# What defines the value of a work of art?.



## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Suppose a work of art is finished by its author. What defines its value?. It's society?. It's the author?. It's the innovation contained in the work?. It's meaningful to ask this question?.

I think that almost all of the hot discussions here are ultimately related with this question. So, why don't you state clearly once for all _your view_ on this?, instead of tons of hidden logical fallacies to try to give to your view an objective meaning.


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## mud (May 17, 2012)

Define value...


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

The audience.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

aleazk said:


> So, why don't you state clearly once for all _your view_ on this?, instead of tons of hidden logical fallacies to try to give to your view an objective meaning.


So why don't *you* define your terms a bit to facilitate discussion?


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## samurai (Apr 22, 2011)

Its lasting power--longevity--from one generation of listeners to the next.


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## Stargazer (Nov 9, 2011)

The people with the money to buy it do


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> The audience.


bluh bluh.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Nothing. Its value is never defined.


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## brianwalker (Dec 9, 2011)

Harmonic "progress" of course! Exploration in sound and the smashing of old musical conventions! The more unconventional it is, the better. I mean, look at Beethoven's Eroica? Revolutionary, unlike any symphony prior to it. Rheingold? The prelude was something no one dared to do before. Tristan und Isolde? Radical, just radical. Mahler's symphonies? Went where no symphony has ever gone before. Haydn? Invented the symphony and the string quartet essentially; he broke many conventions so he must have been despised by his contemporary audience. Liszt? His modulations were the precursor to Wagner and Schoenberg. Debussy? Responsible for the whole tone scale; genius, unrivaled genius. Schoenberg? One of the greatest geniuses of all time, if not the greatest, and Webern too; Berg is just a little to conservative for my taste. 

Conservative composers like Verdi, Brahms, Mozart, Ravel, Puccini, and Stravinsky during his neo-classical phase are worthless.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

brianwalker said:


> Harmonic "progress" of course! Exploration in sound and the smashing of old musical conventions! The more unconventional it is, the better. I mean, look at Beethoven's Eroica? Revolutionary, unlike any symphony prior to it. Rheingold? The prelude was something no one dared to do before. Tristan und Isolde? Radical, just radical. Mahler's symphonies? Went where no symphony has ever gone before. Haydn? Invented the symphony and the string quartet essentially; he broke many conventions so he must have been despised by his contemporary audience. Liszt? His modulations were the precursor to Wagner and Schoenberg. Debussy? Responsible for the whole tone scale; genius, unrivaled genius. Schoenberg? One of the greatest geniuses of all time, if not the greatest, and Webern too; Berg is just a little to conservative for my taste.
> 
> Conservative composers like Verdi, Brahms, Mozart, Ravel, Puccini, and Stravinsky during his neo-classical phase are worthless.


Well, hopefully you're purchasing the straw for these men because I have relatives in agriculture.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

brianwalker said:


> Conservative composers like Verdi, Brahms, Mozart, Ravel, Puccini, and Stravinsky during his neo-classical phase are worthless.


Uh, you forgot to include Bach. :lol:


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Dunno is the short answer.

There is *posterity*, but many composers didn't think of that, they just wrote for the moment (eg. to fulfil some specific commission, make a bit of cash).

There is *popularity, *but many composers had works that we hardly know now that where very popular during their lifetimes, which have been replaced in the repertoire today that are far more popular. Or they where forgotten or undervalued for ages, yet their music is now seen as timeless.

There is* innovation and technical novelty *but in some cases at least, these things touted as being 'the future' and the best things since sliced bread did not live up in reality to fulfil those dreams.

I suppose what I'm interested in a lot, maybe as much as the music itself, is its historical context and the lives of the composers. So its connected with what aims they where trying to achieve. So there is no easy answer to these types of things. I try to take each composer on a case by case basis.

