# Serious Music is a Dead Art



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

_"Serious music is a dead art. The vein for which three hundred years offered a seemingly inexhaustible yield of beautiful music has run out. What we know as modern music is the noise made by deluded speculators picking through the slagpile...The last really modern serious composer, modern in the sense that he spoke with the full authority of the cultural forces of his time, was Wagner. With him ended the long evolution of the art of music in the harmonic or European sense. All that has followed has been reaction, refinement - and desperate experimentation."_ - Henry Pleasants, The Agony of Modern Music (1955).

Do you agree or disagree?


----------



## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

That sounds like some PragerU shilling






I would also argue that modern music in terms of "speaking as a cultural force" is still alive and kicking in the form of film music.


----------



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

chu42 said:


> I would also argue that modern music in terms of "speaking as a cultural force" is still alive and kicking in the form of film music.


Wouldn't that come under the heading of "refinement?"

Here is some album cover art by Robert Florczak, the narrator of the above video. It doesn't look that great to me.

Cover art by Robert Florczak

The above video has some serious deficiencies. It presupposes one standard and, more importantly, one function of art, without any consideration of the new technologies which emerged and changed the function of art (photography, cinema, mass communication of news, printing, lithography, ethnic art). If art stayed like Mr. Florczak wants, it would be completely out of touch with the modern era.


----------



## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

millionrainbows said:


> _"Serious music is a dead art. The vein for which three hundred years offered a seemingly inexhaustible yield of beautiful music has run out. What we know as modern music is the noise made by deluded speculators picking through the slagpile...The last really modern serious composer, modern in the sense that he spoke with the full authority of the cultural forces of his time, was Wagner. With him ended the long evolution of the art of music in the harmonic or European sense. All that has followed has been reaction, refinement - and desperate experimentation."_ - Henry Pleasants, The Agony of Modern Music (1955).
> 
> Do you agree or disagree?


Since there have been approximately three generations of artists and composers doing "serious art" since 1955, I disagree with the premise.


----------



## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Its not dead and will likely never be dead as long as some form of civilization lasts. The question is if it can widen its audiences again, ie if it will evolve to become more accessible and listenable again.


----------



## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

millionrainbows said:


> _"Serious music is a dead art. The vein for which three hundred years offered a seemingly inexhaustible yield of beautiful music has run out. What we know as modern music is the noise made by deluded speculators picking through the slagpile...The last really modern serious composer, modern in the sense that he spoke with the full authority of the cultural forces of his time, was Wagner. With him ended the long evolution of the art of music in the harmonic or European sense. All that has followed has been reaction, refinement - and desperate experimentation."_ - Henry Pleasants, The Agony of Modern Music (1955).
> 
> Do you agree or disagree?


I don't think classical music is a dead art, has had all the beauty sucked out of it, and every possible avenue of creativity fully explored and exhausted. I just think think that you have to know where to look. Of course, a talented enough musician can certainly compose in the style of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Wagner, Stravinsky or Schoenberg; but that wouldn't original; but there are lots of composers who have composed within the 21st century who demonstrate creativity, beauty, personality, and vision, among them Jennifer Higdon, Ellen Taffe Zwilich, Vivian Fung, Chi Xi, Michael Daugherty, Huong Rou, Unsuk Chin, and many others; not to mention, Philip Glass, John Adams, and Adolphus Hailstork who have reached the status of "Grand Old Men of Music".

In classical music music the word "contemporary" takes on a meaning that is different than in any other genre because of the lag time which moves at a pace that is glacial; so even when Henry Pleasants was writing his piece there was great music being made by tonalist such as Shostakovich, Copland, Barber, Britten, Bernstein, Piston, William Schuman, Hovhaness etc. Likewise the atonalists/experimentalists such as Xenakis, Messiaen, Sessions, Carter, Boulez, and Cage, were also busy turning the musical world upside down; and I think by that time Stravinsky had already hopped the fence from Neo-Classicism to Arnold Schoenberg's 12-tone bandwagon. Maybe? And when did Aaron Copland go serial with _Connotations for Orchestra_, wasn't around the same time that Stravinsky went and took the serial plunge?

So there's good and even great classical music for every time period, you just have to know where to look and remember that lag time is glacial.


----------



## MatthewWeflen (Jan 24, 2019)

I think the thesis is vague. What is "serious?" What is "beautiful?"

What did Mozart think he was doing when he wrote music? He was making money. He was also making art. He was doing it within a particular social-cultural milieu, using and elaborating upon the styles of the time. Was he "serious?" Sometimes. Was he silly? Some other times. Plenty of other artists in other genres of music could be described similarly, from John Coltrane to Paul Simon to Kanye West.

There is "serious" and "beautiful" music being made in all manner of styles these days. Some of it is in the classical orchestral style. Much more of it is in the "pop" or "rock" or "jazz" styles.

These kinds of debates are as if someone latched on to the Beatles, claimed after the fact that they were much more serious than "mere" pop musicians, and then castigated all subsequent music as either abandoning the Beatles "beauty" or "scavenging from its ruins."

I like classical music because the sounds and compositions appeal to me and my sense of aesthetics, not because I think I can determine that it is more meaningful than any other form of music. That would be an insufferable epistemic leap in my view. I'm glad that enough other people like it so that concerts keep being put on and recordings keep being released. But I'm deeply wary of those who put forward CM as some sort of vehicle of cultural or philosophical superiority.


----------



## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

I’m pessimistic about classical music growing in the future. Atonal, avant-garde and whatever other offshoots of CM being composed now are never going to bring substantial numbers of new listeners in. This is more than a guess given the history of the last 100 years. 

Ordinarily, I would be optimistic about traditional CM sustaining orchestras and solo artists for some time to come, but now I’m very concerned about what will be the consequences of the pandemic. Virtually all orchestras and CM performances have been shut down for some time. When the pandemic is over, which won’t be for some time, how many orchestras will be able to come back? Will the funding that kept many of them afloat still be there? Will all the musicians return or did they have to find alternate sources of income? Some of the damage done by the pandemic may be irrevocable.


----------



## MatthewWeflen (Jan 24, 2019)

DaveM said:


> I'm pessimistic about classical music growing in the future. Atonal, avant-garde and whatever other offshoots of CM being composed now are never going to bring substantial numbers of new listeners in. This is more than a guess given the history of the last 100 years.
> 
> Ordinarily, I would be optimistic about traditional CM sustaining orchestras and solo artists for some time to come, but now I'm very concerned about what will be the consequences of the pandemic. Virtually all orchestras and CM performances have been shut down for some time. When the pandemic is over, which won't be for some time, how many orchestras will be able to come back? Will the funding that kept many of them afloat still be there? Will all the musicians return or did they have to find alternate sources of income? Some of the damage done by the pandemic may be irrevocable.


I think most orchestras will bounce back. There is going to be a lot of "pent up demand" for public experiences. I know for my part, I will be attending indoor concerts as well as outdoor ones. The larger the city the more resilient the orchestra ought to be. So we may see smaller groups folding, but likely others will spring up to take their place in the market.

I also think that musicians who have found alternate sources of income will come back to music. They've spent their lives honing those skills, it will be a rare sort who prefers flipping burgers or delivering groceries for Amazon.


----------



## Haydn70 (Jan 8, 2017)

Coach G said:


> and I think by that time Stravinsky had already hopped the fence from Neo-Classicism to Arnold Schoenberg's 12-tone bandwagon. Maybe? And when did Aaron Copland go serial with _Connotations for Orchestra_, wasn't around the same time that Stravinsky went took the serial plunge?


Connotations was composed in 1961. Stravinsky took the plunge in 1952 right after Schoenberg's death.

Copland took the plunge before Stravinsky, however, with his Piano Quartet from 1950.


----------



## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> _"Serious music is a dead art. The vein for which three hundred years offered a seemingly inexhaustible yield of beautiful music has run out. What we know as modern music is the noise made by deluded speculators picking through the slagpile...The last really modern serious composer, modern in the sense that he spoke with the full authority of the cultural forces of his time, was Wagner. With him ended the long evolution of the art of music in the harmonic or European sense. All that has followed has been reaction, refinement - and desperate experimentation."_ - Henry Pleasants, The Agony of Modern Music (1955).
> 
> Do you agree or disagree?


Is he implying that "serious music" only began in the mid-17th century?


----------



## Haydn70 (Jan 8, 2017)

Nereffid said:


> Is he implying that "serious music" only began in the mid-17th century?


No, that is not his implication.

Excerpt from the Pleasants book, page 91:

"As Krenek…put it: 'We must go back to Monteverdi in order to observe a transition form one tonal language to another corresponding to that which took place with Schoenberg.'

The transition to which Krenek refers in citing Monteverdi is, of course, the transition from modal polyphony to tonal harmony. This is the transition separating the two great distinctive periods of Western music, i.e., the modal epoch and the harmonic epoch. None of the many changes that occurred in the course of either of the epochs could compare in significance with the great cataclysm at* the end of the sixteenth century when the modes gave way before the diatonic scale and opened the way to the tonal, harmonic epoch. It is the latter epoch that has produced the whole literature familiar to us as classical or serious music."*


----------



## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

Just because Pleasant's ears are stuck in the 19th century doesn't mean ours have to be.


----------



## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Krenek did not write tonal music. He was a 12-tone composer who incorporated aspects of Renaissance polyphony in his work. For an example, listen to his _Lamentatio Jeremiae Prophetae_. When Stravinsky was embarking on his own journey into serialism, the one book he read was Krenek's _Studies in Counterpoint: Based on the Twelve-Tone Technique_.


----------



## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

Not dead but dying, and it will die unless a stronger connection between composers and audiences is formed. I also wouldn't say it's simply dying but rather committing suicide.


CoachG said:


> Of course, a talented enough musician can certainly compose in the style of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Wagner, Stravinsky or Schoenberg; but that wouldn't be original;


Why the emphasis on originality, on doing what nobody's ever done before? Bach and Mozart weren't very original in that sense. They used old forms and techniques.


----------



## Haydn70 (Jan 8, 2017)

SanAntone said:


> Krenek did not write tonal music. He was a 12-tone composer who incorporated aspects of Renaissance polyphony in his work. For an example, listen to his _Lamentatio Jeremiae Prophetae_. When Stravinsky was embarking on his own journey into serialism, the one book he read was Krenek's _Studies in Counterpoint: Based on the Twelve-Tone Technique_.


I am fully aware that Krenek did not compose tonal music and that was not at all implied in the quote. Nereffid asked how Pleasants came up with his "three hundred years" as a cutoff for serious music and the quote explains it.

Krenek was good friends with my primary undergraduate composition teacher and he (the teacher) used the above-mentioned Krenek book in his class on twentieth century counterpoint which I had to take as a composition major.


----------



## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

From another thread, here is exactly why it's dying:


SanAntone said:


> I don't if you aren't alone. I am glad there are composers writing music that is new and sounds different from anything I've ever heard before. Whether there are millions of people who think like you never crosses my mind. You and your friends are completely irrelevant.


The feeling's mutual. You and your music are completely irrelevant.


----------



## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

consuono said:


> From another thread, here is exactly why it's dying:


My point was that because you cant tolerate some new music is irrelevant to me. There are people who can not only tolerate it but enjoy it.

There's still composers writing tonal music. John Williams for example. John Tavener. Arvo Part. And some writing music that is easier to assimilate, like James MacMillian, Jennifer Higdon, and I am sure others.

Just stick to the composers that write the kind of music you can tolerate and leave the others alone.


----------



## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

> Just stick to the composers that write the kind of music you can tolerate and leave the other alone.


Most of humanity does, thus the dying part.


----------



## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

consuono said:


> Most of humanity does, thus the dying part.


Since according to you the avant-garde has a tiny audience, it cannot be held accountable for the demise of anything.


----------



## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Droves of people are passing away from the pandemic, and here we are talking about the phony death of serious music. It might be best to keep one's eyes on what's important instead of speculative drama. People die, music never does.


----------



## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

ORigel said:


> Just because Pleasant's ears are stuck in the 19th century doesn't mean ours have to be.


But they weren't. If you actually read Pleasant's he's quite optimistic about one form of music: Jazz.


----------



## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Haydn70 said:


> No, that is not his implication.
> 
> Excerpt from the Pleasants book, page 91:
> 
> ...


Yes, imo that's correct, or as correct as such a broad statement can be. And it leads to the question, Is "the diatonic scale and ... the tonal, harmonic epoch" as you characterize it, the only possible source of beautiful music? Certainly the musical traditions of non-western cultures, though they might have their own versions of tonality, were not based on the diatonic scale. Also, a key characteristic of the harmonic epoch in western music was that over that 300 year period or more, harmony became an increasingly dominant element, as opposed to rhythm, timbre, texture, structure and polyphony. Is that a necessary characteristic of beauty in music, so that music became progressively more beautiful from 1600 to 1900, and was not beautiful at all before 1600 and after 1900?


----------



## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

SanAntone said:


> Since according to you the avant-garde has a tiny audience, it cannot be held accountable for the demise of anything.


Lol a tiny tick can kill you.


----------



## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

Bulldog said:


> Droves of people are passing away from the pandemic, and here we are talking about the phony death of serious music. It might be best to keep one's eyes on what's important instead of speculative drama. People die, music never does.


That's pablum. Music in itself might be "eternal", but there's no evidence that that applies to the "art music" that's the subject of this forum.


----------



## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

millionrainbows said:


> Wouldn't that come under the heading of "refinement?"
> 
> Here is some album cover art by Robert Florczak, the narrator of the above video. It doesn't look that great to me.
> 
> ...


Interesting that you bring up his album art, I was not aware that it was so tacky.

Anyways, if you thought I was at all a fan of the pseudoscience think tank known as PragerU, then consider yourself mistaken.


----------



## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

chu42 said:


> Interesting that you bring up his album art, I was not aware that it was so tacky.
> 
> Anyways, if you thought I was at all a fan of the pseudoscience think tank known as PragerU, then consider yourself mistaken.


Ad hominem argument. If Prager U (about which I know little, not caring much for these pseudo-religious political dogmas) says it it must not be true. I don't know why Harvard or Vox would be any more credible unless it's because they confirm your political biases.


----------



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

chu42 said:


> Interesting that you bring up his album art, I was not aware that it was so tacky.
> 
> Anyways, if you thought I was at all a fan of the pseudoscience think tank known as PragerU, then consider yourself mistaken.


PragerU was founded in 2009 by conservative radio talk show host Dennis Prager and radio producer and screenwriter Allen Estrin, in order to advocate for conservative views and to offset what Prager regards as the undermining of college education by the left. Much of the early funding for PragerU came from hydraulic fracturing (fracking) billionaires Dan and Farris Wilks.

PragerU releases one video per week on various topics from a conservative viewpoint that according to its site "advances Judeo-Christian values".

The videos support and argue for capitalism, against a $15 minimum wage, and that gun ownership is a constitutional right. The videos promote fossil fuels and dispute the scientific consensus on climate change.

So bear this in mind when you see this video being posted in anti-modernist rants:


----------



## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

consuono said:


> That's pablum. Music in itself might be "eternal", but there's no evidence that that applies to the "art music" that's the subject of this forum.


And there's no evidence that it doesn't apply to music you don't like.


----------



## Haydn70 (Jan 8, 2017)

millionrainbows said:


> PragerU was founded in 2009 by conservative radio talk show host Dennis Prager and radio producer and screenwriter Allen Estrin, in order to advocate for conservative views and to offset what Prager regards as the undermining of college education by the left. Much of the early funding for PragerU came from hydraulic fracturing (fracking) billionaires Dan and Farris Wilks.
> 
> PragerU releases one video per week on various topics from a conservative viewpoint that according to its site "advances Judeo-Christian values".
> 
> ...


Why should that be borne in mind? Your comments are essentially an ad hominem attack.

The ideas presented in the video should be accepted or rejected on their validity (or invalidity) alone.

You are a smart guy MR and I think you know that, right? (Not that you know are smart but that you were engaging in an ad hominem attack  )


----------



## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

millionrainbows said:


> PragerU was founded in 2009 by conservative radio talk show host Dennis Prager...The videos support and argue for capitalism


First, Prager is a big classical music aficionado. He is known to conduct symphony orchestras. There was a dust up a few years ago with the Santa Monica Symphony that he was asked to conduct. Some of the players got themselves in a snit over him simply because he was - A CONSERVATIVE!!!! The sin of all sins I suppose in California.

Prager U is:

*against a $15 minimum wage*: Many of the countries that liberals love to point out as idealistic utopias don't have any minimum wage. In a true market economy the wage is agreed upon by the employer and worker with no government interference.

*that gun ownership is a constitutional right*: Well, it is in the 2nd Amendment. I carry a rifle with me when I go out on horseback or camping. Guns aren't the problem: it's the person with a gun that's the issue. Webern died too young.

*The videos promote fossil fuels*: when alternative sources are up to snuff, we'll all gladly go all-electric. I've often wondered how romantic it would be to give a concert of music by Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Berlioz and so using candlelight and oil lamps like they did back in those days. That would be a real Historically Informed Performance.

*and dispute the scientific consensus on climate change*: they're not alone. There are many experts who are beginning to wake up to the problems with current theories. But in this cancel culture they're afraid to speak up too much.

Given world history over the past 100 years I find it hard to understand how any classical music lover cannot support capitalism. The great recording companies - EMI, Decca, Columbia, RCA - in mid-20th c were all run by capitalists in free-market countries. The record companies in socialist/communist countries made god-awful sounding records: Melodiya, Balkaton, Eurodisk. Capitalism brought us great sounding music playback systems, the compact disk, streaming videos. It was capitalists who funded many of our great institutions: Severance Hall, the Boston Symphony, Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Opera. So if Prager U supports capitalism, fine!


----------



## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

Bulldog said:


> And there's no evidence that it doesn't apply to music you don't like.


Did I ever say that it does?


----------



## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

millionrainbows said:


> PragerU was founded in 2009 by conservative radio talk show host Dennis Prager and radio producer and screenwriter Allen Estrin, in order to advocate for conservative views and to offset what Prager regards as the undermining of college education by the left. Much of the early funding for PragerU came from hydraulic fracturing (fracking) billionaires Dan and Farris Wilks.
> 
> PragerU releases one video per week on various topics from a conservative viewpoint that according to its site "advances Judeo-Christian values".
> 
> ...


Are you trying to explain to me why Prager U is a poor resource? I was the person who posted the video in the first place, saying that they are shilling anti-modernism. I'm not sure what you're trying to explain here.

Of course, like Haydn70 says, just because PragerU is historically biased and practices pseudoscience doesn't mean that everything they say is wrong. I do, however, think that their video is wrong and hashes modern art down to "since I don't like how it looks/sounds, it must have zero artistic value and anyone who says otherwise is lying."


----------



## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

chu42 said:


> Are you trying to explain to me why Prager U is a poor resource? I was the person who posted the video in the first place, saying that they are shilling anti-modernism. I'm not sure what you're trying to explain here.
> 
> Of course, like Haydn70 says, just because PragerU is historically biased and practices pseudoscience doesn't mean that everything they say is wrong. I do, however, think that their video is wrong and hashes modern art down to "since I don't like how it looks/sounds, it must have zero artistic value and anyone who says otherwise is lying."


Cool, now explain to me why Harvard or the Guardian should be given credibility instead of being met with "eeeeew it's one of those leftish things that always has a political agenda..."


----------



## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> _"Serious music is a dead art. The vein for which three hundred years offered a seemingly inexhaustible yield of beautiful music has run out. What we know as modern music is the noise made by deluded speculators picking through the slagpile...The last really modern serious composer, modern in the sense that he spoke with the full authority of the cultural forces of his time, was Wagner. With him ended the long evolution of the art of music in the harmonic or European sense. All that has followed has been reaction, refinement - and desperate experimentation."_ - Henry Pleasants, The Agony of Modern Music (1955).
> 
> Do you agree or disagree?


1955 is when avant-garde music began, so I can see why the comment was made. It's been almost 70 years since and I doubt serious new music is anything but a niche. Revival of serious old music is a totally different matter.


