me with expectations as to how the music will be and when my expectations seem to be wrong it can block my appreciation of that composer for quite some time. This happened to me a long time ago, now, with Brahms' orchestral music which I expected to be very robust and expressive rather than warm and rather disciplined. Only Klemperer gave me something close to what I expected and his set - which is great but also, I now feel, a bit extreme - and it was quite a while before I got Bruno Walter's Brahms ... and all the other great Brahms interpreters. These days it happens mostly with much newer music but it is the same effect - if I have an expectation that is wrong I can be disappointed for quite a while. Are others like this or can you listen with open ears from the start?


I had just started to listen to Brahms. My sister had told me his symphonies were something really incredibly beautiful, and probably they are, I had listened just to the 3rd mov. from the 3rd symphony and it was simply beautiful, I expected the same expressiveness and melancholy but when I heard the first symphony,and the second, and the third, I almost didn't finish them because they were so, so, boring. But maybe it was the interpretation? (it was Bernstein I think). I am preferring his chamber works. Anyway, this to say yes it happens to me as well, but not with every composer. Expecially not with minor ones. I think with more context and listens, I can "clean my ears" better, so to speak. I try also to look for works that feel different from the stereotype of the composer (e.g. sad works by Mozart) and it helps a lot to understand them better and appreciate them.


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

It is impossible to ever have a meaningful discussion about Brahms. What half the world hear as buttoned up and turgid the other half hear as maudlin. His music is like one of those gestalt duck-rabbit thingies.


----------



## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

I started listening to classical music as a teenager in the late 1980s. As I could not afford many CDs and did not have a good public library for the first few years I was restricted by the sometimes haphazard LP collection of my parents, and by some music I listened to at a friend and then the radio. So there were lots of pieces I had read several flowery (or sometimes dismissive) descriptions of in diverse guidebooks or other background reading. So I had formed vague and strange expectations for a lot of 19th century standard repertoire pieces that often turned out to be very different. But of course the expectation formed from a verbal description is necessarily very peculiar. I also recall being baffled by Brahms' 1st which my friend liked almost as much as Beethoven and which was described as the "10th" etc. and which I found puzzling, hard to grasp and certainly quite different from Beethoven. A bit later I was rather disappointed by my first encounter with Schubert's Great C major (I had known ans liked his 5+8 before) that I found way to brassy; I liked some parts of the first movement, the slow movement and the trio but the finale not at all.(It was partly the fault of the very brassy Karajan 1960s recording). But I usually persevered in such cases and it was usually worth it.


----------



## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

when i was in my mid-teens, I attended a subscription BSO concert led by their former concertmaster, Richard Burgin. One of the works was the large orchestra version (Opus 9B) of Schoenberg's first chamber symphony. I knew enough Schoenberg to not expect to like it. Instead, I was fascinated!


----------



## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_I often approach a composer new to me with expectations as to how the music will be and when my expectations seem to be wrong it can block my appreciation of that composer for quite some time._

The old "you are your own worst enemy" comes to mind. It always helps to try and have an open mind about something new to you.

One other thing about expectations: if you don't have them they won't be unmet.


----------



## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Enthusiast said:


> I often approach a composer new to me with expectations as to how the music will be and when my expectations seem to be wrong it can block my appreciation of that composer for quite some time. This happened to me a long time ago, now, with Brahms' orchestral music which I expected to be very robust and expressive rather than warm and rather disciplined. Only Klemperer gave me something close to what I expected and his set - which is great but also, I now feel, a bit extreme - and it was quite a while before I got Bruno Walter's Brahms ... and all the other great Brahms interpreters. These days it happens mostly with much newer music but it is the same effect - if I have an expectation that is wrong I can be disappointed for quite a while. Are others like this or can you listen with open ears from the start?


I find myself often offering the advice to never approach any new music or performance with any expectations for precisely the reason you describe. This is how I always listen, and maybe take it for granted, because I've heard from some who say it is hard not to have expectations.


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

SanAntone said:


> I find myself often offering the advice to never approach any new music or performance with any expectations


Impossible (hermeneutic circle)


----------



## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Mandryka said:


> Impossible (hermeneutic circle)


I guess I'm living in a parallel universe because I do it everyday.