But most of all value for me is personal, what I value is connected to my enjoyment of it. There is no use in certain composers as being great innovators, I may recognise them as being that, but so what? Ultimately value is connected to our own ideologies, biases and all that. _Intersubjectivity_, which is like a consensus of subjective opionions, is I think a good thing to bear in mind here too.


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## BurningDesire (Jul 15, 2012)

mehhhhhhhhh


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## Guest (Oct 25, 2012)

aleazk said:


> What defines its value?


It has more than one 'value'. It has values for the creator. It has potential values for a potential audience. It has potential values for the salesman who markets it. Each of these values may use different currencies, though where the response of the audience overlaps with the intent of the creator, the currencies may be the same.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Question: Value to whom? To the composer? To the risk-taking impresario? To the players? To society as a whole? To an amorphous "posterity"? To you? To me? The question of value is meaningless without being a lot more specific.


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## Guest (Oct 25, 2012)

BurningDesire said:


> mehhhhhhhhh





BurningDesire said:


> bluh bluh.


Can I offer you something for the pain?


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## Guest (Oct 25, 2012)

brianwalker said:


> Harmonic "progress" of course! Exploration in sound and the smashing of old musical conventions! The more unconventional it is, the better. I mean, look at Beethoven's Eroica? Revolutionary, unlike any symphony prior to it. Rheingold? The prelude was something no one dared to do before. Tristan und Isolde? Radical, just radical. Mahler's symphonies? Went where no symphony has ever gone before. Haydn? Invented the symphony and the string quartet essentially; he broke many conventions so he must have been despised by his contemporary audience. Liszt? His modulations were the precursor to Wagner and Schoenberg. Debussy? Responsible for the whole tone scale; genius, unrivaled genius. Schoenberg? One of the greatest geniuses of all time, if not the greatest, and Webern too; Berg is just a little to conservative for my taste.
> 
> Conservative composers like Verdi, Brahms, Mozart, Ravel, Puccini, and Stravinsky during his neo-classical phase are worthless.


Since there is no 'Not like' button, I guess I'll just have to post my disapproval, which I assume I'm entitled to do without explanation in the same way that I can 'click' my approval also without explanation? No? Oh, alright then.

I disapprove of the idea that the destructive "smashing of old musical conventions" is of value. Call me old and conventional if you will! (But please brian, don't give me a long, long, long lecture).


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

MacLeod said:


> Since there is no 'Not like' button, I guess I'll just have to post my disapproval, which I assume I'm entitled to do without explanation in the same way that I can 'click' my approval also without explanation? No? Oh, alright then.
> 
> I disapprove of the idea that the destructive "smashing of old musical conventions" is of value. Call me old and conventional if you will! (But please brian, don't give me a long, long, long lecture).


He was being sarcastic. He intended to make fun of people who like that "smashing" music.


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## Guest (Oct 25, 2012)

science said:


> He was being sarcastic. He intended to make fun of people who like that "smashing" music.


Perhaps you're right. I must say that I find brianwalker one of the least comprehensible posters, so I wouldn't know what he wants to say.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

MacLeod said:


> Perhaps you're right. I must say that I find brianwalker one of the least comprehensible posters, so I wouldn't know what he wants to say.


It's not all that complicated. He's got a theory that seems to relate tonality to theistic order. It's roughly the same as millionrainbows' theory, multiplied by negative one. They agree, but one approves and the other disapproves.


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## Guest (Oct 25, 2012)

science said:


> It's not all that complicated. He's got a theory that seems to relate tonality to theistic order. It's roughly the same as millionrainbows' theory, multiplied by negative one. They agree, but one approves and the other disapproves.


But it is incredibly long-winded. I suppose he doesn't worry about convincing the lazy, like me. Thanks for the short version!


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

Short answer: its audience. Value is what enjoyment the audience gets out of consuming the art and is prepaid to pay for it, hence creating a market for it. It might well be a small market limited to just one listener who enjoys it.


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

science said:


> Nothing. Its value is never defined.