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

ArtMusic said:


> 1955 is when avant-garde music began,.


Why 1955?

Wqd,x a,my s,x sa


----------



## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

mbhaub and MR know better and should know better, but are at it again, dragging ideological/political polemics into the main TC Forums when such clearly belongs in the Groups. Very poor impulse control on their part, and more and more disappointing.


----------



## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

ArtMusic said:


> 1955 is when avant-garde music began, so I can see why the comment was made. It's been almost 70 years since and I doubt serious new music is anything but a niche. Revival of serious old music is a totally different matter.


I think there's been an avant garde since Wagner, but the thing is it's getting to be harder and harder to shock and dismay, and there are only so many ways you can be "not traditional". It's really reactionary, ultimately, in that the avant garde is defining itself by what it is not. That's its shtick. And so now *that* is stale and hackneyed.


----------



## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

I think avant-garde began long before 1955. In the early 1600s, Orlando Gibbons composed _The Cries of London_ which can be compared to Berio's idea of musical collage (i.e. _Sinfonia_, where the chorus says "keep going!"). In _Cries of London_, Gibbons takes ordinary conversation and sales pitches from the streets of London (some of it vulgar), and plays it against some innocuous viols. As I understand it, Berlioz, Wagner, Richard Strauss, and Debussy were all considered pretty avant-garde in their day and long before Stravinsky and Schoenberg came along.


----------



## eljr (Aug 8, 2015)

millionrainbows said:


> _"Serious music is a dead art. The vein for which three hundred years offered a seemingly inexhaustible yield of beautiful music has run out. What we know as modern music is the noise made by deluded speculators picking through the slagpile...The last really modern serious composer, modern in the sense that he spoke with the full authority of the cultural forces of his time, was Wagner. With him ended the long evolution of the art of music in the harmonic or European sense. All that has followed has been reaction, refinement - and desperate experimentation."_ - Henry Pleasants, The Agony of Modern Music (1955).
> 
> Do you agree or disagree?


Horse manure.

.....


----------



## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

Coach G said:


> I think avant-garde began long before 1955. In the early 1600s, Orlando Gibbons composed _The Cries of London_ which can be compared to Berio's idea of musical collage (i.e. _Sinfonia_, where the chorus says "keep going!"). In _Cries of London_, Gibbons takes ordinary conversation and sales pitches from the streets of London (some of it vulgar), and plays it against some innocuous viols. ....


That's reeeaaalllllllllly stretching it.


----------



## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Please refrain from political posts. The thread is about modern music and the potential death of serious (Art) music. Please focus on that topic.


----------



## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Mandryka said:


> Why 1955?
> 
> Wqd,x a,my s,x sa


That's when it was hip to offend, to be different to shock etc. Think John cage etc.


----------



## Haydn70 (Jan 8, 2017)

Coach G said:


> *I think avant-garde began long before 1955*. In the early 1600s, Orlando Gibbons composed _The Cries of London_ which can be compared to Berio's idea of musical collage (i.e. _Sinfonia_, where the chorus says "keep going!"). In _Cries of London_, Gibbons takes ordinary conversation and sales pitches from the streets of London (some of it vulgar), and plays it against some innocuous viols. As I understand it, Berlioz, Wagner, Richard Strauss, and Debussy were all considered pretty avant-garde in their day and long before Stravinsky and Schoenberg came along.


No, it didn't. There are very few isolated cases of pre-nineteenth century composers concocting some pretty wild music but they are, like I said, isolated...very rare exceptions. Here's one from 1673:

This is the link to the beginning of the piece:






The fun starts at the 1'44" mark...a bit of 17th century polytonality: 




There is also, of course, Gesualdo. But none of "avant-gardish" works from those times lead to a sustained, long-term school of composition. Nothing even close to what happened in the 20th century.


----------



## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Three examples (I'm sure there are others), dating back to the 14th, 16th and 18th centuries.

*Solage* (fl. late 14th century). Some of his ars subtilior music was quite experimental: the best-known example in this complex style is his bizarre "Fumeux fume par fumée", which is extravagantly chromatic for the time; it also contains some of the lowest tessitura vocal writing in any music of the period.

*Carlo Gesualdo* is known for writing intensely expressive madrigals and pieces of sacred music that use a chromatic language not heard again until the late 19th century.

The 18th century had *Musikalisches Würfelspiel,* a system for using dice to randomly generate music from precomposed options. These games were quite popular throughout Western Europe in the 18th century. Several different games were devised, some that did not require dice, but merely choosing a random number.

Famous examples citred by Wikipedia:



> The most well-known was published in 1792, by Mozart's publisher Nikolaus Simrock in Berlin (K. 294dK3 or K. 516fK6). The game was attributed to Mozart, but this attribution has not been authenticated.[6] The dice rolls randomly selected small sections of music, which would be patched together to create a musical piece. This game is capable of producing 1116 = 45,949,729,863,572,161 different yet similar waltzes.[7] Some measures have only one possibility no matter what the roll of the dice (measure 8/16) while other measures have a different possibility for each roll (measure 1/16).[8]
> 
> Mozart's manuscript, written in 1787, consisting of 176 one-bar fragments of music,[9] appears to be some kind of game or system for constructing music out of two-bar fragments, but contains no instructions and there is no evidence that dice were involved.
> 
> ...


And of course *Liszt *took liberties in several works, one featuring a 12 note row, *Erik Satie* could be considered avant-garde for his day, which brings us up to *Debussy*. Then *Stravinsky*'s _Le Sacre_, and when we arrive at *Schoenberg*, whose system of composing with 12 notes cannot be seen as anything but avant-gardism.


----------



## Haydn70 (Jan 8, 2017)

SanAntone said:


> Three examples (I'm sure there are others), dating back to the 14th, 16th and 18th centuries.
> 
> *Solage* (fl. late 14th century). Some of his ars subtilior music was quite experimental: the best-known example in this complex style is his bizarre "Fumeux fume par fumée", which is extravagantly chromatic for the time; it also contains some of the lowest tessitura vocal writing in any music of the period.


Old guy with a bad memory here. Yes, I forgot about Ars subtilior! The Avignon guys. (And Paris and northern Spain.) There was an actual school of composition, so to speak. Some wild stuff there!

According to Wiki, here are some of those guys:

Anthonello de Caserta, Johannes Cuvelier, Egidius, Galiot, Matteo da Perugia, Philipoctus de Caserta, Jacob Senleches, and Trebor.

Other composers associated with the style include:
Johannes Ciconia, La flamma del to amor (Lucca, f.54v)
Baude Cordier, Tout par compas (Rondeau-canon)
Martinus Fabri
Paolo da Firenze
Guido de Lange, Dieux gart (Rondeau)
Johannes Symonis Hasprois
Matheus de Sancto Johanne
Solage, Fumeux fume par fumée (Rondeau)
Antonio Zacara da Teramo
Anonymous composers at the Nicosia court of King Janus of Cyprus

Musicologist Richard Hoppin suggests the superlative ars subtilissima, saying, "not until the twentieth century did music again reach the most subtle refinements and rhythmic complexities of the manneristic style."


----------



## La Passione (Oct 23, 2020)

The Music of the Future. By Roger Scruton

"Wagner's emphasis on the future of music was influenced by the Hegelian theory of history and Feuerbach's use of it. But it was also rooted in a real sense of tradition and what tradition means. His innovations grew organically from the flow of Western music, and his harmonic discoveries were discoveries only because they also affirmed the basic chord-grammar of diatonic tonality. They were discoveries within the extended tonal language. Wagner was aware of this, and indeed dramatized the predicament of the modern composer in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, which is his own striking reflection on 'tradition and the individual talent'. In that opera the plodding C major tonality of the Mastersingers is brought to life, not by remaking it entirely, but by moving it onwards, through the use of chromatic voice-leading, altered chords and a new kind of melody in which boundaries are fluid and phrases can be repeated and varied at liberty within them. In the course of the opera the chorus brings the new melody and the old harmony into creative relation, and the work ends jubilantly, with the new incorporated and the old renewed. This is nothing like the radical avant-garde departures that have dominated music in more recent times.

Right up until Schoenberg's experiments with serialism, musical innovation in the realm of 'classical' music proceeded in Wagner's way. New harmonies, scales and melodic ensembles were imported into the traditional musical grammar, new rhythms and time-signatures were adopted, and with Stravinsky and Bartók organisation was inspired more by dance than by the classical forms. Debussy's use of the whole tone scale, and Rimsky-Korsakov's introduction of the octatonic scale led to music in which, while there was melodic and harmonic progression, there was often no clear tonic, or two competing tonics, as in much of the Rite of Spring. Schoenberg wrote of 'floating tonality', others of atonality, meaning the loss of the sense of key, and the use of harmonies which, even if tied to each other by voice-leading, seemed to be unrelated and, by the old standards, ungrammatical.

None of that involved any rejection of the classical tradition: composers like Debussy, Bartók and Stravinsky were renewing that tradition, and what they wrote was not merely recognizable to the ordinary educated listener, but also interesting and challenging on account of its new harmonic, melodic and rhythmical devices. Both the continuous development of the romantic symphony in Sibelius, Vaughan Williams and Shostakovich, and the incorporation of modernist devices into the tonal language, lay within the scope of the existing language: these were developments that issued naturally from the pattern of musical discovery that has characterised Western classical music from the Renaissance.

As things stand now, however, there is absolutely no guarantee that a new work of music will be recognized as such by the educated musical ear, or that it will be possible to hear it as an addition to the great tradition of symphonic sound. A radical break seems to have occurred, with two consequences that the listening public finds difficult to absorb: first, modern works of music tend to be self-consciously part of an avant-garde, never content to belong to the tradition but always overtly and ostentatiously defying it; second, these works seem to be melodically impoverished, and even without melody entirely, relying on sound effects and acoustical experiments to fill the void where melody should be. I don't say the emphasis on acoustics is necessarily a fault from the artistic point of view. I draw your attention to the example we heard yesterday, when Nathan Davies used live filtering to give the effect of resonators, extracting tones from white noise, and turning those tones towards music. The effect was undeniably striking, at times entrancing: as though the tones were being purified so that they can used as though new. But until those tones are used, and used in melodic and harmonic structures, the result will remain at a distance from the audience, outside the reach of our musical affections. It is only the loved and repeated repertoire that will ensure the survival of music, and to be loved and repeated music requires a dedicated audience. Music exists in the ear of the listener, not on the page of the score, nor in the world of pure sound effects. And listeners, deterred by the avant-garde, are in ever-shorter supply: not in Donaueschingen, of course, but in the wider culture of our cities, where music will survive or die."


----------



## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

^ And now instead of taking on the argument we'll hear about what a baddie Scruton was.


----------



## allaroundmusicenthusiast (Jun 3, 2020)

I'm hesitating wether to participate in this thread or not. All I can say is no one knows what the future holds, and "progress" and "greatness" are not equally distributed across time, so of course there's merit to saying that music written in 2020 is worse than music written in 1824. But, it's also impossible to judge an era which is not even over, the study of History doesn't work that way. No era can judge itself, and it's also very hard not to impose one's own time on the past, i.e, why should someone refrain from saying that there was an avant garde before Wagner? That Biber, Gesualdo and many others were also avant garde? If I listen today to Le Jeu de Robin et de Marion (a 13th century musical play, let's say) or some works by Rameau, why would I be wrong in thinking that they were at the forefront of the musical thinking in their time? Why shouldn't I say that Beethoven's works shocked the world and it took a long time for people to get accustomed to them, or that Liszt forbid his students from playing his late works? The only thing that would keep me from saying that there was an avant garde before the 20thC would only be that I would be imposing a certain meaning on something that didn't exist as such, imposing my time's view on the past. 

When Monteverdi and his peers (re)invented opera, was it a logical conclusion, an accident or something truly visionary? Perhaps a combination of all three? A few people who have a deep knowledge of these events would probably have a good answer, but I assure you no one would say in 1620: "mamma mia! That Monteverdi sure honors tradition!" 
No one in that time, or any time, could really comprehend what are the effects of the things that happen during their lifetime. And I think that's more true today than ever before when there is such so much art (not just music, but movies and books, etc.) being created each SECOND. We will have to wait and see.

Music is dead, long live music!


----------



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

millionrainbows said:


> PragerU was founded in 2009 by conservative radio talk show host Dennis Prager and radio producer and screenwriter Allen Estrin, in order to advocate for conservative views and to offset what Prager regards as the undermining of college education by the left.....


If you find that video too politically-biased to be taken seriously,
try this one:


----------



## cheregi (Jul 16, 2020)

I think one thing that's important to this discussion is that the 300-year period delineated by Pleasants also represents an insane and unprecedented concentration of wealth and power in Western Europe, by global historical standards - tonal harmony was a kind of fever dream of fast-paced development unmatched, at least in intensity (though I'd certainly argue not in quality), at any other point. The closest comparisons might be Tang-dynasty Chang'an's cosmopolitan cultural richness or maybe whatever music was happening in Rome at the height of empire - but you can see even those don't come close in terms of the sheer scale of resources available for musicians to spend time composing, writing, thinking, and playing music. Not even to mention the fact that historical narratives let us make the past so much more tidy than it really was, and trace easy lines from masterpiece to masterpiece in a way that no contemporaneous source could've, today's fragmented musical world with self-proclaimed 'art music' capturing a relatively small audience share is actually much closer to how music has typically operated in state-based societies throughout history.



allaroundmusicenthusiast said:


> I'm hesitating wether to participate in this thread or not. All I can say is no one knows what the future holds, and "progress" and "greatness" are not equally distributed across time, so of course there's merit to saying that music written in 2020 is worse than music written in 1824. But, it's also impossible to judge an era which is not even over, the study of History doesn't work that way. No era can judge itself, and it's also very hard not to impose one's own time on the past, i.e, why should someone refrain from saying that there was an avant garde before Wagner? That Biber, Gesualdo and many others were also avant garde? If I listen today to Le Jeu de Robin et de Marion (a 13th century musical play, let's say) or some works by Rameau, why would I be wrong in thinking that they were at the forefront of the musical thinking in their time? Why shouldn't I say that Beethoven's works shocked the world and it took a long time for people to get accustomed to them, or that Liszt forbid his students from playing his late works? The only thing that would keep me from saying that there was an avant garde before the 20thC would only be that I would be imposing a certain meaning on something that didn't exist as such, imposing my time's view on the past.
> 
> When Monteverdi and his peers (re)invented opera, was it a logical conclusion, an accident or something truly visionary? Perhaps a combination of all three? A few people who have a deep knowledge of these events would probably have a good answer, but I assure you no one would say in 1620: "mamma mia! That Monteverdi sure honors tradition!"
> No one in that time, or any time, could really comprehend what are the effects of the things that happen during their lifetime. And I think that's more true today than ever before when there is such so much art (not just music, but movies and books, etc.) being created each SECOND. We will have to wait and see.
> ...


I think this raises a great point about locating avant-garde-ness in the music of the past - the fact is that in the time of Monteverdi and Gesualdo, it was Monteverdi who was considered by far the more radical of the two... and of course it only appears otherwise to us because Monteverdi's innovations were adopted as a new standard. Likewise mid-20th-century innovations in electronic music and musique concrete have qiuckly disseminated into popular culture, for example via hip hop sample-based production styles...


----------



## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

mbhaub said:


> Webern died too young.


I agree with this. Also, that many Soviet bloc era classical recordings have poor sound quality, though the same is true for many "capitalist" recordings of that era. In fact, beginning in the early 1960s, most western capitalist record companies, especially American ones, began to churn out LPs as a cheap mass-produced commodity, generally with poor sound quality despite significant technological advances throughout the period.

But as for the rest of your post: wince. Millionrainbow's comment was simply meant to point out (agree with him or not) that this critic's attack on 'modern' music has a disingenuous subtext or political agenda behind it. As millionrainbows and no doubt you well know, Hitler and Stalin also attacked modern art, including modern music, for political reasons. Perhaps millionrainbows is getting in a subtle jab at this critic by raising the specter of Hitler, but that is no excuse to get your hackles raised and launch a right wing manifesto.


----------



## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

> But as for the rest of your post: wince. Millionrainbow's comment was simply meant to point out (agree with him or not) that this critic's attack on 'modern' music has a disingenuous subtext or political agenda behind it.


But at the same time it could be said that there's a disingenuous subtext or political agenda *for* modern art. One of the big turnoffs for me is art that is politically preachy. And a lot of it is. And a lot of the philosophical underpinnings of modern art and criticism of it is rooted in a political viewpoint.


----------



## Haydn70 (Jan 8, 2017)

consuono said:


> But at the same time it could be said that there's a disingenuous subtext or political agenda *for* modern art. One of the big turnoffs for me is art that is politically preachy. And a lot of it is. And *a lot of the philosophical underpinnings of modern art and criticism of it is rooted in a political viewpoint*.


Spot on!

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


----------



## MatthewWeflen (Jan 24, 2019)

I think what's dead here is apolitical discussion of music.

Sigh.


----------



## MatthewWeflen (Jan 24, 2019)

The nice thing about apolitical discussion of music is that ideas can be exchanged without being freighted by the preconceptions involved with an obvious political bent. When people make their politics such a huge part of their presence here, it predisposes me against (or occasionally towards) them. I don't want that. I want to look at their ideas for what they are, not for the package they're delivered within.

It also serves as a break from the relentless political noise of our day and age. Just people discussing something nearly uniformly pleasant. 

I'm really disappointed by the manner in which people have hijacked this thread. You have made TC less enjoyable.


----------



## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

millionrainbows said:


> _"Serious music is a dead art. The vein for which three hundred years offered a seemingly inexhaustible yield of beautiful music has run out. What we know as modern music is the noise made by deluded speculators picking through the slagpile...The last really modern serious composer, modern in the sense that he spoke with the full authority of the cultural forces of his time, was Wagner. With him ended the long evolution of the art of music in the harmonic or European sense. All that has followed has been reaction, refinement - and desperate experimentation."_ - Henry Pleasants, The Agony of Modern Music (1955).
> 
> Do you agree or disagree?


I obviously completely disagree, because I absolutely love music with passion and musically the 20th century is by far my favorite one. So, since I haven't invested a good part of my life in something just as a pose (and I talk about music with very few persons off line, especially about some of the music I most care about) but because I seriously love it I think it's just the opinion of a conservative guy who didn't understand modern music. Then sure, a lot of modern music is crap but that's not the point obviously.


----------



## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

mbhaub said:


> But they weren't. If you actually read Pleasant's he's quite optimistic about one form of music: Jazz.


It's hard to me not to consider the music of musicians like Charlie Parker, Andrew Hill, Herbie Nichols, Duke Ellington, Eric Dolphy, Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, Lester Young etc as serious. And it must also be said that they also were experimenting and were often more connected with post-Wagnerian era (more with Debussy and Stravinsky for instance).


----------



## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

consuono said:


> I think there's been an avant garde since Wagner, but the thing is it's getting to be harder and harder to shock and dismay, and there are only so many ways you can be "not traditional". It's really reactionary, ultimately, in that the avant garde is defining itself by what it is not. That's its shtick. And so now *that* is stale and hackneyed.


the point of avantgarde is not to shock (of course there are bad musicians who just want to do that). The point of avantgarde is to explore and find new ways of expression. Which is exactly what a lot of great composers before the 20th century did.


----------



## Kilgore Trout (Feb 26, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> _"Serious music is a dead art. The vein for which three hundred years offered a seemingly inexhaustible yield of beautiful music has run out. What we know as modern music is the noise made by deluded speculators picking through the slagpile...The last really modern serious composer, modern in the sense that he spoke with the full authority of the cultural forces of his time, was Wagner. With him ended the long evolution of the art of music in the harmonic or European sense. All that has followed has been reaction, refinement - and desperate experimentation."_ - Henry Pleasants, The Agony of Modern Music (1955).
> 
> Do you agree or disagree?


This quote is idiotic and shows a total ignorance of the history of music. It's a product of a long dead cultural idealism, centered in a false idea of what European culture was until the end of the 19th century. The definiation of modernity "in the sense that he spoke with the full authority of the cultural forces of his time" is blatantly meaningless - what "cultural forces"? how Wagner spoke with more authority of them then Debussy, Stravinsky or Shostakovich? - the idea that Wagner was in some kind representative of the whole culture of his time is historically false anyway. Every phrase in this quote is false.

