# Some "Wackiest" Musicology Ideas You Have Come Across



## Rapide (Oct 11, 2011)

By that I mean theory that are most unlikely to be true, not just based on your own understanding or perception of things but perhaps more importantly, that it has not been proven.

Let me start:

_The cello suites of J. S. Bach were not composed by him but by his wife Anna Magdalena Bach. _ :lol:

_Mozart, his wife and his student Süssmayr were a ménage à trois _


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Stuff like _This work was clearly written in anticipation of the horrors of World War II_.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Can we mention numerological studies of Bach, or is there a separate thread for that?


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## Joris (Jan 13, 2013)

"[Beethoven's 9th] finally explodes in the throttling murderous rage of a rapist incapable of attaining release"

Susan McClary, 1987


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Joris said:


> "[Beethoven's 9th] finally explodes in the throttling murderous rage of a rapist incapable of attaining release"


Letter from Beethoven to Schindler, 1824: "Check out what I do at the transition to the recap in my new symphony. That'll give lady musicologists in the future something to talk about, and maybe even stoke their fantasies a bit!"


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

I heard a theory that the Orchestra Suite no. 2 by Bach was not intended for flute and orchestra, but actually *oboe *and orchestra.

Preposterous! :tiphat:


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> I heard a theory that the Orchestra Suite no. 2 by Bach was not intended for flute and orchestra, but actually *oboe *and orchestra.


And that was because his penny whistle player had died.

Fortunately, with Bach the beauty lies mainly in the structure, so you can play his work on any instrument and it still sounds good.


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## Rapide (Oct 11, 2011)

KenOC said:


> Stuff like _This work was clearly written in anticipation of the horrors of World War II_.


What - like Wagner's opera _Rienzi_?! :lol:


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## Guest (Sep 1, 2013)

Viola players are thick! well maybe not PC but undoubtedly correct.


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

So apparently Wagner didn't rip off Lord of the Rings like I always thought


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## Garlic (May 3, 2013)

Schoenberg started writing atonal music because he was incapable of writing good tunes (yes, I have heard this, from several different people)

Haydn actually wrote some/all of Mozart and Beethoven's music (I believe there's a thread on this in the archives)

Something about how the negative psychic energy inherent in Wagner's music will cause you to hate Jews (maybe a caricature of the actual argument, but not far off)


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Stuff like _This work was clearly written in anticipation of the horrors of World War II_.


Briliant! Thank you very much


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Joris said:


> "[Beethoven's 9th] finally explodes in the throttling murderous rage of a rapist incapable of attaining release"
> 
> Susan McClary, 1987


Now that the inimitable and more than dubious Ms McClary has been mentioned, I believe it is she who also has gone on at length about most of Schubert expressing a profound constipation, gastric pain, and urgently needing to take a ____.

Well, got nothing to say, really, and selling yourself on the street, as it were, ya gotta have a gimmick ;-)


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Blancrocher said:


> Can we mention numerological studies of Bach, or is there a separate thread for that?


NO! 
You _MUST_ at the least tie Bach in with the Kabbalah, the Quadrivium, and Newtonian physics if you are to give that any _meaningful_ weight


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Garlic said:


> Schoenberg started writing atonal music because he was incapable of writing good tunes (yes, I have heard this, from several different people)


I've heard people say he started writing atonal music because he was tone deaf. :lol:

Of course, he had perfect pitch.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Leonard Bernstein said a lot of really dumb things about Mahler, but this one just baffles me: _Even if he had lived, Mahler could not have finished the Tenth Symphony, because he had already said everything in the Ninth._

What???


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

McClary is my favourite, but there's more where she came from.

The homoerotic intent of four-hand piano pieces by Schubert, for example.

Again, homoeroticism in Schubert: parallel thirds.

On a somewhat different note, there's the Schillinger System of course. Not that I am against the idea in principle, but the actual working out is a bit out there. Particularly when he starts pointing out how Bach and Beethoven erred in some of their compositions, and how his method would have improved upon them.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Mahlerian said:


> Of course, he had perfect pitch.


But how is that?, he perceived all the 12 tones as _equal_!. ba dum tss 

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I hate that idea about composers translating linearly and literally the events of their personal lives into their music.
Bernstein's comment about form in Beethoven. He said that Beethoven was a dreadful composer in every aspect except form.


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## Jobis (Jun 13, 2013)

Anyone who accuses any post-1900s composer as being _'dissonant for the sake of sounding modern'_


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## Garlic (May 3, 2013)

On a somewhat related note, "no one really likes X, they're just pretending in order to look hip/sophisticated/intelligent/avant garde"

Another one I've heard multiple times from multiple people, even applied to composers like Bartok and Stravinsky.