Why are you willing to pay for the few thousand of CDs you own? They mean no value to you? I am using the ordinary meaning of the word value.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

The thing is, this is a great question because it gets behind the big conflict going on right now (which has been going on for months, really: someguy, millionrainbows, burningdesire, COAG versus HarpsichordConcerto, brianwalker, SLGO) over the value of most of the music of the past eighty years or so. 

It is impossible to objectively judge the music without objectively judging the people who like or do not like it.

That's the thing. The whole problem. 

If I post something that says (in however many fancy words) that Schoenberg objectively sucks, the inescapable conclusion is that his fans are idiots. 

If I post something that says (in however many fancy words) that Schoenberg is objectively awesome, the inescapable conclusion is that people who don't like his music are idiots. 

Perhaps I would post such a diatribe innocently, merely intending to defend my own right to not/like some kind of music. But no matter my intentions, if I declare that I know the objective truth about the music, then I declare that I know the objective truth about people depending on their response to it. 

Objective evaluation of the music cannot exist without objective evaluation of the music's fans. 

We KNOW music is ultimately subjective. There are some quibbles, such as that I objectively can't play the violin well. But that has to do with how well I can match an expected result, not with the quality of the music that I would be attempting to play. Another would be that it is possible to describe music, to say how innovative it is, or whatever, but that does not get us to a value judgment yet, until we declare that innovation is either good or not. Leaving aside such distractions, we know music is subjective. 

When we pretend it is objective, we do so precisely and solely in order to condemn people who do not like the same music we like. Perhaps they're uncool, perhaps they're gauche, whatever. Whether we do so as hipsters or as aristocrats, the sole and entire point of creating (that is, faking) objective evaluations of music is to create in-group and out-group distinctions. You like what we like, or we will make you suffer for it. 

I'm really, deeply exhausted from these unending debates; and I think many other non-combatants must be too. The site, talkclassical, has explicitly declared that we're all welcome here, so we'll have to accept each other's presence. Some of us aren't going to like Boulez or Stockhausen, some of us are. It's not that one group is inferior to another, it's just human difference.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Why are you willing to pay for the few thousand of CDs you own? They mean no value to you? I am using the ordinary meaning of the word value.


I don't know what the ordinary meaning is. Anyway, sure, they have value to me. That's subjective. A definition is (meant to be) objective.


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

science said:


> The thing is, this is a great question because it gets behind the big conflict going on right now (which has been going on for months, really: someguy, millionrainbows, burningdesire, COAG versus HarpsichordConcerto, brianwalker, SLGO) over the value of most of the music of the past eighty years or so.
> 
> It is impossible to objectively judge the music without objectively judging the people who like or do not like it.
> 
> ...


I was discussing about value attached to art.

But as for your lengthy post, what _value_ does that bring to this thread?


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> I was discussing about value attached to art.
> 
> But as for your lengthy post, what _value_ does that bring to this thread?


OK, you want to play games, that's fine. I acknowledge your post.


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## mud (May 17, 2012)

I place a higher "social value" on media that has a creative commons license, because it can be freely shared or incorporated into derivative works of art. Otherwise, we can only write or talk about it...


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## Guest (Oct 25, 2012)

MacLeod said:


> I disapprove of the idea that the destructive "smashing of old musical conventions" is of value. Call me old and conventional if you will! (But please brian, don't give me a long, long, long lecture).


Perhaps I should acknowledge that the smashing of old musical conventions may well be the value (or purpose) which an artist attaches to their work. But I don't think that was what aleazk was asking.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

MacLeod said:


> Perhaps I should acknowledge that the smashing of old musical conventions may well be the value (or purpose) which an artist attaches to their work. But I don't think that was what aleazk was asking.


I think there was a time when the aristocratic values were crumbling and democratic or populist ideas were really taking hold among the artists of Europe, when talk about smashing old conventions really motivated people, really spoke to something that mattered to them viscerally.