We should have, in 2021, a more nuanced and informed view of things, and forget these old stupid debates.

And for f$$$'s sakes, no one serious about music have been using the term "avant garde" to talk about music written today for at least 20 years.


----------



## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Haydn70 said:


> No, it didn't. There are very few isolated cases of pre-nineteenth century composers concocting some pretty wild music but they are, like I said, isolated...very rare exceptions. Here's one from 1673:
> 
> This is the link to the beginning of the piece:
> 
> ...


nothing even come close to the 20th century maybe also because the 20th century has represented an explosion and acceleration of discoveries in every field to make all the history of humanity before pale in comparison? Just look at science, physics, medicine, electronics. We learned how to fly, we went to to the moon, we cured major diseases, we invented a lot of things that has made our life easier, longer and better. Maybe that's why. But still even before composers were experimenting (sometimes in a wild way, like Mozart in his dissonance quartet), sometimes in a more consistent way. Beethoven's music was different from what it came before, and if he hadn't died, probably we would have seen going a lot more toward the music of the 20th century (see its Grosse fuge). 
If one looks at the history of western music it's easy to see how 20th century avantgarde exists only because all those Gesualdo, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Berlioz, Wagner, Liszt existed before it. It's a path with a progression, different people put their boundaries in different places of that path. There were those who thought that Gesualdo already was making ugly music so...


----------



## Agamenon (Apr 22, 2019)

consuono said:


> Not dead but dying, and it will die unless a stronger connection between composers and audiences is formed. I also wouldn't say it's simply dying but rather committing suicide.
> Why the emphasis on originality, on doing what nobody's ever done before? Bach and Mozart weren't very original in that sense. They used old forms and techniques.


This is truth. Many friends feel that there´s no connection between composer and audiences.

Other group discover and listen classical recordings (vinyl, cd, via streaming) and when they attend concerts, simply they run way because _"....this sound different, what dissapointment, these artists are uneven, etc"
_


----------



## Kilgore Trout (Feb 26, 2014)

consuono said:


> Why the emphasis on originality, on doing what nobody's ever done before? Bach and Mozart weren't very original in that sense. They used old forms and techniques.


Do you actually listen to music that is written these days? The emphasis on "doing what nobody's ever done before" is long gone. The major composers of today use old techniques and aren't seeking the new at all price at all. Sure, originality is still a thing, but in the sense that they try to write something that is unique to them, not that is new in terms of form or technique. 
John Adams? Blatantly tonal music, and he has now abandonned post-minimalism for post-romantic expressivity. 
Magnus Lindberg? Started as an experimental composer in the 80's, now writes music that sounds like a Hollywood version of Ravel's. 
Pascal Dusapin? Same, wrote noisy and powerful pieces in the 80's and 90's, now his works are on the verge of tonality and strongly based on melody and diatonic harmony.
Thomas Adès? His last piece sounds like late Liszt. 
Wolfgang Rihm? He seems to slowly transform into Brahms. 
Kaija Saariaho? Close to Ircam at her beginnings, she now writes a melodic and accessible derivation of spectralism (which is a style that is more than 40 years old).
They don't write like Mozart, but there is nothing avant-garde in their music at all, and they are some of the most played composers in the world.

Your view of new music is completely out of date.


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Kilgore Trout said:


> And for f$$$'s sakes, no one serious about music have been using the term "avant garde" to talk about music written today for at least 20 years.


What word do these serious people use to distinguish Ades and Laurence Crane, on the one hand, and Richard Barrett and James Dillon on the other?


----------



## allaroundmusicenthusiast (Jun 3, 2020)

Agamenon said:


> This is truth. Many friends feel that there´s no connection between composer and audiences.
> 
> Other group discover and listen classical recordings (vinyl, cd, via streaming) and when they attend concerts, simply they run way because _"....this sound different, what dissapointment, these artists are uneven, etc"
> _


This is a point I forgot to make in my post. What audiences do you guys think that composers from before the 20thC had? Bach had a captive audience because he composed for the church, so did Messiaen. Composers before either wrote for church or for some aristocrat/noble/patron that would then have it as background music for some party or event, or for his own individual or family's enjoyment. Again, what kind of audience is that? Before late 19thC, people went to the opera and talked during the performance. 
The idea of appealing to a paying public (and having to worry about that) came much later than that, and even then what fraction of the total population went to the opera during the 19thC? I'm going to bet that in relative terms a greater percentage of the population today (as in, say, the past 70 years) goes to classical music concerts than ever before. Why? Because there is a thing called the middle class, not only in terms of money, but also in terms of culture, and willingness to acquire it. 
And if someone says that for classical music to survive today in this supossed era that disregards the audience there needs to be all sorts of public subsidies, that person doesn't understand that it is very clear that that has always been the case. Few classical music composers could make a living only from the tickets their works sold. Bayreuth wouldn't have even been built without government intervention, not to mention that the aristocrats and noblepeople and the church were the State back then, and they subsidized whatever art they liked.


----------



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Strange Magic said:


> mbhaub and MR know better and should know better, but are at it again, dragging ideological/political polemics into the main TC Forums when such clearly belongs in the Groups. Very poor impulse control on their part, and more and more disappointing.


In my own defense, I wasn't trying to bring politics into this discussion; I didn't initially post the video.



fluteman said:


> ...millionrainbow's comment was simply meant to point out (agree with him or not) that this critic's attack on 'modern' music has a disingenuous subtext or political agenda behind it...


Yes, I agree with this interpretation.


----------



## Aries (Nov 29, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> _"Serious music is a dead art. The vein for which three hundred years offered a seemingly inexhaustible yield of beautiful music has run out. What we know as modern music is the noise made by deluded speculators picking through the slagpile...The last really modern serious composer, modern in the sense that he spoke with the full authority of the cultural forces of his time, was Wagner. With him ended the long evolution of the art of music in the harmonic or European sense. All that has followed has been reaction, refinement - and desperate experimentation."_ - Henry Pleasants, The Agony of Modern Music (1955).
> 
> Do you agree or disagree?


- Good music did not die, but has no cultural authority anymore and is not modish anymore.
- Music evolved for centuries and had/has its peak in late romanticism.
- The style disintegrated at the end of the 19th century into style pluralism with extremes like the dysfunctional atonal music and non-music for the mob like Rap today.
- This tells something about a wrong functionality and a wrong direction of development in western societies. A full-fledged decline of the occident is the reason.

I rather agree.


----------



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Many responses here, as well as the opening quote by Pleasants, seem to say that the appearance of new music somehow marked an end to the Western tradition, and implies that tradition was destroyed in the process. Could this be true? This was certainly Boulez' intent when he called for "burning down the opera houses."


----------



## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Aries said:


> - Good music did not die, but has no cultural authority anymore and is not modish anymore.
> - Music evolved for centuries and had/has its peak in late romanticism.
> - The style disintegrated at the end of the 19th century into style pluralism with extremes like the dysfunctional atonal music and non-music for the mob like Rap today.
> - This tells something about a wrong functionality and a wrong direction of development in western societies. A full-fledged decline of the occident is the reason.
> ...


No, it is just the case that, given the vastness now, the diversity, of human populations, and the ubiquity instantly of everything cultural, we are in the midst of Leonard Meyer's postulated New Stasis in the Arts. He compared it to brownian motion or to white noise. The total flux of myriad artistic "styles" enables everything to bloom and swell, briefly, then sink back into the noise of the hissing background. Look at closeup views of the surface of the sun, as millions of individual cells boil to the surface and then dissipate--each unique yet losing its uniqueness in the general steady turmoil. The New Stasis will only change as entire regions of masses of people again are aligned, as iron fragments in a magnetic field, by an overarching force, be it cultural or some other social field. Yeats had a glimpse:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

The second half of this striking poem, _The Second Coming,_ which many know but all are encouraged to look at again, is where Yeats hypothesizes a metaphorical entitiy arising to create and then enforce a new global (cultural only?) order.


----------



## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> _"Serious music is a dead art. The vein for which three hundred years offered a seemingly inexhaustible yield of beautiful music has run out. What we know as modern music is the noise made by deluded speculators picking through the slagpile...The last really modern serious composer, modern in the sense that he spoke with the full authority of the cultural forces of his time, was Wagner. With him ended the long evolution of the art of music in the harmonic or European sense. All that has followed has been reaction, refinement - and desperate experimentation."_ - Henry Pleasants, The Agony of Modern Music (1955).
> 
> Do you agree or disagree?


On one level I agree: as Pleasants describes it (cf. other posts in this thread), there is a thing called the "harmonic epoch" which lasted circa 1600 to 1950s, and that epoch has pretty much passed. So if you think that "serious music" is synonymous with the "harmonic epoch" than sure, yeah, it's dead. I suggested something similar in a post a couple of years ago, although coming at it from a different (and non-polemical) angle - namely that _one version_ of the concept of "classical music" is a thing of the past.
But I disagree with the idea that this could ever be the only form of "serious music". Plus, he wrote this in 1955 and a lot has happened since then...


----------



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Nereffid said:


> On one level I agree: as Pleasants describes it (cf. other posts in this thread), there is a thing called the "harmonic epoch" which lasted circa 1600 to 1950s, and that epoch has pretty much passed.
> 
> So if you think that "serious music" is synonymous with the "harmonic epoch" than sure, yeah, it's dead. I suggested something similar in a post a couple of years ago, although coming at it from a different (and non-polemical) angle - namely that _one version_ of the concept of "classical music" is a thing of the past.
> 
> But I disagree with the idea that this could ever be the only form of "serious music". Plus, he wrote this in 1955 and a lot has happened since then...


I agree that "serious music" should not equate with the harmonic epoch of music.


----------



## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_"Serious music is a dead art. Do you agree or disagree?_

I don't think the art form is dead; I think the practitioners of it are not of the quality we once knew and the amount of the music that is memorable has diminished greatly. I think the same could be said for literature, film and some other art forms.


----------



## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

millionrainbows said:


> Many responses here, as well as the opening quote by Pleasants, seem to say that the appearance of new music somehow marked an end to the Western tradition, and implies that tradition was destroyed in the process. Could this be true? *This was certainly Boulez' intent when he called for "burning down the opera houses.*"


Not so MR.....watch from 30" in.

[video]https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p014ygt5[/video]


----------



## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

A copy of my recent post elsewhere:

A music critic and author Henry Pleasants (1910-2000) wrote a very interesting book back in *1955*, titled _The Agony of Modern Music_. Wikipedia describes this book as "a polemical attack on the direction taken by much of twentieth-century music and an argument in favor of jazz as the "true" master music of the time".

Some quotes from it seem to go in hand with the study of Williams' work.

*On Wagner:*
"The purely musical basis of Wagner's popularity is something contemporary composers of opera have never perceived. They have held to this method and discarded his manner, not recognizing that what was valid and vital in Wagner was precisely his manner, including particularily the excesses and extravagances the contemporary composer so heartily despises".---page 157

"The contemporary composer's error has been, not in failing to take up where Wagner and Strauss left off, but in failing to understand what Wagner had been. They were influenced by his theories and his method, and ignored the obvious musical reasons for his success. They neglected to note that the essential musical nature of opera had not been changed, least of all by Wagner, and that in the opera house, as in the concert hall, vocal melody, or an instrumental substitute for it, is the alpha and omega of music".---page 158

"Wagner was a musician, a composer in spite of himself. He achieved success and immortality in the theater just as Bellini and Meyerbeer and Verdi did---by writing hit tunes".---page 157

*On Verdi:*
"The composer, the student of music, the sophisticated listener, may think of Otello as being superior to Aida, and of Falstaff as being superior to Otello. But as pure music Aida is superior to both of them. The composers turned to Otello and Falstaff to inf out what it was that Verdi was driving at. They found something very much akin to the Wagnerian concept of integrated music-drama, free of Wagner's Germanic trappings. What they failed to understand was that even Verdi could be wrong, or at least go too far. Verdi's destination was Aida. He had developed a considerable momentum in getting there, and in Otello and Falstaff he overshot the objective. He did not come to grief. He had too much stability for that. But his successors foundered in rapid succession.
It is easy to understand, at this distance, the temptation Otello and Falstaff represented. They offered more excitement and pleasure. The pace is faster, the action more direct and, in the case of Otello, more violent and shocking. The form is less conventional. The set piece has almost vanished. There are some in Otello, although less numerous and less conspicuous than in Aida. There are very few in Falstaff. In other words, they represented, when superficially examined, and from the point of view of the time, a liberation from the operatic conventions, a step toward real music-drama, a closer approximation than Wagner was able to achieve of a complete jelling of the various arts involved in opera.
Such appreciation was correct enough, but the conclusions drawn from it were as mistaken as those drawn from the similar appreciation of Wagner, and hardly less disastrous, although easier to forgive. Verdi was the more honest progressive of the tow, or at least the more consistent, and his results were more convincing. Wagner's visions were a bit ridiculous. Verdi's never were. He had as good a sense of the theater as Wagner, and a more consicous understanding of the essentially musical nature of opera. Thus it was easy to believe that Otello and Falstaff owed their success and the high esteem in which they were held to what was new in them rather than to what was told.
This was true as far as the critics and the initiated public were concerned. But it was not the new that kept the operas in the repertoire. It was what still survived of the earlier Verdi".

*Critics may praise as they will the declamatory style of Otello.* *But what keeps it in the repertoire is the opening chorus, the Drinking Song, the first act duet, the Credo, the Iago-Otello duet at the close of the second act, the great choral scene and Otello's monologue at the end of the third act, and Desdemona's arias in the fourth. There are fewer such melodic excursions in Falstaff, which is why Falstaff is less often in the repertoire than Otello.*

*Contemporary composers would have done better had they not dismissed the fact that Aida is still more popular than either Otello and Falstaff and always will be. Their error was in listening to the critics rather than to the box office.*

About this even Verdi, for whom the box-office was never an institution to be taken lightly, may have been deceived. By the time Otello was produced he had achieved a position in the hearts of his countrymen and others where failure would have been next to impossible. But the fact was that Verdi, along with the main stream of music, had moved away from his popular base. He, too, had been seduced by the lure of a music that would be more than song.
This is the tragedy of European music in miniature. In aspiring to more than song its composers denied those very lyric faculties of music which prompt people to express themselves musically and which make the musical expression of others intelligible. Preoccupied with harmony and instrumentation, they forgot that the musician's primary purpose in life is to sing".----pages 159-161

*Other statements:*
"If he tries to write musically he ends, like Krenek twenty years ago, in a no-man's land between serious and popular music, or like Menotti today, somewhere between the present and Puccini. Or he finds, as did Weill, that he can compete succesfully with the really popular composers, and does so. *In either case he ceases **to** be taken seriously as a serious composer*".---page 165

"*Music still lives in the theater. It probably always will. But it lives in the theater today, in America, at least, in the music of Gershwin, Kern, Rodgers, Porter, Schwartz, and Berlin*. Their shows have never been fully recognized as opera. *But is not what a thing is called that counts. It is what it is.* If opera is the extension of the theater in song, then these shows are opears, regardless of the spoken dialogue and regardless of who does the orchestration. By the same definition most modern opera is not".---page 165

"*The significant musical fact of this century is not atonality, nor neo-classicism, nor neo-primitivism. *These are techniques derived, not from a popular music requirement, but from the inability of the composer to express himself musically. Their purpose is not to satisfy a musical impulse but to disguise the absence of one. *The only musical fact of real significance is the new music for which there is a demand*".---page 166

"A strong style, like a strong current, absorbs every inferior stream that crosses its path. The proof of strength lies in the fact of absorption".---page 170

"The executive glory of Western music is the symphony orchestra"---page 137

Williams was 18 years old when this book came out. I wonder if he read it. I think the name of Pleasants might have been known to him, considering that: "Following the end of the war, from 1945 to 1955, Pleasants contributed articles on European musical events to _The New York Times. He also wrote regularly for Opera Quarterly, was London editor for the magazine Stereo Review, and for 30 years, beginning in 1967, was the London music critic for the International Herald Tribune." _


----------



## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Boulez spent the majority of his professional career promoting the Western European Classical Music canon.


----------



## Aries (Nov 29, 2012)

larold said:


> _"Serious music is a dead art. Do you agree or disagree?_
> 
> I don't think the art form is dead; I think the practitioners of it are not of the quality we once knew and the amount of the music that is memorable has diminished greatly. I think the same could be said for literature, film and some other art forms.


Yes, I think it is because of the commercialization. Commercialization implys that something is adjusted to the tasteless mainstream. On the other side we have avant-gardists who lost connection to any broad audience and make art just for themselves now and are not bound to a good taste anymore (decadence).

So the 19th century artists had overall a good taste, because they made art for the medium sized audience out of the upper and middle classes.
And artists now make tasteless art because they are either bound to the wide mass as audience or to nothing but other artists as audience.


----------



## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

consuono said:


> But at the same time it could be said that there's a disingenuous subtext or political agenda *for* modern art. One of the big turnoffs for me is art that is politically preachy. And a lot of it is. And a lot of the philosophical underpinnings of modern art and criticism of it is rooted in a political viewpoint.


That's a way too broad generalization and over-simplification for me. Yes, modern art came about after western societies emerged from centuries of aristocratic, rigidly class-oriented social and political orders to embrace more egalitarian ideas, at least in theory. Some modern art does reflect that explicitly. But there was a lot more going on. For example, electricity and other technological advances profoundly changed our way of life, down to the sounds we hear on a daily basis. A lot of modern art is about rethinking fundamental and long-held assumptions about aesthetics and beauty that, inevitably, are at least partly arbitrary, without any specific political agenda.


----------



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

mikeh375 said:


> Not so MR.....watch from 30" in.
> 
> [video]https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p014ygt5[/video]


This video is not accessible in the US. Got any others?

"It is not enough to deface the Mona Lisa because that does not kill the Mona Lisa. All the art of the past must be destroyed."


----------



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

SanAntone said:


> Boulez spent the majority of his professional career promoting the Western European Classical Music canon.


"It is not enough to deface the Mona Lisa because that does not kill the Mona Lisa. All the art of the past must be destroyed."


----------



## Haydn70 (Jan 8, 2017)

fluteman said:


> That's a way too broad generalization and over-simplification for me. Yes, *modern art came about after western societies emerged from centuries of aristocratic, rigidly class-oriented social and political orders to embrace more egalitarian ideas*, at least in theory. Some modern art does reflect that explicitly. But there was a lot more going on. For example, electricity and other technological advances profoundly changed our way of life, down to the sounds we hear on a daily basis. A lot of modern art is about rethinking fundamental and long-held assumptions about aesthetics and beauty that, inevitably, are at least partly arbitrary, without any specific political agenda.


What were these "egalitarian" artistic ideas? Please explain to me how this supposed egalitarianism manifested itself in the music and art of the avant-garde. I get such a laugh out of the fact that Marxists such as Boulez (who claimed he was 200% [or was it 300%?] Leninist), Nono, Maderna, et al composed music that was decidedly NOT egalitarian, i.e., music that was completely incomprehensible to members of their beloved proletariat…as if those members would even have the slightest interest in ANY style of art music.

And, yeah, I got political…because it is a political issue.


----------



## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_Many responses here, as well as the opening quote by Pleasants, seem to say that the appearance of new music somehow marked an end to the Western tradition, and implies that tradition was destroyed in the process. Could this be true?_

No, not true. Yet much of the music written since the advent of the Second Viennese School, and especially electronic and other forms in the later 20th century, changed music from what it had been in prior centuries: harmonic, tuneful, generally written in sonata format.

Much of the new music was less what people believed for many years to be "music" and represented more of a sound world. This was the break from tradition.

Most of the "post" anything music being written today has returned to the old formula. That "new" music that sprung up for a century is now mostly a part of musical history.


----------



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

SanAntone said:


> His past polemical statements as a young man are not as important as his much longer public career as a conductor in which he demonstrated his allegiance to and preservation of the classical music canon.


