# Misconception about classical music



## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Here is a quote from the introduction of a book titled "Blues People":



> Blues and Jazz and their many offshoots and influences are constantly developing and changing, like every living organism, while European classical music (as contrasted to its myriad folk forms) seems, for the most part, to be fixed by a bourgeois tradition of formalism and elitism.


An irksome statement to say the least.


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## peterb (Mar 7, 2014)

Sounds like the author might have been reading some of the recent "poll" threads here and assuming that the poll originators represented all classical music.


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## Alypius (Jan 23, 2013)

Florestan said:


> Here is a quote from the introduction of a book titled "Blues People":
> 
> An irksome statement to say the least.


This thread could go off in a bad direction. So let me put this quote into context. The quote, it seems, is from the African-American poet Amiri Baraka / LeRoi Jones (1934-2014), from a book he wrote in 1963, right in the middle of a very tumultuous time in the civil rights movement and right at the very beginnings of a more systematic and scholarly study of the African American experience. Is the statement an exaggeration? Unnecessarily polemical? Of course. His point in the broader study was to argue for the intellectual sophistication and cultural significance of African-American musics: gospel, blues, jazz. Baraka (he just passed away in January) was a fine poet. Don't make too much of this. For a balanced discussion of the failure of the classical music establishment to properly welcome African American composers, see the discussion in Alex Ross' _The Rest Is Noise_. I'll dig up the exact pages later.


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## Mister Man (Feb 3, 2014)

Alypius said:


> His point in the study was to argue for the intellectual significance of African-American musics: gospel, blues, jazz.


It sounds like he was arguing for the intellectual significance of the music based on the skin color of the musicians rather than their merit as musicians or craftsman.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I don't find this quote objectionable at all. It might be developed in a racist direction later, but not here, as given. It seems a perfectly reasonable thing to say, even if some might disagree with it.

I am, in short, unirked.


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## Guest (Jun 22, 2014)

Florestan said:


> Here is a quote from the introduction of a book titled "Blues People":
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Given the historical context, this is not only not irksome, it's crudely true.



Mister Man said:


> It sounds like he was arguing for the intellectual significance of the music based on the skin color of the musicians rather than their merit as musicians or craftsman.


Intellectual significance? I don't think so. And I think it's unnecessarily reductive to say that it's to do with skin colour. It would seem his perspective at the time was that the organic nature of blues and jazz was of greater validity than the formal nature of what he calls European classical. That seems a reasonable argument to me.


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## Mister Man (Feb 3, 2014)

MacLeod said:


> Intellectual significance? I don't think so. And I think it's unnecessarily reductive to say that it's to do with skin colour. It would seem his perspective at the time was that the organic nature of blues and jazz was of greater validity than the formal nature of what he calls European classical. That seems a reasonable argument to me.


Would he have felt that way if "Classical" was of African tradition and practiced predominantly by Blacks? I doubt it. Forgive me for being cynical, but I think it has everything to do with skin color. Especially considering his history.


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## Guest (Jun 22, 2014)

Mister Man said:


> Would he have felt that way if "Classical" was of African tradition and practiced predominantly by Blacks? I doubt it. Forgive me for being cynical, but I think it has everything to do with skin color. Especially considering his history.


What I object to is the use of "skin colour" to reduce what is a legitimate question about the relativity about cultures.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

While the book is from the 1960s, the introduction I quoted from is from 1999 (I should have noted that in the original post). Anyway, I don't see that this has to be a skin color thing. There are plenty of white people around (now and then) who would say the same thing. For more context, here is the whole paragraph and a sentence from the prior paragraph:



> But the wideaspread and routine scholarly and artistic institutionalization of the music is still very limited.





> The specific music of the various regions and cities has to be studied more closely. And with the social and economic and institutional stability with which European "classical" music is studied. Particularly since Blues and Jazz and their many offshoots and influences are constantly developing and changing, like every living organism, while European classical music (as contrasted to its myriad folk forms) seems, for the most part, to be fixed by a bourgeois tradition of formalism and elitism.