----------



## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Enthusiast said:


> I often approach a composer new to me with expectations as to how the music will be and when my expectations seem to be wrong it can block my appreciation of that composer for quite some time. This happened to me a long time ago, now, with Brahms' orchestral music which I expected to be very robust and expressive rather than warm and rather disciplined. Only Klemperer gave me something close to what I expected and his set - which is great but also, I now feel, a bit extreme - and it was quite a while before I got Bruno Walter's Brahms ... and all the other great Brahms interpreters. These days it happens mostly with much newer music but it is the same effect - if I have an expectation that is wrong I can be disappointed for quite a while. Are others like this or can you listen with open ears from the start?


The correct approach is to have some background knowledge about the music and or the composer. This way, the musical expectation is correctly set and one may therefore be already set on a path to tackle the music. Take Brahms for example. If someone is reasonably familiar with classical music in general, but new to Brahms, what could be better than reading up on Brahms' musical idiom first? Read up on his music, analyses written by professional musicians, scholars, historians alike and then you are already better educated and informed, then you would have the right expectation to assess the music when you listen to it. Nothing could be worse than going in "blind" because we are living today in 2021, so distant in time when Brahms wrote his masterpieces.


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

SanAntone said:


> I guess I'm living in a parallel universe because I do it everyday.


Ah. If you say so.


----------



## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

I expected Schoenberg to be more like Boulez...instead, he was influenced by Romanticism and wrote a good deal of tonal music.

I expected Dvorak to be late Romantic like what little I had listened to of Strauss. I was wrong.

But generally, I do not form an opinion of some composer's music before I listen to them.


----------



## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

This does NOT sound like Alfred Schnittke (even though he quoted it in other works of his):


----------



## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I agree it can be hard not to have expectations. Certainly I used to always have them, but I find that recently I more often approach modern works simply waiting to hear what's in them. I can't help having expectations for works from earlier eras.

When I first heard Dvorak, I had no idea what his music would sound like. For some reason I expected something like Bartok's quartets (which I would have hated back then). I was totally blown away by his 9th symphony. I was stunned by how much I liked it.

When I first tried Berg's violin concerto, I expected to like it. Many raved about it, and I love violin concertos. I hated it. It took me many times listening and a long time hearing the atonal style before I could find beauty in the concerto.


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

I suppose as soon as you sense a key you’re going to be looking for a return to that key, and if you don’t sense a key then you will be not expecting a cadence, as soon as you sense a motif you’ll be looking for its return or a variation, if the music is very quiet you won’t be expecting it to suddenly go very loud. Audibly identifiable rhythms set up expectations. And if you’re told it’s music, you won’t be expecting certain sounds (eg repugnant body noises.)

And this is just the first time you listen. The second time you have all your memories of the first experience.


----------



## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

One problem with descriptions is that they tend to presuppose a lot, often listening experience a newbie will not have. I recall that before I first encountered the Schoenberg piano concerto someone claimed it sounded "almost like Brahms". Of course for me who knew some Brahms but knew nothing very deeply (except maybe a few pieces by Beethoven), it sounded nothing like Brahms, more like disconnected notes. Years later I am still not that familiar with the Schoenberg piece but I can understand the description of "autumnal", Brahms-like. 
Often I remember first impressions but only intellectually, I cannot evoke the impressions because the perception and appreciation of a piece has changed so much. I recall that I found the muted horn at the beginning of Mahler's 9th just ugly (and I had heard and at least not disliked Mahler's 1,2 and 4 before that). Now it is mysterious and longing, whatever, certainly not ugly, even if it is a somewhat strange sound. In this case it had not been an expectation mainly formed from written comments but from the other Mahler I had heard. Anyway, I don't think it is a great idea to read a lot about music before listening but back then it could hardly be helped if one was fascinated by music and could not simply go to youtube to listen to almost anything.


----------



## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

ArtMusic said:


> The correct approach is to have some background knowledge about the music and or the composer. This way, the musical expectation is correctly set and one may therefore be already set on a path to tackle the music. Take Brahms for example. If someone is reasonably familiar with classical music in general, but new to Brahms, what could be better than reading up on Brahms' musical idiom first? Read up on his music, analyses written by professional musicians, scholars, historians alike and then you are already better educated and informed, then you would have the right expectation to assess the music when you listen to it. Nothing could be worse than going in "blind" because we are living today in 2021, so distant in time when Brahms wrote his masterpieces.


