# Contemporary "Art" music... WTF?!? Someone please help!



## KYGray (Mar 14, 2014)

I’ve been an avid listener of the classic masters (Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Wagner, et al) for decades and I always find something new and inspiring whenever I listen. Recently I have tried to get into some of the contemporary composers such as Salonen, Cage, Crumb and others. I must admit, quite frankly, I just don’t get it. Am I missing something? At what point did composers leave the concepts of melody, harmony, rhythm, and tonality completely behind and more importantly, why? At one time I considered myself a fairly sophisticated listener, but after trying to sit through some of the works of these supposed contemporary musical geniuses I feel a little shallow. Could someone please explain to me what theses composers are trying to do and why they have left the concept of expressive beauty through music behind? Is it me or am I just 150 years behind the rest of the music world?

As always,
KYGray


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

KYGray said:


> Could someone please explain to me what theses composers are trying to do and why they have left the concept of expressive beauty through music behind?


If you're trolling, you'll succeed, and if not, you're in for it, dude.

I snipped the rest because this surprised me. I've just listened to Rzewski's _Pocket Symphony_ (composed in 2000, and while Rzewski's not dead yet he is 75, so maybe that's not recent enough to satisfy the hardcore pushers of contemporary music but it's close enough for me and probably for you too) and it's plenty beautiful.

Or try Lam's _...Like Water_. From what I can tell, Murail constantly aims for something like "expressive beauty through music." There must be a gajillion other examples. You'll find what you look for - sooner (perhaps already) or later!


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

science said:


> If you're trolling, you'll succeed, and if not, you're in for it, dude.
> 
> KYGray has raised a legitimate concern and we have many knowledgeable listeners who should be able to help him.


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## KYGray (Mar 14, 2014)

[/QUOTE] KYGray has raised a concern that has been bothering me also and I'm sure he and I aren't alone on TC.

He and I seem to be very similar listeners-quite experienced, except we can't seem to crack the Cage, Crumb, etc; code.

I also want to know why composers went with this puzzling (to me) direction.

Looking forward to the responses! [/QUOTE]

I'm honestly not trolling, but posing a serious and compelling question. It would appear to me that most contemporary composers of "High Art" music are trying to say something, but to I can't seem to understand what they are trying to say. Perhaps I'm naive and truly shallow, but it would appear that they are nothing more than a product of post-Dadaism as manifest in Western music. Again not trolling, but genuinely curious.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Crumb is actually an interesting example. "Black Angels" is his most famous work, I believe, and if you google it you'll find lots of analysis. It's interesting at least. I don't know if that kind of thing is going to help anyone who wants to hear late romantic timbres get beyond the shock of the first moments of "Night of the Electric Insects" but at least it's something. 

For me, I rarely do much more than listen for motifs and themes, and I hear them pretty easily in Black Angels. 

BTW, a great corollary (I really think that's the right word) to Black Angels is Ge Gan-Ru's "Fall of Baghdad." Maybe there is even someone who would find Ge an entry to Crumb?


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

KYGray has raised a concern that has been bothering me also and I'm sure he and I aren't alone on TC.

He and I seem to be very similar listeners-quite experienced, except we can't seem to crack the Cage, Crumb, etc; code.

I also want to know why composers went with this puzzling (to me) direction.

Looking forward to the responses! [/QUOTE]

*I'm honestly not trolling*, but posing a serious and compelling question. It would appear to me that most contemporary composers of "High Art" music are trying to say something, but to I can't seem to understand what they are trying to say. Perhaps I'm naive and truly shallow, but it would appear that they are nothing more than a product of post-Dadaism as manifest in Western music. Again not trolling, but genuinely curious.[/QUOTE]

You raise legitimate concerns. I've also hit a wall when trying to get into the most modern of the moderns.


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## Serge (Mar 25, 2010)

To the OP, I think that one of the reasons could be that the classical music scene is a very crowded field, you know. I mean, none of the greats are going away anytime soon, are they? So rather than competing with them, many modern composers prefer to go to a route of creating a niche for themselves. May not be such a bad thing as it sounds.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Hah. Well, obviously you are going at it wrong. In fact, if you are _actively_ going at it, i.e. 'looking' for guideposts and grab handles by way of thinking about them - the _*New Dawn*_ probably ain't going to happen for you. This because you are too *busy* wondering where those old familiar elements are.

Kick back and listen; let it flow. Let the occasional unavoidable thought float away - it will if you ignore it. If you can do that, it is fairly possible that _after_ the second time (in two days) you have listened to Finnissy's _Red Earth_, you will realize that there is a trip in there, and you took it.

[Note 1: those italics and boldings are not intended to be anything but emphasis - what I would be doing if we were talking in the real world.]

[Note 2: This is an old subject in Talk Classical, and there are umpteen posts on it. The TC provided search engine might explode if you use it to try to find them, but they are in the database somewhere.]



:tiphat:


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

The "dada" idea is not completely off-base in some cases - wikipedia mentions composers as famous as Schulhoff, Satie, and "Les Six" who apparently used the label themselves.

However, though I know a lot of wiser folk than I will warn us against applying labels from the visual arts to the musical ones, I think it could be an interesting discussion. Full disclosure here - I really like Dada visual art, particularly Hannah Höch and George Grosz. So if "dada" is meant as a slur it won't come across to me like that.

Anyway, how about Ruttman's weekend as an analogue to photomontage? Or maybe even Ives' Symphony #4. Neither of them (afaik) had the cynical edge that the dada artists cherished, but in terms of technique alone there might be something to that analogy. Or Berio's Sinfonia? Just tossing this out for the sake of conversation. And - perhaps this approach will make this music more interesting?


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## Winterreisender (Jul 13, 2013)

KYGray said:


> I've been an avid listener of the classic masters (Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Wagner, et al) for decades and I always find something new and inspiring whenever I listen. Recently I have tried to get into some of the contemporary composers such as Salonen, Cage, Crumb and others. I must admit, quite frankly, I just don't get it. Am I missing something? At what point did composers leave the concepts of melody, harmony, rhythm, and tonality completely behind and more importantly, why? At one time I considered myself a fairly sophisticated listener, but after trying to sit through some of the works of these supposed contemporary musical geniuses I feel a little shallow. Could someone please explain to me what theses composers are trying to do and why they have left the concept of expressive beauty through music behind? Is it me or am I just 150 years behind the rest of the music world?
> 
> As always,
> KYGray


There are actually lots of modern composers of "art" music who champion ideas of expressive beauty such as Arvo Part, John Rutter, James MacMillan and the late John Tavener. And, surprise surprise, these are among the most popular and most-performed modern composers.


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## GGluek (Dec 11, 2011)

One place where a lot of people have problem nowadays is that music is mostly meant to be listened to live in concert, and not just on recordings -- and although there's certainly a lot of contemporary music that you may or will not like (because it goes in so many different directions), the odds of actually realizing you may be getting something out of a piece increase markedly when you're hearing it live in a concert setting. For instance, a Crumb piece is usually really effective live and you find yourself getting something out of it that you may not expect to. Some other works may strike you as absolutely as bad as you fear they're going to be. That's a risk with all music. But I have found myself captivated by live performances of pieces that if I just heard them disembodied would probably leave me cold.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

KYGray said:


> I've been an avid listener of the classic masters (Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Wagner, et al) for decades and I always find something new and inspiring whenever I listen. Recently I have tried to get into some of the contemporary composers such as Salonen, Cage, Crumb and others. I must admit, quite frankly, I just don't get it. Am I missing something? *At what point did composers leave the concepts of melody, harmony, rhythm, and tonality completely behind* and more importantly, why? At one time I considered myself a fairly sophisticated listener, but after trying to sit through some of the works of these supposed contemporary musical geniuses I feel a little shallow. Could someone please explain to me what theses composers are trying to do and *why they have left the concept of expressive beauty through music behind?* Is it me or am I just 150 years behind the rest of the music world?


May I suggest that they haven't left these concepts behind, they've just changed the parameters? Something that's been going on for the past thousand years...
That said, you don't have to like it.


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

Aha, but what makes you so sure music HAS to "say" anything?


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

KYGray said:


> Could someone please explain to me what theses composers are trying to do and why they have left the concept of expressive beauty through music behind?


I can't explain what contemporary composers are trying to do, but perhaps I can give you a feel for what's happened to expressive beauty.

I immediately loved Baroque, Classical, and Romantic music, but I did not originally respond well to early 20th century - even Prokofiev, Shostakovich, and Stravinsky. After listening to them for awhile I eventually found I loved much of their work. The other day I was listening to Prokofiev's 1st Piano Concerto and commented to my wife that I couldn't believe that I ever found the work not beautiful. She replied that it is not beautiful in the same way Romantic music is. It's more percussive without the same melodic emphasis. The work _is_ different, but after becoming comfortable with Prokofiev's "language" I came to love it as well.

A few years later I came upon Messiaen's Turangalila Symphony. I found it bizarre and most certainly not to my liking. Again after listening to Messiaen and other mid century composers my musical sentiments changed or maybe opened up. Now there are parts of the Turangalila Symphony that I find compelling in a way that Beethoven or Mozart (my 2 favorites) simply are not. I'm not sure I would use the term beautiful to describe the symphony. It certainly isn't Classically or Romantically beautiful. But the work is exciting, fun, and driving at times as well as lovely at times. It is a wholly different experience but definitely a musically fascinating and compelling experience.

So music has changed. Some still remains beautiful, some is mysterious, some powerful, some provocative, and some unpleasant. Certainly Classical music changed enormously from Baroque, and Romantic changed from Classical. Music will continue to change and explore. It will not retain the same elements of the past so if you are looking for those, you will not find them.


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

hpowders said:


> science said:
> 
> 
> > KYGray has raised a legitimate concern and we have many knowledgeable listeners who should be able to help him.
> ...


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## Serge (Mar 25, 2010)

starry said:


> hpowders said:
> 
> 
> > Or...he can _help himself_ by taking time with the music, rather than expecting some golden key to suddenly open it up.
> ...


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

KYGray said:


> I've been an avid listener of the classic masters (Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Wagner, et al) for decades and I always find something new and inspiring whenever I listen. Recently I have tried to get into some of the contemporary composers such as Salonen, Cage, Crumb and others. I must admit, quite frankly, I just don't get it. Am I missing something? At what point did composers leave the concepts of melody, harmony, rhythm, and tonality completely behind and more importantly, why? At one time I considered myself a fairly sophisticated listener, but after trying to sit through some of the works of these supposed contemporary musical geniuses I feel a little shallow. Could someone please explain to me what theses composers are trying to do and why they have left the concept of expressive beauty through music behind? Is it me or am I just 150 years behind the rest of the music world?
> 
> As always,
> KYGray


If you really want to learn to appreciate contemporary art music, listen to as much of it as possible until you 'get it'. It's a caveman approach but it yields results. WARNING: The 'caveman approach' might not work with Cage.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

KYGray said:


> composers such as Salonen


While I like all of Salonen's music, I'm most interested in his work with more conventional forms: the solo piano work "Dichotomie," the Piano Concerto, the Violin Concerto. Extending ideas in various composers--like Sibelius and Bartok--that he conducts so well.

I'd recommend that anyone who gets the chance to see Leila Josefowicz live in the Violin Concerto get tickets asap! You'll be in for quite the show!


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## Guest (Mar 14, 2014)

Winterreisender said:


> There are actually lots of modern composers of "art" music who champion ideas of expressive beauty....


