# Generally agreeable and less egotistical composers – at a disadvantage?



## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I was recently reading the entry on Glazunov in _The Dictionary of Composers_ (Edited by Charles Osborne, Macmillan, 1981) and came across this quote which I'd thought I'd share here:

It seems to be a strange law of art that those composers whose rise to success is smooth, and whose subsequent career is free of violent perturbation, suffer an abrupt decline in reputation the moment they are safely underground. It was so with Mendelssohn, Gounod, Massenet, Saint-Saens, Bruch - all regarded nowadays with a lack of reverence that would have puzzled their contemporaries. As to Alexander Glazunov, once accepted as the spiritual heir of Glinka, Tchaikovsky and the 'Kuchka' - the 'mighty five' - he has not even been accorded the dubious immortality of one overwhelmingly popular work like the Ave Maria or Danse Macabre. (p. 141)

Another thing is that composers who didn't have big egos or some sort of overt eccentricity and where generally agreeable people are put lower on the totem pole of "great" composers. Think Haydn, Dvorak, Elgar, Kodaly for instance.

Along these lines is Zemlinsky's pretty well known quote relating the necessity of a composer to have a big ego, if he wants to get anywhere in his career - "It's not enough to have elbows in this throng, you need to know how to use them." Zemlinsky is a good example of what I'm saying, he needed to wait something like forty years after his death to be acknowledged as a significant musical voice of the early to mid 20th century.

Another good example of this is Rachmaninov, who was a pretty big innovator in piano technique around the turn of the 20th century. He influenced successive generations of composers in Russia (eg. Stravinsky and Shostakovich) and beyond.Yet I have read many times on this forum the opinion that he's basically not much more than a dinosaur Romantic, an anachronism, stuff like that. Yet look at his contemporary, Scriabin. Equally an innovator in piano, but of course totally mad and having this ridiculous Messianic complex, with the added advantage of dying relatively young (in his forties). So automatically he's "great" while Rach is adjudged to be second rate, or worse. The irony is that they where colleagues who revolved around the same circles and no doubt respected one another. I know that Rachmaninov performed Scriabin's music.

So this thread is meant to discuss anything you think in relation to the above. Some relevant questions are:

- Do we (perhaps unconsciously) tend to value composers who had difficult lives, where eccentric, or basically egomaniacs over others?

- Do composer cults correlate with not only their music, but also their often bizarre personal characteristics and their missions to 'change the world' with their music?

- If a composer has modest aims, or no cultish fan club in sight, or is not good at promoting himself, is he automatically relegated to being an 'also ran' or 'superficial' or to 'the dustbin of history?'

- Does this cult building provide an accurate assessment of the richness and diversity of classical music and composer's contributions to it? Or does it simply shut some composers out and not give credit where it is due?

This is not to negate the greatness of composers who where shameless self promoters, fodders for cults and had these big dreams. That would be just me building another dichotomy, and I loathe dichotomies! However the issue is to examine some underlying thought patterns and values in relation to classical music and composer's personalities. Its an issue that rarely gets discussed around here, or at least not directly.

*All opinions are welcome.* I thought this topic relevant, especially in relation to various debates focused on composers who do tend to draw people in with their controversy and extra-musical type things attached to their name and image…


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## Rapide (Oct 11, 2011)

Sid James said:


> - Do we (perhaps unconsciously) tend to value composers who had difficult lives, where eccentric, or basically egomaniacs over others?
> 
> - Do composer cults correlate with not only their music, but also their often bizarre personal characteristics and their missions to 'change the world' with their music?
> 
> ...


*Richard Wagner* probably fits all those questions you raised. Many listners today, myself included, do share a fascination with Wagner's biographical account - his evil genuis. But the "change the world" thing is a more difficult one to grasp. I doubt this is at all relevant to pre-mid Romantic composers at the very earliest.

*Johann Sebastian Bach* had modest aims. He published very little of his works. His audience most of the time (in a publich sense of the word) were church folks in a church. He wasn't really his own salesman. But Bach is certainly not in the dustbin of history. His stardom today is all due his music. We know little about the man himself, much less so than even Richard Wagner.