"...The Paris Opera is full of dust and crap, to put it plainly. The tourists still go there because you 'have to have seen' the Paris Opera. It's on the itinerary, just like...where Napoleon's tomb is...These operatic tourists make me vomit."


----------



## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

*Serious Music is a Dead Art*

Seem to me that if this statement were true, this Forum wouldn't exist and this particular thread would not be moving towards its seventh page of responses.


----------



## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

I deleted several political posts, but it seems we're back on track.


----------



## Aries (Nov 29, 2012)

SONNET CLV said:


> *Serious Music is a Dead Art*
> 
> Seem to me that if this statement were true, this Forum wouldn't exist and this particular thread would not be moving towards its seventh page of responses.


It is possible to talk about something dead. Can you tell me some living composers of classical music that do not write in a weird way? John Williams is a great composer for sure, but his music is subordinated to films. Lets make it more difficult: Is classical music dead as an independent art? I think the chances are good that composers of independent real classical music still exist but it is really difficult to find them because of a overwhelming majority of composers of weird music and because of a disinterest of the public. Typical problems of new music are: Much dissonance, almost no major, long-windedness, no form, imitation, confusion, mixing of styles.


----------



## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_It is possible to talk about something dead. Can you tell me some living composers of classical music that do not write in a weird way?_

The last contemporary (living) composer I tried was Christopher Gunning, a Brit that writes symphonies, concertos, music for stage and movie scores among others. He has composed at least a dozen symphonies. His music is in my opinion akin to previous British composers including Malcolm Arnold and William Alwyn. I would say if you like the music of one of those composers you'd like them all.

James McMillan is another British composer of symphonies, choral and other forms of classical music in traditional styles. A lot of his symphonies are recorded and reviewed positively in the music press.

Richard Rogriguez is an American composer from Texas active today who also writes serious music in multiple veins. I have heard music from him very reminiscent of Mozart and song cycles that are of today's sensibility. He wrote a song cycle about women in recent years that set a-twitter some critics. All his music is listenable, traditional and worth hearing.

More common today, I agree, is music influenced by dissonance and sound worlds. A film score I heard in the past year, from the movie "Mob Town," was very interesting listening during the movie.

However on its own not so much in part because it is built on repetitive (AKA minimalist) themes and the tunes or songs are in name only; it's more a grouping of various sounds. The instruments, if you'd call them that, were a bunch of bongos, drums, a cello and some other stuff being hit or beaten. You can hear it on YouTube.

I don't think we lack quality composers today; I just think there aren't any that have created a hit or hits that turned on the world. There might be a Mahler out there today -- someone whose music is a century ahead of popular taste -- but I doubt if there is a Beethoven or Mozart alive and composing now.


----------



## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

millionrainbows said:


> "It is not enough to deface the Mona Lisa because that does not kill the Mona Lisa. All the art of the past must be destroyed."


His past polemical statements as a young man are not as important as his much longer public career as a conductor in which he demonstrated his allegiance to and preservation of the classical music canon.


----------



## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

larold said:


> _
> No, not true. Yet much of the music written since the advent of the Second Viennese School, and especially electronic and other forms in the later 20th century, changed music from what it had been in prior centuries: harmonic, tuneful, generally written in sonata format.
> _


_

Basically, requiring far more craftsmanship and talent._


----------



## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

I don't care about whether or not serious music is a dead art. I enjoy a lot of modern music so whether it is "serious" or not, I will continue to listen to it.


----------



## Haydn70 (Jan 8, 2017)

Aries said:


> It is possible to talk about something dead. Can you tell me some living composers of classical music that do not write in a weird way? John Williams is a great composer for sure, but his music is subordinated to films. Lets make it more difficult: Is classical music dead as an independent art? I think the chances are good that composers of independent real classical music still exist but it is really difficult to find them because of a overwhelming majority of composers of weird music and because of a disinterest of the public. Typical problems of new music are: Much dissonance, almost no major, long-windedness, no form, imitation, confusion, mixing of styles.


Two of my favorite composers of the last few decades are Christopher Rouse and Eric Whitacre. Both have composed truly beautiful music. They use dissonance (no so much Whitacre) but in an expressive way...not just for the sake of it. And both are concerned with formal logic.

Here is Whitacre's Water Night in the string orchestra version. It was originally composed for SATB choir a cappella with three, four and five-part divisi in sections.





Here is the third movement of Rouse's flute concerto. The flute solo in the opening couple of minutes is a bit disjunct but at the 2'46" a really beautiful section begins going from forte to pianissimo (I am not sure of the exact dynamics...suffice it say it goes from loud to soft.) Then at 6'23" this section is essentially repeated (not literally) this time with the dynamics reversed.


----------



## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

SanAntone said:


> Boulez spent the majority of his professional career promoting the Western European Classical Music canon.


Iirc Boulez went through a long period during which he insisted on conducting only 20th century music.


----------



## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

consuono said:


> Iirc Boulez went through a long period during which he insisted on conducting only 20th century music.


So?

His focus was on Wagner, Debussy, Mahler, Bartok, Ravel, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern - these are the major composers of the 20th century and the continuation of the classical canon. He was arguably the best person to interpret these works. But he also conducted works from previous periods.


----------



## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

SanAntone said:


> His focus was on Wagner, Debussy, Mahler, Bartok, Ravel, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern - these are the major composers of the 20th century . . .


Well . . . except for Wagner.


----------



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

SanAntone said:


> So?
> 
> His focus was on Wagner, Debussy, Mahler, Bartok, Ravel, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern - these are the major composers of the 20th century and the continuation of the classical canon. He was arguably the best person to interpret these works. But he also conducted works from previous periods.


Don't forget Varese!

So "Boulez was continuing the classical canon!" I learn something new every day!


----------



## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

Henry Pleasants was a very smart and erudite man, and one of the foremost experts on opera in the 20th century . Unfortunately, he was also extremely dogmatic and biased , and largely hostile to contemporary classical music in general . 
I've read his books, and his arguments strike me as extremely specious ; filled with ridiculous sweeping generalizations and straw men . He always seemed to equate the value of any classical work with its popularity rather than o its intrinsic merit . 
For example, to him, contemporary operas couldn't possibly be any good because they don't have the popular appeal of operas by Mozart, Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, Puccini, Bizet, Gounod and Massenet et al , and not everyone in the audience likes them . 
But he ignores one fact ; a lot of the classical music written over the centuries is utterly forgettable , and many composers from the past who were widely performed in their day are now pretty much forgotten, except for occasional revivals . 
Wagner was considered outrageously avant-garde and beyond the pale by many in his day , but his music has survived inspire of this .


----------



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

As they say, "All music was once new."


----------



## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

SanAntone said:


> So?
> ...


The "western classical canon" doesn't exactly begin with Wagner.


----------



## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

consuono said:


> The "western classical canon" doesn't exactly begin with Wagner.


Boulez, as do many conductors, focused on a repertory for which he was drawn and had a particular interest in promoting. Your claim was that Boulez wanted to destroy all the music that came before; not true. Some of Boulez's barbs were directed at Schoenberg, and yet he recorded almost his entire oeuvre.

IMO, Boulez, the conductor, was a major exponent of the most important music of the late 19th and 20th century, and this aspect of his career must be separated from his early polemical diatribes and attacks. Which are widely seen as a method for him to separate himself from the post war pack, and garner some controversy, and early notice.


----------



## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

SanAntone said:


> Boulez, as do many conductors, focused on a repertory for which he was drawn and had a particular interest in promoting. Your claim was that Boulez wanted to destroy all the music that came before; not true. ...


For one thing, I didn't claim that; for another, those that do are just using Boulez's words.


----------



## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

millionrainbows said:


> Don't forget Varese!
> 
> So "Boulez was continuing the classical canon!" I learn something new every day!


Most all other conductors were perpetuating the music of the 18th and 19th century. There are countless recordings and performances of Beethoven, Schubert, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, and the rest of the standard repertory. Boulez was especially gifted at interpreting the music of the 20th century, which he did, and in the process, filled something of a void.

Your surprise at my comment would indicate a gap in your knowledge of classical music, and seems to imply that you think the classical canon ended with Brahms.


----------



## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

consuono said:


> The "western classical canon" doesn't exactly begin with Wagner.


It does include all of the composers Boulez performed.


----------



## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

consuono said:


> For one thing, I didn't claim that; for another, those that do are just using Boulez's words.


And as I have shown, he didn't mean what he said. Or he meant it in the sense that composers working at the time, and today, should not merely repeat the music of the past.


----------



## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

SanAntone said:


> And as I have shown, he didn't mean what he said.


Ah ok. :lol: So maybe he didn't mean what he composed either. Therefore I'll give him a break.


----------



## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

Kilgore Trout said:


> And for f$$$'s sakes, no one serious about music have been using the term "avant garde" to talk about music written today for at least 20 years.


This is kinda trippy. We're (potentially) in the midst of a historical process of seeing avant-garde transform from a broad descriptive term into a genre embedded in a certain place and time (in the recent past). Cool to think about, anyway.


----------



## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> This is kinda trippy. We're (potentially) in the midst of a historical process of seeing avant-garde transform from a broad descriptive term into a genre embedded in a certain place and time (in the recent past). Cool to think about, anyway.


Avant garde is now canonical I guess.


----------



## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

The only place I hear people refer to "the avant-garde" is on TC. All of the composers I know and those that I know about refer to what they do as "new music." As far as I can determine, "the avant-garde" only exists in the minds of a few people who imagine that the foundations of civilization, including classical music, are under attack and being destroyed as we sleep.


----------



## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Haydn70 said:


> What were these "egalitarian" artistic ideas? Please explain to me how this supposed egalitarianism manifested itself in the music and art of the avant-garde. I get such a laugh out of the fact that Marxists such as Boulez (who claimed he was 200% [or was it 300%?] Leninist), Nono, Maderna, et al composed music that was decidedly NOT egalitarian, i.e., music that was completely incomprehensible to members of their beloved proletariat…as if those members would even have the slightest interest in ANY style of art music.
> 
> And, yeah, I got political…because it is a political issue.


Your post is strangely familiar. Where have I read something like that before? Oh, now I remember:

Art is in no way fashion. In the same way that little changes in the nature and blood of our people, art, too, must lose its character of transience; instead, in its continuously intensifying creations, it must be a worthy visual expression of the life's course of our people. Cubism, Dadaism, Futurism, Impressionism, and so on, have nothing to do with our German people. For all of these terms are neither old nor modern, but are simply the stilted stammering of people to whom God has denied real artistic talent and has given instead the gift of blather and deception. I therefore wish to affirm in this hour my immutable resolve to do for German artistic life what I have done in the area of political confusion: to purge it of empty phrases.

"Works of art" that cannot be understood on their own, but rather require a pompous user manual to justify their existence, in order to finally find that intimidated person who will patiently accept such foolish or impudent nonsense - such art works will no longer find their way to the German people!


----------



## Aries (Nov 29, 2012)

SanAntone said:


> The only place I hear people refer to "the avant-garde" is on TC. All of the composers I know and those that I know about refer to what they do as "new music."


"New music" is a term for all classical music after the romantizism period. But not everything afterwards is avant-garde. Some continued romantizism or did socialist realism for example. Both are rather conservative, not avant-garde.

Avant-garde is a common term: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avant-garde



SanAntone said:


> As far as I can determine, "the avant-garde" only exists in the minds of a few people who imagine that the foundations of civilization, including classical music, are under attack and being destroyed as we sleep.


Some people want that. 
- Adorno said: "Writing poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric."
- Stockhausen said: "The famous German culture is nothing but the last Coca-Cola imitation."
- Stockhausen also said in 1959: "In twenty years no one will speak of Bach and the classics anymore."

He was wrong, but that is what these people still want. They see real classical music as a rack wheel in the gear box of fascism, and therefore they want to destroy it. A new tendency is that art isn't judged by artistic criteria (because it's subjective), but by the political desirability of the artists ethnic group. (I guess if a white man just promotes what his taste likes this is racist, and sexist too.)

People who think like that are in power today and it is not surprising that classical music isn't in the best situation.


----------



## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Aries said:


> "New music" is a term for all classical music after the romantizism period. But not everything afterwards is avant-garde. Some continued romantizism or did socialist realism for example. Both are rather conservative, not avant-garde.
> 
> Avant-garde is a common term: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avant-garde
> 
> ...


You are quoting from wikipedia and from 1959 and before. I am interacting with composers today. NO ONE calls themselves "avant-garde" - it is an antiquated term. "New music" is what people who are in their 20s and 30s say they are writing. It has nothing to do with a historical use of the phrase.

TC has a few people, a few loud people, who have an ax to grind against new music. It is tiresome.


----------



## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

I would just like to add that almost all of the classical music we have today was developed from composers trying to "destroy" the old music and create a new one out of the ashes.

You can start with Monteverdi who wanted to abolish the "prima practica" in favor of a freer, more emotional, "seconda practica".

You have the Galant style promoted by those who wanted to shed the heavy Baroque counterpoint for a less cerebral, more casual form of enjoyment.

You have Robert Schumann who formed the _Davidsbundler_ to combat the "musical phillistines" from the old Czerny school of piano writing.

You have the group promoting the "music of the future" such as Liszt and Wagner, of whom the latter considered the "old style" of Brahms and Beethoven to be as good as dead.

And then in the 20th century there was Boulez and Stockhausen and whomever you'd like.

So even if it is true that the composers of today have some kind of bone to pick with the institution, historically speaking this isn't something that is catastrophic. There will always be conservatives and progressives in music. The "traditional" music that you considered beautiful and refined today could've been considered ugly and vulgar in its time.

Change comes from wanting something different from the status quo.


----------



## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Aries said:


> Stockhausen also said in 1959: "In twenty years no one will speak of Bach and the classics anymore."
> 
> He was wrong, but that is what these people still want. They see real classical music as a rack wheel in the gear box of fascism, and therefore they want to destroy it.


Except, he wasn't wrong, at least as far as the US of America is concerned. By the end of the 1960s, both classical music shows on network TV, The Voice of Firestone and the Bell Telephone Hour, were canceled. Since then, classical music has continued to fade in public popularity. You can look up any number of other hard facts and statistics if you want. And by 'classical music', I mean "real" classical music - Bach, Beethoven and Brahms, Wagner and Verdi operas, etc.

And whomever one might try to blame for this trend, Stockhausen and Boulez are not candidates. Personally, I blame no one, but rather the rise of technologies that have rendered the symphony orchestra and grand opera traditions increasingly obsolete: expensive and cumbersome to produce and inconvenient to attend live, which is still how they are best presented. It has become and will forever more be a niche market, part of our historical artistic and cultural heritage. I am a proud and happy devotee of that niche, but don't pretend it is anything else.


----------



## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

SanAntone said:


> TC has a few people, a few loud people, who have an ax to grind against new music. It is tiresome.


"Loud"? You're one of the "loudest" on here, SanAntone. And I don't criticize "new music" any more than you criticize John Williams. How many threads have I started attacking new music? How many comments have I made in the 21st century listening thread, or the Ligeti thread?


----------



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

chu42 said:


> You have the Galant style promoted by those who wanted to shed the heavy Baroque counterpoint for a less cerebral, more casual form of enjoyment.


This is an uninsightful view on that part of history. (we talked about this already in another thread)

And SanAntone seems to forget what I've said every time. There's no logical reason to include guys like Cage or Ferneyhough into the category of "classical music", but exclude classically-influenced new-age or film composers like Kuramoto or Einaudi.


----------



## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Aries said:


> It is possible to talk about something dead. Can you tell me some living composers of classical music that do not write in a weird way? John Williams is a great composer for sure, but his music is subordinated to films. Lets make it more difficult: Is classical music dead as an independent art? I think the chances are good that composers of independent real classical music still exist but it is really difficult to find them because of a overwhelming majority of composers of weird music and because of a disinterest of the public. Typical problems of new music are: Much dissonance, almost no major, long-windedness, no form, imitation, confusion, mixing of styles.


Consider that the old "long-hair" composers, folks like Mozart and Beethoven, didn't have films to write for, but they did write for the "theatres" of their experience, the ballet floor and the opera house. They also wrote masses and songs. We call all that today "serious music" but some of it was purely utilitarian. Think, Mozart's Masonic music, or the marches and dance pieces they wrote.

It's not that film music composers don't write "serious music", because they do. It's that they have a new outlet for their art.


----------



## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

consuono said:


> "Loud"? You're one of the "loudest" on here, SanAntone. And I don't criticize "new music" any more than you criticize John Williams. How many threads have I started attacking new music? How many comments have I made in the 21st century listening thread, or the Ligeti thread?


You are either disingenuous or completely self-unaware.

I haven't started any threads criticizing John Williams or any music. And while I did question whether John Williams was more than a very good film composer, I also posted that to the extent I did say negative things his music, I regretted it. I even praised his alto saxophone concerto, Escapades, based on his score for Catch Me If You Can, saying how much I liked it.

I usually, almost always, limit my comments to describing music in terms of my like/dislike, interest/disinterest.

Since I believe the appreciation of music is primarily subjective and have no interest in any kind of objective ranking of composers and works on a greatness scale, I would venture to say I never describe my experience of music in anything like that context.

But you and a few others have conducted a smear campaign against new music or as you call it "the avant-garde" in a variety of threads, which seem to pop up as one is exhausted. Right now there are probably three or four, titled variously, but all about the same thing.


----------



## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

> I haven't started any threads criticizing John Williams or any music.


Neither have I. So quit whining about people with "axes to grind" just because they don't like a genre of music that you do. There's a "Mozart is overrated" thread. There's a "I just don't get Bach" thread. I didn't cry about it.


----------



## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

consuono said:


> Neither have I. So quit whining about people with "axes to grind" just because they don't like a genre of music that you do.


I don't know if you have started threads for the purpose of attacking new music - but one of the small group of anti-"avant-garde" has. My involvement has been to counter the attacks.


----------



## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

SanAntone said:


> I don't know if you have started threads for the purpose of attacking new music - but one of the small group of anti-"avant-garde" has. My involvement has been to counter the attacks.


If the music is so strong why don't you just let it speak for itself.


----------



## allaroundmusicenthusiast (Jun 3, 2020)

consuono said:


> If the music is so strong why don't you just let it speak for itself.


Not SanAntone, but there are two reasons: first of all, I like it. Second of all, there are people who think that it is not music and the cause for the decay of civilization. Also, i'm sorry, but that's not a very bright question. Why does anyone speak about Bach then or Beethoven or Mozart if they are so objectively good?

(BTW I love all three of them)


----------



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

SanAntone said:


> ...this aspect of his career must be separated from his early polemical diatribes and attacks. Which are widely seen as a method for him to separate himself from the post war pack, and garner some controversy, and early notice.


...and make a living.



SanAntone said:


> Most all other conductors were perpetuating the music of the 18th and 19th century. There are countless recordings and performances of Beethoven, Schubert, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, and the rest of the standard repertory. Boulez was especially gifted at interpreting the music of the 20th century, which he did, and in the process, filled something of a void.
> 
> Your surprise at my comment would indicate a gap in your knowledge of classical music, and seems to imply that you think the classical canon ended with Brahms.


You are myopic, and are misguidedly trying to "justify" Boulez and give him "cred" as a proponent of "the classical canon." In fact, he had a modernist agenda, not a traditional agenda. To say otherwise, as you are, is misleading and condescending to tradition. All the composers he conducted were what I would call "modern" or "harbingers of modernism" (Wagner and Mahler). He never conducted much Beethoven, that I recall...he did do a Handel Water music and a Gabrieli, as I recall...


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> ...and make a living.
> 
> You are myopic, and are incorrectly trying to "justify" Boulez and give him "cred" as a proponent of "the classical canon." In fact, he had a modernist agenda, not a traditional agenda. To say otherwise, as you are, is misleading and condescending to tradition. That's why he never conducted much Beethoven, if any...


I have a recording of him conducting the Brahms requiem and Beethoven 5. I guess if he was short of money he'd conduct whatever it takes to get a concert filled.