There is a sense that the lack of serious study and documentation of this music is part of or a continuation of the historic oppression of the black people. From earlier in the intro:



> That there was a body of music that came to exist from a people who were brought to this side as slaves and that throughout that music's development, it had had to survive, expand, reorganize, continue, and express itself, as the fragile property of a powerless and oppressed People.


Yet this fragile property was eaten up by young white people. Check out the audience in this wonderful video:


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## Guest (Jun 22, 2014)

Worded in an irksome way, perhaps, but, other than the implied notion that classical music is not evolving just as much (if not more) than blues/jazz, I don't find it too far off the mark.


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## Piwikiwi (Apr 1, 2011)

Florestan said:


> Here is a quote from the introduction of a book titled "Blues People":
> 
> An irksome statement to say the least.


Jazz is almost as elitist as Classical Music and there is nothing wrong with that.


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## Winterreisender (Jul 13, 2013)

I find this comment surprising as I always thought of Blues as one of the most static musical genres. I personally find it rather tiresome to hear endless variations on the blues scales in 12-bar structures.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Winterreisender said:


> I find this comment surprising as I always thought of Blues as one of the most static musical genres. I personally find it rather tiresome to hear endless variations on the blues scales in 12-bar structures.


That's why for blues I really like Johnny Winter who can play a guitar like John Coltrane plays saxophone, but with a bluesy twist.


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## Tristan (Jan 5, 2013)

It doesn't really irk me since it's so obviously untrue--it's very easy for someone to see how untrue that statement is. But I mean, the misconceptions about classical music are always the same: it's boring, it's elitist, it's for old people...when is someone going to come up with a _new_ misconception that we can all disprove?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Tristan said:


> It doesn't really irk me since it's so obviously untrue--it's very easy for someone to see how untrue that statement is.


I assume you're speaking of this passage: "...European classical music (as contrasted to its myriad folk forms) seems, for the most part, to be fixed by a bourgeois tradition of formalism and elitism."

It's falsity is not as apparent to me as it seems to be to you. So perhaps you could help me better understand why it is untrue?


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

KenOC said:


> I assume you're speaking of this passage: "...European classical music (as contrasted to its myriad folk forms) seems, for the most part, to be fixed by a bourgeois tradition of formalism and elitism."
> 
> It's falsity is not as apparent to me as it seems to be to you. So perhaps you could help me better understand why it is untrue?


Hah. Did you lock onto "bourgeois tradition of formalism and elitism", _Ken_? It's that phrase, lifted directly from Stalinist formula, that makes the entire quoted passage quite transparent.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Ukko said:


> Hah. Did you lock onto "bourgeois tradition of formalism and elitism", _Ken_? It's that phrase, lifted directly from Stalinist formula, that makes the entire quoted passage quite transparent.


Uh...saying that it's "Stalinist" is hardly a rebuttal.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

KenOC said:


> Uh...saying that it's "Stalinist" is hardly a rebuttal.


Ah, but it works for me.


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## Mister Man (Feb 3, 2014)

MacLeod said:


> What I object to is the use of "skin colour" to reduce what is a legitimate question about the relativity about cultures.


You will have to rephrase because I don't understand.


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

KenOC said:


> I assume you're speaking of this passage: "...European classical music (as contrasted to its myriad folk forms) seems, for the most part, to be fixed by a bourgeois tradition of formalism and elitism."
> 
> It's falsity is not as apparent to me as it seems to be to you. So perhaps you could help me better understand why it is untrue?


See Shostakovich before the 1948 Congress of Composers:



> There were negative characteristics in my musical processes which have increasingly manifested themselves in recent compositions inspired by 'form for form's sake' alone, and the more this was the case the more incomprehensible I became to the Soviet people. ... In particular, I acknowledge the lamentable absence of genuine folk art in many of my works.


Either it is false, in which case European classical music is not fixed by "bourgeois forms" but is comprehensible to the masses; or it is true, in which case European classical music encompasses the myriad folk forms.