I have never taken the "correct approach", then! I don't research any music until it has rewarded me in some way. But I do still often seem to approach it with some sort of expectation about what I will find. Sometimes this does make my early experience of a composer disappointing but by then I have a better idea what to expect and then approach it when my mood is right for that new expectation. I might also explore multiple performances to see if any of them fit with what I originally expected. One way or another I get there in the end.


----------



## Malx (Jun 18, 2017)

It is extremely difficult to approach anything new with zero expectations, but 'managed expectations' would be how I would describe my approach.
I have never adopted ArtMusic's approach of fully researching either the composer or work being considered - however that fact that I am going to listen to something new means I have been alerted by some information gleaned from somewhere or other. Armed with that minimal information I then try to listen with an open mind.
As anyones knowledge of a genre increases the chances of approaching something new with zero influence decreases considerably - he says stating the obvious!


----------



## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

I think there can also be a problem with not enough knowledge/expectations, especially in the case of an inexperienced listener. When I was 15 the first few times I listened to the Eroica the first movement was a few great moments with long passages to be endured in between. I was so bad at listening that I could confuse with the horn call at the beginning of Bruckner's 4th with the chorale at the beginning of the Tannhäuser ouverture. 
Debussy or even some Wagner was merely a "wall of sound" with hardly any recognizable motives melodies. Bach's piano music was mostly endless chains of evenly spun fast notes... Some things took not so long, others took years to appreciate, like or love. Partly this was just lack of experience with listening, partly also lack of knowledge or more frequently the inability to apply that knowledge while listening.


----------



## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> It is impossible to ever have a meaningful discussion about Brahms. What half the world hear as buttoned up and turgid the other half hear as maudlin. His music is like one of those gestalt duck-rabbit thingies.


What about the third half(+) who list him among their five favorite composers? And have done so since the first time they heard a work by him (Piano Concerto No. 1).


----------



## Malx (Jun 18, 2017)

Kreisler jr said:


> I think there can also be a problem with not enough knowledge/expectations, especially in the case of an inexperienced listener. When I was 15 the first few times I listened to the Eroica the first movement was a few great moments with long passages to be endured in between. I was so bad at listening that I could confuse with the horn call at the beginning of Bruckner's 4th with the chorale at the beginning of the Tannhäuser ouverture.
> Debussy or even some Wagner was merely a "wall of sound" with hardly any recognizable motives melodies. Bach's piano music was mostly endless chains of evenly spun fast notes... Some things took not so long, others took years to appreciate, like or love. Partly this was just lack of experience with listening, partly also lack of knowledge or more frequently the inability to apply that knowledge while listening.


As an inexperienced listener if you come across something that you have to be told what it is and that it is good I would conclude you aren't ready for it. My preference has always been - listen for pleasure and enjoyment first and as your listening grows and expands you will come back to things.


----------



## Amadea (Apr 15, 2021)

ORigel said:


> I expected Schoenberg to be more like Boulez...instead, he was influenced by Romanticism and wrote a good deal of tonal music.
> 
> I expected Dvorak to be late Romantic like what little I had listened to of Strauss. I was wrong.
> 
> But generally, I do not form an opinion of some composer's music before I listen to them.


I know very little of Schoenberg (I only know Pierrot Lunaire and Verklärte Nacht basically). Can you suggest me something?


----------



## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Amadea said:


> I know very little of Schoenberg (I only know Pierrot Lunaire and Verklärte Nacht basically). Can you suggest me something?


Personally, I think that his masterpiece is the opera Moses und Aron, but that might be a little to hard as an entry into his music. My introduction to Schoenberg was his piano concerto.






but I also like the string trio, string quartets, serenade, violin concerto and wind quintet


----------



## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

ArtMusic said:


> The correct approach is to have some background knowledge about the music and or the composer.


Well it's certainly one approach. As to its correctness, who can say. What works for you may not, and probably won't, work for someone else. For someone in their twenties you certainly have a unique, some might say dogmatic, approach to imparting your wisdom to the rest of us.


----------



## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

In _How to Read a Book_, the Aristotelean philosopher and founder of the "Great Books of the Western World" program *Mortimer Adler* says, "There have always been literate ignoramuses, who have read too widely, and not well. The Greeks had a name for such a mixture of learning and folly which might be applied to the bookish but poorly read of all ages. They are all 'sophomores'."


----------



## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Amadea said:


> I know very little of Schoenberg (I only know Pierrot Lunaire and Verklärte Nacht basically). Can you suggest me something?