It may be different in some circles but in mine there is zero social cachet attached to liking weird music.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Ramako said:


> McClary is my favourite


She's the gift that keeps on giving, it's true. However, I'll confess I don't really like Charles Rosen's response to her claim about Beethoven's 9th.



> The phrase about the murderous rage of the rapist has since been withdrawn [as noted above], which indicates that McClary realized it posed a problem, but it has the great merit of recognizing that something extraordinary is taking place here, and McClary's metaphor of sexual violence is not a bad way to describe it. The difficulty is that all metaphors oversimplify, like those entertaining little stories that music critics in the nineteenth century used to invent about works of music for an audience whose musical literacy was not too well developed. I do not, myself, find the cadence frustrated or dammed up in any constricting sense, but only given a slightly deviant movement which briefly postpones total fulfillment.
> 
> To continue the sexual imagery, I cannot think that the rapist incapable of attaining release is an adequate analogue, but I hear the passage as if Beethoven had found a way of making an orgasm last for sixteen bars. What causes the passage to be so shocking, indeed, is the power of sustaining over such a long phrase what we expect as a brief explosion. To McClary's credit, it should be said that some kind of metaphorical description is called for, and even necessary, but I should like to suggest that none will be satisfactory or definitive.


I revere Rosen's work in general, but this is dreck!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_McClary


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

The idea since the 1970s that ethnomusicology somehow means musical anthropology. Total crap.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Music isn't music unless it contains one or more of the following:

A melody that I can sing in the shower
an un-tampered with major or minor chord either at the end or at the beginning
a reference to a musical form developed between 1750 and 1827
Tones from a composer that was not a Nazi, Communist, Rastafarian or otherwise
Harmonies that I can figure out on my guitar without having to think too hard about it
A rhythm that I can play the stomach drums to...in the shower
EPIC CLIMAXES OF EPICNESS


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

violadude said:


> Music isn't music unless it contains one or more of the following:
> 
> A melody that I can sing in the shower
> an un-tampered with major or minor chord either at the end or at the beginning
> ...


But VD, those epic climaxes are what I live for  if you're not gonna put one in your piece, is it really even worth it?


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

Joris said:


> "[Beethoven's 9th] finally explodes in the throttling murderous rage of a rapist incapable of attaining release"
> 
> Susan McClary, 1987


......


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## Guest (Sep 1, 2013)

BurningDesire said:


> But VD, those epic climaxes are what I live for  if you're not gonna put one in your piece, is it really even worth it?


Epic climaxes and VD ??really BD remember there are children on TC


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

Andante said:


> Epic climaxes and VD ??really BD remember there are children on TC


As somebody who enjoys indulging in that kind of humor, I must say that was not my intent at all. But now that you bring it up that is pretty funny. Maybe I should pretend I was actually being more clever than I really was.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

BurningDesire said:


> As somebody who enjoys indulging in that kind of humor, I must say that was not my intent at all. But now that you bring it up that is pretty funny. Maybe I should pretend I was actually being more clever than I really was.


I'm sure Ziggy would have had something to say about that, that is if whole chunks of what Ziggy thought had not since been tossed out as brilliant first stabs in a new discipline


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

BurningDesire said:


>


That's totally a cartoon depiction of Stravinsky, as I've pointed out elsewhere.


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

PetrB said:


> I'm sure Ziggy would have had something to say about that, that is if whole chunks of what Ziggy thought had not since been tossed out as brilliant first stabs in a new discipline


Ziggy Stardust?

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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

BurningDesire said:


> Ziggy Stardust?


I thought he said Zippy.... .............................


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## david johnson (Jun 25, 2007)

back during the 80s some held that Beethoven was a black man.


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## Rapide (Oct 11, 2011)

david johnson said:


> back during the 80s some held that Beethoven was a black man.


 You just made that up, right? :lol: Seriously?


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## Guest (Sep 2, 2013)

Rapide said:


> You just made that up, right? :lol: Seriously?


No, I had heard that too some years ago.
http://open.salon.com/blog/ronp01/2009/09/27/the_african_heritage_of_ludwig_van_beethoven


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

The _Goldberg Variations_ were composed to help Count Goldberg fall asleep when performed - my teacher said that was all a story by Bach's biographer. Bach himself never received a commissioned and never used the title "Goldberg" for publication.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

ArtMusic said:


> The _Goldberg Variations_ were composed to help Count Goldberg fall asleep when performed - my teacher said that was all a story by Bach's biographer. Bach himself never received a commissioned and never used the title "Goldberg" for publication.