----------



## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

millionrainbows said:


> This video is not accessible in the US. Got any others?
> 
> "It is not enough to deface the Mona Lisa because that does not kill the Mona Lisa. All the art of the past must be destroyed."


Couldn't find it elsewhere. He is interviewed by Charles Hazlewood for the BBC on his 80th b/day. Hazlewood asks him about that specific quote to which he replies that it refers to a time when he was conducting opera in Germany. The orchestral players and cast where forever changing with stand-ins. This was happening far too often. He was asked what he could do about it as this was a normal routine occurrence at this particular house (as he says, routine is an enemy of art), so he suggested using dynamite. 
A newspaper took this out of context and created a headline. He was amused that he was accused of wanting such a thing.


----------



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

consuono said:


> The "western classical canon" doesn't exactly begin with Wagner.


I know. It _ends_ there, and modernists like Boulez see Wagner as the first proto-modernist because he helped dissolve tonality, paving the way for Schoenberg.

Even many traditionalists would agree that Wagner was "the apotheosis of Western tonal music." So that puts him at "the end" of all that.
Conversely, "modernists" like me see Wagner as the first harbinger of modernism and the dissolution of tonality, with his use of diminished sevenths and his extended suspension of tonality.


----------



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

superhorn said:


> Henry Pleasants was a very smart and erudite man, and one of the foremost experts on opera in the 20th century . Unfortunately, he was also extremely dogmatic and biased , and largely hostile to contemporary classical music in general .
> I've read his books, and his arguments strike me as extremely specious ; filled with ridiculous sweeping generalizations and straw men . He always seemed to equate the value of any classical work with its popularity rather than o its intrinsic merit .


I was glad to find out that he liked jazz and considered it the only living "serious" music. I wonder, was be black?


----------



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

SanAntone said:


> But you and a few others have conducted a smear campaign against new music or as you call it "the avant-garde" in a variety of threads, which seem to pop up as one is exhausted. Right now there are probably three or four, titled variously, but all about the same thing.


There are a lot of conservatives here, who relate only to their brand of classical music, and reject modern music because it's too "liberal." I didn't realize how widespread this attitude is, and never made the explicit connection with politics...until lately.

This makes me realize how fruitless is is to engage in dialogue with them. They can never be "converted" or even expected to be _tolerant _of modern music and its fans. We are "the enemy."


----------



## Kilgore Trout (Feb 26, 2014)

Mandryka said:


> I have a recording of him conducting the Brahms requiem and Beethoven 5. I guess if he was short of money he'd conduct whatever it takes to get a concert filled.


He lead several orchestras when he was young, and conducted (and sometimes recorded) the usual suspects of his time, including Berlioz, Haendel, etc. He did it not because he wanted to (even if he didn't necessarily disliked the music), but because it was its livehood, and it helped his career as a conductor. Later, when he got famous, he only conducted music he wanted to (or the music of his friends - I'm not sure he liked all of it).


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Kilgore Trout said:


> He lead several orchestras when he was young, and conducted (and sometimes recorded) the usual suspects of his time, including Berlioz, Haendel, etc. He did it not because he wanted to (even if he didn't necessarily disliked the music), but because it was its livehood, and it helped his career as a conductor. Later, when he got famous, he only conducted music he wanted to (or the music of his friends - I'm not sure he liked all of it).


I believe (though I've never checked) that when he was leading London orchestras he never conducted any British music.

I have a recording of him conducting Beethoven 5 in 1968, Haydn 104 in 1967, Brahms Requiem in a prom in 1973, a Schumann choral thing (The pilgrimage of the rose(?) - I have the recording but never heard it!), Bruckner 9 with the VPO. Maybe these things aren't surprising to everyone, but they were to me!

About 5 years ago there was a Boulez exhibition in Paris. The curator was really keen to emphasise his relation to tradition, the classical tradition, but I can't reconstruct the argument well, other than remembering very superficial things (antiphonic structure and using space effects in Rituel prompted the curator to mention Monteverdi and Gabrieli, that sort of thing.) Unfortunately I didn't buy a catalogue, so I can't see now if there's anything interesting there.


----------



## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

Some music of Alexander Goehr's was rejected by Boulez because Goehr was more Schoenbergian.


----------



## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

millionrainbows said:


> ...and make a living.
> 
> You are myopic, and are misguidedly trying to "justify" Boulez and give him "cred" as a proponent of "the classical canon." In fact, he had a modernist agenda, not a traditional agenda. To say otherwise, as you are, is misleading and condescending to tradition. All the composers he conducted were what I would call "modern" or "harbingers of modernism" (Wagner and Mahler). He never conducted much Beethoven, that I recall...he did do a Handel Water music and a Gabrieli, as I recall...


Despite or perhaps even because of his "modernist agenda", Boulez had an appropriate respect for music of earlier eras. Otherwise, he would not have agreed to be music director of the New York Philharmonic, or conduct numerous other "traditional" symphony orchestras. I remember attending a NY Philharmonic concert as a child in which he conducted a Beethoven symphony. One should not put too much stock in his more provocative commentary. He wanted to shock people out of their complacency, as many artists of all eras and all media seek to do.


----------



## Aries (Nov 29, 2012)

fluteman said:


> Except, he wasn't wrong, at least as far as the US of America is concerned. By the end of the 1960s, both classical music shows on network TV, The Voice of Firestone and the Bell Telephone Hour, were canceled.Since then, classical music has continued to fade in public popularity. You can look up any number of other hard facts and statistics if you want. And by 'classical music', I mean "real" classical music - Bach, Beethoven and Brahms, Wagner and Verdi operas, etc.


That these composers were not Americans didn't help at any time I guess. Here in Germany was fading too, but with higher starting and higher end point. These composers are still at least known here. And it seems to me that in Russia was less fading, since there was less western influence and the doctrine of socialist realism may have helped too.



fluteman said:


> And whomever one might try to blame for this trend, Stockhausen and Boulez are not candidates.


If they had written music like John Williams, it would have been more popular.

That old composers fade in popularity as time progresses is nothing special. But classical music has a lack of new composers that are known in the public to fill in. If the public leans towards easy music like pop music than serious music can't go for super complicated and weird stuff like serialism if it wants to stay popular. To turn away from melody, rhythm, harmonics is probably just wrong no matter what. This means the decisive figures in culture (rather concert directors than composers) have to promote a normal, possible to access style instead of pursue their ideological self-fulfillment. Popular music was and will be more popular no matter what, but serious music does not exploit its potential.



fluteman said:


> Personally, I blame no one, but rather the rise of technologies that have rendered the symphony orchestra and grand opera traditions increasingly obsolete:


But it should be mentioned that technologies have good aspects for classical music too. Today its possible for everyone via internet sites like Youtube to access much more classical music as concert visitors of the past. This is really good.


----------



## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

millionrainbows said:


> I know. It _ends_ there, and modernists like Boulez see Wagner as the first proto-modernist because he helped dissolve tonality, paving the way for Schoenberg.
> 
> Even many traditionalists would agree that Wagner was "the apotheosis of Western tonal music." So that puts him at "the end" of all that.
> Conversely, "modernists" like me see Wagner as the first harbinger of modernism and the dissolution of tonality, with his use of diminished sevenths and his extended suspension of tonality.


Rather than "the dissolution of tonality", let's just say, the reduced emphasis on tonality, which had increasingly been emphasized for centuries until it threatened to obscure the other elements of music, in favor of those other elements, such as rhythm, timbre, dynamics, polyphony, and structural forms. That should save a few hundred more posts.

There was nothing directly political in this, except that it did involve challenging some long-accepted norms and long-standing traditions, which, after all, is one of the main things artists must do. If a work of art doesn't inspire its audience to think or look at things in a new way, however slightly or subtly, than what is the point of it?


----------



## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

I am wondering how many of you could tell the difference in a blindfold test between a string quartet by Johann Baptist Vanhal (or any other contemporary, e.g Pleyel, Krommer, Rosetti) and Mozart? Aside from recognizing the Mozart work outright, I am wondering if there is an obvious observable drop off in quality between these composers. And then describe the giveaways.

I am listening to string quartets by Vanhal and they sound just as pleasant as Mozart.


----------



## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

SanAntone said:


> I am wondering how many of you could tell the difference in a blindfold test between a string quartet by Johann Baptist Vanhal (or any other contemporary, e.g Pleyel, Krommer, Rosetti) and Mozart? Aside from recognizing the Mozart work outright, I am wondering if there is an obvious observable drop off in quality between these composers. And then describe the giveaways.
> 
> I am listening to string quartets by Vanhal and they sound just as pleasant as Mozart.


The difference between Mozart and lesser contemporary composers can be subtle in any context, but I think particularly in the context of string quartets. The difference between Mozart and Haydn string quartets is even more subtle, as Haydn was a great innovator who all but invented the string quartet and who had a strong influence on Mozart.

If after extended listening you still hear no difference, that's fine with me. No need to read books, but Charles Rosen does give some helpful hints in The Classical Style, which focuses entirely on Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, whom he regards as by far the greatest composers of that era, for reasons he explains. Of course, Rosen was a pianist and is most expert in the piano music of these composers, but he knows about string quartets, too.


----------



## Haydn70 (Jan 8, 2017)

fluteman said:


> Despite or perhaps even because of his "modernist agenda", *Boulez had an appropriate respect for music of earlier eras.* Otherwise, he would not have agreed to be music director of the New York Philharmonic, or conduct numerous other "traditional" symphony orchestras. I remember attending a NY Philharmonic concert as a child in which he conducted a Beethoven symphony. One should not put too much stock in his more provocative commentary. He wanted to shock people out of their complacency, as many artists of all eras and all media seek to do.


No, he didn't. There is very little--VERY LITTLE--pre-20th century music that he respected/liked.

He didn't sign on to be music director of the New York Philharmonic because of his love of such music...he knew going in he would be conducting a huge amount of music he didn't like.

Check out Joan Peyser's Boulez biography to get a clear sense of how Boulez felt about pre-20th century music.


----------



## Haydn70 (Jan 8, 2017)

millionrainbows said:


> ...and make a living.
> 
> You are myopic, and are misguidedly trying to "justify" Boulez and give him "cred" as a proponent of "the classical canon." In fact, he had a modernist agenda, not a traditional agenda. To say otherwise, as you are, is misleading and condescending to tradition. All the composers he conducted were what I would call "modern" or "harbingers of modernism" (Wagner and Mahler). He never conducted much Beethoven, that I recall...he did do a Handel Water music and a Gabrieli, as I recall...


I agree with your post 100%, MR.

But remember as music director of the NY Philharmonic he did have to conduct plenty of 18th and 19th-century music he didn't like. He might not have RECORDED a lot of Beethoven (such as his recording of the Beeth 5th and Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage [which I have]) but I am guessing during his tenure there he conducted more Beeth than just those two pieces.

On the other hand, from what I remember from the Peyser bio, he would hand off as much of the traditional repertoire to guest conductors as he could.


----------



## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

fluteman said:


> The difference between Mozart and lesser contemporary composers can be subtle in any context, but I think particularly in the context of string quartets. The difference between Mozart and Haydn string quartets is even more subtle, as Haydn was a great innovator who all but invented the string quartet and who had a strong influence on Mozart.
> 
> If after extended listening you still hear no difference, that's fine with me. No need to read books, but Charles Rosen does give some helpful hints in The Classical Style, which focuses entirely on Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, whom he regards as by far the greatest composers of that era, for reasons he explains. Of course, Rosen was a pianist and is most expert in the piano music of these composers, but he knows about string quartets, too.


I've been listening randomly for about 30-45 minutes and so far, a phrase by Mozart got my attention, later, one by Vanhal, and then one by Rosetti. It would interesting to conduct a blindfold test on a larger scale.

I have thought all along that much of the "objective" consensus is a cultural overlay. A piece of accepted wisdom repeated for centuries, inculcating the idea that Mozart was obviously greater than his contemporaries. A lie repeated enough eventually takes on the veneer of truth.

Of course, I may come to hear a demonstrable difference between Mozart's quartet writing and the four other composers. And, I am no expert.

But doesn't it defeat the premise if an expert is the only one who can tell the difference?


----------



## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Haydn70 said:


> No, he didn't. There is very little--VERY LITTLE--pre-20th century music that he respected/liked.
> 
> He didn't sign on to be music director of the New York Philharmonic because of his love of such music...he knew going in he would be conducting a huge amount of music he didn't like.
> 
> Check out Joan Peyser's Boulez biography to get a clear sense of how Boulez felt about pre-20th century music.


To be fair, Peyser's book was published in 1976. Boulez had more decades left in his life than she covered, and what she covered were his most controversial years. Also, Peyser said she wanted to write a "psychobiography" (sounds scary) and spent time theorizing about his sexual tendencies and internal struggles based on his childhood. I am not sure Peyser is an unbiased source.

It is clear to me that while Boulez felt that the music of his immediate past (much of which he strongly critisized) was the music that needed promoting the most, I think it would be an exaggeration to claim that he "disliked" Haydn, Beethoven and Mozart, or Bach or Brahms, or any of the canonical composers. He wisely employed a focus and did not scatter shoot his repertory just to be yet another conductor doing the Three B's.

I don't wish to spend time searching the web for suitable quotes from him to counter balance the controversial early ones that are more easily found, so you can have a open field in which to mischaracterize him.


----------



## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Haydn70 said:


> No, he didn't. There is very little--VERY LITTLE--pre-20th century music that he respected/liked.
> 
> He didn't sign on to be music director of the New York Philharmonic because of his love of such music...he knew going in he would be conducting a huge amount of music he didn't like.
> 
> Check out Joan Peyser's Boulez biography to get a clear sense of how Boulez felt about pre-20th century music.


Joan Peyser is a gossip and scandal monger who has no credibility with me, nor with many others. Among other things, she wrote a book about George Gershwin pushing the ridiculous claims of someone who called himself Alan Gershwin that he was Gershwin's illegitimate son, claims that ultimately were proved false with DNA evidence. (Also, I met and spoke at length with Alan Gershwin, and he was either genuinely deluded or an inept con artist, probably some of both).

And as to Boulez, notice I said "respect", not "love". All conductors perform music they do not love.

Enough of this nonsense.


----------



## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

SanAntone said:


> I've been listening randomly for about 30-45 minutes and so far, a phrase by Mozart got my attention, later, one by Vanhal, and then one by Rosetti. It would interesting to conduct a blindfold test on a larger scale.
> 
> I have thought all along that much of the "objective" consensus is a cultural overlay. A piece of accepted wisdom repeated for centuries, inculcating the idea that Mozart was obviously greater than his contemporaries. A lie repeated enough eventually takes on the veneer of truth.
> 
> ...


Get back to me after you've spent several years listening to all of this music. And if by "expert" you mean someone who has spent thousands of hours listening to classical music, I'd say the answer is no.


----------



## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

fluteman said:


> Get back to me after you've spent several years listening to all of this music. And if by "expert" you mean someone who has spent thousands of hours listening to classical music, I'd say the answer is no.


No need to get snarky.  I have been listening to classical music for 50 years, but not with this kind of focus. By expert, I mean someone who has studied the music of Mozart's time, and his contemporaries in depth and knows the style inside and out, and knows all of the quartets by these five composers.

But, I have already heard a demonstrable difference with one of Mozart's quartets, K. 589. It is obviously on a different level than the others by these composers, at least among the ones included in this playlist. His other quartets don't sound that different from theirs.

However, I'd have to listen to all of their other quartets in order to satisfy myself that one of them did not match Mozart.


----------



## Haydn70 (Jan 8, 2017)

fluteman said:


> Joan Peyser is a gossip and scandal monger who has no credibility with me, nor with many others. Among other things, she wrote a book about George Gershwin pushing the ridiculous claims of someone who called himself Alan Gershwin that he was Gershwin's illegitimate son, claims that ultimately were proved false with DNA evidence. (Also, I met and spoke at length with Alan Gershwin, and he was either genuinely deluded or an inept con artist, probably some of both).
> 
> And as to Boulez, notice I said "respect", not "love". All conductors perform music they do not love.
> 
> *Enough of this nonsense*.


OK, then stop posting, fluteman.


----------



## Haydn70 (Jan 8, 2017)

SanAntone said:


> To be fair, Peyser's book was published in 1976. Boulez had more decades left in his life than she covered, and what she covered were his most controversial years. Also, Peyser said she wanted to write a "psychobiography" (sounds scary) and spent time theorizing about his sexual tendencies and internal struggles based on his childhood. I am not sure Peyser is an unbiased source.
> 
> It is clear to me that while Boulez felt that the music of his immediate past (much of which he strongly critisized) was the music that needed promoting the most, I think it would be an exaggeration to claim that he "disliked" Haydn, Beethoven and Mozart, or Bach or Brahms, or any of the canonical composers. He wisely employed a focus and did not scatter shoot his repertory just to be yet another conductor doing the Three B's.
> 
> I don't wish to spend time searching the web for suitable quotes from him to counter balance the controversial early ones that are more easily found, so you can have a open field in which to mischaracterize him.


Take it easy, SanAntone. I had/have no intention of attacking or mischaracterizing Boulez. I posted what I did in support of what millionrainbows posted. I have read plenty more about Boulez other than the Peyser bio. And agree about her possible bias. But from other sources I have read it is clear to me regarding his feelings about the traditional repertoire.

P.S. I do commend you for your reasoned, calm response to fluteman's snarkiness! :tiphat:


----------



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

SanAntone said:


> But doesn't it defeat the premise if an expert is the only one who can tell the difference?


I've written several posts discussing the "stylistic differences" of the Haydn brothers, Bach sons and Mozart. I might create a thread on this topic, "stylistic differences in pre-Romantic music".


----------



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

fluteman said:


> Haydn was a great innovator who all but invented the string quartet and who had a strong influence on Mozart.


I find this view rather "outdated" nowadays.

Michael Haydn wrote his string quintet MH189 in 1773, in Salzburg - 1 year before Joseph (who was already working as a kapellmeister for the Esterhazies) published his Sun quartets (Op.20).

This impassioned passage ( 



 ) of the slow movement from Michael's MH189 seems to anticipate
Mozart's K.551 ( 



 )

Also look at;
Michael Haydn string quintet in G, MH 189 (1773) : [ 0:49 ~ 1:06 ]
Mozart string quartet in E flat, K.428 (1783) : [ 0:49 ~ 1:14 ]

Some treatment of chromaticism in the minuet ( 



 ) and phrases in the finale also remind me of Mozart.

also look at these sections from MH189 ( 



 )
and Mozart K.533 ( 



 )


----------



## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

SanAntone said:


> No need to get snarky.  I have been listening to classical music for 50 years, but not with this kind of focus. By expert, I mean someone who has studied the music of Mozart's time, and his contemporaries in depth and knows the style inside and out, and knows all of the quartets by these five composers.
> 
> But, I have already heard a demonstrable difference with one of Mozart's quartets, K. 589. It is obviously on a different level than the others by these composers, at least among the ones included in this playlist. His other quartets don't sound that different from theirs.
> 
> However, I'd have to listen to all of their other quartets in order to satisfy myself that there one of them did not match Mozart.


I didn't intend to be snarky. We're talking about the musical equivalent of the likes of Chaucer, Dante, Milton, Henry James and James Joyce. It can be tough sledding, especially for us, modern listeners who don't live in the artist's time and/or place and aren't steeped in their social and cultural traditions and environment from the day we were born. That doesn't mean you need help from 'experts', or that I know any more than you. I was just answering your question honestly.


----------



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Does Vanhal ever sound like:


----------



## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

hammeredklavier said:


> I find this view rather "outdated" nowadays:
> 
> Michael Haydn wrote his string quintet MH189 in 1773, in Salzburg - 1 year before Joseph (who was already working as a kapellmeister for the Esterhazies) published his Sun quartets (Op.20).
> 
> ...


I didn't mean to open THAT can of worms. Haydn was a major innovator, but not the only one. I do stand by my comment that Mozart's (and Beethoven's early) string quartets very much evidence the influence of Joseph Haydn. BTW, excellent point about the similarity between that Michael Haydn quartet and K. 551. That's your best example in that post. But I'd want to listen to the whole piece, since it's often thematic development and structural continuity where Mozart operates on a more sophisticated level, as in your example from K. 515 in your second post. What ever happened to C major?? ;-)


----------



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

^Yes, there are dozens of "borrowings" between these composers. ( I think there are also cases where Michael borrowed from Mozart). I might discuss them in other threads later.