I have a wee bit framing problem with this. What I want to say is that there are no modern composers of "art" music who do not champion ideas of expressive beauty, but that simple counter is probably not literally true.

What is true is that "beauty" in this thread (and the dozens of other threads on this identical topic) has been co-opted. Beauty is very clearly associated with only certain sounds, as the mention of Part, Rutter, MacMillan, and Tavener indicates. As, for that matter, even the mention of Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Wagner indicates, though its illustrative power is only possible by taking a radically ahistorical approach to that music--that is, while the first four are all from the same era and doing roughly the same thing (itself rather troubling), the other four are from very different eras and doing very different things and at least two of them have been accused many times over the years (especially at first, when they were new) of being ugly, of having abandoned any notion of beauty, of just making noise because that was the only option left to them.

I say "at least" because the notion that "all the greats of the past have already done everything good leaving the present for making only weird or ugly things" has been used against composers as early as Mozart.

There is no code breaking to do with contemporary music. Listen.

Don't try to make it do things that it's not doing. Listen.

Don't keep waiting for it to "make sense."* Listen.

Give up your ideas (if you have them) about what beautiful is. Listen.

*As in "make the sense that you already know."


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

KYGray said:


> I've been an avid listener of the classic masters (Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Wagner, et al) for decades and I always find something new and inspiring whenever I listen. Recently I have tried to get into some of the contemporary composers such as Salonen, Cage, Crumb and others. I must admit, quite frankly, I just don't get it. Am I missing something? At what point did composers leave the concepts of melody, harmony, rhythm, and tonality completely behind and more importantly, why? At one time I considered myself a fairly sophisticated listener, but after trying to sit through some of the works of these supposed contemporary musical geniuses I feel a little shallow. Could someone please explain to me what theses composers are trying to do and why they have left the concept of expressive beauty through music behind? Is it me or am I just 150 years behind the rest of the music world?
> 
> As always,
> KYGray


One way is to do a bit of reading and look for the connections between new and old music, and also between classical and other types of music. I have benefited from reading about classical from many sources, from books to magazines, online sources like this forum, the booklet notes to cd's, from generalist books aimed at beginners to more specific areas of music with more detail. In my early forays into classical, the late Karl Haas had a program called "Adventures in good music," which I'm sure some will remember here, and in that he looked at the history of classical music. He did a couple of books on music appreciation, so did composers like Copland and Bernstein.

These are the types of sources I am using to do a blog on this forum (link in my footer below). My aim is too look at connections and themes going across the hundreds of years of history of classical music. One topic here included John Cage, who you mention. I am not setting myself as an expert on anything, its more a matter of looking at music as how I see it, based on my experiences with it and including other interests I have such as in history and other creative arts. My view is that there are far more connections than differences between various types and eras of classical music. Its part of a wider tradition, I am a big picture type of person in this regard and I think that has helped me to access some of this music.

Another one that's been mentioned by science Crumb's _Black Angels_, it has references to older music (eg. Schubert, Tartini, the dies irae plainchant from the Catholic requiem) and was written during the Vietnam war. Info on that at wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Angels_(Crumb)

I don't think you are trolling. Asking these questions is legitimate and its the same with more recent music as music that's hundreds of years old. I could ask the same about many areas of music I have a basic grasp of relative to other areas/eras, Renaissance music is one where I can do with more exploring and listening, so too Baroque and Classical eras beyond the big names. But we all got our areas of focus here, mine is largely late Classical era until now.


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## TresPicos (Mar 21, 2009)

I tried whisky the other day. It didn't taste sweet at all. What a stupid beverage...


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## Guest (Mar 15, 2014)

KYGray said:


> Could someone please explain to me what theses composers are trying to do and why they have left the concept of expressive beauty through music behind?


As one or two others have already suggested, the problem with your query is the idea that music must deal in 'expressive beauty' and that even if we were to accept that it should, we would have considerable difficulty in agreeing a meaningful definition of 'beauty' (that wasn't hamstrung by, for example, already unacceptable formulas from the Ancients and the Classicals).


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## Chordalrock (Jan 21, 2014)

Skip the serialists and avoid the sound-scape artists, and you should find a lot of music that is worth listening to. Most of it you can't even buy recordings of. There are so many people in the world today and so much talent, most of it you never even hear about, but if you keep your eyes open and attend concerts across the country you should encounter some cool stuff. Some people in this thread disparage local populistic talent but Mozart was local populistic talent and so are, for the most part, the Mozart's of today.

BTW, it's interesting that after composers of late Renaissance had reached a wall, they created the Baroque style and birthed Bach, but after composers of late Romanticism reached a similar wall, they created serialism. Fail.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Chordalrock said:


> Skip the serialists and avoid the sound-scape artists, and you should find a lot of music that is worth listening to. Most of it you can't even buy recordings of. There are so many people in the world today and so much talent, most of it you never even hear about, but if you keep your eyes open and attend concerts across the country you should encounter some cool stuff.* Some people in this thread disparage local populistic talent but Mozart was local populistic talent and so are, for the most part, the Mozart's of today.*
> 
> BTW, it's interesting that after composers of late Renaissance had reached a wall, they created the Baroque style and birthed Bach, but after composers of late Romanticism reached a similar wall, they created serialism. Fail.


Er, I don't know what you mean by this? Who disparages local populist artists? If you're talking about people who compose in unmodified Baroque and classical styles then your analogy doesn't work really. If Mozart had composed in a Renaissance style at the time he was alive, he would surely not be known today.

Also, Mozart was pretty challenging to his contemporary audience. Not as populist as you might think.


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

Taking a lower limit of around 1970 (Wiki suggests 1975, but whatever), I'll toss a few suggestions into the void...

Pascal Dusapin - Uncut (2008)

Mauricio Kagel - Serenade (1995)

John Adams - Harmonielehre, mvt. I (1985)

John Cage - Eighty (1992)

Olivier Messiaen - Des canyons aux étoiles... (1974)

Steve Reich - The Desert Music (1983)

Pierre Boulez - Notations pour orchestre (1978 / rev. 1997)

Harrison Birtwistle - Five Distances (1993)

Christophe Bertrand - Treis (2000)


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

If one likes some of the pieces by Stravinsky or even Debussy, the step to contemporary composers really isn´t that big. It´s simply a matter of getting to know pieces that have just a slight bit of immediate interest, like Ukko said.

Examples:

*Debussy*:"Preludes" for Piano -> *Stravinsky* "Capriccio" for piano & orchestra -> *Keuris* Piano Concerto -> *Nørgård *Piano Concerto "In Due Tempi"

*Debussy*:"Prelude a l´Apres Midi" -> *Stravinsky*:"Symphony in 3 Movements" -> *Murail*:"L´Esprit des Dunes"

*Debussy*:"Nocturnes" -> *Stravinsky*:"Psalm Symphony" -> *Silvestrov*:"Requiem for Larissa"


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

starry said:


> Or...he can _help himself_ by taking time with the music, rather than expecting some golden key to suddenly open it up.


That was rather a malicious thing to do. Fix that attribution if you still can.

Edit: Just in case anyone doesn't see what starry has done, _I_ did not post the words he attributed to me.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

hpowders said:


> science said:
> 
> 
> > If you're trolling, you'll succeed, and if not, you're in for it, dude.
> ...


This is where the problem started.


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## dgee (Sep 26, 2013)

KYGray said:


> I've been an avid listener of the classic masters (Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Wagner, et al) for decades and I always find something new and inspiring whenever I listen. Recently I have tried to get into some of the contemporary composers such as Salonen, Cage, Crumb and others. I must admit, quite frankly, I just don't get it. Am I missing something? At what point did composers leave the concepts of melody, harmony, rhythm, and tonality completely behind and more importantly, why? At one time I considered myself a fairly sophisticated listener, but after trying to sit through some of the works of these supposed contemporary musical geniuses I feel a little shallow. Could someone please explain to me what theses composers are trying to do and why they have left the concept of expressive beauty through music behind? Is it me or am I just 150 years behind the rest of the music world?
> 
> As always,
> KYGray


Don't sweatit, you're fine - just don't bother with the modern stuff now. It's not for everyone and it doesn't make you unsophisticated. Return to your usual pleasures and enjoy - but if you do find yourself curious there's plenty of recommendations here


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

science said:


> This is where the problem started.


Well, I'm finding it educational. All he was asking for was to be pointed in a certain direction.

One day I hope to crack the code and have a room filled with Webern's Greatest Hits. 

Where I come from when someone asks for legitimate help, you do your best to give it to him.

I would have left out the "WTF" from the original query if it was me though.


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## Serge (Mar 25, 2010)

science said:


> This is where the problem started.


But why did you even suggest that the OP was trolling and such, I still don't understand. Because of the three-letter expression? Well, how mature!


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

Maybe try some Gubaidulina, Saariaho, and Takemitsu. They're a little more accessible, but equally righteous as the others.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

I've discovered there's actually good and bad modern music, just like in any genre.  What helped for me is not to consider it as "classical music" per se, just something else (despite any connections there may or may not be). Try to listen to the music with fresh ears, without expectations based upon the classical music you've been used to.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Serge said:


> But why did you even suggest that the OP was trolling and such, I still don't understand. Because of the three-letter expression? Well, how mature!


Is there a classical music board on the internet that hasn't discussed this a couple times already?


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

hpowders said:


> Well, I'm finding it educational. All he was asking for was to be pointed in a certain direction.
> 
> One day I hope to crack the code and have a room filled with Webern's Greatest Hits.
> 
> ...


That's all fine with me. I did my part to help as well. I just prefer to have my own words attributed to me. I suppose you can attribute my words to other people, not sure whether that would ever bother me, but attributing other people's words to me and then responding to me as if I'd said that, I can't handle that too well.

Maybe I should just start being a doofus (edit: well, even more than I am already) in my posts so it doesn't matter one way or the other.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

TresPicos said:


> I tried whisky the other day. It didn't taste sweet at all. What a stupid beverage...


There are always exceptions. You might enjoy a scotch like Macallan, for example. Scotches are sometimes aged in different casks to introduce sweet flavors.

I prefer peatier beverages, but I respect your opinion.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I'm just deleting all this. Starry can misquote me however he wants. Whatever. I ought to be used to this kind of thing by now.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Blancrocher said:


> There are always exceptions. You might enjoy a scotch like Macallan, for example. Scotches are sometimes aged in different casks to introduce sweet flavors.
> 
> I prefer peatier beverages, but I respect your opinion.


Early Times (Kentucky whiskey, not bourbon) may not be sweet, but it's closer than Jim Beam.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

science said:


> That's all fine with me. I did my part to help as well. I just prefer to have my own words attributed to me. I suppose you can attribute my words to other people, not sure whether that would ever bother me, but attributing other people's words to me and then responding to me as if I'd said that, I can't handle that too well.
> 
> Maybe I should just start being a doofus (edit: well, even more than I am already) in my posts so it doesn't matter one way or the other.


The words in question were unusually wise. Must have been mine!! :lol:


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

science said:


> The words in question were unusually wise. Must have been mine!! :lol:


_Maybe_ so.

It's also possible that I typed them, and so the quote tags were correct, but the Matrix has switched around our IDs to make it appear that _you_ typed them. So, if we're living in a simulation, they're only mistakenly misattributed to me, and just in that case I have to agree about their unusual wisdom. Unusual beauty, too.