But I think it's been at least forty years since anyone really felt something like that. The main metaphors that have motivated artists for the past forty years have been, I'd guess, exploration, discovery, especially self-exploration and self-discovery.


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## Guest (Oct 25, 2012)

science said:


> I think there was a time when the aristocratic values were crumbling and democratic or populist ideas were really taking hold among the artists of Europe, when talk about smashing old conventions really motivated people, really spoke to something that mattered to them viscerally.
> 
> But I think it's been at least forty years since anyone really felt something like that. The main metaphors that have motivated artists for the past forty years have been, I'd guess, exploration, discovery, especially self-exploration and self-discovery.


Agreed, though you omit the commercial purpose. I suppose some might argue that any artist who is in for the money is not, by definition, an artist. (I wouldn't, I hasten to add!)


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

I think a piece of music has value in as much as:

1. It brings enjoyment to its listeners

2. It betters its listeners

It has objective value in as much as it has the potential to do these things.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

Answer: opinions.


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## GGluek (Dec 11, 2011)

Well, objectively, a work's instantaneous value is what the artist receives for having created it (purchase price, commission, publication fee, etc.) -- but that has little bearing on its worth as a work of art. Aesthetic value is determined by the judgment of many people over time. Salieri's works were instantaneously more valuable than many of Mozart's, but time had judged Mozart's best as being many times more valuable.

Like any other kind of human endeavor, most art is mediocre or bad. The best (which is far less than one percent) rises to the top -- sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly -- over a sufficiently great period of time, that a variety of disparate people find it still has something valuable to say, still "speaks" to them. You might find that piece of art hanging over your bed at the Holiday Inn perfectly enjoyable and restful -- and the artist's mother probably loves it -- but the chances of finding it hanging in the Louvre in a hundred years are negligible.

As we can hear on the radio, there's a lot of bad classical music -- but the programmers, because it's "classical" and has been recorded, and they're tired of playing the standards -- give it air play, and bore a lot of people into thinking they don't like classical music. The smaller the art museum, the lower quality of work it displays, because there's not enough great stuff to go around. There's always enough new theatre that the bad stuff never gets revived. Some things that get ignored when they come out -- late Mozart, Mahler, Moby Dick, a wide variety of composers -- get revived and redicovered by history and assume a place in the canon as having value that may not have been immediately recognized. How this "value" is determined is mysterious, subject to a branch of philosophy called aesthetics, and fairly undefinable. But, like calculus, it's a function over time.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

There is objective value - what the publishers can get for it. And subjective value in a range that always has zero at one end.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

science said:


> ...
> But I think it's been at least forty years since anyone really felt something like that. The main metaphors that have motivated artists for the past forty years have been, I'd guess, exploration, discovery, especially self-exploration and self-discovery.





MacLeod said:


> Agreed, though you omit the commercial purpose. I suppose some might argue that any artist who is in for the money is not, by definition, an artist. (I wouldn't, I hasten to add!)


What I'd add to what both of you are saying is that since the early 20th century, its really the classical composers who mixed the classical with other things (eg. jazz, rock, popular musics, also world musics) that have become the household names. Eg. Gershwin early on, then Bernstein, they both straddled 'serious' and more 'popular' type genres. Then there's Philip Glass, and maybe Steve Reich too. & in the world of musicals only, people like Andrew Lloyd Webber. It might be discomfiting to people who elevate so called 'pure' high art above everything else, but the reality is that its these things that reach out to a wider public now, the rest of classical is kind of more a 'niche' thing. So yes, times have changed compared to 100 or so yeas back when people did anticipate with excitement the latest operas coming out back then, say by Puccini and R. Strauss (and I'm using them as examples as they are the only 20th century opera composers with 3 operas in the core repertoire, so comparable to the likes of the popular names I mentioned above). There was a connection between composers and society that is now gone, or at least markably less in terms of 'serious' music. Now, I doubt as much people get excited by the latest offerings of living opera composers, and I'm not only talking of opera, I'm only using it as an example.


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