Both these two composers were giants in their respective periods and genres that they dedicted their minds to, so it would be rather challenging for lesser composers to be known today. But I do know that more and more lesser Baroque composers for examples are now moving into the concert hall and recordings, far more than ever before. baroque music is not my favourite but I do see this increasing popularity today as partly in fact due to people wanting more of it thanks in part fo the music of Bach himself who probably opened up Baroque music to modern ears.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

I notice a slight tendency for what you describe in all creative endeavers, not just in music, but I think it is just a tendency. I think we admire or expect eccentricity from our creative shamans, but it's not the only determination of a composer's pecking order. You mention several mild mannered composers I think are considered giants -- i. e. Dvorak and Elgar.


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## Vesteralen (Jul 14, 2011)

I'm not sure about this, but I think a factor that is equally important in many composers' achieving status after their death is having a champion.

Mendelssohn was a key figure in the Bach revival of the early 19th century.

Schumann's music was not nearly as well thought of in his own time and shortly thereafter. His widow's insistence on programming it in her concerts had a big impact.

The Mahler revival also seems to have been largely a matter of influential conductors programming his music in the 1960s and 1970s.

Vaughan Williams the symphonist got a bit of an international boost by Andre Previn's TV shows in the 1980's.

I guess all this is arguable - but it's a point worth thinking about.


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## HaydnBearstheClock (Jul 6, 2013)

I think J. Haydn should be mentioned as well - granted, he's still relatively popular but is now seen more like a figure on the 'side' of the Triumverate, whereas at his time he was known as the greatest living composer. His brother, Michael Haydn, was also a highly revered composer but one will rarely see his name on a classical 'best of' compilation. Although, with movements like these, he should definitely be up there:






And of course with his Requiem in C minor - notice how many ideas W. A. Mozart used from this:






This probably has more to do with the 'image' of composers than their actual music.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

*Messiaen* had a relatively steady career, and although some aspects of his music could be seen as eccentric, by all accounts he was an affable, modest person.

If you're referring to composers' _musical_ personalities, though, then I think that people do tend to remember those composers who did something new and different over those who crafted gems in the mold of their forerunners. I don't know the reason exactly, but my guess is that a composer who wants to do something new tends to have a more innately creative personality than one who wants to do something old. Of course, there are people who want to do something new, but fail, and those who want to produce music in an older style that succeed.

The other problem is our designations regarding "new" and "old" are drastically oversimplified. One can extend tradition in different ways, and one of the interesting things about the music of the last century is in just how many different, and still valid, directions it was extended.


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## LindnerianSea (Jun 5, 2013)

I think it is from the Romantic era that composers felt obliged to 'sell themselves' to the public, so I would not be surprised if the likes of Bach or Haydn were not known as being egoistic these days - there may have been no need for it, which is why we cannot see such attributes in them from the contemporary perspective. 
But anyway, as a slightly more pertinent answer, I think it is often the case that egoistic or even narcissistic composers do get more of the spotlight of history. IMO these so-called egoistic composers were much more active in self-promoting. As an enthusiast of uncovering relatively forgotten composers of the late 19th/early 20th century, it is always the case when reading biographies that these composers, regardless of their talent, were appallingly poor, or rather were indifferent to in making themselves known to the public. I would not be surprised to be enlightened by the fact that non-egoistic composers felt less the need to make themselves seem as superstars or radicalize their music and hence create personal/musical salience than to take a very academic approach towards their composition and consequently shelve their small 'projects' once done. And I do not think this 'conservative' approach fits in well into the modern definition of music. Musicians, critics, and perhaps audiences from the late 19th century onward preferred radicalised and personalised music... Names that come to mind are Richard Wetz, Sergei Bortkiewicz, Max Reger, Rued Langaard, Zdeněk Fibich, Nikolai Myaskovsky, Sergei Taneyev etc. 

Best, LS


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## Guest (Aug 23, 2013)

I think that to the extent that this is true, and it's only to an extent, this is another example of how pernicious the whole focus on greatness can be.

And how alien it is to any genuine aesthetic experience by a particular listener listening to a particular piece.

Otherwise, I think that while nice guys might seem at a disadvantage during their lifetimes, I don't think that that necessarily translates into a decline in reputation over the years. (To use Rachmaninoff as an example of a declined reputation is to pay more attention to a few individual critics than to the overwhelmingly positive response by many many listeners.)