In either case, as Ukko points out, we are witnessing an attempt by a society to control its artists.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Florestan said:


> Here is a quote from the introduction of a book...
> _ Blues and Jazz and their many offshoots and influences are constantly developing and changing, like every living organism, while European classical music (as contrasted to its myriad folk forms) seems, for the most part, to be fixed by a bourgeois tradition of formalism and elitism.
> _
> An irksome statement to say the least.


Well, it is pretty much *fixed* in the tradition of the bourgeois ruling class, and was always the embodiment of elite power and wealth, whereas the arising of 'folk' forms, or music of the people, arose spontaneously from its player/creators, without a 'system' other than their own conviction and perseverance.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Taggart said:


> In either case, as Ukko points out, we are witnessing an attempt by a society to control its artists.


Am I missing something? I can't see how Shostakovich fessin' up to formalism in 1948 has any relevance to whether the statement in the OP is accurate or not. It's not even relevant to whether Zhdanov was correct or not!

Note that the author speaks very clearly about "classical music" as distinct from its "folk forms," which by implication he acknowledges do exist.


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## Guest (Jun 22, 2014)

Mister Man said:


> You will have to rephrase because I don't understand.


Which bit needs rephrasing? How about this...

A writer wishes to propound the view that the musics most strongly associated with his culture - jazz and blues - have merits that he contrasts with the demerits of the music, belonging to another culture, that he sees as elitist. You want to reduce his proposition to a simplistic issue of 'skin colour'. It's the reduction I object to.

Any better?


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## Mister Man (Feb 3, 2014)

MacLeod said:


> Which bit needs rephrasing? How about this...
> 
> A writer wishes to propound the view that the musics most strongly associated with his culture - jazz and blues - have merits that he contrasts with the demerits of the music, belonging to another culture, that he sees as elitist. You want to reduce his proposition to a simplistic issue of 'skin colour'. It's the reduction I object to.
> 
> Any better?


I should have cropped the part I didn't understand, my apologies. I didn't understand the "relativity about cultures", I found it to be strangely worded.

I'm not reducing it to skin color, it's simply my conclusion as to the motivation behind his views. Based on the fact that he was a Marxist and anti-Semite, I have trouble believing that it was anything but the result of a classist, racist, "us vs. them" world view and not something more academic or thoughtful as you suggest.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

MacLeod said:


> Which bit needs rephrasing? How about this...
> 
> A writer wishes to propound the view that the musics most strongly associated with his culture - jazz and blues - have merits that he contrasts with the demerits of the music, belonging to another culture, that he sees as elitist. You want to reduce his proposition to a simplistic issue of 'skin colour'. It's the reduction I object to.
> 
> Any better?


I'm going to stick my nose in here - I have nose to spare...

The skin color thing is relevant to the _origins_ of blues and then to jazz, but not to the ability to perform the music. The elitist thing in regard to "European classical music" also has skin color aspects, due to prevalent prejudice among its, ah, constituency. The problem for observers is in getting the music mixed up with the external irrelevancies.

I think it's been said a few times: "Just listen."

I feel like I'm 'belaboring the obvious' here, but apparently the obvious ain't obvious.


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## peterb (Mar 7, 2014)

Mister Man said:


> I'm not reducing it to skin color, it's simply my conclusion as to the motivation behind his views. Based on [my conception of who the speaker is], I have trouble believing....


Dude, you're basically making the guy's argument for him.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Classical music sucks, they use all the 12 notes. I'll stick to five and some passing notes!


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

aleazk said:


> Classical music sucks, they use all the 12 notes. I'll stick to five and some passing notes!


Sigh . . "passing notes" . . . takes me all the way back to third grade. Good times.


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## Mister Man (Feb 3, 2014)

peterb said:


> Dude, you're basically making the guy's argument for him.


It's no conception or speculation, he was a Marxist and anti-Semite.


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## Guest (Jun 23, 2014)

A little off-topic, but here goes...

Last night I saw (on Netflix) a wonderful documentary Ballerina about ballet in St. Petersburg Russia. Very highly recommended, by the way.