Finally, we wouldn't want to overlook that possibility that you and I and everyone else are really one single being, manifest infinitely throughout many universes, that all distinction is illusion, and that (hey kids drugs are bad). In that case, our words are unusually wise, unusually beautiful, and also unusually enlightening.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

science said:


> _Maybe_ so.
> 
> It's also possible that I typed them, and so the quote tags were correct, but the Matrix has switched around our IDs to make it appear that _you_ typed them. So, if we're living in a simulation, they're only mistakenly misattributed to me, and just in that case I have to agree about their unusual wisdom. Unusual beauty, too.
> 
> Finally, we wouldn't want to overlook that possibility that you and I and everyone else are really one single being, manifest infinitely throughout many universes, that all distinction is illusion, and that (hey kids drugs are bad). In that case, our words are unusually wise, unusually beautiful, and also unusually enlightening.


Ha! Ha! Yeah. Well anyone can do that I guess, but why? Perhaps, it was just a human mistake? Just throwing it out there.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

science said:


> Ha! Ha! Yeah. Well anyone can do that I guess, but why? Perhaps, it was just a human mistake? Just throwing it out there.


Maybe so.

But I think it's either the Matrix or non-duality, or both.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Ukko said:


> Early Times (Kentucky whiskey, not bourbon) may not be sweet, but it's closer than Jim Beam.


A little JD and coke is probably the way for him to go, in all honesty. Then again, sometimes people surprise you (and themselves) with the things they like.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

science said:


> Maybe so.
> 
> But I think it's either the Matrix or non-duality, or both.


Both plausible.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Blancrocher said:


> A little JD and coke is probably the way for him to go, in all honesty. Then again, sometimes people surprise you (and themselves) with the things they like.


Took me years of suffering through it to get into whiskey. What did the trick for me was comparative tasting. Occasionally when I'd go out, I'd order shots of different whiskeys and compare them. With direct comparison like that I began to notice that I preferred some to others, and I was on my way.

Best whiskey I've had was Macallan. I'd like to say something more original, but I can't.


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## senza sordino (Oct 20, 2013)

Just to add another branch to the discussion. Imagine the opposite. Imagine that composers were still writing in the style of Mozart for 200 years after his death. No change. Then the criticism would be that music is stale and not creative. 

A lot of music is an experiment, I think. Composers don't know what will work and what will stick. 

I don't want composers to stop experimenting. Even if some of it doesn't make sense, or doesn't work.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

KYGray said:


> I've been an avid listener of the classic masters (Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Wagner, et al) for decades and I always find something new and inspiring whenever I listen. Recently I have tried to get into some of the contemporary composers such as Salonen, Cage, Crumb and others. I must admit, quite frankly, I just don't get it. Am I missing something? At what point did composers leave the concepts of melody, harmony, rhythm, and tonality completely behind and more importantly, why? At one time I considered myself a fairly sophisticated listener, but after trying to sit through some of the works of these supposed contemporary musical geniuses I feel a little shallow. Could someone please explain to me what theses composers are trying to do and why they have left the concept of expressive beauty through music behind? Is it me or am I just 150 years behind the rest of the music world?
> 
> As always,
> KYGray


As *John Cage *has pointed out many times, it is *our "expectation" of what music is *which he tries to penetrate, and get us to listen to sound as 'just sound.'

Of course, I realize that hearing 'sound' as 'sound' is a very radical concept. Hearing things as they are, which do not conform with our expectations of what music 'should' be, is a very difficult task, and may take years.

Many listeners have all sorts of 'issues' tied-up with music, and this involves their life-style, their identity, their assumptions, their world view, and in fact _their entire 'ego,_' self, soul, personality, identity, mental posture, or whatever you wish to call it.

It may take years of effort to transcend one's own ego. Many zen monks have spent literally years in trying to overcome the obstacles the ego presents, but it *is *possible. It may take some time.

After all, by their own admission, listeners have spent decades nurturing and encouraging the expectations they hold of what music 'should' be, so it may take even more decades to _undo_ this. Consideration of time remaining to us should be carefully considered before we choose to embark on such a time-consuming and harrowing task.


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## MagneticGhost (Apr 7, 2013)

To the OP - To aid in your exploration and understanding you should read Alex Ross - The Rest is Noise. 
Understanding may aid your appreciation. It's a great read too.


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

Concert hall music abandoned the orchestral tradition and catered to critics and other modern artists rather than serving the general audience. The line of tradition from Beethoven, Wagner and other classical music composers started to shift to film scores in the late 30s. You might find what you're looking for in classic movie soundtracks.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

bigshot said:


> Concert hall music abandoned the orchestral tradition and catered to critics and other modern artists rather than serving the general audience. The line of tradition from Beethoven, Wagner and other classical music composers started to shift to film scores in the late 30s. You might find what you're looking for in classic movie soundtracks.


Hah! Sacrilege! You must be Hollywood.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

bigshot said:


> Concert hall music abandoned the orchestral tradition and catered to critics and other modern artists rather than serving the general audience. The line of tradition from Beethoven, Wagner and other classical music composers started to shift to film scores in the late 30s.[/QUOTE
> 
> You may believe that, but, boy, is that a wild statement contrary to fact :-(


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## Serge (Mar 25, 2010)

Ukko said:


> Hah! Sacrilege! You must be Hollywood.


Let's not make some assumptions here please! 

But what movies are you talking about exactly? Not the Russian ones?


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

bigshot said:


> Concert hall music abandoned the orchestral tradition and catered to critics and other modern artists rather than serving the general audience. The line of tradition from Beethoven, Wagner and other classical music composers started to shift to film scores in the late 30s. You might find what you're looking for in classic movie soundtracks.


The line from Beethoven to Wagner can easily be seen as having continued on through Mahler to Schoenberg to Webern to Boulez and Rihm ect.

Both Neo-classical movements and Impressionist movements of the early 20th century can be seen as stemming from the Beethoven/Wagner line in the same way the Rococo movement is derived from the Baroque style, as a reaction against it.

From Debussy follows Messiaen then Takemitsu and then the spectralist composers like Murail and Grisey, or at least something like that.

You can keep drawing musical "ancestral" lines like this to show clearly the evolution of classical music supporting the fact that 20th/21st century composers are just as much a part of the tradition as anyone.

Some might not be exactly from the Beethoven/Wagner line. In my opinion, composers like Hindemith are more from the Beethoven/Brahms line and then to Reger and then to Hindemith and then to Henze.

Or something like that.


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## revdrdave (Jan 8, 2014)

KYGray said:


> Could someone please explain to me what theses composers are trying to do and why they have left the concept of expressive beauty through music behind? Is it me or am I just 150 years behind the rest of the music world?


With all due respect to those who've participated in this thread, it doesn't seem the question has been answered yet. Some have suggested pieces to listen to, some have counseled patience in listening to contemporary music in general, some have suggested contemporary music must be approached with a different set of expectations...and still others wrote about scotch and whiskey.

That's all well and good, but it doesn't address the question of why contemporary composers felt it necessary to leave behind what KYGray called "expressive beauty," a phrase we can (as some suggested) argue about but one that, I suspect, we all understand what he was getting at in using as he did. I can (and do) listen to contemporary composers and I (sometimes) can identify a "melody," to take one compositional element, but it isn't going to sound like a melody in the way that those by, for example, Grieg or Tchaikovsky do. I'm not suggesting they should or that one is some how better than the other, only that they're different, and that, I think, is the crux of what KYGray may be getting at here--why did contemporary composers leave that behind and choose to be different? Maybe, as I have often suspected, contemporary composers just feel that the ways of Tchaikovsky and Grieg have been exhausted and new forms of "expressive beauty" must be found. If so, that's a legitimate response to the question.

That said, I give most contemporary music I've heard a "5"...it's OK but I can't dance to it. :lol:


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

If you are expecting the same sound, vocabulary and expressed sentiments in 20th and 21st century music as found in music of earlier centuries, you're doomed to disappointment.

And expecting the sentiment, and the sound associated with expressing those sentiments, is often the cage the listener of the older repertoire bumps into when they sally forth into music written much later.

Many a conservative listener whose last high water mark is Wagner, if they wish to proceed, I think needs to then go full-tilt into the later romantic repertoire (more than a few habituated listeners 'have trouble' with, say, Mahler, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Barber, all "very much later romantics,") There is that classic recommendation of the high late romantic and lyric sextet for strings by Shoenberg, _Verklarte Nacht_. Carl Nielsen's 5th symphony, later Mahler, and the retro-conservative Richard Strauss whose music is nonetheless in the high late chromatic 'modern' vein (ala Salome) is another composer whose music a number of people have initial difficulty with when first exposed to unless they are already more accustomed to the later romantic high chromatic works.

But, the 20th century did see two world wars, destruction and disruption on a massive scale, and nothing, really, has been the same since, including world views, personal views, emotional frames and held sentiments.

Yes, composers still express "beauty" and "things sentimental," -- while to think all lyricism has been abandoned is a false conclusion. The beauty and sentimentality in more modern and contemporary works are both beautiful and sentimental, but they will have different qualities to those elements in line with the contemporary perspectives 'modern' people have.

Jumping into the deep end of a much later built swimming pool is not exactly the most recommended way to go for listeners with the type of reservations / hard-held preconceptions and embedded listening habits of the OP, that is for sure.

Often, a gradual exploration and increased familiarity with music as it developed, step by step, is more successful in getting the foreign or alien into a more comfortable familiarity. Without a real familiarity, by constant repeated exposure, there is no way one can either recognize or enjoy the qualities of the later works.

Now, bluntly, some listeners to classical music want no truck with anything but the more old-fashioned notions of beauty and sentiments -- I call that a bit of escapism, i.e. where people like to go for a kind of refuge, and directly escape their contemporary world and its sensibilities. It is a harmless escapism, but if that is a good deal of the dynamic of listening to classical music, then expecting 'more of the same,' let alone expecting the right to nearly demand it from contemporary artists is a bit like railing that no one is willing to hand you a supply of a rarefied antique drug to which you are addicted


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## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

KYGray said:


> I've been an avid listener of the classic masters (Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Wagner, et al) for decades and I always find something new and inspiring whenever I listen. Recently I have tried to get into some of the contemporary composers such as Salonen, Cage, Crumb and others. I must admit, quite frankly, I just don't get it. Am I missing something? At what point did composers leave the concepts of melody, harmony, rhythm, and tonality completely behind and more importantly, why? At one time I considered myself a fairly sophisticated listener, but after trying to sit through some of the works of these supposed contemporary musical geniuses I feel a little shallow. Could someone please explain to me what theses composers are trying to do and why they have left the concept of expressive beauty through music behind? Is it me or am I just 150 years behind the rest of the music world?
> 
> As always,
> KYGray


When a person listens to a piece of music he will either like it or dislike it.

After listening and reading people throwing all sorts of tantrums concerning the inherit worth of modernistic music for years I have discovered that if a person does not get Elliott Carter there is no one who can give him a magic pill that will make him understand it.

I really never got Carter until I was in my fifties. Why? I do not have the foggiest notion why.

Maybe someday you will get this music. Maybe never. No problem if you never understand it. I do not know of any composer or genre of classical music that is universally loved by everybody.