Beethoven vs Danzi
I consider Michael to belong the "same school" as Mozart, I can hear it in his music, such as the Missa sancti hieronymi



hammeredklavier said:


> Some vocal stuff in early Mozart I find decent: La finta giardiniera K.196, "Ah lo previdi! Ah, t'invola agl'occhi miei" K.272, and the "Neapolitan" missae breves, which I think truly show Mozart's "traits", which would be more fully realized in his later instrumental works:
> 
> Look at this part of Bernstein's lecture on Mozart's symphony in G minor K.550: [ 8:07 ]
> "Do you realize that, that wild, atonal-sounding passage contains every one of the twelve chromatic tones except the tonic note G? ... Take my word for it, that out-burst of chromatic rage is Classically-contained, and so is the climax of this development section, which finds itself in the unlikely key of C-sharp minor, which is as far away as you can get from the home key of G minor."
> ...


----------



## Vienne (Aug 21, 2020)

hammeredklavier said:


> I've written several posts discussing the "stylistic differences" of the Haydn brothers, Bach sons and Mozart. I might create a thread on this topic, "stylistic differences in pre-Romantic music".


Do you have links to those posts at hand? I would take a look if you do.


----------



## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

allaroundmusicenthusiast said:


> Not SanAntone, but there are two reasons: first of all, I like it. Second of all, there are people who think that it is not music and the cause for the decay of civilization. Also, i'm sorry, but that's not a very bright question. Why does anyone speak about Bach then or Beethoven or Mozart if they are so objectively good?
> 
> (BTW I love all three of them)


Sorry, but that's not really a bright response. So is their opinion not valid? It's apparently all subjective but only one kind of response is proper. Well, two: agree with me that's it's good or else shut up. That's "their truth" and unless you can objectively disprove it all you can say is "I like it".


----------



## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

consuono said:


> Sorry, but that's not really a bright response. So is their opinion not valid? It's apparently all subjective but only one kind of response is proper. Well, two: agree with me that's it's good or else shut up. That's "their truth" and unless you can objectively disprove it all you can say is "I like it".


Can you actually read my reasoning for once and stop spouting strawmen? I'll paraphrase it again.

What you really refer to is non-arbitrary subjectivity vs. arbitrary subjectivity, which is indeed a spectrum.

For example, the statement "cilantro is yummy" is an arbitrary form of subjectivity because how you feel about cilantro is generally determined by extenuating circumstances such as your genes. Or "This piece makes me feel good" is an arbitrary form of subjectivity because there is no deeper conviction behind it other than an arbitrary emotion.

But how you feel about say, Mozart's placement of the recapitulation in a string quartet is non-arbitrary subjectivity since you can make well-informed, convincing, argument as to why you like the way it sounds. There is always a deep oeuvre of music theory behind the non-arbitrary opinions in music.

And since subjectivity isn't binary, one can have a less-arbitrary opinion or a more-arbitrary opinion. Someone who says "I just like Mozart because it hits me in just the right way" holds a more arbitrary opinion than someone who says "I like Mozart because his usage of color is striking and organic." The second statement can be debated and discussed in an intellectual manner which draws upon the values that our culture holds dear, as well as the rules dictated in the context of a certain time period (such as the common practice period).

But even the latter statement does not contain true objectivity, because in the end, what you call "overall consensus over time" is still just en masse opinion. An opinion backed by ten people is not more more objective than an opinion backed by only one person. You cannot find a cutoff as to where an opinion is backed by enough people-over a certain amount of time-to become objective.

You feel strongly that Bach and Beethoven and Mozart meet the criteria to become objectively great but you wouldn't be able to tell me if Sibelius or Prokofiev or Mahler or The Beatles have been around long enough with enough overall consensus to become objectively great. Because the cutoff in and of itself is subjective. You're only dealing with the opinions of people, anyways.


----------



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Overall, I think Joseph Haydn is rather obsessed with monothematicism in the sonata form. He often focuses on timber, phrase structure and dynamics (for sudden shock effects) in the "jokes" he makes. Mozart often does his with harmony or counterpoint (in a rather "hey-look-what-I-can-do" sort of attitude). I think Michael has a lot of weirdness in terms of off-beat rhythms, counterpoint, and stile antico (in catholic music). Whereas Mozart is more about idiosyncrasies with chromaticism. I think Michael Haydn can be very different in character (perhaps not as Mozart) when he writes in minor keys. (Requiem in C minor being a good example). I think Joseph also doesn't change the principal theme very much in his variation movements, (but instead, changes the accompaniments), unlike the other two.



Vienne said:


> Do you have links to those posts at hand? I would take a look if you do.


These are what I wrote in them (I just revised a little):

I don't think the 18th-century Classicists intentionally or consciously tried to be different from one another like the Romantics. But I still hear interesting differences in their expressions. I think their different educational backgrounds and regional differences of tradition (a.k.a. "dialects") caused them to be different. For example, Carl Philipp Emanuel's Hamburg symphonies of 1775 sound quite "unique" from his contemporaries, and Wilhelm Friedemann sounds rather "capricious" in feel compared to his brothers.













To me, these are the unmistakable sounds of Joseph Haydn:
















 (0:06~0:30)




 (0:18~0:28)









and these are of Michael Haydn:




 (pay attention to the harmony around 2:25 and compare it with 



)

















and these are of Mozart:





















-----

I find that "Salzburgian" vocal music exhibits a unique sense of rhythm. To me, the way Michael uses strings always feels "unique" from, say, his older brother. There are many characteristics that are difficult to describe in words, but look at these figures (which are arpeggiated AND syncopated) for example:
Johann Ernst Eberlin (1702-1762) - missa in C [ 3:30 ]
Michael Haydn requiem in C minor (1771) [ 0:55 ]
Michael Haydn missa in C "rupertimesse" (1782) [ 15:40 ]
Michael Haydn missa in C "in honorem sancti gotthardi" (1792) [ 4:14 ]
Michael Haydn missa in C "in honorem sanctae ursulae" (1793) [ 0:10 ]
W.A. Mozart missa brevis K.194 in D (1774) [ 11:06 ] ,
W.A. Mozart missa brevis K.275 in B flat (1777) [ 2:19 ] ,
W.A. Mozart requiem in D minor (1791) [ 0:50 , 28:27 ] ,
- and short semitonal phrases in the strings, like "D-C#-D.."
Michael Haydn requiem in C minor (1771) [ 8:03 ]
W.A. Mozart missa brevis K.192 in F (1774) [ 5:18 ]
W.A. Mozart spatzenmesse K.220 in C (1775) [ 6:21 ]
W.A. Mozart litaniae de venerabili altaris sacramento K.243 (1776) [ 10:55 ]
(I found them also in La finta giardiniera, K.196, but I can't remember where exactly.)


----------



## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

chu42 said:


> Can you actually read my reasoning for once and stop spouting strawmen? I'll paraphrase it again.
> 
> What you really refer to is non-arbitrary subjectivity vs. arbitrary subjectivity, which is indeed a spectrum.
> 
> ...


In all that word salad you never did answer the question.


> Someone who says "I just like Mozart because it hits me in just the right way" holds a more arbitrary opinion than someone who says "I like Mozart because his usage of color is striking and organic."


No, one is simply being more specific than the other.


----------



## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

consuono said:


> In all that word salad you never did answer the question.


What's the question? Is Pollini's opinion that Stockhausen has value valid?

You know I don't believe in objectivity in music so why would you ask me a question concerning the _validity_ of opinions? You can only determine whether an opinion has "validity" if you have an objective framework in which to determine said validity.

2+2=5 is invalid. E=MC squared is valid.

"I like to listen to garbage" is neither valid nor invalid because what you like to listen to isn't determined by objective criteria. I can say that it's an arbitrary opinion, or that most people would disagree with it, or that you should re-examine why you listen to it, or any other number of arguments for/against listening to it. But none of that has to do with so-called validity of an artistic value judgment.

How do you not get this by now? Do you still need help understanding the definition of the word "objective"?



consuono said:


> No, one is simply being more specific than the other.


Please tell me that you understand arbitrary subjectivity vs. non-arbitrary subjectivity and you aren't arguing just for the sake of it. You're pretty much ignoring everything I said in favor of attacking semantics.

Since my post was a "word salad", why don't you just answer a couple of simple questions:

Is an opinion more valid or more objectively true because it is held by ten people instead of a single person?

Is an opinion more valid or more objectively true because it is held by one hundred people instead of a ten people?

Is an opinion more valid or more objectively true because it is held by ten million people instead of a one hundred people?

You believe the opinion that "Mozart is great" is an objective truth due to time and the amount of people who believe in it.

So how many people and how much time is required for any other opinion to make the magical change from subjective to objective? Or do you simply _feel_, arbitrarily, that enough time has passed and enough people are in consensus to make Mozart an "objectively great" composer?

Wouldn't the standard of time and consensus be different between everyone, and thus not be an objective measurement? Has enough time passed for Prokofiev to be considered "objectively great"? Some people would say yes, and some people would say no. Has enough time passed for Shostakovich to be considered "objectively great"? Again, some people would say yes, and some people would say no. How can you tell? _How can anybody tell?_ Is it not just all opinion?

So as you can see, all of your criteria for determining "objective greatness" lead back to subjectivity as the very bottom line.


----------



## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

chu42 said:


> You believe the opinion that "Mozart is great" is an objective truth due to time and the amount of people who believe in it.
> 
> So how many people and how much time is required for any other opinion to make the magical change from subjective to objective? Or do you simply _feel_, arbitrarily, that enough time has passed and enough people are in consensus to make Mozart an "objectively great" composer?


Mozart is a great composer, one of the greatest who ever lived. Now, do you have a problem with that statement?

What is really going on is a mooted defense of modern avant-garde music; that there is no standard in music where ranking of quality can be well determined. It is their only and last line of defense. Time has already moved on with say, the SVS.


----------



## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

ArtMusic said:


> Mozart is a great composer, one of the greatest who ever lived. Now, do you have a problem with that statement?
> 
> What is really going on is a mooted defense of modern avant-garde music; that there is no standard in music where ranking of quality can be well determined. It is their only and last line of defense. Time has already moved on with say, the SVS.


It's not that "there is no standard in music where ranking of quality can be well determined", it's that there is no _single_ standard that can apply to _all _music.

If you insist on a single standard, and that standard is based on Bach/Mozart/Beethoven, then yes, obviously the modern avant-garde doesn't meet the standard. Just as if your standard for being a great athlete is based on the marathon, then a short-distance hurdler will never meet that standard.

As I always say about two of my favourite composers: Reich couldn't possibly write anything as good as Beethoven's _Eroica_. And Beethoven couldn't possibly write anything as good as Reich's _Music for 18 Musicians_. Different standards.


----------



## allaroundmusicenthusiast (Jun 3, 2020)

consuono said:


> Sorry, but that's not really a bright response. So is their opinion not valid? It's apparently all subjective but only one kind of response is proper. Well, two: agree with me that's it's good or else shut up. That's "their truth" and unless you can objectively disprove it all you can say is "I like it".


Really I'm perplexed, I want to understand what you said, but I can't. Why do you always talk about a "they" as if there was some conspiracy? When did I discuss validity of opinions? When did I speak about "truth"? When did I tell anyone to "agree with me that it's good or else shut up"?


----------



## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

ArtMusic said:


> Mozart is a great composer, one of the greatest who ever lived. Now, do you have a problem with that statement?


I personally don't. I think it's rather true. That's different from something being _objectively_ true, since objective truths are true whether or not you believe they are or not. I'm still subject to the laws of physics even if I don't believe in them.

It's actually irrelevant whether or not I have a problem with your statement, and it doesn't answer my question:_ How many people and how much time is required for any other opinion to make the magical change from subjective to objective? Or do you simply feel, arbitrarily, that enough time has passed and enough people are in consensus to make Mozart an "objectively great" composer?_



ArtMusic said:


> What is really going on is a mooted defense of modern avant-garde music; that there is no standard in music where ranking of quality can be well determined. It is their only and last line of defense. Time has already moved on with say, the SVS.


Sorry, music-making isn't just limited to a three hundred year European span. You can't judge a Gregorian chant by the standards of the common practice period. You can't judge Mongolian throat singing by the standards of the common practice period. You can't judge Sumerian lyre music by the standards of the common practice period.

That's why music is so subjective. If you need to _subject it_ to a certain contextualization or timeframe in order to judge it, then it's _subjective_. It's not hard to understand.

No other objective truths need to be held to certain times or cultural standards to be true. Gravity exists the same way today as it did in the 16th century. Water forms ice at a certain temperature no matter if you live in Siberia or Peru.


----------



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Nereffid said:


> It's not that "there is no standard in music where ranking of quality can be well determined", it's that there is no _single_ standard that can apply to _all _music.
> 
> If you insist on a single standard, and that standard is based on Bach/Mozart/Beethoven, then yes, obviously the modern avant-garde doesn't meet the standard. Just as if your standard for being a great athlete is based on the marathon, then a short-distance hurdler will never meet that standard.
> 
> As I always say about two of my favourite composers: Reich couldn't possibly write anything as good as Beethoven's _Eroica_. And Beethoven couldn't possibly write anything as good as Reich's _Music for 18 Musicians_. Different standards.


What this reveals is that we are now in a post-modernist era of relativity, where there is no 'history' as we once knew it. History was always 'objective' because people believed in it. It is a product of literacy, and of visual bias, in which things are uniform, continuous, and connected.


----------



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

consuono said:


> Sorry, but that's not really a bright response. So is their opinion not valid? It's apparently all subjective but only one kind of response is proper. Well, two: agree with me that's it's good or else shut up. That's "their truth" and unless you can objectively disprove it all you can say is "I like it".


Consuono is a "believer" in history. There is no use trying to convince a 'believer' otherwise.


----------



## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

millionrainbows said:


> History was always 'objective' because people believed in it.


I wish I knew what that meant. "History is written by the victors" is a commonplace and completely invalidates the idea that history is, was or always has been "objective".

History has never been objective. It depends on who writes it, who reads it, and what filing cabinets were protected by leopards in dark basements when it was being written.

We are living through one of the great revisionist periods in history-writing, I think, too: BLM, etc. So you should know better.

Relevance to music: unsure. I do know that the statement that 'history was always objective because people believed in it' is complete hog-wash.


----------



## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> I wish I knew what that meant. "History is written by the victors" is a commonplace and completely invalidates the idea that history is, was or always has been "objective".


There are objective facts about history, and there are subjective observations about history. If verifiable, most statistics and dates in history are fairly objective.

Other historical statements like speculation about _why_ a side won a war or who was on the right side of history-that's pretty subjective.



AbsolutelyBaching said:


> I do know that the statement that 'history was always objective because people believed in it' is complete hog-wash.


I suspect that millionrainbows made that statement in an ironic way. As in, people used to believe in it so it was taken at face value and therefore "objective". Now, people are rethinking what parts of history to believe at face value, if any at all.



AbsolutelyBaching said:


> Relevance to music: unsure.


Music has always been subjective. The standards by which we judge most music is just the result of mass opinions of people over time.

Anyone who believes in objectivity in music is falling prey to selfish, backwards, dogmatic, thinking. There is no single objective standard that we can judge all music in existence. It is unprovable, unknowable.


----------



## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

hammeredklavier said:


> Overall, I think Joseph Haydn is rather obsessed with monothematicism in the sonata form. He often focuses on timber, phrase structure and dynamics (for sudden shock effects) in the "jokes" he makes. Mozart often does his with harmony or counterpoint (in a rather "hey-look-what-I-can-do" sort of attitude). I think Michael has a lot of weirdness in terms of off-beat rhythms, counterpoint, and stile antico (in catholic music). Whereas Mozart is more about idiosyncrasies with chromaticism. I think Michael Haydn can be very different in character (perhaps not as Mozart) when he writes in minor keys. (Requiem in C minor being a good example). I think Joseph also doesn't change the principal theme very much in his variation movements, (but instead, changes the accompaniments), unlike the other two.
> 
> These are what I wrote in them (I just revised a little):
> 
> ...


I very much agree with the opening statement in your post. I'll listen to your examples when I have time. To me, your key statements (pardon the pun) is about Mozart's mastery and sophisticated use of harmony and counterpoint, especially in his use of thematic development, which is much more extensive than that of Joseph Haydn, as you say. Mozart doesn't cleanly break away from Haydn's formulas and ideas, rather he manipulates them for his own purposes. The example you allude to earlier, the C-major viola quintet, where Mozart starts with the simplest possible theme, a C major triad arpeggio, and takes it further than the listener could possibly have imagined from the opening bars, is a great example. In fact, I consider the viola quintets to be the pinnacle of Mozart's chamber music.

Frankly, people who hear no significant differences between the string quartets of Mozart and those of his contemporaries (and of course there are strong basic similarities, in fact much more obvious ones than the subtle ones you cite) are not taking too great a leap in lumping together 'tonal' classical music from 1600 to 1900, and in a separate lump, 'atonal' modern music after, say, 1909. These people are not entirely wrong. But they are putting their focus on a certain few characteristics of music to the exclusion of many others, as well as making some sweeping and simplifying generalizations.

And that is exactly Hitler's purpose in his famous speech that I quoted from above. Using the example of art, he is admonishing his audience to narrow its focus to a few limited, simple ideas, and reject everything else, that he conveniently lumps together in a series of -isms, (cubism, dadaism, futurism, impressionism) and then dismisses as so much gibberish. That is one of the key techniques of propagandists, and why they rely so much on simple slogans and catch-phrases.

Unfortunately, I see a return to this sort of propaganda in many critiques of modern art in recent years. Whether explicitly political or not, it's hard not to see the political parallels.


----------



## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

chu42 said:


> There are objective facts about history, and there are subjective observations about history. If verifiable, most statistics and dates in history are fairly objective.
> 
> Other historical statements like speculation about _why_ a side won a war or who was on the right side of history-that's pretty subjective.


I agree with you. There are historical facts that can't be argued: William became King of England on Christmas Day 1066; Napoleon lost at Waterloo; Hitler invaded Poland in 1939. These things are unquestionable.

But that's not what history is. History is (clue in the name) telling the story of what connects those events. How did we get from the end of the Dark Ages to Auschwitz. Etc. How one tells that story depends on whether you're French, German or English; whether you're Catholic or Protestant; whether you're Whig or Tory. And on and on. The actually interesting bit of history -the why, the how, the meaning- is an almost-entirely subjective superstructure built on top of a set of bare-bones events.

The events aren't, actually, terribly interesting. It's their context and meaning that's interesting, and what history is about. Which is, I think, pretty much what you were just saying, so we agree on that! The nuanced difference between us is that the events aren't what 'History' is about, it's about the meaning, significance, the way one event leads to another.



chu42 said:


> I suspect that millionrainbows made that statement in an ironic way. As in, people used to believe in it so it was taken at face value and therefore "objective". Now, people are rethinking what parts of history to believe at face value, if any at all.


But that was never true. My father's understanding of history is not mine. It wasn't his great-grandfather's either. Yes, the Victorians had a view of history that it was all about the inevitable progress of science, industry, enlightenment thinking... and the British. That would not have been Oliver Cromwell's view.

I will go as far as agreeing that there's a 'generational' view of history. The stories we know, we come to "believe" have "validity". And that sort of myth-making can be group-thought for decades or more at a time. But it's certainly not monolithic, even when it's happening. And it tends not to last for long.



chu42 said:


> Music has always been subjective. The standards by which we judge most music is just the result of mass opinions of people over time.


Well, now I'm about to contradict myself, perhaps! Music is not subjective *at all*. The _appreciation_ of music is. Music is a set of notes, rhythms, tempi, harmonies and timbres. Those are all objective facts ("events" in the history discussion above). The understanding of them, the appreciation of them -the _liking or disliking_ of them is, it seems to me, a much more subjective matter.



chu42 said:


> Anyone who believes in objectivity in music is falling prey to selfish, backwards, dogmatic, thinking. There is no single objective standard that we can judge all music in existence. It is unprovable, unknowable.