One comment stuck out and seems relevant to this thread.

One of the prima ballerinas (Evgenia Obraztsova if I recall correctly) noted that their repertoire was basically fixed - that there were very few new works written and/or choreographed today. As a result, they kept re-performing the same old works over and over. I think she hinted that she wouldn't mind if someone wrote a new work with her in mind.

Perhaps that ballerina would agree with the assertion that "European classical music... seems, for the most part, to be fixed...."

In any case it's not just pseudo-marxists or crusty old trolls on this forum that think that the mainstream classical music tradition is extremely static. There's plenty of new stuff out there, but very little of it gains any traction in the marketplace.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

You are using _Russia_ to prove your point?


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## Guest (Jun 23, 2014)

Well it is part of Europe (at least St. Petersburg is), and the original quote did say "European". Am I missing something?

As I write this it occurs to me that this topic has been argued so many times that Talk Classical is in danger of being labeled fixed in its ways.

Addendum:

Another diss on classical music from an unexpected source:

http://www.cnet.com/news/scientist-ejected-from-classical-concert-for-attempting-to-crowdsurf/

Quote:

_Glowacki explained it to the Independent like this: "Classical music, trying to seem cool and less stuffy, reeks of some sort of fossilised art form undergoing a midlife crisis."
_

Ouch! The dissers are everywhere! Help!


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

BPS said:


> Well it is part of Europe (at least St. Petersburg is), and the original quote did say "European". Am I missing something?
> 
> As I write this it occurs to me that this topic has been argued so many times that Talk Classical is in danger of being labeled fixed in its ways.


Far be it from me to say you are missing anything. The topic being argued with some frequency suggests that TC is not 'fixed in its ways', unless there is a constantly recurring consensus of opinion. When did _that_ ever happen - about anything?


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## peterb (Mar 7, 2014)

We have about 8 threads on _this forum_ on the _front page_ that are _more or less_ complaining that all music written after 1870 is crap (footnote 1). I don't think the author's claim is outrageous.

Jazz is actually fairly static now, but when that article was written it was extremely fast moving; Free Jazz had just begun to gain traction as a movement and it is reasonable for commentators to project out trends, even if they eventually prove to be wrong.

Lastly, let's grant the claim that Baraka was a Marxist and an Anti-Semite. Let's also grant that he kicked small dogs, had terrible breath, and was mean to his grandmother. None of that has anything to do with whether his opinions on music are right or wrong.

Footnote 1: to this forum's credit, I don't think most of the participants of those threads agree. But people keep creating those threads. Every day.


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## dgee (Sep 26, 2013)

peterb said:


> We have about 8 threads on _this forum_ on the _front page_ that are _more or less_ complaining that all music written after 1870 is crap (footnote 1). I don't think the author's claim is outrageous.
> 
> Jazz is actually fairly static now, but when that article was written it was extremely fast moving; Free Jazz had just begun to gain traction as a movement and it is reasonable for commentators to project out trends, even if they eventually prove to be wrong.
> 
> ...


Yep - I would have thought the statement:



> European classical music seems, for the most part, to be fixed by a bourgeois tradition of formalism and elitism.


would be greeted in some quarters with "yes and we like it like that" or "it would have been, if not for that pesky Schoenberg/Cage/general avant garde/etc"


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

"...European classical music (as contrasted to its myriad folk forms) seems, for the most part, to be fixed by a bourgeois tradition of formalism and elitism."

The word "fixed" in the above quote unfixes me. As a follower of music of all sorts, I note that the "European classical music" forms are the most dynamic and developing of forms. There is a world of difference between the music of Mozart and that of Xenakis. Xenakis is able to develop because the interest of "classical" composers is to move the art forward, to expand the vocabulary. If one compares the folk tradition to the classical tradition, one does not see the development. Today, American popular music is still based upon the "three harmonic chords" plan, the 4/4 time signatures guarantee a strong 2nd and 4th beat, and instrumental timbres are pretty well standard and ordinary. Jazz has moved forward a bit more, dealing with more complex chords and more interesting instrumental colors. But even when we speak of "free jazz" we're generally talking about developments from the 1960s. Schoenberg began in the first decade of the 20th century. Edgar Varese gave us his masterworks a few years later. Shostakovich was being chastised by the Soviet Art Police in the 20s and 30s. Penderecki's experimental _Threnody _ corresponds in time to Elvis singing "Hound Dog". Go to a new folk fest today and count the chord changes per song, count the tone rows, count the modes, count the uses of micro-tones. If the bourgeois is still the middle-class, that bourgeois is strongly supportive only of very fixed and unchanging forms, and those forms are not "classical" music.