I also don't think that being good at promoting your own music is at all incompatible with being a nice person, either. Or that only nasty or crazy people stir up controversy. Two of the best people at promoting their own music, and two of the most controversial composers, were Hector Berlioz and John Cage, two of the sweetest people imaginable.


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

Rapide said:


> *Johann Sebastian Bach* had modest aims. He published very little of his works. His audience most of the time (in a publich sense of the word) were church folks in a church. He wasn't really his own salesman. But Bach is certainly not in the dustbin of history. His stardom today is all due his music. We know little about the man himself, much less so than even Richard Wagner.


That hasn't always been the case though, and maybe won't always be the case. Even in his own lifetime he wasn't that highly regarded as a composer, and most of his works were largely unknown until the recording age of the twentieth century really got into gear, and that was quite recently.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

starry said:


> That hasn't always been the case though, and maybe won't always be the case. Even in his own lifetime he wasn't that highly regarded as a composer, and most of his works were largely unknown until the recording age of the twentieth century really got into gear, and that was quite recently.


I recall reading somewhere that the first thing Bach did when he took up his position in Leipzig was destroy the music of his predecessor, and that it's likely he thought the same would happen to his own. It's a lucky thing (if this is the case) that works for which there was no commercial appeal--like the solo cello suites--have survived to this day. I'm not sure he was quite as idealistic as this implies, but it's amazing to think of these humble laborers--Bach, Franck, Schubert, etc.--composing masterpieces largely in indifference to fame and fortune.

In any case, I'm going to pretend you didn't imply that Bach's position is in any way insecure!


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

I don't normally bother trying to predict the distant future. Obviously we won't be alive to see things anyway. But looking at it from future, much more music will be produced, and that will need some place in people's consciousness, and it will give people a different perspective on music of the past. So it's certainly conceivable that some people will take more of a lesser role than they might now. In our present age contemporary classical isn't anything like high profile and that enables music from the past to take a bigger role than it might otherwise.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

starry said:


> I don't normally bother trying to predict the distant future. Obviously we won't be alive to see things anyway. But looking at it from future, much more music will be produced, and that will need some place in people's consciousness, and it will give people a different perspective on music of the past. So it's certainly conceivable that some people will take more of a lesser role than they might now. In our present age contemporary classical isn't anything like high profile and that enables music from the past to take a bigger role than it might otherwise.


Of course, prediction is a precarious thing. One thing that is apparent in your own post, however, is another respect in which early composers have an advantage over later ones: they are given new life, as it were, in later composers.

Coming bach (sorry!) to Mahlerian's point, composers who help us to hear sounds differently (Messiaen, Debussy, Stravinsky, Schoenberg) tend to have higher critical esteem (though not necessarily popular esteem) than composers who work in more conservative idioms--at least for a time. Eventually, however, composers who are original without seeming to be--who add that new formal wrinkle to an established genre--often take their place alongside the others in the repertoire in the end. It seems to take time to discern true originality, however, and sometimes it might even _depend_ on what later composers make of them.

(I hope I'm not sounding disagreeable, btw; I agree with you general points, and have been enjoying chatting.)


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

But what I was thinking also was that maybe classical music could go in directions which are even further from the older classical masters and so make them seem less important to people. There could even be a considerable break away in a completely different direction which has little relation to the classical tradition.


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## Rapide (Oct 11, 2011)

some guy said:


> I think that to the extent that this is true, and it's only to an extent, this is another example of how pernicious the whole focus on greatness can be.
> 
> And how alien it is to any genuine aesthetic experience by a particular listener listening to a particular piece.
> 
> ...


Cage's gimmickery efforts in promoting his sounds were doomed to failure anyway. Nice guy or evil genius in this case for Cage, it's all practically irrelevant as far as his posterity is concerned.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

There are exceptions to all theories, but there is considerable evidence in favor of a general bias for those composers that were more pain-ridden and "free-thinking." Isn't it basically the truth that in general, "innovative" composers are always more appreciated? The composer with the loudest mouth wins. It's a kind of survival of the fittest.