And I suppose it's also not true that Rosalyn Tureck was hired for the performance?


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

If You'd done You research You would know that Goldberg was no royalty, but a low life harpsichordist and composer! Who might well have been the first performer of the piece, Goldberg was a teenager at the time of publication, but is said a quite skilled performer, the man with the insomnia to be cured by the variations was one "Count Kaiserling"...

This is a good story even if it's not academically accurate! 

/ptr


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

ptr said:


> This is a good story even if it's not academically accurate!
> 
> /ptr


Also, the work *was* supposedly commissioned and handsomely paid for. Per Forkel, "Bach was perhaps never so rewarded for one of his works as for this. The Count presented him with a golden goblet filled with 100 louis-d'or."

BTW the entire story -- Goldberg, Kaiserling, insomnia, and all the rest -- may be a fabrication. The only account comes from Forkel, who wrote in 1802, many years after the fact. There are no supporting accounts or other evidence. The title page of the "Aria with Diverse Variations" has no dedication.


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## Rapide (Oct 11, 2011)

KenOC said:


> Also, the work *was* supposedly commissioned and handsomely paid for. Per Forkel, "Bach was perhaps never so rewarded for one of his works as for this. The Count presented him with a golden goblet filled with 100 louis-d'or."
> 
> BTW the entire story -- Goldberg, Kaiserling, insomnia, and all the rest -- may be a fabrication. The only account comes from Forkel, who wrote in 1802, many years after the fact. There are no supporting accounts or other evidence. The title page of the "Aria with Diverse Variations" has no dedication.


Just a Romantic story to spice up Bach's life story. Bach had a very dull professional life from a biographical point of view - a local composer, never travelled abroad, spent almost three decades working for ecclesiastical institutions, hardly published much etc. etc.

But not as silly as some professor of music suggesting the six cello suites were composed by his (second) wife!


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Rapide said:


> But not as silly as some professor of music suggesting the six cello suites were composed by his (second) wife!


A few years ago some revisionist feminist historian was claiming that Einstein's wife was primarily responsible for the special theory of relativity...


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

If Beethoven was black, I doubt many people would have a problem with it nowadays. My problem with the claim is that I think its dubious, and that I think that claim is coming from its own dishonest agenda. Plus alot of the "proof" is pretty absurd. So skin-color/ethnic ancestry automatically determines musical habits? And the fact that he was really imaginative and innovative is somehow more proof of his supposed skin-color? Who's the racist now?


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## Rapide (Oct 11, 2011)

They say Shostakovich was Japanese ....


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

KenOC said:


> A few years ago some revisionist feminist historian was claiming that Einstein's wife was primarily responsible for the special theory of relativity...


It is not impossible that AE's first wife Mileva (Marić) was an inspiration, but it's impossible to quantify just how much of her ideas spurred him, but she was for the time a brilliant mathematician!



Rapide said:


> They say Shostakovich was Japanese ....


On this side of irony, it would be interesting to know who "They" are?  .. I think his paternal Polish ancestry is spinning in their compost heap by the bare thought...

/ptr


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

aleazk said:


> But how is that?, he perceived all the 12 tones as _equal_!. ba dum tss


Post of the week.

I'll be back on Sunday.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

science said:


> Post of the week.
> 
> I'll be back on Sunday.


When I'm inspired, I rock.


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

Here's a fun one: some time in the early twentieth century, tonality died.

Among the first people to spread this myth was Webern, who proclaimed in the 1930s: "For the last quarter of a century, major and minor have no longer existed! Only, most people still do not know." Of course Webern knew perfectly well that major and minor hadn't gone anywhere, that there was plenty of tonal music still being written. But like every other musicologist who's bought into this, Webern had to rationalize why that sort of music didn't really count.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Even Debussy attacked common tonality: "...and as for that idiotic thing called the perfect triad, it's only a habit, like going to a café."


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## ahammel (Oct 10, 2012)

"To somebody who has been trained in psychoanalysis, it's obvious that this composer suffered from the Oedipus complex!"

"Which composer?"

"Oh, any of them."


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## hreichgott (Dec 31, 2012)

Not musicology but a pretty good collection of short stories. Since you brought up the idea


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

hreichgott said:


> Not musicology but a pretty good collection of short stories. Since you brought up the idea
> View attachment 24117


Well I'm sure Martin Luther Kind and Nelson Mandela were one-sixteenth white, so there!


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