There is nothing wrong with progress. Progress is neither formalism nor elitism. If anything, the lack of progress is. And when we look at musical art, we can surely see where progress is being made, and it is not in the popular, or bourgeois forms of art. The only real tradition of the bourgeois, as I see it, is the tradition of non-change, of maintaining the status quo, which explains why rock-n-roll, which came into being in the 1950's, has changed little in its essence over the past 60 plus years. Jazz has changed a bit more. Folk music hardly at all. But classical? It seems nearly unrecognizable from what it was at the start of 1950 to what it is today. And we who love the art know it will continue to expand, to develop, to alter, to add to its vocabulary.

Let the bourgeois have their fixed arts. I'll side with progress. I, for one, am happy to have left the caves and the eating of raw meat for the comfort of modern civilization -- the mark of what progress means.


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## mtmailey (Oct 21, 2011)

I say jazz is no where as great as classical music even though jazz uses the same textures as classical music.I do not like jazz to much anyway.I had a jazz cd the music was so fast i could not hear the melodies clearly.


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## Guest (Jun 23, 2014)

He was a Marxist? What's the biggie?


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

The funny thing is that some members here often have the opposite complaint, i.e., that classical music changes too much and too fast!

The world is schizophrenic.


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## Guest (Jun 23, 2014)

...and having just read _Somebody Blew Up America? _I fail to see how it supports the charge of anti-semitism.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

peterb said:


> Lastly, let's grant the claim that Baraka was a Marxist and an Anti-Semite. Let's also grant that he kicked small dogs, had terrible breath, and was mean to his grandmother. None of that has anything to do with whether his opinions on music are right or wrong.


I never listen to the opinion of any man who kicks his grandmother. Even if she has terrible breath.


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## Guest (Jun 23, 2014)

peterb said:


> Lastly, let's grant the claim that Baraka was a Marxist and an Anti-Semite. Let's also grant that he kicked small dogs, had terrible breath, and was mean to his grandmother. None of that has anything to do with whether his opinions on music are right or wrong.


Quite .


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

"Blues and Jazz and their many offshoots and influences are constantly developing and changing, like every living organism, while European classical music (as contrasted to its myriad folk forms) seems, for the most part, to be fixed by a bourgeois tradition of formalism and elitism."

This statement is a thoroughly typical rehearsal of Marxist cant and has no meaning outside of this context. Ukko is correct (#16 above) that charges of formalism and elitism were the standard terms of condemnation used by communist party functionaries and toadies within the USSR's composers' union. It is naive to think this statement expresses anything specific about the qualities or social function of classical music. It is a political statement — a vague and dishonest one — and not worthy of serious attention by musicians.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

EdwardBast said:


> "Blues and Jazz and their many offshoots and influences are constantly developing and changing, like every living organism, while European classical music (as contrasted to its myriad folk forms) seems, for the most part, to be fixed by a bourgeois tradition of formalism and elitism."
> 
> This statement is a thoroughly typical rehearsal of Marxist cant and has no meaning outside of this context. Ukko is correct (#16 above) that charges of formalism and elitism were the standard terms of condemnation used by communist party functionaries and toadies within the USSR's composers' union. It is naive to think this statement expresses anything specific about the qualities or social function of classical music. It is a political statement - a vague and dishonest one - and not worthy of serious attention by musicians.


Once again, I find this simple name-calling and no kind of a response to the original statement.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

KenOC said:


> Once again, I find this simple name-calling and no kind of a response to the original statement.