I have no respect for "survival of the fittest." :tiphat:

That excerpt by Glazunov I've not read before, but I've definitely read similar things: that his life was too easy, had no real criticism, thus he's tepid and not a composer worth recognizing. He's called one of those "sad tales" of a prodigy not living up to expectation. WHAT?? If those critics would think more carefully, they're actually asking those prodigies to undergo _immense _pain and persecution for their music so that they will be respected as heroes, but is that _right?_ I think that's a very cruel way of looking at it. Glazunov is a hero too, of a different sort, but certainly _is_ one! If you actually scrutinized him in the same way as many other composers, you'd come to see that it wasn't his early life that was troubled but his_ later life_ that was immensely troubled, many situations of hatred, violence, poverty, even death! Yes, he saw much death. In fact, he had such troubled times that he could barely compose (his Directorship became the key role of his life at that time). Thus, he DOES fit the stereotype of struggling artist, he only had those experiences later, ironically. And yet, if not for his good early life, how could he have possibly been able to cope with the events that shook Russian from 1905 onwards? Even musicologists are amused at this fact, and they don't give alcohol as a good enough reason...

You know what, I think there just some in music world that are envious of such people...


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Thanks for all your responses so far. Its been very interesting reading them.

What I'd add is that there is obviously this relationship between the inner life of a composer (say, what's going on in his mind) and the events in his own life and what's going on around him. A composer can have a relatively mundane life but yet have this amazingly rich inner life. A good example is Haydn, whose life was not much of a big deal, but of course in his music he shows himself as amazing on so many levels, from his innovations, to his teaching of and impacts on future generations of composers (notably Mozart and Beethoven, but also lesser known people like Pleyel), to his mastery of so many genres and I can go on.

I think this applies to many composers in this 'low ego' kind of bracket which people have mentioned. Another thing is that often we don't know what went on in these people's lives. A number of Huilu's posts for example over the years have revealed to me aspects of Glazunov's life that I didn't know, and she has said that much of this information is not readily available, you have to search for it in the right places. From what she's said about him, Glazunov's life would make for a satisfying movie or biopic. 

Another one who I mentioned in my OP is Kodaly, not many people know how he was at odds with all the regimes to rule Hungary, at one stage he lost his job at the Budapest music academy and had his music banned. He was in the resistance during the war and after that heavily involved in the 1956 uprising. Finally, he was recognised by the more moderate regime to take charge after that, and his Kodaly method of teaching music was instituted across schools in Hungary.

There are many stories like this, many of these quiet achievers, these on the surface unassuming composers, did a lot for music and much else. Think of Dvorak how his soujurn to America meant so much for native composers there. Ives revered him. Another one is Elgar, who was the first British composer to make an impact for hundreds of years after Purcell, thus ending the period when the UK was called "the land without music."

So there you go. These people might not have had outwardly turgid and melodramatic lives fit to be made into some opera, but they did what they did for music and beyond, and I think its high time that their contribution was seen in a more positive light than it often is. They're not just boring or second rate, that's what I'm saying (far from it!).


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Vesteralen said:


> I'm not sure about this, but I think a factor that is equally important in many composers' achieving status after their death is having a champion.
> 
> ...
> 
> I guess all this is arguable - but it's a point worth thinking about.


I think that is a good point, and related to this thread. I'd add that during their lifetime, composers of have these partnerships. Vaughan Williams, who you mention, entrusted many of his premieres to Sir Adrian Boult. Delius had Beecham, who was the only conductor to champion his music in the UK at the time. You go further back and its the same. Brahms recommended his publisher Simrock to take on Dvorak and the rest was history. Liszt did a similar thing for Smetana, playing a piano piece by him and letting the powers that be know that here was a major talent. There are positive stories like this, despite many of the personalities of classical music being, well how do I put it, like dog eat dog a lot of the times.

Which brings me to this:



Huilunsoittaja said:


> There are exceptions to all theories, but there is considerable evidence in favor of a general bias for those composers that were more pain-ridden and "free-thinking." Isn't it basically the truth that in general, "innovative" composers are always more appreciated? The composer with the loudest mouth wins. It's a kind of survival of the fittest.
> ...


Well I think its what LinderianSea said, that Romantic thing about an artist struggling against the weight of society and fighting for recognition and acceptance. Truth is that I think that egomaniacs tend to draw people in, not only in music but in other things too. Look how popular the TV chef Gordon Ramsay was a number of years ago. He comes across as a totally obnoxious person, but that adds to his glamour or whatever, it adds to his on screen persona. So many stars are like this, and in their own day, many composers where stars of one kind or another.