There is one thing I have learned. Just because most people dislike a piece of music does it mean that it is bad.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

revdrdave said:


> With all due respect to those who've participated in this thread, it doesn't seem the question has been answered yet. Some have suggested pieces to listen to, some have counseled patience in listening to contemporary music in general, some have suggested contemporary music must be approached with a different set of expectations...and still others wrote about scotch and whiskey.
> 
> That's all well and good, but it doesn't address the question of why contemporary composers felt it necessary to leave behind what KYGray called "expressive beauty," ....


Later composers did not feel it 'necessary' to leave behind expressive beauty, sorry, but that is really nonsensical and about as subjective as it gets. There are millions of sorts of expression, and as many sorts of expressive beauty.

The point has been made numerous times and in said in many different ways -- people who really think they utter a truth when saying composers have abandoned expressive beauty have a very, if not extremely limited, set of expectations of what a good melody is, and what is expressive. The only way through that is repeated exposure to later works, repeated listening, and some 'lesson plan listening' well structured pedagogic list of 'what to listen to next,' vs. jumping from Grieg to Berio. If you jump from Grieg to Berio and expect Grieg, you're wasting your time, and you won't "get it."

That said, some people are entirely bound to the older music, tunes or melody (while so much of classical is neither about a tune or melody, actually the majority of classical music is not at all about 'melody') that anything not like that will never do for them. That is fine, but then, please, anyone of that disposition should cease to both keep knocking their head against the proverbial brick wall, and complaining that contemporary classical composers are no longer 'writing songs of love, but not for them.'


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

PetrB said:


> They did not feel it 'necessary' to leave behind expressive beauty, sorry, but that is really nonsensical and about as subjective as it gets.


Absolutely right. It only *sounds*, to some at least, like they did. Silly geese!


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## Guest (Mar 16, 2014)

revdrdave said:


> With all due respect to those who've participated in this thread, it doesn't seem the question has been answered yet.


Since the OP asked 5 questions, I think you'll find that some respondents have answered at least one - "Am I missing something?"

In any case, you can't answer a question like "Why did they leave behind x, y and z?" if you don't think they did.


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## Chordalrock (Jan 21, 2014)

violadude said:


> Er, I don't know what you mean by this?


I mean what I wrote: composers who aren't well-known enough to have their music on Amazon and who compose in a contemporary style but avoid serialism and "musical soundscape" style of composition. There have been a few really good concerts where I live, with contemporary music by composers who live here, so bigger countries and cities and places are bound to have some as well.

Contemporary composers who become well-known tend to be, or at least used to be, the kind you'd want to avoid if you're looking for music you can listen to from pretty much the same set of expectations you use to listen to late Romantic period music, or at least Prokofiev and stuff like that.


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## Guest (Mar 16, 2014)

Chordalrock said:


> I mean what I wrote:


But you didn't say who here was disparaging 'local populistic talent'.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

MacLeod said:


> Since the OP asked 5 questions, I think you'll find that some respondents have answered at least one - "Am I missing something?"
> 
> In any case, you can't answer a question like "Why did they leave behind x, y and z?" if you don't think they did.


Many here used to think that, and later changed their minds after some time, and all the approaches or happenstance which one day let them find the "expressive beauty" in music that sounds nothing like, say, Grieg or Tchaikovsky.

Those people can explain, they have here told us 'what or how the change in their perceptions came about,' so if anyone feels that they can only trust the word of those who have directly had the experience, like a therapy group or 12-step program, then they can pick and choose from those answers -- really.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Chordalrock said:


> I mean what I wrote: composers who aren't well-known enough to have their music on Amazon and who compose in a contemporary style but avoid serialism and "musical soundscape" style of composition. There have been a few really good concerts where I live, with contemporary music by composers who live here, so bigger countries and cities and places are bound to have some as well.
> 
> Contemporary composers who become well-known tend to be, or at least used to be, the kind you'd want to avoid if you're looking for music you can listen to from pretty much the same set of expectations you use to listen to late Romantic period music, or at least Prokofiev and stuff like that.


This still says nothing much, which is not your fault because it is music you are speaking of. I'm sure I'm not the only one who is intrigued to learn more, names, names of pieces, and I'm sure somewhere is a recording of a work or two that made it to youtube, etc. So, if you have any specifics, not that I doubt what you've said at all, but I would love to know by hearing more specifically 'the sound' of music you typed as contemporary populist classical.


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## Chordalrock (Jan 21, 2014)

PetrB said:


> This still says nothing much, which is not your fault because it is music you are speaking of. I'm sure I'm not the only one who is intrigued to learn more, names, names of pieces, and I'm sure somewhere is a recording of a work or two that made it to youtube, etc. So, if you have any specifics, not that I doubt what you've said at all, but I would love to know by hearing more specifically 'the sound' of music you typed as contemporary populist classical.


One piece I loved was the multi-movement work, Missa Votiva by Jukka-Pekka Lehto. I also liked a set of three songs by Kai Nieminen on texts of Emily Dickinson, and the singer had put them on youtube with the composer's permission but the retards there took them down for copyright violation. The videos had reached around 50,000 views each. There's actually a CD of Nieminen's music available published by Naxos but I haven't heard those works:

http://www.amazon.com/Nieminen-Palomar-Concerto-Through-Clarinet/dp/B001U1L9V2/

The one review there suggests that the music is amateurish, derivative of Debussy, and crappy. An "inchoate sequence of random prettiness." The songs were pretty but didn't remind me of Debussy at all.

There's a third composer, Martti Parkkari, whose stuff fits my description but I can't find anything on youtube or elsewhere. The smallish concert hall was nearly full for a concert of his works, even though normally I think there's not much audience there (from my very limited experience).

These composers are all around 50 years old or older, not young talents but, supposedly, experienced composers.

To throw in a relatively popular Finnish composer of contemporary music: Rautavaara's 7th symphony has, at least in some movements / places, the kind of sound I'd describe as appealing to a wider audience. I think it's on youtube. Obviously there are some composers like him who are both somewhat known and somewhat populistic but even Rautavaara started with serialist music I think and I believe most of his music is rather alien to the tastes of normal classical music listeners. My impression is this symphony is rather an exception and unusually popular for that reason. I could be wrong. I'm basing all this on the vaguest of distant impressions and guesswork.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Chordalrock said:


> I mean what I wrote: composers who aren't well-known enough to have their music on Amazon and *who compose in a contemporary style but avoid serialism and "musical soundscape" style of composition* T


You mean like David Lang?





Or Petris Vasks?






Or Arvo Part?





Or Louis Andriessen?





Or Peter Sculthorpe?





These are all living composers, well accepted into the contemporary music scene at this point, who do not compose in a serialist style or a "Musical Soundscape" style, and I could name many many more.

So if your friends/local talents are as good as these composers and they are still being disparaged, then that should certainly stop and they should get some of their CDs on Amazon so we can all benefit from hearing their music!

If the problem is that they are not quite as advanced as these other composers, then they are certainly not immune to criticism and should take it as a tool to better themselves, not as a simple "disparaging of their work".

Although, I am unsure what exactly you mean by disparaging and I don't know the context completely.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Chordalrock said:


> One piece I loved was the multi-movement work, Missa Votiva by Jukka-Pekka Lehto. I also liked a set of three songs by Kai Nieminen on texts of Emily Dickinson, and the singer had put them on youtube with the composer's permission but the retards there took them down for copyright violation. The videos had reached around 50,000 views each. There's actually a CD of Nieminen's music available published by Naxos but I haven't heard those works:
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/Nieminen-Palomar-Concerto-Through-Clarinet/dp/B001U1L9V2/
> 
> ...


Well, I listened to the clips on amazon. It's hard to get a good idea of what the piece is like from those little snippets obviously. From what I could tell, it didn't seem that bad, but not amazing either. I could see where the reviewer was coming from but I probably wouldn't have been as harsh as him.

But I still don't understand your position of people "disparaging" local artists. Is one review on Amazon equal to a widespread disparagement of local talents?

You mention Rautavaara, but his musical style receives plenty of disparagement and criticism as well, on Amazon too. Also, popular and great aren't necessarily equal as I'm sure you know. Who knows whether Rautavaara will end up being "great". He's a popular composer now because he composes in an accessible, rhapsodic style. I believe the 7th symphony in particular got popular because of the nickname "Angel of Light". Evocative nicknames always draw the masses, even Beethoven complained about this. To me his music is okay but not particularly well thought out a lot of times. My guess is that he will end up being a popular composer but not a great composer, but who knows.


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

KYGray said:


> I've been an avid listener of the classic masters (Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Wagner, et al) for decades and I always find something new and inspiring whenever I listen. Recently I have tried to get into some of the contemporary composers such as Salonen, Cage, Crumb and others. I must admit, quite frankly, I just don't get it. Am I missing something? At what point did composers leave the concepts of melody, harmony, rhythm, and tonality completely behind and more importantly, why? At one time I considered myself a fairly sophisticated listener, but after trying to sit through some of the works of these supposed contemporary musical geniuses I feel a little shallow. Could someone please explain to me what theses composers are trying to do and why they have left the concept of expressive beauty through music behind? Is it me or am I just 150 years behind the rest of the music world?
> 
> As always,
> KYGray


You are missing something. The thing is, almost no composers have abandoned melody, harmony, or rhythm, as these elements are nearly inescapable elements in music. The only exceptions would be works that are solely for non-pitched instruments and other noisy sounds (though I believe even in these pieces one could make the argument) where melody isn't really a factor. As for aesthetic beauty, there are endless forms of beauty in music, whether it be a gorgeous Chopin melody dancing through early Romantic harmonies, or a quiet and meditative Cage prepared piano piece, or an intense Miles Davis improvisation, or a heavily distorted noisy punk tune by Melt-Banana. Color and drama and imaginative use of sounds to express that which cannot be said, are not things that modern composers have left behind. If anything, we take things in new directions, new kinds of expressive beauty.

It can be tough to jump to something thats totally new to you. It tends to be much easier to make gradual steps towards new aesthetics, through similar and more familiar things, and even more importantly is persistence. Some have said its fine to just stick to what currently makes you happy, but I think it is important, for your growth as a music lover, to really explore out there, to connect with this vast universe of sound. There is so much great music to be heard, for you to enjoy, but it will take work on your part to learn to understand all these different kinds of music. If you are willing to put that effort in though, the rewards are quite worth it ^_^


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

BurningDesire said:


> You are missing something. The thing is, almost no composers have abandoned melody, harmony, or rhythm, as these elements are nearly inescapable elements in music. The only exceptions would be works that are solely for non-pitched instruments and other noisy sounds (though I believe even in these pieces one could make the argument) where melody isn't really a factor. As for aesthetic beauty, there are endless forms of beauty in music, whether it be a gorgeous Chopin melody dancing through early Romantic harmonies, or a quiet and meditative Cage prepared piano piece, or an intense Miles Davis improvisation, or a heavily distorted noisy punk tune by Melt-Banana. Color and drama and imaginative use of sounds to express that which cannot be said, are not things that modern composers have left behind. If anything, we take things in new directions, new kinds of expressive beauty.
> 
> It can be tough to jump to something thats totally new to you. It tends to be much easier to make gradual steps towards new aesthetics, through similar and more familiar things, and even more importantly is persistence. Some have said its fine to just stick to what currently makes you happy, but I think it is important, for your growth as a music lover, to really explore out there, to connect with this vast universe of sound. There is so much great music to be heard, for you to enjoy, but it will take work on your part to learn to understand all these different kinds of music. If you are willing to put that effort in though, the rewards are quite worth it ^_^


Much as I feel I _should_ wholeheartedly agree, and much as I'm someone who does like to constantly expand his own horizons, I can't help responding by saying, If you're _not_ willing to put the effort in, that's perfectly fine. You are not under any obligation to achieve or even desire "growth as a music lover", and if you _do_ want to "grow" and it turns out that after a bit of effort you're still not enjoying this music you think you're supposed to grow into, then that's perfectly fine too, and you can just stop whenever you like and not feel bad about it.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

I don't understand this frequent reference to 'work'. Kicking back and listening isn't work - unless you consider not falling asleep to be work. Are you 'workers' composer-types or musicologists, people who need to know the *how* of music?