5 Pieces for Orchestra
Violin Concerto
Pelleas & Melisande (big tone poem, late romantic, pre-atonal)


----------



## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Sometimes it is impossible to not have expectations of a piece, and it can be quite detrimental. The first time I listened to Mahler 8 was about 30 years ago - and at the time it was the only Mahler symphony I had not heard yet. I absolutely loved the others, so my expectations were sky high. And I was so disappointed. I dismissed it as a failure, way, way below the others in my appreciation. It has taken many, many more listens over the years to come to the point that I now consider it a good work, still below any other of the Mahler cycle, but really good in itself, and a pleasure to listen to.


----------



## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Sometimes I listen to CD recordings (i.e. actual physical CD's that I borrow), it comes with well written, well researched notes in the mini-booklets that accompany the CD. These are wonderful, educational material that can also correctly setup one's expectations, often providing a good musicological background.


----------



## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

I try not to pre-judge a new work....i like to "let it happen" for me...with any musical work, the composer is going to take us on a journey, a tour...using the basic elements of music- rhythm, mrlody, harmony, texture, etc the composer will take us on the journey....
If it is interesting, exciting, captivating, we will stay with it and come back for more....if it fails to keep our attention, becomes boring, we lose our focus and direct our attention elsewhere...

I used the same approach when listening to auditions, or adjudication at solo/ensrmble festivals - try to start with your mind a totally blank slate- let the music make an impression...
Try to avoid or disregard pre-judgements or biases...this can be difficult, I know....


----------



## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

Enthusiast said:


> I often approach a composer new to me with expectations as to how the music will be and when my expectations seem to be wrong it can block my appreciation of that composer for quite some time. This happened to me a long time ago, now, with Brahms' orchestral music which I expected to be very robust and expressive rather than warm and rather disciplined. Only Klemperer gave me something close to what I expected and his set - which is great but also, I now feel, a bit extreme - and it was quite a while before I got Bruno Walter's Brahms ... and all the other great Brahms interpreters. These days it happens mostly with much newer music but it is the same effect - if I have an expectation that is wrong I can be disappointed for quite a while. Are others like this or can you listen with open ears from the start?


It's one of the dangers of a site like TC. You build up expectations from reading others' opinions about music you are unfamiliar with. It's always important to keep an open mind and open ears when I'm the act of listening.


----------



## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

‘for to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive’ (RLS). I never have expectations when listening, that way I can never be truly disappointed and very often I am happily surprised!

This concept of research before listening is quite alien to me but it clearly seems to be the norm for some. Whatever floats your boat. When I first got into Mahler I hadn’t read a word about him. Same with Wagner, Richard Strauss, Shostakovich. It meant I had no preconceptions so I could let the music work it’s magic.


----------



## GucciManeIsTheNewWebern (Jul 29, 2020)

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> It's one of the dangers of a site like TC. You build up expectations from reading others' opinions about music you are unfamiliar with. It's always important to keep an open mind and open ears when I'm the act of listening.


For sure. You'd be surprised how much other people can color your opinions, even if it's subconciously. I remember you and I touched on this topic one time and I mentioned how Schumann's "reputation" as a bad orchesrator has made me want to nitpick flaws in his orchestration when I otherwise wouldn't have. Like there's nothing wrong with his orchrstration, and even if there was someone like me wouldn't be able to pick up on it.

I think it just applies generically to life to. I often see how peoples opinions on things get influenced in very arbitrary ways.


----------



## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> It's one of the dangers of a site like TC. You build up expectations from reading others' opinions about music you are unfamiliar with. It's always important to keep an open mind and open ears when I'm the act of listening.


The thing is I go to a new piece because I am in the mood for what I expect. I find my mood is quite important to what I want to hear at any given time.


----------



## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Enthusiast said:


> The thing is I go to a new piece because I am in the mood for what I expect. I find my mood is quite important to what I want to hear at any given time.


If it is a new piece, how do you know it will suit your mood? My solution is to listen to music I've never heard before when I am _in the mood to hear a new work_ by a composer unknown to me. For that experience I harbor no expectations.


----------



## BeatriceB (May 3, 2021)

Sometimes with no expectation, sometimes with informed expectation after study and sometime with prejudicial expectations. I suspect most people would have some combination of such without necessarily realizing it.


----------