Many have said on this forum how in effect Beethoven got the ball rolling with this trend. Then you had a string of difficult people coming in his wake. Wagner the megalomaniac, Liszt the satyr, Mahler the control freak, you had the triumvirate of Modernism - Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Bartok - being far from what I'd call 'nice' people, and I can go on. I see them as like many other creative types, brilliant yes, but also in many ways unhinged. Again, I'm not attempting to put down these composers (all of their music, except Wagner's, I like and even him I say is a composer equal to any of them), I am just putting into sharp contrast some of the issues that are the focus of this discussion.


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## Rapide (Oct 11, 2011)

Sid James said:


> Thanks for all your responses so far. Its been very interesting reading them.
> 
> What I'd add is that there is obviously this relationship between the inner life of a composer (say, what's going on in his mind) and the events in his own life and what's going on around him. A composer can have a relatively mundane life but yet have this amazingly rich inner life. *A good example is Haydn, whose life was not much of a big deal,* but of course in his music he shows himself as amazing on so many levels, from his innovations, to his teaching of and impacts on future generations of composers (notably Mozart and Beethoven, but also lesser known people like Pleyel), to his mastery of so many genres and I can go on.
> 
> ....




Haydn's life not much of a big deal? I would disagree. Let me point out the historical facts for you. For most of his life he was employed by one of the most powerful aristocrats in the Austrian-Hungarian empire, and was certainly one of the very highest paid staff member there. He might have been treated like a regular servant but the artistic significance of his career there was certainly one BIG DEAL. And by the time he was near retirement, he was the most most famous composer in Europe having reached the pinnacle of his career with his grand public concerts in Paris and of course London. His mastery of the Classicism was thanks to his long career at the Esterhazy court.


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## Rapide (Oct 11, 2011)

Sid James said:


> ...There are positive stories like this, despite many of the personalities of classical music being, well how do I put it, like dog eat dog a lot of the times.
> 
> ....


The dog-eat-dog analogy is found in all walks of life. Competitive spirit in many folks. As an artist myself, while I endeavour to teach others, I am often weary what's going on behind my own artistic-back. It's not a leftist's charity.


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

Rapide said:


> Cage's gimmickery efforts in promoting his sounds were doomed to failure anyway. Nice guy or evil genius in this case for Cage, it's all practically irrelevant as far as his posterity is concerned.


His efforts were not gimmickery.


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

BurningDesire said:


> His efforts were not gimmickery.


I agree with you. Cage composed many pieces of music. It is unfair to condemn all of his output because some of his works maybe be gimmickery. One of my friends who is a real aficionado of Cage stated that one of the reasons some people have problems with Cage is because his music is more theater than music.

Much of Cage's music was composed to accompany the choreography of Merce Cunningham. I saw a dance recital at the Philadelphia Museum of Art that was dedicated to Cage and Cunningham. The music in that setting made a lot more sense.


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## Guest (Aug 24, 2013)

I think the real problem people have with Cage is that he really did change all the rules.

And unless you can deal with change, that kind of thing will annoy you.

Cage wrote nothing gimmicky, ever. But to a listener who has a firm sense of what music is--you know, like having melody, maybe--Cage's works seem confrontational. And they do confront. They do ask that you question your notions, your firm senses. That you consider the possibility that the way things have always been done is not the only way to do things. (In this, he has a lot in common with all the other "greats.")

I would say that the bottom line with Cage is not that he wrote some real music and some gimmicky experiments, but that he wrote pieces that could be taken as "musical" by listeners who have firm opinions as to what consititutes music, and he wrote pieces that could not be so taken. The latter represent his genuine contribution to the art form.


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## Rapide (Oct 11, 2011)

some guy said:


> I think the real problem people have with Cage is that he really did change all the rules.
> 
> And unless you can deal with change, that kind of thing will annoy you.
> 
> ...


He streteched the rules, he broke the rules, he showed what could be "musical" for some. A small "some". But did he elevate musical development to a higher level like the greats of the past and the current artists were/are endeavouring at doing within the context of the times? Does Boulez need to play a cello with the teeth of an electric chainsaw to be taken seriously within serialism?


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## Guest (Aug 25, 2013)

Rapide said:


> play a cello with the teeth of an electric chainsaw


And this is Cage's which piece?

Best to attack real things rather than stuff you make up.

More credible, ya know?