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## Chordalrock (Jan 21, 2014)

violadude said:


> Well, I listened to the clips on amazon.


I listened to them now as well. I'd say only the first clip sounds pleasing to my ears and the rest is mostly too "ugly" for me. The songs I heard were more accessible.

I don't know which thread had those "disparaging comments". I thought it was this one when I came back to comment but apparently not.

Anyway, I'm not too familiar with contemporary music.

There have been some recommendations on this thread but can you mention any pieces from the past 30 years that you'd consider both as great as they get and something I might like based on what I've said so far? No minimalism. Don't have to be on youtube. Others can chime in too. Would any of those you linked previously count? They were long and not posted with the explicit purpose of recommending them so I didn't pay much attention.


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## Chordalrock (Jan 21, 2014)

Ukko said:


> I don't understand this frequent reference to 'work'. Kicking back and listening isn't work - unless you consider not falling asleep to be work. Are you 'workers' composer-types or musicologists, people who need to know the *how* of music?


For me the effort comes from attempting to focus on music that I don't find compelling or I don't find compelling most of the time. It's also often more easy to get bored of an activity that is boring than by just doing nothing. Listening to music can be more boring than not doing anything. Well, that's my experience anyway. That said, yes, it's possible to grow as a listener -- I have -- and it's often worth it.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Chordalrock said:


> For me the effort comes from attempting to focus on music that I don't find compelling or I don't find compelling most of the time. It's also often more easy to get bored of an activity that is boring than by just doing nothing. Listening to music can be more boring than not doing anything. Well, that's my experience anyway. That said, yes, it's possible to grow as a listener -- I have -- and it's often worth it.


OK. My hypothesis is that that 'focus' is work, and that it is not only unnecessary but contraindicated. "Focus" requires ratiocination; ratiocination interferes with music absorption. "Kicking back" means, besides relaxing, to not think - about anything. Those infamous 'idle thoughts' can't be completely avoided***, but focusing on them can be avoided. This procedure (well, non-procedure) lets the music come in and interact with those little thingamajigs in the brain that were designed back in the Dawn Of Time to handle that sort of stuff. Who knows, get it right and after the music ends there could be a "Wow, what happened there?"

* Some "Eastern Religions" and disciplines are very interested in getting those idle thoughts to shut up. For our purposes here, we just need to damp them down some.


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

I would say "work" means focus on the music and give it more tries. 

I disagree that focus implies ratiocination. I think of it more as not thinking about other things while listening to the music. Resist the temptation to drift away. A strange piece might seem haphazard the first time, even dull. So you start thinking about something else.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

The first time I heard Boulez's 2nd Piano Sonata it caused me physical pain. After repeated hearings over the years I can now successfully read books or complete crossword puzzles with pretty much any Boulez work on in the background. I like to listen to him without distraction, of course, but it's nice to know that I can still listen to him should an emergency arise. 

That may not be everyone's idea of progress, but I'm kind of proud of it.

*p.s.* Mind you, I have a friend who can do complex mathematical problems while listening to Ustvolskaya, so I shouldn't brag.


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## Guest (Mar 16, 2014)

Nereffid said:


> You are not under any obligation to achieve or even desire "growth as a music lover", and if you _do_ want to "grow" and it turns out that after a bit of effort you're still not enjoying this music you think you're supposed to grow into, then that's perfectly fine too, and you can just stop whenever you like and not feel bad about it.


I don't know why this point keeps being made over and over and over again--and not just by Nereffid, of course. His/hers is just the most recent is all.

This point is what I would call a non-point. It is a defense, and an often spirited defense, of something that is rarely if ever attacked. That's peculiar right there. Why defend something that's not being attacked? And I think that there are a couple of answers to that. One is that the real topic, that people who do not understand certain things should not be pronouncing about those things, that sharing one's personal distaste or disgust--especially of things only imperfectly understood, if at all--is simply not useful. It's just venting. Venting is only useful for the venter. The only other people it does any "good" are people who like to vent about the same things. So it's only utility is to make a little venting club.

Another possible answer is that there really is no way to attack the idea that growth is better than stagnation. So you attack another thing (a non-thing) by defending the idea that people should be free to like and dislike whatever they want. But of course. Who would dispute that? Continually expressing dislike in the vaguest of terms and with the broadest of brushstrokes--rarely are specific pieces named, and then only as exemplar of the awfulness of an entire genre--is tedious at best and pernicious at worst.

Continually expressing that "minimalism" is bad or that "avant garde" is bad or that "modern" is bad creates an atmosphere. It gives people permission--not to be free to like or dislike whatever, which they already have--but to vent, tediously and persistently, about things they have little familiarity of. That they certainly have no interest in or desire for, of course. It's corrosive and toxic. And its effects are real and practical--concert programs in the 18th century were 90% new music. Concert programs by 1870 were 90% old music. And no, it's not a simple matter of there being so much more music. It is very much a matter of new music (even the stuff that sounded old) being treated with suspicion, being preemptively avoided.

It is a matter of a dramatic change in attitude. Every composer from Beethoven on (though as KenOC has pointed out elsewhere, there are examples from earlier, much earlier) has had to deal with this toxic atmosphere. There's even a cliche that great artists have to be dead before they can be appreciated, which points to this very thing. And for why? It's very peculiar. Because always in every age there have been listeners who can appreciate living composers perfectly fine, without any effort. And I'm not talking about Einaudi or Part or Rutter, either. I'm talking about Merzbow and Lachenmann and Fullman. I'm talking about eRikm and Marchetti and Neumann.

The "difficult," "alien," "incomprehensible" ones. Which are, of course, nothing of the sort. Everyone in the world is free to dislike any or all of these people. Of course. Goes without saying. (Or should.) If you vent, however, everyone else in the world is free to call you out. Freedom is a beautiful thing, eh?


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

GreenMamba said:


> I would say "work" means focus on the music and give it more tries.
> 
> I disagree that focus implies ratiocination. I think of it more as not thinking about other things while listening to the music. Resist the temptation to drift away. A strange piece might seem haphazard the first time, even dull. So you start thinking about something else.


I disagree with your disagree. "Focus" on the music restricts the mind and the thingamajigs. Contemplating the navel is different from focusing on it. It is probably acceptable to go crosseyed while contemplating.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

some guy said:


> I don't know why this point keeps being made over and over and over again--and not just by Nereffid, of course. His/hers is just the most recent is all.
> 
> This point is what I would call a non-point. It is a defense, and an often spirited defense, of something that is rarely if ever attacked. That's peculiar right there. Why defend something that's not being attacked? And I think that there are a couple of answers to that. One is that the real topic, that people who do not understand certain things should not be pronouncing about those things, that sharing one's personal distaste or disgust--especially of things only imperfectly understood, if at all--is simply not useful. It's just venting. Venting is only useful for the venter. The only other people it does any "good" are people who like to vent about the same things. So it's only utility is to make a little venting club.
> 
> Another possible answer is that there really is no way to attack the idea that growth is better than stagnation. So you attack another thing (a non-thing) by defending the idea that people should be free to like and dislike whatever they want. But of course. Who would dispute that? Continually expressing dislike in the vaguest of terms and with the broadest of brushstrokes--rarely are specific pieces named, and then only as exemplar of the awfulness of an entire genre--is tedious at best and pernicious at worst. ...


Perhaps I'm overly sensitive to how others might interpret my words. If in responding to the OP's "am I missing something?" (taking it for a geneuine puzzlement rather than trolling), I essentially say "yes, you are", I don't want to be interpreted as implying the OP is somewhat the lesser for this, and the reason I think this might happen is that I've seen enough of these discussions/arguments/hate-fests regarding "modern" music and how they always seems to quickly degenerate into sundry misinterpretations, accusations, questioning of motives, paranoia, and so on. So I try to make it clear by saying what "goes without saying". And then by saying it, I draw your criticism. And so it goes.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

The problem is that those who "get it" consider themselves among a cerebral elite that looks down at the rest of us from atop Mt. Vesuvius. All that hot air can cause another serious eruption one day.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

hpowders said:


> The problem is that those who "get it" consider themselves among a cerebral elite that looks down at the rest of us from atop Mt. Vesuvius. All that hot air can cause another serious eruption one day.


Haha, I'm hoping this wasn't some clever jab at me. If so, well done.


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

hpowders said:


> The problem is that those who "get it" consider themselves among a cerebral elite that looks down at the rest of us from atop Mt. Vesuvius. All that hot air can cause another serious eruption one day.


He said, looking down at the people he claims are looking down at him.


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## Piwikiwi (Apr 1, 2011)

Ukko said:


> I don't understand this frequent reference to 'work'. Kicking back and listening isn't work - unless you consider not falling asleep to be work. Are you 'workers' composer-types or musicologists, people who need to know the *how* of music?


I think youbarw underestimating how active your brain is when you listen to music.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Piwikiwi said:


> I think youbarw underestimating how active your brain is when you listen to music.




You are overestimating how active my brain is at any time.

My experience is that it is not particularly difficult to damp that random activity. The difficulty is in getting those 'voices' to shut up; I've never managed that for more than a minute or so (that is what "Zen" is for?). I have managed - now and then - to quiet things down enough to let the music in, without employing the 'focus' clamp.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

hpowders said:


> The problem is that those who "get it" consider themselves among a cerebral elite that looks down at the rest of us from atop Mt. Vesuvius. All that hot air can cause another serious eruption one day.


Any medium or genre which can be seen as an exclusive niche will be latched onto as an exclusive niche _by those who feel some need to thus distinguishing themselves as superior to others._ Any such group will have its members.

Classical music, and its sub-categories, will inevitably have a few, of any age, who attach a social cache to being one sort of exclusive minority or another. I suppose some of that is in reaction to being, as classical music fans, already by definition a minority. The idea that one is socially or intellectually superior merely because one likes, say, Bach, Beethoven or Webern, or the more obscure from any period or the avant-garde of today, is of course patently silly.

But one quick glance at the hair-splitting differentials pointed out by the various fans of different genres and sub-genres of pop music... where the liking / loving (probably genuine) of this fare or that is strongly parallel to belonging to a tribe, [think for example, "Goth" and the flagrant conformity of a lot of red and black clothing, plaids, etc. -- i.e. essentially a uniform  ] is enough to show that it is a common enough mindset, whether the medium involved is considered fine art or other.

Thankfully, it is not everyone who likes a particular style or genre who does this -- while it is often those who are still young / younger, tied to that whole rebellious "I am an individual" thingie, the classic life-phase effort of setting them well apart from their elders. The irony of that phenomenon is lost on its members, who do not realize that their non-conformity is rife with heavily conformist expectations as to dress code, demonstrated attitudes, and specialized jargon.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

And just for the hey of it,

"Common practice classical music... WTF?"