Nothing simple about it. "formalism" and elitism" are 'isms' in name only, but the repression they represent is not integral to European Classical Music, only to a period in Soviet Classical Music. The "original statement" applies to Soviet Classical Music. Period. If there is another confusion involved, it is in equating Stalinism to Marxism. Those beasties are similar but not equal.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

KenOC said:


> Once again, I find this simple name-calling and no kind of a response to the original statement.


No, it isn't name calling. It's distinguishing bromides, slogans and coded deprecation from statements with specific intellectual and factual content. You seem to find some content in the statement that does not reduce to cliche slogans and coded political speech. I don't.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Well, it does seem to me that people are speaking only of their presumptions concerning the author's politics, or use of cant, or skin color, or race...everything *except* responding to what he actually wrote.


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

The OP described this quote as "irksome" :



> Blues and Jazz and their many offshoots and influences are constantly developing and changing, like every living organism, while European classical music (as contrasted to its myriad folk forms) seems, for the most part, to be fixed by a bourgeois tradition of formalism and elitism.


I would tend to describe the quote as a false dichotomy. I have already recently commented on Holst - a composer steeped in the folk tradition yet writing ordinary European classical music. One can also look at Vaughan Williams, Grainger, Butterworth or Delius. Coming more up to date, one could mention Ruth Crawford Seeger or Copland. As Mr Armstrong remarked - "All music is folk music. I ain't never heard a horse sing a song."

I quoted Shostakovich because the phrase "bourgeois tradition of formalism and elitism" has been set in opposition to "folk music" through the Zhdanov Doctrine.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

KenOC said:


> Well, it does seem to me that people are speaking only of their presumptions concerning the author's politics, or use of cant, or skin color, or race...everything *except* responding to what he actually wrote.


I would respond to what "he actually wrote" except that it is vague, and to my ears, virtually content free. What is it you think he said? Perhaps if you translate it into meaningful propositions, I could respond ;-)


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

EdwardBast said:


> I would respond to what "he actually wrote" except that it is vague, and to my ears, virtually content free. What is it you think he said? Perhaps if you translate it into meaningful propositions, I could respond ;-)


I think that's a perfectly fine response in itself. Sorry I can't put it into "meaningful propositions" because, like you, I'm not sure what he's saying.


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## Guest (Jun 24, 2014)

I think what he's saying is rather obvious. But it's not particularly remarkable and whether it derives from some orthodox political analysis or not, it is both crudely true (I know I said that before) and wildly out-of-date - even for 1963!


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Its been interesting reading the comments here. In my post I want to look at history of the bourgeoise and its significance for music. 

Since around the mid 19th century, when patronage of classical music moved away from the aristocracy over to the middle classeses (consisting of intellectuals, entrepeneurs) you did indeed get a shift away from the tottering ancien regime and over to the bourgeoise. Brahms and Dvorak where amongst the first bourgeois composers, having the backing of large publishing firm Simrock. Their scores where in demand from musicians of all levels - from amateur to professional - and they wrote to satisfy this demand. Members of this forum would know their output well, they wrote everything from salon music to serious works in all genres (and although he never composed one, Brahms toyed with two opera projects, but never came to doing one).

Of course this provided for a rift. On the one hand, people wanted a challenge, but not too much of a challenge (particularly in terms of playability). So composers had to keep in mind the purpose for which they where writing music. The goal posts always shifted.

Come to the 20th century and you had more specialisation and creation of niches. But of course these aren't without value judgements and ideology being attached. Those who level the bourgeoise argument against those of so called restricted taste, those who favour old music, spare a thought for composers like Rachmaninov who where tarnished with the brush of being a composer satisfying the lowest common denominator. Adorno said his music was basically for imbeciles. Now of course we can see that this sort of Marxist rhetoric has serious flaws.