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## Rapide (Oct 11, 2011)

some guy said:


> And this is Cage's which piece?
> 
> Best to attack real things rather than stuff you make up.
> 
> More credible, ya know?


Really, if you insist I put up embarrassing examples to humilate him even though he is long dead. But at least these crazy samples do have a purpose and that is modern composers should never forget his lunacy at the cost of his own posterity.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

Sid James said:


> Another good example of this is Rachmaninov, who was a pretty big innovator in piano technique around the turn of the 20th century. He influenced successive generations of composers in Russia (eg. Stravinsky and Shostakovich) and beyond.Yet I have read many times on this forum the opinion that he's basically not much more than a dinosaur Romantic, an anachronism, stuff like that. Yet look at his contemporary, Scriabin. Equally an innovator in piano, but of course totally mad and having this ridiculous Messianic complex, with the added advantage of dying relatively young (in his forties). So automatically he's "great" while Rach is adjudged to be second rate, or worse. The irony is that they where colleagues who revolved around the same circles and no doubt respected one another. I know that Rachmaninov performed Scriabin's music.


I think people's preference to either these composers is all about the music and has little to do with their personalities. I love both, but prefer Scriabin in the end because... well, a lot of reasons that I can't put to words, but in the end his music speaks more to me. 
I also think Rachmaninoff isn't generally considered second rate (compared to Scriabin). Start a poll between the two and I'm sure Rachmaninoff would win (although, possibly because more people know his music).


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## TresPicos (Mar 21, 2009)

Rapide said:


> Really, if you insist I put up embarrassing examples to humilate him even though he is long dead. But at least these crazy samples do have a purpose and that is modern composers should never forget his lunacy at the cost of his own posterity.


Honestly... It's not John Cage you are embarrassing...


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

*Ignore em.*

Gentlemen,

I recommend that we cease and desist discussing Cage. There are those who will never acknowledge Cage's contributions to music. By the same token the anti-Cage crowd fails to understand that irregardless of their rhetoric they will never succeed getting the proponents of Cage to renounce him.

If this keeps up, things will get out of hand and another interesting thread will be closed down. Whenever an anti-Cageian shows up with his usual arsenal of barbs just ignore em.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

DeepR said:


> I think people's preference to either these composers is all about the music and has little to do with their personalities. I love both, but prefer Scriabin in the end because... well, a lot of reasons that I can't put to words, but in the end his music speaks more to me.


Well its not only personal preference that is the issue. Not just in terms of us as listeners. More of how musicology and music criticism saw the less glamorous or ego driven composers. I think it does have something at least to do with personality and biography, especially as I said after Beethoven - in Romantic and Modernist type ideologies of music - you get the view of composer as hero. If a composer is judged to be too ordinary or not some highly charged 'Type B' personality then they tend to be seen as boring, sometimes along with their music.



> ...I also think Rachmaninoff isn't generally considered second rate (compared to Scriabin). Start a poll between the two and I'm sure Rachmaninoff would win (although, possibly because more people know his music).


Well now Rachmaninov isn't considered that, but there was a time - even in his lifetime, towards the end especially - where he was derided as old hat, and his earlier innovations where not acknowledged in some quarters. Of course now its a different story, I think the relativist view of music has basically triumphed over the progress (or a certain version of progress) obsessed view. No musicologist in his right mind today would say Rachmaninov contributed nothing to music in terms of innovation, particularly in terms of the piano area.

Similar things happened with Sibelius, whose reputation like Rach's bounced back, so too Haydn who was seen by many throughout the 19th century as nothing much more as a handmaiden to Beethoven, who did 'real' music, not just play tricks.

Honestly, I think its hard to refute that a composer's kind of sex appeal, for want of a better term, that kind of ego factor plays some part at least in how composers contribution was assessed. Probably not by everyone, but more those prone to push some ideology or agenda. Now, the more evolutionary rather than revolutionary views of innovation - such as what Rachmaninov, Sibelius and Haydn stood for in their day - is seen just as valid as the more high octane view of innovation. Both can coexist, and in fact they tend to inform rather than negate eachother.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

Rapide, there a few composers who lives we know AS MUCH ABOUT as Wagner . His many biographers have reserched his life to a fare-thee-well . And not without reason, becuse he lived such a rich , eventful and fascinating life .


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