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

PetrB said:


> Any medium or genre which can be seen as an exclusive niche will be latched onto as an exclusive niche _by those who feel thus distinguishing themselves as superior to others_ will have such member adherents. Just look at the hair-splitting differentials pointed out by the various fans of different genres and genres of pop music... where the liking / loving (probably genuine) of this fare or that is strongly parallel to belonging to a tribe. [Think for example, "Goth" and the flagrant conformity of a lot of red and black clothing, plaids, etc. -- i.e. essentially a uniform  ]
> 
> Thankfully, it is not everyone who likes a particular style or genre who does this -- while it is often those who are still young / younger, tied to that whole rebellious "I am an individual" thingie, the classic life-phase effort of setting them well apart from their elders. The irony of that phenomenon is lost on its members, who do not realize that their non-conformity is rife with heavily conformist expectations as to dress code, demonstrated attitudes, and specialized jargon.


As was mentioned already, who cares whether the vast multitude of the 1% or so in this world who love classical music "get" contemporary or atonal music? Like what you like. I'm happy to see anyone passionate about serious music.

I just wish a few more of the unconverted 99% or so would listen to ANY classical music and experience an epiphany and come join us.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

hpowders said:


> The problem is that those who "get it" consider themselves among a cerebral elite that looks down at the rest of us from atop Mt. Vesuvius. All that hot air can cause another serious eruption one day.


Cerebral!? I must be the lone exception. I've been called many things but 'cerebral' isn't one of them.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Lope de Aguirre said:


> Cerebral!? I must be the lone exception. I've been called many things but 'cerebral' isn't one of them.


Well, you seem plenty cerebral.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

hpowders said:


> Well, you seem plenty cerebral.


I see what you did there. Hats off to you, sir!


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Lope de Aguirre said:


> Cerebral!? I must be the lone exception. I've been called many things but 'cerebral' isn't one of them.


Yeah, I've been called intellectual by those who seem to have no idea 'what one of those is really like.'

I've met true intellectuals: listening to them is for me fascinating, but trying to follow their train of thought and keeping up with them, after about five minutes, literally makes my head ache. Ergo, I know -- for sure -- I'm not "an intellectual." LOL.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

hpowders said:


> As was mentioned already, who cares whether the vast multitude of the 1% or so in this world who love classical music "get" contemporary or atonal music? Like what you like. I'm happy to see anyone passionate about serious music.
> 
> I just wish a few more of the unconverted 99% or so would listen to ANY classical music and experience an epiphany and come join us.


But, Vincent Persichetti piano sonata lover, you're "on the outs" with about one-third of the three percent of those who claim to love classical music. I'm sure you think they're missing out on Presichetti, while some of them who are adamant might tell you resolutely they want no truck with ever "having to put up with that noise," even if one short 'n' pithy sonata is programmed alongside a lot of common practice rep on a recital


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

PetrB said:


> But, Vincent Persichetti piano sonata lover, you're "on the outs" with about one-third of the three percent of those who claim to love classical music. I'm sure you think they're missing out on Presichetti, while some of them who are adamant might tell you resolutely they want no truck with ever "having to put up with that noise," even if one short 'n' pithy sonata is programmed alongside a lot of common practice rep on a recital


Yes, but it's okay. The same goes for Schuman's symphonies, Ives Concord Sonata and Haydn's Creation.
I've posted links to several samples of the above, including Persichetti Piano Sonatas. That's all I can do. No sleep lost. 
You posted Uchida's Debussy's Etudes. I listened for a few minutes and I ordered it.
That's all anyone can do and I thank you for it!


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

hpowders said:


> Yes, but it's okay. The same goes for Schuman's symphonies, Ives Concord Sonata and Haydn's Creation.
> I've posted links to several samples of the above, including Persichetti Piano Sonatas. That's all I can do. No sleep lost.
> You posted Uchida's Debussy's Etudes. I listened for a few minutes and I ordered it.
> That's all anyone can do and I thank you for it!


One can not take credit for Debussy or one of his best living interpreters, but sure, you're welcome. I'm happy that my gushing "They are fantastic!" was not, to you, an exaggerated gush review 

Enjoy!


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

Uchida is exceptional, for sure.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Ukko said:


> I don't understand this frequent reference to 'work'. Kicking back and listening isn't work - unless you consider not falling asleep to be work. Are you 'workers' composer-types or musicologists, people who need to know the *how* of music?


I kind of agree, and it is really a matter of semantics. I think many not willing to explore are either timid or truly _not curious or adventurous_ for starters.

And perhaps work is quite the wrong word, and it should be more like 'stop thinking and let things happen without worrying if you are getting it or in control.' -- something like, anyway.

Some people are so loaded with preconceptions that when supposedly 'trying' to access a newer kind of music, they can't hear it for the deafening chatter of their own mind saying, _"But, but, but -- where is the melody?"_ and that is so fixated on instantly hearing something like, say, Tchaikovsky or Grieg, and it is so loud that, of course, they will miss any bit which is lyrical or an actual melody.


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## hreichgott (Dec 31, 2012)

Agree with what joen_cph and violadude and PetrB have said above, if you are interested in learning what it is people love about contemporary music, try making a ladder from known to unknown, instead of just jumping into the deep end. Chronology is one way to make a ladder, starting from a piece written in 1895 let's say, then listening to one from 1896 and onward into the 20th century; you can also go by who taught whom, or who was influenced by whom. There are some composers whose careers spanned major changes in music, and listening to their works from early to late is quite illuminating: Schoenberg, Debussy.

Here's what most contemporary music won't do: it won't reach out, grab you by the collar and force you to feel something, in the manner of Tchaikovsky or Rachmaninoff. For some people, "beautiful" or "expressive" only means that kind of over-the-top enforced emotion. Contemporary music doesn't do that much. But then, neither does Bach.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Anyway, with the ideology flying around here I'd better put my hazmat suit on before wading back in, but...

To the OP: Earlier I suggested some works and now I think that might not have been the right approach. Instead I'll suggest an attitude/approach. Listen to contemporary "art" music (or any other music) with an open mind, not expecting (let alone demanding) that it fulfill any expectations you have - and when you feel let down, examine those expectations that have been disappointed and try to listen without them next time. Let the music be what it is, you just try to figure out what it is, indefinitely suspending judgment. If you can find motifs, themes, interesting timbres, interesting rhythms, anything like that, good; if not, maybe find some pieces in it here and that that "make sense" or touch you somehow or seem to matter, or something, and build on that. But if you don't, just shrug and say something like, "Well, maybe that work isn't for me at this time." Maybe it will be in twenty years; maybe it will never be. But something will be: if you're wanting to appreciate contemporary music, you will.

Probably the main thing by far is to enjoy _yourself_, not to evaluate yourself as a listener based on whether you enjoy the music or not. That's letting these guys here - who will inevitably judge you, if not for that then for something else - get inside your head. They don't deserve a place there (I can't say much else about them within the limits of the TOS). The music deserves that place they're trying to take.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

*György Kurtág: Songs of Despair and Sorrow op. 18*

Try this piece...


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Next time I have a party.
Definitely "Songs of Despair and Sorrow" right after Kindertotenlieder.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

hpowders said:


> Next time I have a party.
> Definitely "Songs of Despair and Sorrow" right after Kindertotenlieder.


Sounds like a good time. Party on, hpowders.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

science said:


> Anyway, with the ideology flying around here I'd better put my hazmat suit on before wading back in, but...
> 
> To the OP: Earlier I suggested some works and now I think that might not have been the right approach. Instead I'll suggest an attitude/approach. Listen to contemporary "art" music (or any other music) with an open mind, not expecting (let alone demanding) that it fulfill any expectations you have - and when you feel let down, examine those expectations that have been disappointed and try to listen without them next time. Let the music be what it is, you just try to figure out what it is, indefinitely suspending judgment. If you can find motifs, themes, interesting timbres, interesting rhythms, anything like that, good; if not, maybe find some pieces in it here and that that "make sense" or touch you somehow or seem to matter, or something, and build on that. But if you don't, just shrug and say something like, "Well, maybe that work isn't for me at this time." Maybe it will be in twenty years; maybe it will never be. But something will be: if you're wanting to appreciate contemporary music, you will.
> 
> Probably the main thing by far is to enjoy _yourself_, not to evaluate yourself as a listener based on whether you enjoy the music or not. *That's letting these guys here - who will inevitably judge you, if not for that then for something else - get inside your head. They don't deserve a place there (I can't say much else about them within the limits of the TOS). The music deserves that place they're trying to take.*


I'm gonna expand on that:

These guys actively hate you, actively hate me, hate people like us. You're either with them or against them. You've got to take a side, and if you won't, they spend hours figuring out smarmy or snarky things to say to humiliate us for not being sufficiently with them.

And, really, I sympathize with them a bit - the only thing more common on a forum like this than these guys trying to humiliate people who don't like their music is people who don't like their music trying to humiliate them. So it's a shoot first mentality. Everyone is behind a bunker, in a trench, and those of us left in no-man's land are going to get it from both sides.

So what can we do about it?

Thing is, those on the contemporary side actually _don't want_ me or you or people like us to enjoy their music. We're not elite (or whatever) enough for them in one way or another, and we never will be or can be, as they constantly remind us with all their smarm and snark - or even better/worse, on unmoderated forums, where they can be as honest as their own strategies allow. That's all that's there, if we strip away the semantic posturing.

So the thing to do is, enjoy their music anyway. Enjoy it in spite of them. In spite of every insulting and vicious thing these guys have said to me, I like most of the same music they do. Of course they've heard a kajillion times more of it than I have, and they probably like some of it much more than I do; that's what they claim to want, but in fact it sticks in their craw and they'll have to do or say something insulting to put me back in (what they think of as) my place for presuming to claim to appreciate their music.

All we have to do to win this fight over and over again is keep exploring and enjoying their music. It's a massive win-win for us: we get interesting music, we get to vex people who hate us. If there were free food, everyone would do this. Lacking free food, maybe it's good to remember that we all, on either side and those in the middle, are going to die, some of us suddenly and violently, some of us slowly, all of us are going to die. Whatever else is true, we might as well enjoy ourselves while we're here, and not let a few jerks who want us to feel inferior for not enjoying X ruin Y or Z for us.


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## Guest (Mar 20, 2014)

hreichgott said:


> Here's what most contemporary music won't do: it won't reach out, grab you by the collar and force you to feel something....


I'm gonna disagree. Kindly and respectfully, of course.

It depends entirely on the "you."

Twentieth century music reached out and grabbed me and has never let go. Forty years of unalloyed pleasure and delight. Come on. Bartok, Stravinsky, Varese, Cage, Stockhausen, Mumma, Xenakis, Oliveros, Ferreyra, Neumann, Sachiko M.... What's not to like? Gorgeous sounds, rich, complex glorious sounds. Just a lovely lovely world.

It is not, as you say, the loveliness of Tchaikovsky, but what of that? Tchaikovsky's not the loveliness of Wagner, either.


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## Guest (Mar 20, 2014)

science said:


> These guys actively hate you, actively hate me, hate people like us. You're either with them or against them. You've got to take a side, and if you won't, they spend hours figuring out smarmy or snarky things to say to humiliate us for not being sufficiently with them.


No.



science said:


> Everyone is behind a bunker, in a trench, and those of us left in no-man's land are going to get it from both sides.


No.



science said:


> Thing is, those on the contemporary side actually _don't want_ me or you or people like us to enjoy their music.