I think that what BPS said is true of ballet. There's a good reason for Tchaikovsky's three being amongst the most produced and performed, still. He worked meticulously to get the music to be in sync with the choreography. So like Brahms with his salon pieces, it was not only good for listening, dancers could actually dance it. That's a big contrast to a lot of the modern ballet scores, many of which have ended up finding homes in the concert hall rather than the ballet. 

Its similar to how much Modern/contemporary music needs so much rehearsal time, its unviable to do. This unfortunately pushes out much great music from live performance, but its a fact of life and of course we've got recordings to listen to. I'd love to hear Elliott Carter's String Quartet #1 live, one of my fav chamber works of them all, but its not likely to happen where I am due to the economics (and its not even his hardest score to play, by far!).

Getting back to Brahms, the bourgeoise and 19th century Europe, they where in the middle of a kind of Cold War between the revolutionaries who wanted political freedom and the reactionaries who wanted the status quo. A kind of detente developed, they where given economoc freedom but not much political concessions. So what you got is intellectuals retreating to the private (or semi private) sphere of the salon and chamber recital hall. It was a place to gather, discuss art and politics, and enjoy great music. 

This explains part of the reason why bourgeoise life cultivated music and the other artforms as this symbol of engagement with life, and with an aspiration to higher things. If you can't get freedom on the ground and literally people are killed fighting on the streets in one revolution or other, you retreat into your circle of friends, into a protected and sympathetic environment. This is something that people forget nowadays, how the bourgeoise where actually on the outside during the 19th century. They had economic power but where lacking political power.


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## Badinerie (May 3, 2008)

Classical Music itself is not Elitist. Some of the people who listen to it are. 
Historically it may have the domain of the wealthy and privileged classes but right now its open to all. 
Its not even much more expensive to attend, if not cheaper, certainly more so than a top tier Popular Music artist's concert.
Some people like to try to own things that they have no right to. Including music

All music will actually fit into every functioning ear-hole! Regardless of ethnicity culture or perceived social class. where it came from isn't relevant. Relevance is in the heart and mind of the listener.

Classical Music and opera is about Love Life Romance and Sex. It may not be immediately obvious in a particular composition, but its there,because that's what we human beings like. All of us.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

MacLeod said:


> I think what he's saying is rather obvious. But it's not particularly remarkable and whether it derives from some orthodox political analysis or not, it is both crudely true (I know I said that before) and wildly out-of-date - even for 1963!


Quote is from the book introduction dated 1999 of a 2002 printing. So even more wildly out of date.


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## stevens (Jun 23, 2014)

I find "the rite of spring" (1913) FAR more modern than all those ******-tonkey blues together


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Florestan said:


> Here is a quote from the introduction of a book titled "Blues People":
> 
> 
> 
> ...


That's not at all surprising, and very true, since Classical music is *notated.* This "fixes" it as a definitive form, like writing 'fixes' speech.

Folk forms, like jazz, are *aural* by nature, not notated or fixed by nature (although some is notated), but its essence and nature are that 'of the ear.'

This is why jazz can go to South America and morph into Bossa Nova. 
This is why jazz can be influenced by a myriad of cultures;

...because it is essentially an* aurally-transmitted '*folk' form.

Also, jazz is 'created' by the players who are playing it and performing it;

...notation *separates* the composer as creator from the orchestra, or players, who simply read the music.

In jazz, one improvises and creates, and composes on the spot, unlike the trained oboist who doubles on English horn in the fifth row of a large orchestra.

The only 'morphing' or 'cross-breeding' you hear about in classical is Bach doing "French-style" suites or "Italian" suites. The differences are more miniscule, and shows the homogeneity of the classical style, as a fairly consistent thing. Although in folk forms such as fiddling, each style of fiddling is slightly different from region to region, as in a Texas style compared to a Virginia style. But these are differences in fairly connected regions, like Europe or the US, which share generally similar cultures or are geographically close.

With jazz, from blacks in America to South America, the cultural differences might be greater.

Plus, as I said, the mea culpa is that *notated forms of music result in consistency and 'definitive' fixed forms; ear-based music results in change and development. 
*
Nobody 'develops' a Beethoven sonata; they just play it as accurately and well as they can.


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