Well, on that we disagree. We can agree William I became king of England on Christmas Day 1066, but we have to work out the significance of that, and what difference it made to people's lives and so on and on. That we have subjective responses to Mozart or Britten or whoever is also not in doubt. But to claim there's _nothing_ objective about music that we are reacting to... seems a bit of an iffy idea to me. And me claiming that there are objective things about music is not selfish, backwards or dogmatic: it seems to be an obvious reaction to fact, to 'events'.

Now, whether the objective things about music are of so little concern as mere events are to 'History'... different argument, I think. Contextualising music, and assessing one composer's output versus another: those, it seems to me, are like the very essence of 'history': the things that make _sense_ of the basic 'facts' or 'events', and about which generational views can 'accrete', but which tend not to last for very long. Thus my view of music's 'great ten' wouldn't be my father's... and so on.


----------



## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> Well, now I'm about to contradict myself, perhaps! Music is not subjective *at all*. The _appreciation_ of music is. Music is a set of notes, rhythms, tempi, harmonies and timbres. Those are all objective facts ("events" in the history discussion above). The understanding of them, the appreciation of them -the _liking or disliking_ of them is, it seems to me, a much more subjective matter.


Perhaps I might be a little bit more specific-the assigning of value judgment to music is subjective.



AbsolutelyBaching said:


> Well, on that we disagree. We can agree William I became king of England on Christmas Day 1066, but we have to work out the significance of that, and what difference it made to people's lives and so on and on. That we have subjective responses to Mozart or Britten or whoever is also not in doubt. But to claim there's _nothing_ objective about music that we are reacting to... seems a bit of an iffy idea to me.


It's iffy to you because one of the implications is that all music is equal in value. But just because value in music is subjective does not mean that this has to be true.

We have subjectivity on a spectrum ranging from completely arbitrary subjectivity to subjectivity that can be justified through academic opinion and general consensus-non-arbitrary subjectivity. For example, I can back up my claim that Mozart's use of a specific progression is organic by citing specific excerpts and bringing up the music theory behind it and etc...

However, at the end of the day these citations as to why Mozart is "organic" is still all subjective since what we see as a standard for music is really just mass opinion. An opinion that has a lot of support is not any less subjective than an opinion with no support.

Just because most people think that a sunset is beautiful does not make that opinion any less subjective. There are reasons for why most people see a sunset as beautiful, and therefore it's not arbitrary. But there is not a cutoff for where an opinion magically changes into objective fact because enough people believe in it.

All objective truths are true no matter how many people believe in it. Gravity existed before Isaac Newton proved that it did.

But if, suddenly, mankind was afflicted with a disease that rendered all people colorblind, then the world's conception of beauty would change dramatically over time. Beauty as we used to know it would disappear, and it's not like everyone already had identical conceptions of beauty. Objective beauty doesn't exist.


----------



## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

ArtMusic said:


> Mozart is a great composer, one of the greatest who ever lived. Now, do you have a problem with that statement?
> 
> What is really going on is a mooted defense of modern avant-garde music; that there is no standard in music where ranking of quality can be well determined. It is their only and last line of defense. Time has already moved on with say, the SVS.


A few others have pushed back against this view. I would agree that Mozart is a great composer and so is Schoenberg based on the relatively simple standard of a consensus of experts. Time has moved on with the SVS, and the experts have had time to include Schoenberg in their list of greats. That standard is not unreasonable given the need to teach music history and theory.

Any discussions of popularity would place Mozart above Schoenberg (and Schoenberg above thousands of other composers), but I don't think anyone is arguing that popularity is a standard for greatness.


----------



## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

chu42 said:


> Perhaps I might be a little bit more specific-the assigning of value judgment to music is subjective.


Ah, well, then yes: we agree. But that's the same as saying the interpretation of historical fact is subjective. Which I also think we agreed on. So to me, it's not a very exciting observation, because both seem so obviously true.



chu42 said:


> It's iffy to you because one of the implications is that all music is equal in value. But just because value in music is subjective does not mean that this has to be true.


No, I fear we at cross-purposes. What was iffy to me was the suggestion that 'there's nothing objective about music'. Clearly, there are rhythms, timbres, tempi and harmonies which are objectively observable and measurable -hence my iffiness. Because to me, it seems as unarguable that there are objective facts about music as to say that there are objective historical events.

It's just that I don't think the events are terribly important as far as history is concerned; and I'm not sure what relevance the objective facts about music are to the subject of music appreciation. Clearly, the one cannot happen without the other... but where as the one is rooted in objective, observable fact, the other is also clearly rooted in subjective assessment and value-judgment.



chu42 said:


> We have subjectivity on a spectrum ranging from completely arbitrary subjectivity to subjectivity that can be justified through academic opinion and general consensus-non-arbitrary subjectivity. For example, I can back up my claim that Mozart's use of a specific progression is organic by citing specific excerpts and bringing up the music theory behind it and etc...


I did history at Uni, not music, so I'm getting uncomfortable at this point!

Personally, I don't see a spectrum. The Battle of Hastings was fought: objective fact. Meaning... God knows. Possibly too early to tell! (Look at how the events of January 2021 in Washington D.C. were being observed by many through the prism of the destruction of the Roman Empire in 50-something BC. So 2000 years might be too early to tell!



chu42 said:


> However, at the end of the day these citations as to why Mozart is "organic" is still all subjective since what we see as a standard for music is really just mass opinion. An opinion that has a lot of support is not any less subjective than an opinion with no support.


I'm going to agree with your last sentence, I think. That I come to *this* view of Mozart means that *this* view of Mozart has validity *for me*. But I'm not sure that this view is then of much interest to anyone else.

What's interesting (for an historian, for example) is when lots of people feel something. And then they stop feeling something. And that shift in opinion can be, in and of itself, very interesting.

Thus, sweeping statement coming up: I don't think anyone thought Mozart was 'the voice of God' until _Amadeus_ came out in (I think) 1984. That film made it so. Now, I know Britten throughout his life _loved_ Mozart, so clearly those in the 'musical know' thought he was a 'good thing' for decades before the 1980s. But was he the 'voice of God' to such folk? I doubt it. That he's now attained that status is, I would say, clearly a cultural movement/shift that is of interest, precisely because it involves the opinions of many. Do I think the fact that 'many' are involved means that shift is "true", or has "objective merit". Nah. It's a sociological phenomenon, and it will pass, when the next new-shiny comes along.



chu42 said:


> Just because most people think that a sunset is beautiful does not make that opinion any less subjective.


Definitely. But that most people in most cultures and times think a beautiful sunset more spiritually uplifting than doing the washing up... surely that hints at _something_?

Objectively, saucepans are utilitarian. Objectively, music is diverting. That we view musical pleasure as "better" than doing the washing up is surely a measure of a fairly universal desire for pleasure over utility?

I don't, in other words, think that's a difficult call. But I do think we get into difficulty when comparing a sunset to a 1936 Chateau d'Yquem.



chu42 said:


> There are reasons for why most people see a sunset as beautiful, and therefore it's not arbitrary. But there is not a cutoff for where an opinion magically changes into objective fact because enough people believe in it.
> 
> All objective truths are true no matter how many people believe in it. Gravity existed before Isaac Newton proved that it did.


Absolutely. That's like saying 'William I became King of England in 1066': it happened, it needs no interpretation to mean it happened. But it's not interesting, is it? That apples always fall downwards: unexciting. To think that the moon is just a giant apple that keeps falling downwards and missing the Earth: somewhat different! It's the _interpretation_ of historical fact that's interesting; and subjective. It's the _appreciation_ of music that's interesting; and subjective. The facts and the music are objective realities that exist independent of our existence. The interpretation is king.

(Incidentally, and just to throw a spanner in the works: the analogy is not perfect. The moon would continue to fall and miss the Earth without Newton or Einstein. Without an audience to applaud, it's conceivable that no Mozart would currently exist. They don't have quite the same degree of 'existence independent of observation'. But I'm not sure that makes a lot of difference to us observers now).



chu42 said:


> But if, suddenly, mankind was afflicted with a disease that rendered all people colorblind, then the world's conception of beauty would change dramatically over time. Beauty as we used to know it would disappear, and it's not like everyone already had identical conceptions of beauty. Objective beauty doesn't exist.


Again, I fundamentally agree. That the Greeks admired Venus, and we admire a statue of her, even missing her arms, 2 or 3 thousands years later: it's the sort of group-think that I see when Churchill gets voted greatest Briton in 2000. There's interest in the fact of those things being true (i.e., that the Venus de Milo is appreciated now; and that Churchill was voted greatest Briton in 2000 on a BBC poll). But it doesn't stop people thinking Churchill was a bit of a fool for fighting a war to preserve the British Empire, bankrupting it, and thus destroying it. Or that he was a racist, willing-to-gas imperialist [email protected] Or that he was all of those things at the same time!

I think that's my point: history is a subtle thing which each generation writes for itself. Music appreciation is going to be much the same thing. Today, Mozart will be king, because 'the zeitgeist' has him as the 'voice of God'. Tomorrow, it will be Beethoven. Heaven forfend, next week it might be Brahms.

Which doesn't mean there aren't objective truths about those guys which cannot be enumerated. But it does mean that comparing the one to the other, now, today, is like playing conkers in a schoolyard: a battle whose outcome is utterly irrelevant next week.


----------



## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

ArtMusic said:


> Mozart is a great composer, one of the greatest who ever lived. Now, do you have a problem with that statement?
> 
> What is really going on is a mooted defense of modern avant-garde music; that there is no standard in music where ranking of quality can be well determined. It is their only and last line of defense. Time has already moved on with say, the SVS.


Yeah, I have a problem with it.

I think at his best, he could be extraordinarily good. I also think you look at his complete body of work: you see a boy learning how to compose. He didn't spring from the womb fully-formed, the voice of God, able to perform musical miracles. The first composition we have of his is in a weird (and bad) mixture of 3:4 and 2:4 time (K 001a), for example: that is someone wanting to speak music but not really knowing how.

What's his 'hit rate' like? I mean, of his 40+ symphonies, how many are absolute stand-outs? Of his operas? Of his concertos?

I mean, if it's a 50% hit rate, he's doing well: I would have put it at less than that, myself.

I think he's a great composer. As I do Bach, Beethoven, Britten, Shostakovich, Mahler and Vaughan Williams. It doesn't mean everything he (or they) wrote is perfect and magnificent. That's not, I think, a 'defence of modern avant-garder music ' and declaration that 'there is no standard in music'. It means, Mozart was human and was gifted with all the foibles and fallibilities of our species. And some of what he wrote was pretty rubbish.


----------



## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> Ah, well, then yes: we agree. But that's the same as saying the interpretation of historical fact is subjective. Which I also think we agreed on. So to me, it's not a very exciting observation, because both seem so obviously true.


It's not so obviously true for certain people on this forum. I am currently in the midst of a debate with someone who believes that all beauty is objective. 



AbsolutelyBaching said:


> No, I fear we at cross-purposes. What was iffy to me was the suggestion that 'there's nothing objective about music'. Clearly, there are rhythms, timbres, tempi and harmonies which are objectively observable and measurable -hence my iffiness. Because to me, it seems as unarguable that there are objective facts about music as to say that there are objective historical events.
> 
> It's just that I don't think the events are terribly important as far as history is concerned; and I'm not sure what relevance the objective facts about music are to the subject of music appreciation. Clearly, the one cannot happen without the other... but where as the one is rooted in objective, observable fact, the other is also clearly rooted in subjective assessment and value-judgment.


Yup, not debating about there being objective observations in music. It's that we can't make 100% objective value judgments. We agree on that.



AbsolutelyBaching said:


> I did history at Uni, not music, so I'm getting uncomfortable at this point!
> 
> Personally, I don't see a spectrum. The Battle of Hastings was fought: objective fact. Meaning... God knows. Possibly too early to tell! (Look at how the events of January 2021 in Washington D.C. were being observed by many through the prism of the destruction of the Roman Empire in 50-something BC. So 2000 years might be too early to tell!


Objectivity is binary. Something is either objective or it's not.

Subjectivity is not binary. Different subjective statements can have different justifications for them, some being more arbitrary and some being less arbitrary. For example, if I say that I like cilantro, it's a fairly arbitrary subjective statement because whether or not you like cilantro relies on factors that we consider shallow or extenuating. There's nothing "deep" behind liking cilantro.



AbsolutelyBaching said:


> I'm going to agree with your last sentence, I think. That I come to *this* view of Mozart means that *this* view of Mozart has validity *for me*. But I'm not sure that this view is then of much interest to anyone else.
> 
> What's interesting (for an historian, for example) is when lots of people feel something. And then they stop feeling something. And that shift in opinion can be, in and of itself, very interesting.
> 
> Thus, sweeping statement coming up: I don't think anyone thought Mozart was 'the voice of God' until _Amadeus_ came out in (I think) 1984. That film made it so. Now, I know Britten throughout his life _loved_ Mozart, so clearly those in the 'musical know' thought he was a 'good thing' for decades before the 1980s. But was he the 'voice of God' to such folk? I doubt it. That he's now attained that status is, I would say, clearly a cultural movement/shift that is of interest, precisely because it involves the opinions of many. Do I think the fact that 'many' are involved means that shift is "true", or has "objective merit". Nah. It's a sociological phenomenon, and it will pass, when the next new-shiny comes along.


This is an interesting observation. What makes it even less objective is that it was a phase for Western culture. I don't think the people of India or China were quite as swept up with Mozart.

Something that is objectively true is true no matter what time or place.



AbsolutelyBaching said:


> Definitely. But that most people in most cultures and times think a beautiful sunset more spiritually uplifting than doing the washing up... surely that hints at _something_?
> 
> Objectively, saucepans are utilitarian. Objectively, music is diverting. That we view musical pleasure as "better" than doing the washing up is surely a measure of a fairly universal desire for pleasure over utility?


You're mistaking mass opinion for universal objective truth. Humans can trend towards certain beliefs and certain views. Beliefs like "Love is good" or "Pain is bad." Just because many people hold these beliefs doesn't mean those beliefs are objectively true. It tells us more about how humans think than the beliefs themselves.

And certainly there are people out there who go against the grain of society and they are not constrained by the values that are so-called "objectively true", at least not in the same way that someone who doesn't believe in gravity is still constrained by gravity.



AbsolutelyBaching said:


> I don't, in other words, think that's a difficult call. But I do think we get into difficulty when comparing a sunset to a 1936 Chateau d'Yquem.


Yes. If there are objective standards on beauty, then by default there must be an objective way to make value judgments in which a 1936 Chateau d'Yquem can be compared to a sunset and either come out as objectively superior or objectively inferior.

Or let me put it this way-if you have a metric in which you can say garbage is objectively less beautiful than a sunset, by that same metric you would be able to say that a Van Gogh painting is objectively more or less beautiful than the Pantheon.

Yet it doesn't seem possible to do the latter even if we say that we can do the former. It just goes to show that beauty is subjective and really just a matter of mass opinion. The vast majority of people think that garbage is less beautiful than a sunset, so it's easy to say you're being objective in judging the two. But it's still just opinion, even if it's mass opinion.

What is objectively true or not isn't decided by a democracy. It's a ridiculous idea.



AbsolutelyBaching said:


> I think that's my point: history is a subtle thing which each generation writes for itself. Music appreciation is going to be much the same thing. Today, Mozart will be king, because 'the zeitgeist' has him as the 'voice of God'. Tomorrow, it will be Beethoven. Heaven forfend, next week it might be Brahms.
> 
> Which doesn't mean there aren't objective truths about those guys which cannot be enumerated. But it does mean that comparing the one to the other, now, today, is like playing conkers in a schoolyard: a battle whose outcome is utterly irrelevant next week.


Zeitgeist is exactly it. We have composers that ride on a longer zeitgeist and composers that perhaps haven't had theirs yet. For someone to claim that Mozart is "objectively good" because of a consensus favoring this belief over time (this is apparently a popular line of reasoning here)-is to be incredibly shortsighted and naive to how cultural processes historically play out.


----------



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> I wish I knew what that meant. "History is written by the victors" is a commonplace and completely invalidates the idea that history is, was or always has been "objective".
> 
> History has never been objective. It depends on who writes it, who reads it, and what filing cabinets were protected by leopards in dark basements when it was being written.
> 
> ...


I guess you missed the irony and contradiction of my statement: 'history was always objective because people believed in it'. That does sound like hogwash, doesn't it? Then of course, a joke is never funny if it has to be explained.



chu42 said:


> I suspect that millionrainbows made that statement in an ironic way. As in, people used to believe in it so it was taken at face value and therefore "objective". Now, people are rethinking what parts of history to believe at face value, if any at all...Music has always been subjective. The standards by which we judge most music is just the result of mass opinions of people over time...Anyone who believes in objectivity in music is falling prey to selfish, backwards, dogmatic, thinking. There is no single objective standard that we can judge all music in existence. It is unprovable, unknowable.


Thank you, chu42. :tiphat:


----------



## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

chu42 said:


> IObjectivity is binary. Something is either objective or it's not.
> 
> Subjectivity is not binary. Different subjective statements can have different justifications for them, some being more arbitrary and some being less arbitrary. For example, if I say that I like cilantro, it's a fairly arbitrary subjective statement because whether or not you like cilantro relies on factors that we consider shallow or extenuating. There's nothing "deep" behind liking cilantro.


So, first I don't know what 'Cilantro' is, but a Google here or there tells me its some sort of herb. So we're talking about gastronomic tastes. I like corriander (which some find soapy); others like cloves (which I hate). That's not a spectrum. That's just people making calls *for themselves*. Which is, I would have thought, the definition of subjective.

I think the minute you get into "I think...", you are not being objective. End of. I don't think there's any great subtlety beyond that point. If you're trying to get to a position where "I think... and so do all these other people"... no, not buying it. That's just a lot of subjectivity, not different "degrees" of subjectivity.



chu42 said:


> This is an interesting observation. What makes it even less objective is that it was a phase for Western culture. I don't think the people of India or China were quite as swept up with Mozart.
> 
> Something that is objectively true is true no matter what time or place.


Oh dear, said Alice as she fell down the rabbit hole. I am white, western, male. I'm afraid the "objective" truths I see are likely only ever to be those that apply to my "class". I spent a lot of time in Australia and can't stand the didgeridoo and think their cave art was pretty bad compared to the stuff you can see in southern France. Sorry: I can't get more universal than my small brain allows!

Also, I don't think you can ignore the barriers of geography. That everyone in Western Europe was saying 'X' when no-one in Asia had ever heard of 'X' would not, to my mind, invalidate 'X'. That's just the way it goes. Europeans never knew the delight of tomatoes, potatoes or chocolate for millenia... but their objective existence (and general wonderfulness... ok, maybe not potatoes, but you take the point, I hope) didn't suddenly disappear in a puff of metaphysical relativity.

Objective things don't have to be _universal_ to be objective. They merely have not to depend on the perception of a specific individual.



chu42 said:


> You're mistaking mass opinion for universal objective truth.


I think that's precisely what I am NOT doing. That everyone voted for Churchill as a Great Briton in 2000: doesn't make him so to me.

It _isn't _mass "opinion" that I prefer a foot-rub or a glass of red wine with dinner than doing the washing up. Those are universal emotions, it seems to me (though the specific expressions may vary): pleasure is nicer than pain, and it's also nicer than mundane utility. My cat would tell you he likes being stroked way more than having to dig a hole in his litter tray, too. Work v. pleasure, no contest: it's a _universal truth_, not a mass opinion.



chu42 said:


> Humans can trend towards certain beliefs and certain views. Beliefs like "Love is good" or "Pain is bad." Just because many people hold these beliefs doesn't mean those beliefs are objectively true.


Well, we're going to have to disagree on that. I realise, we could dial up the Local Company of Masochists and find out that 'pain *is* in fact good', but you're pushing it at that point, I think. Similarly, I'm sure if you ask Jeff Bezos, he'd tell you that work *was* pleasure. But I'm not buying that, either, as he's a multi-billionaire and almost no-one else is!