No.



science said:


> ...every insulting and vicious thing these guys have said


No.



science said:


> we get interesting music


Yes.



science said:


> we get to vex people who hate us.


No.



science said:


> a few jerks who want us to feel inferior


No.


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## Guest (Mar 20, 2014)

KYGray said:


> Could someone please explain to me what theses composers are trying to do and why they have left the concept of expressive beauty through music behind? Is it me or am I just 150 years behind the rest of the music world?


My answer is:

i. It is not that we are left only with a few examples of nice concertos, symphonies, chamber works etc from bygone eras. On the contrary, there is an abundant supply of this type of music. In fact, there is a considerable excess supply of it given that most of it is not part of the standard repertoire today.

ii. Given this excess supply of "old" music, there is no logic in making the situation even worse by modern composers trying to compete with it by writing in a similar but perhaps slightly product-differentiated way. Some may succeed but most people would probably prefer the "genuine article" from the relevant era, rather than some modern look-alike.

iii. If they wish to succeed, contemporary composers are far more likely to try to create a demand for something different, either from the existing classical customer base or by attracting new customers from other genres.

iv. In the process of trying, there are bound to be all sorts of different types of new musical styles. Some may appear to be very radical and not be immediately attractive. Others which are less radical might obtain some approval. They may or may not remain that way in the longer term.

v. The only thing that is reasonably safe to assume is that only the best music (as judged by consumers) will survive in the long term, and that will always be an increasingly tiny fraction of the total amount of music that has ever been written with any serious pretext of being offered for general enjoyment, given the amount of new material being added all the time.

vi. Personally, I doubt that much if any of the more extreme diversions of contemporary music from the generally perceived norm will catch on, but it doesn't bother me if they try, so long as their supporters don't try to force it on other people [see "What Audiences Want" thread].


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## Guest (Mar 20, 2014)

Up through iv, I'm with ya.

v starts to make me itch.

vi is pure chimera. You are aware, are you not, you and science both (who has liked your post), that no one anywhere has the wherewithal to force any of you to listen to anything.

Show me the guns, or perhaps the materials necessary for blackmail, and then maybe you can use the word "force."

But it's ridiculous to talk about force in a situation where no one is even remotely capable of doing such a thing.

It's just not on, mates. Truly.


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## Guest (Mar 20, 2014)

I am sure that the OP has acted in good faith in asking his various questions about contemporary music, which he appears to dislike. However, it must noted that there does seem to be a lot of repeat threads of this nature, all raising similar issues, and attracting much the same set of responses from the usual crowd of people.

Even before some members respond, I can be reasonably confident I know what they going to say. Admittedly, sometimes their arguments are a little more refined than on the previous occasion, as they learn from "mistakes" made in an earlier episode, and occasionally they seem to pick up drafting "tips" from other people, whether friend or foe.

Because of this, virtually nothing new ever surfaces, as it has all been said before many times over. Rather, threads such as this seem more like magnets for a whole heap of misunderstandings, vehicles for the pursuit of long-standing vendettas, upmanship, and just about every other curious forms of antagonistic behaviour, the longer they go on. They soon become counter-productive.

In an ideal world, it might be nice if the Board "software" could scan OPs, recognise their essential content, and if it's yet another example of a subject area that has been done to death many times before, especially those with known troublesome sensitivities, simply dump into a suitable receptacle like, for example: _"Complaints/Contemporary music/ Don't Comprehend"_, and give it a number like "No 343, Year 2014".

There might even be an attempt to have a grand summary document pinned as a "sticky" at the top of the list identifying all the arguments why contemporary music is disliked, and why it shouldn't be disliked. I reckon this would be far more useful than continuing with the status quo, not just to new members, but to existing members, plus all the "lurkers" out there. Admittedly, any such action might cause a big drop-off in Board activity, but if we all try hard enough I'm sure that some other pastime will crop up to fill the void.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Partita said:


> In an ideal world, it might be nice if the Board "software" could scan OPs, recognise their essential content, and if it's yet another example of a subject area that has been done to death many times before, especially those with known troublesome sensitivities, simply dump into a suitable receptacle like, for example: _"Complaints/Contemporary music/ Don't Comprehend"_, and give it a number like "No 343, Year 2014".


Heh. Maybe the Board software could be refined to generate automatic responses from users based on their previous posts.


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## Guest (Mar 20, 2014)

Nereffid said:


> Heh. Maybe the Board software could be refined to generate automatic responses from users based on their previous posts.


I agree. I think it would be worth paying for the necessary enhancements to the software, if it were possible. It would have the additional benefit of automatically sanitising the replies for any breaches of the TOS, so that the moderators could have an easier task knowing that what member A says to member B will not contain any ad homs, etc.

The only slight snag I foresee is the possibility that the "machine" might become over zealous and impute comments that their "real" counterparts might object to, as not quite reflecting their true opinions. The whole thing could become quite surreal with a "computerised" debate going on in one part of the Forum, and a parallel debate elsewhere involving the real members, but each saying slightly different things, whilst the software attempted to catch up with any revised positions after a lag.

Given this potential difficulty, it might be sensible to ban all existing members from uttering another word on certain subjects, and simply hand the job over to the computer software to make the best of their previous comments. Such members henceforth may only opine on new matters. It should lead to lot neater discussion, with much greater efficiency.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Partita said:


> The only slight snag I foresee is the possibility that the "machine" might become over zealous and impute comments that their "real" counterparts might object to, as not quite reflecting their true opinions.


Misunderstanding and misattribution happen a lot already, so why not let the machine do it too!


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## Wood (Feb 21, 2013)

I love this thread. It is very funny.

Is it supposed to be?

Keep going boys!


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

Partita said:


> I agree. I think it would be worth paying for the necessary enhancements to the software, if it were possible. It would have the additional benefit of automatically sanitising the replies for any breaches of the TOS, so that the moderators could have an easier task knowing that what member A says to member B will not contain any ad homs, etc.
> 
> The only slight snag I foresee is the possibility that the "machine" might become over zealous and impute comments that their "real" counterparts might object to, as not quite reflecting their true opinions. The whole thing could become quite surreal with a "computerised" debate going on in one part of the Forum, and a parallel debate elsewhere involving the real members, but each saying slightly different things, whilst the software attempted to catch up with any revised positions after a lag.
> 
> Given this potential difficulty, it might be sensible to ban all existing members from uttering another word on certain subjects, and simply hand the job over to the computer software to make the best of their previous comments. Such members henceforth may only opine on new matters. It should lead to lot neater discussion, with much greater efficiency.


Until I read this I had no idea what a great sense of humour you have.


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## Whistler Fred (Feb 6, 2014)

"I'm sorry, Dave...I can't do that..."


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Partita said:


> I agree. I think it would be worth paying for the necessary enhancements to the software, if it were possible. It would have the additional benefit of automatically sanitising the replies for any breaches of the TOS, so that the moderators could have an easier task knowing that what member A says to member B will not contain any ad homs, etc.
> 
> The only slight snag I foresee is the possibility that the "machine" might become over zealous and impute comments that their "real" counterparts might object to, as not quite reflecting their true opinions. The whole thing could become quite surreal with a "computerised" debate going on in one part of the Forum, and a parallel debate elsewhere involving the real members, but each saying slightly different things, whilst the software attempted to catch up with any revised positions after a lag.
> 
> Given this potential difficulty, it might be sensible to ban all existing members from uttering another word on certain subjects, and simply hand the job over to the computer software to make the best of their previous comments. Such members henceforth may only opine on new matters. It should lead to lot neater discussion, with much greater efficiency.


It reminds me of that line from a Moliere play by some culture-mad aristocrats: 'And as for *living*, the servants can do that for us!'


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

> Contemporary "Art" music... WTF?!? Someone please help!


No, don't help him! Let him drown!


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

hreichgott said:


> Agree with what joen_cph and violadude and PetrB have said above, if you are interested in learning what it is people love about contemporary music, try making a ladder from known to unknown, instead of just jumping into the deep end. Chronology is one way to make a ladder, starting from a piece written in 1895 let's say, then listening to one from 1896 and onward into the 20th century; you can also go by who taught whom, or who was influenced by whom. There are some composers whose careers spanned major changes in music, and listening to their works from early to late is quite illuminating: Schoenberg, Debussy.
> 
> Here's what most contemporary music won't do: it won't reach out, grab you by the collar and force you to feel something, in the manner of Tchaikovsky or Rachmaninoff. For some people, "beautiful" or "expressive" only means that kind of over-the-top enforced emotion. Contemporary music doesn't do that much. But then, neither does Bach.


I feel things when I listen to contemporary music, any music.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

science said:


> I'm gonna expand on that:
> 
> These guys actively hate you, actively hate me, hate people like us. You're either with them or against them. You've got to take a side, and if you won't, they spend hours figuring out smarmy or snarky things to say to humiliate us for not being sufficiently with them.
> 
> ...


Dang, science… what happened to your logic? It seems to have run away with emotion. I never saw any of these vicious things around here. Maybe a little light boxing, but come on now… this is a forum.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

hreichgott said:


> Here's what most contemporary music won't do: it won't reach out, grab you by the collar and force you to feel something, in the manner of Tchaikovsky or Rachmaninoff. For some people, "beautiful" or "expressive" only means that kind of over-the-top enforced emotion. Contemporary music doesn't do that much. *But then, neither does Bach.*


_Bingo! ... and Brava!_


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## Guest (Mar 20, 2014)

It's impressive that 8 pages of debate can be generated by an OP who doesn't come back to elaborate, retort, confirm. That's fine, of course; no obligation. But it then lends itself to folks wandering off on familiar rails without the OP coming back to say "No, not exactly, what I meant was..." or, "Yes, precisely, and furthermore..."

And then there's the basic idea that if we answer the OP's question, couldn't s/he come back and answer ours?


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

some guy said:


> No.
> 
> No.
> 
> ...


Perhaps our experiences have been somehow different.


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## rrudolph (Sep 15, 2011)

starry said:


> Or...he can _help himself_ by taking time with the music, rather than expecting some golden key to suddenly open it up.


Such a golden key exists. It is the entire body of work produced by Arnold Schoenberg taken as a whole. Study that and you should understand how the aesthetic of western music developed from the tension-resolution concepts of the past to *also* include non-resolving dissonances (it's important to see this as an additive process rather than a rejection of all that went before). This development (also heard in some of the later music of Scriabin to some extent as well as some other lesser known composers) paved the way for virtually everything that was to follow, whether the music was serially based or not.


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## dgee (Sep 26, 2013)

rrudolph said:


> Such a golden key exists. It is the entire body of work produced by Arnold Schoenberg taken as a whole. Study that and you should understand how the aesthetic of western music developed from the tension-resolution concepts of the past to *also* include non-resolving dissonances (it's important to see this as an additive process rather than a rejection of all that went before). This development (also heard in some of the later music of Scriabin to some extent as well as some other lesser known composers) paved the way for virtually everything that was to follow, whether the music was serially based or not.


Not sure it's a golden key but coming to grips with freedom from consonance is a good start to opening your mind to music and you've put it beautifully!


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

I can understand how some prefer restraint and a more subtle approach, I do too, sometimes... but I like the whole range of things... from the most cold and detached music to the most fiery and passionate.... That whole thing that romantic music is over-the-top enforced emotion is rather generalizing and an over-the-top statement itself. You're missing out if you can't let go and surrender to the passion and emotion of music.


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## dgee (Sep 26, 2013)

DeepR said:


> You're missing out if you can't let go and surrender to the passion and emotion of music.


I'm also confused about why people don't latch on to the expressive power of Schoenberg, Berg, Dallapicolla etc!


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

rrudolph said:


> Such a golden key exists. It is the entire body of work produced by Arnold Schoenberg taken as a whole. Study that and you should understand how the aesthetic of western music developed from the tension-resolution concepts of the past to *also* include non-resolving dissonances (it's important to see this as an additive process rather than a rejection of all that went before). This development (also heard in some of the later music of Scriabin to some extent as well as some other lesser known composers) paved the way for virtually everything that was to follow, whether the music was serially based or not.


Not a 'golden' key I think; mild steel maybe. Schoenberg's 'path' is interesting to follow, but it's just one of them. Stravinsky's is interesting too, and it's quite different. So is Bartók's. Those are just some of the few I know about. Composers who have made the turn at the turn of the 21st Century must be on paths too (duh), have any been charted?


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

dgee said:


> I'm also confused about why people don't latch on to the expressive power of Schoenberg, Berg, Dallapicolla etc!


I said it before, and I shall say it againeth… Schoenberg's quartets are some of the most powerfully expressive pieces in the genre.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

DeepR said:


> I can understand how some prefer restraint and a more subtle approach, I do too, sometimes... but I like the whole range of things... from the most cold and detached music to the most fiery and passionate.... That whole thing that romantic music is over-the-top enforced emotion is rather generalizing and an over-the-top statement itself. You're missing out if you can't let go and surrender to the passion and emotion of music.


There _are_ both passion and 'emotion' in much later music, but I must say the romantics are for many the first step in recognizing that music does have those qualities, and I will also go a bit out on a limb and say the romantics are also, as a group, the most _obvious_ in that their works are clearly 'about' emotion -- not that a long symphonic work by Brahms is exactly that, as testified to the fact many who love Beethoven and Tchaikovsky have "a hard time" getting into Brahms  Mahler is loaded in the passion and emotion department, yet it seems many "have trouble" getting into Mahler.

So, perhaps that most overt passion and emotion is, most typically, for the young or the neophyte listener? Some alleged fans of common practice music don't "get" or appreciate Mozart, and my guess is again that the music there is often less overtly passionate and emotional, while to many, it is deeply passionate and emotional.

There is music more plainly "about music:" (Bach, Mozart, Brahms, Stravinsky, etc.) It is about music more than it might be "about" anything else. In this sort of music, too, one can find there is passion, and if the listener would _allow_ themselves the experience _without waiting for the most overt of musical styles and gestures to which they are accustomed and tend to seek in new works, as a sort of repetition of a same or similar experience,_ then that listener might find similar depths in, say, Mozart, Bach, Webern or Stravinsky. As it stands for many for whom newer music is a hurdle, their accompanying sets of expectations are very much in the way.

Until a time when those souls hungry for the more overt, broad, or "obvious" traits in the romantic and early music 'give it up' -- at least a bit, (or some would say, musically mature) they will not find what they are looking for, or mistakenly think is missing, in works unlike what they already listen to.

The two aria movements of Stravinsky's _violin concerto_ are two deeply moving and highly emotional movements, imo, as emotional as the most "expressive" Handel or Beethoven. Yes, they are neoclassical, and by the classical aesthetic, more restrained than a middle Schumann symphony, Bruckner, Grieg, Tchaikovsky, etc. But this later music so many seem to have so much "trouble" with is just as rich in passion and emotion as a great deal of the music which came before it. (Try Milhaud's _Les Choéphores_, or Stravinsky's _Oedipus Rex,_ or any number of early and middle 20th century works before jumping in at the later end of the spectrum, for example.

Some listeners will want to stay resoundingly within the range of baroque to classical, as a musical _and sentimental_ place which they most prefer to visit, revisit, and repeatedly go. If that is the case, I really question what amounts to a lament or whine coming, from those with that disposition, that later music does not do the same things in the same way as earlier music does.

Believe it or not, there are tens of thousands of listeners who do love the earlier musics who do find both passion and emotion in later modern and contemporary music, and it is really _not in question_ that those thousands of listeners are eccentric, or wrong.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

KYGray said:


> I've been an avid listener of the classic masters (Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Wagner, et al) for decades and I always find something new and inspiring whenever I listen. Recently I have tried to get into some of the contemporary composers such as Salonen, Cage, Crumb and others. I must admit, quite frankly, I just don't get it. Am I missing something? At what point did composers leave the concepts of melody, harmony, rhythm, and tonality completely behind and more importantly, why? At one time I considered myself a fairly sophisticated listener, but after trying to sit through some of the works of these supposed contemporary musical geniuses I feel a little shallow. Could someone please explain to me what theses composers are trying to do and why they have left the concept of expressive beauty through music behind? Is it me or am I just 150 years behind the rest of the music world?
> 
> As always,
> KYGray


You are not alone. Welcome to TC by the way, and please don't feel discouraged if people point the finger at you for being trolling.

Modern folks are basically there to be different. They feel the past have exhausted the naturally beautiful aesthetics and modern stuff is about quite the opposite. With that in mind, it might help...or maybe not.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

ArtMusic said:


> Modern folks are basically there to be different. They feel the past have exhausted the naturally beautiful aesthetics and modern stuff is about quite the opposite. With that in mind, it might help...or maybe not.


I'm thinking the above is one guy's opinion and a seriously huge load of cobnuts 'n' codswollop. I mean, _"... there to be different?"_ What and who are those "modern folks," anyway? Are they a group of eleven year-olds, or a group of not yet mature high-school or early college age folks who are in line to get eccentric haircuts just to _'make themselves different?'_

Of course, that is just one other guy's opinion. With that in mind, it might help...or maybe not


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

PetrB said:


> I'm thinking the above is one guy's opinion and a seriously huge load of cobnuts 'n' codswollop. I mean, _"... there to be different?"_ What and who are those "modern folks," anyway? Are they a group of eleven year-olds, or a group of not yet mature high-school or early college age folks who are in line to get tattoos just to _'make themselves different?'_
> 
> Of course, that is just one other guy's opinion. With that in mind, it might help...or maybe not


Maybe not then.


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## dgee (Sep 26, 2013)

Seriously incoherent! I think you'll find people just like different music


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## rrudolph (Sep 15, 2011)

Ukko said:


> Not a 'golden' key I think; mild steel maybe. Schoenberg's 'path' is interesting to follow, but it's just one of them. Stravinsky's is interesting too, and it's quite different. So is Bartók's. Those are just some of the few I know about.


When I try to sound smart and be brief, I sometimes end up being unclear (this can be expected because my natural tendencies are to be neither smart nor brief). What I was trying to say is that the emancipation of dissonance paved the way for the styles of the 20th century and the progression of the works of Schoenberg taken as a whole provide a good example of that process. Had Schoenberg never existed, Stravinsky and Bartok may very well have written the same music that they actually did write, but had dissonance never been liberated they could not have written that same music. Although Schoenberg frequently gets the credit (or the blame, depending on your point of view) for the introduction of dissonance used in a way that does not serve traditional harmonic functions, it's pretty clear that this development was "in the air" for the first few years of the twentieth century and that if there was no Schoenberg it still would have happened. Schoenberg himself recognized that inevitability.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

ArtMusic said:


> Modern folks are basically there to be different. They feel the past have exhausted the naturally beautiful aesthetics and modern stuff is about quite the opposite. With that in mind, it might help...or maybe not.


The composers who aren't there to be different tend to be the ones we don't hear about much.


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## Guest (Mar 21, 2014)

ArtMusic said:


> Modern folks are basically there to be different. They feel the past have exhausted the naturally beautiful aesthetics and modern stuff is about quite the opposite.


No.

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


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## contra7 (Oct 26, 2010)

KYGray said:


> I've been an avid listener of the classic masters (Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Wagner, et al) for decades and I always find something new and inspiring whenever I listen. Recently I have tried to get into some of the contemporary composers such as Salonen, Cage, Crumb and others. I must admit, quite frankly, I just don't get it. Am I missing something? At what point did composers leave the concepts of melody, harmony, rhythm, and tonality completely behind and more importantly, why? At one time I considered myself a fairly sophisticated listener, but after trying to sit through some of the works of these supposed contemporary musical geniuses I feel a little shallow. Could someone please explain to me what theses composers are trying to do and why they have left the concept of expressive beauty through music behind? Is it me or am I just 150 years behind the rest of the music world?
> 
> As always,
> KYGray


Here's an idea! Relax, get _high_, put your earphones on, play a contemporary classical piece (I suggest maby Peter Eötvös' Violin concerto "DoReMi") and close your eyes. I assure you that you'll get into it and find out how good it is.


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## Piwikiwi (Apr 1, 2011)

dgee said:


> Not sure it's a golden key but coming to grips with freedom from consonance is a good start to opening your mind to music and you've put it beautifully!


The structure of modern music is the greatest barrier for me when listening to "modern" music. I don't struggle with the dissonances but I need to listen to a piece a lot before I get it.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

rrudolph said:


> When I try to sound smart and be brief, I sometimes end up being unclear (this can be expected because my natural tendencies are to be neither smart nor brief). What I was trying to say is that the emancipation of dissonance paved the way for the styles of the 20th century and the progression of the works of Schoenberg taken as a whole provide a good example of that process. Had Schoenberg never existed, Stravinsky and Bartok may very well have written the same music that they actually did write, but had dissonance never been liberated they could not have written that same music. Although Schoenberg frequently gets the credit (or the blame, depending on your point of view) for the introduction of dissonance used in a way that does not serve traditional harmonic functions, it's pretty clear that this development was "in the air" for the first few years of the twentieth century and that if there was no Schoenberg it still would have happened. Schoenberg himself recognized that inevitability.


Well done, sir. I ditty-bopped down an entirely different 'path', based on my misinterpretation of your introductory post. I don't know about Stravinsky, but Bartók took a good look at Schoenberg's music, and inhaled some ideas. After I posted my sidetracking response I wished I had mentioned Reger and Mahler too, because they were also among the explorers. Reger's exploration was aborted by death, shortly after he began... well, I don't know what musicologists call it. I think he had found a way to make his musical pathway (this metaphor is getting pretty cumbersome) smoother going.

Anyway, This 'pathway' thing looks interesting. If I can get up the gumption I'll do some more reading - if I can locate tomes sufficiently jargon-free.

:tiphat:


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

rrudolph said:


> Although *Schoenberg frequently gets the credit (or the blame*, depending on your point of view) for the introduction of dissonance used in a way that does not serve traditional harmonic functions, it's pretty clear that this development was "in the air" for the first few years of the twentieth century and that if there was no Schoenberg it still would have happened. Schoenberg himself recognized that inevitability.


True, true, but unfairly in both cases. Debussy and others had been pointing in this direction for some time. It's just that Schoenberg has the cache of being the "difficult" composer because his music is more dense. Intriguingly, one book on Modern Music published in the mid-20th century called Schoenberg's "free atonal/expressionist" period his "Impressionist" period, suggesting that there really wasn't all that much of a difference in technique despite the clear differences in aesthetic between the Second Viennese School and their contemporaries.

Remember, too, that the 12-tone method and its classicizing tendencies developed at the same time as Neoclassicism. I predict that future music histories (after that stupid term "atonal" stops being used as if it meant something) will see one modernist path rather than two.


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