I think 'hunger bad' and 'soft velvet good' are not 'trends towards certain beliefs and views'. I think they are so stonkingly obvious they don't need to be discussed. "Blue is bad" and "Red is good"... fine, let's discuss. But fundamentals about the mere fact of existence have a universality to them that needn't be an issue, I think. Being eaten hurts. Running away from the lion is a pain. Surviving is a joy. Mating is a pleasure: these are universal observations in nature, I would say. Applies not even just to humans.

For the rest: I find it difficult to know where we agree or disagree, I'm sorry. I can't really deal with things that sound like arguments against which are put forth as arguments for!

I would say we are on the same general plane. I shall leave it there, I think.


----------



## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

millionrainbows said:


> I guess you missed the irony and contradiction of my statement: 'history was always objective because people believed in it'. That does sound like hogwash, doesn't it? Then of course, a joke is never funny if it has to be explained.


You're forgetting the history of having to deal with *you*.

If your statement is 'history is always objective', I take you at your word. If there are layers of irony and subtlety I've missed, maybe stop being so subtle and ironic? Just a thought.


----------



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

chu42 said:


> Humans can trend towards certain beliefs and certain views. Beliefs like "Love is good" or "Pain is bad." Just because many people hold these beliefs doesn't mean those beliefs are objectively true. It tells us more about how humans think than the beliefs themselves...And certainly there are people out there who go against the grain of society and they are not constrained by the values that are so-called "objectively true", at least not in the same way that someone who doesn't believe in gravity is still constrained by gravity.


Yes, I get you. It's like how some people enjoy being spanked.


----------



## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

My general response: There isn't even a set definition of what good or bad means—they mean different things to different people. 

So how can a vague, undefined, term like "good" or "bad" used to mark ideas objectively? Much less "beauty" or "ugliness"?

No other objective truths are so poorly defined. A degree of Celsius is exactly what it means, nothing more and nothing less. It doesn't mean different things to different people.


----------



## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

chu42 said:


> My general response: There isn't even a set definition of what good or bad means-they mean different things to different people.
> 
> So how can a vague, undefined, term like "good" or "bad" used to mark ideas objectively? Much less "beauty" or "ugliness"?
> 
> No other objective truths are so poorly defined. A degree of Celsius is exactly what it means, nothing more and nothing less. It doesn't mean different things to different people.


Well you start at the beginning, don't you. Would killing you be a good or a bad thing to do?


----------



## John Lenin (Feb 4, 2021)

Do you mean 'commercially dead' or 'artistically dead'....?


----------



## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

John Lenin said:


> Do you mean 'commercially dead' or 'artistically dead'....?


I mean, the idea that we cannot tell good from bad is fundamentally flawed. If it stems from nothing else than 'I don't want you to do to me X', that sets up the idea that 'X' is bad. I don't want to be killed. Therefore I wouldn't kill. Therefore killing is bad.

If killing is bad, not-killing is good; thus mercifulness where we withhold death from the guilty is good.... and so on and on./

Good from bad is not difficult, fundamentally.
Better from best is much harder -and a completely different problem.


----------



## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> Well you start at the beginning, don't you. Would killing you be a good or a bad thing to do?


It's subjective and requires context. It might be bad for me but if I were about to set your house on fire...

Anyways, I don't want to get into relativism in terms of objective values. That brings in religion and politics and all other slimy worm cans. Philosophers much more knowledgeable than us have been debating objective moralism vs. relativism for thousands of years.

So let's just stick with how it relates to art. What is "good" and "bad" in art, and what is "beauty" and "ugliness"? Are there objectively set definitions for them? Does everyone view these terms the same way? If not, how can they be used to judge art objectively? Wouldn't your description of something as "beautiful" also depend on your personal definition of beauty, and thus lack objectivity?


----------



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

John Lenin said:


> Do you mean 'commercially dead' or 'artistically dead'....?


But we've got to verify it legally,
To see if it
Is morally, ethically
Spiritually, physically
Positively, absolutely
Undeniably and reliably dead.
As Coroner, I thoroughly examined it,
And it's not only merely dead
It's really most sincerely dead.

(apologies to the Munchkins)


----------



## John Lenin (Feb 4, 2021)

Dead and 'not currently commercially viable' and therefore out of the mainstream media are two very different forms of death.
Like actually dead or 'deplatformed'.... most American's fear the latter more than the former


----------



## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

chu42 said:


> It's subjective and requires context. It might be bad for me but if I were about to set your house on fire...


No, that's unfair. I didn't ask you fifty-eight different qualifiers. I said would killing you be a good thing or a bad thing?



chu42 said:


> Anyways, I don't want to get into relativism in terms of objective values. That brings in religion and politics and all other slimy worm cans. Philosophers much more knowledgeable than us have been debating objective moralism vs. relativism for thousands of years.


Well, I wasn't bringing religion into it (quite deliberately!) I was merely asserting that we know a good thing from a bad thing because we like it or we don't, happening to us. It's not difficult to make judgements about good/bad in that context, even in the abstract: "I would not like my goods to be stolen from me, therefore theft is bad". Not difficult.

It requires no appeal to an objective moral authority: we know this stuff merely because it arises from our human existence.



chu42 said:


> So let's just stick with how it relates to art. What is "good" and "bad" in art, and what is "beauty" and "ugliness"? Are there objectively set definitions for them? Does everyone view these terms the same way? If not, how can they be used to judge art objectively? Wouldn't your description of something as "beautiful" also depend on your personal definition of beauty, and thus lack objectivity?


I've already answered that in the context of history. There are 'events' as there are 'rhythms' and 'harmonies': those things are objective and measurable and factual and true. But they are not that interesting. The interesting stuff is a subjective telling of a story _about_ those things.

Don't throw in 'there's no objective way to tell good from bad' if your real point is 'telling the better from the best, or the poorest from the poor is not objective' is my point. Good/bad is easy. I happen to think beauty and ugly is pretty easy, too. Now compare Bach with Mozart... different ball-game entirely, as I've already spelled out.


----------



## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

John Lenin said:


> Dead and 'not currently commercially viable' and therefore out of the mainstream media are two very different forms of death.
> Like actually dead or 'deplatformed'.... most American's fear the latter more than the former


Yeah, I don't have any clue what you're posting about. I'm posting what I've posted. You make of it what you will.


----------



## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> Don't throw in 'there's no objective way to tell good from bad' if your real point is 'telling the better from the best, or the poorest from the poor is not objective' is my point. Good/bad is easy. I happen to think beauty and ugly is pretty easy, too. Now compare Bach with Mozart... different ball-game entirely, as I've already spelled out.


I don't get it. If there's only a subjective difference between "better" and the "best", why is there an objective difference between "beauty" and "ugly"?

Is it not just the difference between how many people agree with you? And an opinion shared by ten million is no more objective than an opinion only shared by ten?


----------



## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> Well you start at the beginning, don't you. Would killing you be a good or a bad thing to do?


Obvious retort: what if "you" were about to kill "me"? What if we were soldiers? What if "you" or "I" were Adolf Eichmann? But before we decide to tackle the overall question of Good and Evil everywhere for everyone for all time and all conditions, we should much more modestly deal with Good and Bad in Music and the Arts. There, it is plain that all esthetics is personal and subjective. (Why do I have the eerie feeling that we have discussed this question before?? )


----------



## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

chu42 said:


> I don't get it. If there's only a subjective difference between "better" and the "best", why is there an objective difference between "beauty" and "ugly"?
> 
> Is it not just the difference between how many people agree with you? And an opinion shared by ten million is no more objective than an opinion only shared by ten?


I didn't say there was an objective difference between beauty and ugly. Have a read of what I actually wrote again. I said even a moral repugnance at killing or stealing arises from the fact that you wouldn't want those things to be done to you. No appeal to external, objective moral value necessary. Good and bad arise from selfish, subjective desire. That's the opposite of saying there's objective rules!

What I also said that deciding between good and bad is easy, but between better and best gets trickier. Thus it is easy to compare Mozart to a drill, as someone posted earlier, but comparing him to Bach is harder.

Nuance is hard, absolutes quite easy.


----------



## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

millionrainbows said:


> I was glad to find out that he liked jazz and considered it the only living "serious" music. I wonder, was be black?


 No. He was a W.A.S.P.


----------



## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

Strange Magic said:


> Obvious retort: what if "you" were about to kill "me"? What if we were soldiers? What if "you" or "I" were Adolf Eichmann? But before we decide to tackle the overall question of Good and Evil everywhere for everyone for all time and all conditions, we should much more modestly deal with Good and Bad in Music and the Arts. There, it is plain that all esthetics is personal and subjective. (Why do I have the eerie feeling that we have discussed this question before?? )


Well, your obvious retort is adding Nuance to the original proposition, which merely muddies the waters.

The fact is that, in the abstract, everyone agrees that killing is bad, and theft is frowned on and so forth. From a set of selfish, subjective value judgments' then arises a moral framework that, as near as we can tell, is darn near universal. I can't think of a religion that condones murder and theft in the abstract, anyhow.

Other examples spring to mind: marriage has changed form and meaning over millennia, even in our own time; but that there's a universal recognition that two adults hooking up for the rest of their lives is a significant event seems unarguable. Or, whilst I haven't personally experienced Bar Mitzvah, the transition from childhood to adulthood is pretty universally observed.

Things arise from individual, subjective experience. But when they are experienced by many people in different cultures over generations, that points to a collective significance.

So, of course, your hearing this music as delightful, but my hearing it as ghastly, arises from subjective experience. And tastes change over time, so there's no objective truth to either of our perceptions. One day Cage may be thought the epitome of great music. Who can say? But that most people in most cultures over much time have regarded making tunes as better on the ear than banging pots or randomly bashing objects together tells us something of a collective truth. That doesn't mean we have to agree on what tunefulness is either: what sounds tuneful to an Aboriginal didgeridooist isn't my idea of fun. But that they clap their sticks together rhythmically and blow their overtones in predictable ways and times tells us that even 60,000 years ago, we knew the difference between music and mere noise.

You will probably want to declare that just an opinion poll. I think lots of subjective experiences over time is telling us more than a mere poll, however.


----------



## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> Other examples spring to mind: marriage has changed form and meaning over millennia, even in our own time; but that there's a universal recognition that two adults hooking up for the rest of their lives is a significant event seems unarguable. Or, whilst I haven't personally experienced Bar Mitzvah, the transition from childhood to adulthood is pretty universally observed.
> 
> Things arise from individual, subjective experience. But when they are experienced by many people in different cultures over generations, that points to a collective significance.


What you are referring to are the biological predispositions that most humans have. You could objectively say that humans generally have the biological urge to make love and form relationships (even if some people are asexual and some people are swingers), which is why many cultures have a concept of marriage. You could objectively say that humans generally prefer peace to war (even if some people live out a life of violence), which is why a lot of cultures view peace as a positive thing.

So what this means that there are objective biological tendencies. This doesn't say anything about objectivity in the concepts themselves-none of these concepts inherently mean anything without said biological tendencies. If our biological tendency was to eat our spouse after mating (like some species do), love and marriage would mean something very different!



AbsolutelyBaching said:


> So, of course, your hearing this music as delightful, but my hearing it as ghastly, arises from subjective experience. And tastes change over time, so there's no objective truth to either of our perceptions. One day Cage may be thought the epitome of great music. Who can say? But that most people in most cultures over much time have regarded making tunes as better on the ear than banging pots or randomly bashing objects together tells us something of a collective truth. That doesn't mean we have to agree on what tunefulness is either: what sounds tuneful to an Aboriginal didgeridooist isn't my idea of fun. But that they clap their sticks together rhythmically and blow their overtones in predictable ways and times tells us that even 60,000 years ago, we knew the difference between music and mere noise.


Again, humans have base instincts and biological tendencies. So yes, up to a point, one could say what we like to listen to is based on objective reasons. But this would have to be the most bareboned factors like rhythm and repetition and symmetry and contrast. Factors that has to do with what we are genetically predisposed to do, not because any of these factors have any "inherent" meaning.

So if someone were to judge Bach, Mozart, etc. based on who fits human biology the best, sure. It just seems rather sterile to do so.


----------



## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

chu42 said:


> What you are referring to are the biological predispositions that most humans have. You could objectively say that humans generally have the biological urge to make love and form relationships (even if some people are asexual and some people are swingers), which is why many cultures have a concept of marriage. You could objectively say that humans generally prefer peace to war (even if some people live out a life of violence), which is why a lot of cultures view peace as a positive thing.
> 
> So what this means that there are objective biological tendencies. This doesn't say anything about objectivity in the concepts themselves-none of these concepts inherently mean anything without said biological tendencies. If our biological tendency was to eat our spouse after mating (like some species do), love and marriage would mean something very different!
> 
> ...


Your reply has completely missed what I was actually saying and replaced it with words and phrases of your own devising, and drawing conclusions from *them*.

You want to regard "biological impulse" as the same thing "objective". Be my guest, but I don't, and I didn't say that.

Specifically, there is no such thing as a 'biological predisposition' towards a universal cultural celebration of two people marrying, or of a cultural celebration of the transition to childhood to adulthood, to cite just two examples. Now the propensity to mate might be a biological predisposition; but having all your friends around and partying the night away to celebrate your entering into a state of marriage isn't. Growing from child to adult is a biological predisposition. _Marking_ the occasion with Bar Mitzvah or School Proms or what have you: that's a cultural artefact and not a biological disposition.

I'm saying that our responses to those events or biological conditions are personal and selfish and subjective... but they are also _shared_. And they're shared by entire cultures at a time, in all locations, in all history (as best we can tell). And that doesn't make them "objective" in the way that "God telling us that to kill is evil" would be an objective statement of a moral standard. But it means that it's not just some*one's* whims, either.

I don't believe in an objective standard by which Mozart is a better composer than, say, Bach or the Sex Pistols. But I do believe that all cultures know the difference between noise and music, however they happen to express their music. And I think that knowledge arises from a cultural aggregation of innate, selfish and subjective opinions.

But just as historical events aren't terribly interesting in and of themselves, but that it's the contextualising and understanding of those events that makes History, so knowing how to tell the difference between noise and music isn't a very high bar, and isn't terribly interesting in and of itself.

Which is why I would find it easy to say "Mozart makes nicer noises than a drill", but I wouldn't be able to so easily discuss "Mozart is a better composer than Bach". And I certainly wouldn't discuss that last question by making appeals to an objective standard which doesn't exist.


----------



## milk (Apr 25, 2018)

millionrainbows said:


> _"Serious music is a dead art. The vein for which three hundred years offered a seemingly inexhaustible yield of beautiful music has run out. What we know as modern music is the noise made by deluded speculators picking through the slagpile...The last really modern serious composer, modern in the sense that he spoke with the full authority of the cultural forces of his time, was Wagner. With him ended the long evolution of the art of music in the harmonic or European sense. All that has followed has been reaction, refinement - and desperate experimentation."_ - Henry Pleasants, The Agony of Modern Music (1955).
> 
> Do you agree or disagree?


This seems to me to be a matter of the experience of transcendence. We have that experience. I personally respond to what I sense are authentic expressions of emotions. I think part about speaking with the "authority of the cultural forces" of the time is interesting. It seems like the (capitalist) technological society cheapens everything and music and art have gone downhill since the 60s/70s. But we're capable of transcendence every moment. Here's a question: is Damien Hirst speaking with the "full authority" of his time? Or is he a kind of con man made for his time? How about Takashi Murakami? I came across this critique of him:

"Takashi Murakami's artwork throws open this critical door and launches straight into the heart of commerce. His work is cute, seductive, exceptionally marketable and consumable, wide-ranging and successful both critically and commercially. He has become a formidable capitalist and a formidable influence in the art world, most particularly in the context of contemporary Japanese art. How can such an overt surrender to the systems of capital have been so well embraced by the art world, and what are the effects on critical artistic practice?"
And this:

More from that link:

"Murakami's work differs from Warhol in an important aspect; it lacks critical tension. Art retains no space from consumerism to provide contrast or juxtaposition. Where Warhol filled the gallery with replicas of existing consumer imagery, in the form of Brillo boxes for example, Murakami paints without referent his own branding. Murakami is the Brillo manufacturer. His trademark character, 'DOB' is one such product. A large, round, panda face with big friendly eyes rests on a petite mouse-like body, resulting in a cute combination of Astro-boy, and - in true Warholian style - Mickey Mouse. Where Warhol displayed the existing consumer fetishism of Mickey Mouse in his reproductions, Murakami prints his own logo, exploiting the fetishistic character of consumer imagery to create his own commodity. DOB can be found on keychains, on clothing, on postcards, in department stores and also, naturally, in most art museum stores. Murakami employs commercial manufacturers to create seamless objects that blend perfectly into the commercial landscape."

http://menlopark.ca/takashi-murakami-the-meaning-of-the-nonsense-of-the-meaning/


----------



## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

This may be of interest in this thread:
https://nmbx.newmusicusa.org/composer-commission-pay-in-the-united-states/


----------



## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Strange Magic said:


> [W]e should much more modestly deal with Good and Bad in Music and the Arts. There, it is plain that all esthetics is personal and subjective. (Why do I have the eerie feeling that we have discussed this question before?? )


Plain to you and me, but alas, not to everyone, evidently. And perhaps not plain to just about everyone before relatively recently in western culture. The British empiricist philosophers, most notably David Hume in the mid-18th century, made this argument forcefully and (imo) convincingly. But why would they be arguing this point in such depth and detail if it was plain to everyone at the time?

Before then, there were incidents such as the ban of secular music by the Russian Orthodox church, who plainly believed music could be inherently "Bad". Much more recently, after Hitler and Stalin even, the Soviet government tried to ban "decadent" western popular music. Interesting story about that: Neil Sedaka, writer and singer of hits such as "Breaking Up Is Hard To Do" and "Calendar Girl", was a classical piano child prodigy who at 13 won a piano competition held by classical radio station WQXR in NYC, where Arthur Rubinstein was one of the judges. The Soviet authorities invited him to participate in the first Tchaikovsky piano competition, but rescinded the invitation when they learned of his popular songwriting. Van Cliburn was invited instead, and the rest, as they say, is history.


----------



## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

My study of both AbsolutelyBaching, chu42, and my own posts and positions indicates to me that our views are actually nearly identical where it counts: there are no "absolute" or "objective" standards for judging works of art--certainly there are objective "facts" about artworks such as length, weight, duration, creator, date, note sequences, but neither goodness or badness or greatness inhere within the artworks. There is preference, polling, voting, and the statistics that flow from these, and discussions of the nature of the audience doing the perceiving of the artworks. It is exactly like discussing fine wines or ice cream, only striving to be more refined in tone and seriousness. And such discussions can be both fun and informative.


----------



## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

fluteman said:


> Before then, there were incidents such as the *ban of secular music by the Russian Orthodox church,* who plainly believed music could be inherently "Bad". Much more recently, after Hitler and Stalin even, the Soviet government tried to ban "decadent" western popular music. Interesting story about that: Neil Sedaka, writer and singer of hits such as "Breaking Up Is Hard To Do" and "Calendar Girl", was a classical piano child prodigy who at 13 won a piano competition held by classical radio station WQXR in NYC, where Arthur Rubinstein was one of the judges. The Soviet authorities invited him to participate in the first Tchaikovsky piano competition, but rescinded the invitation when they learned of his popular songwriting. Van Cliburn was invited instead, and the rest, as they say, is history.


A ban by the Russian Orthodox Church of secular music, I don't think, is related to its quality. The Church did not want to have non-religious music performed during a service. The Catholic Church also forbade secular music, female singing, and even instruments other than organ, for centuries since they thought it distracted the congregation from what they should be thinking about during the Mass or other services.

The Soviet bans on music were political in nature, and also not related to an inherent good or bad in the music. It wasn't just popular music, they also suppressed jazz, and classical music which they thought was unduly influenced by the "formulism" of the West. Shostakovich had to run this gauntlet with his music.


----------



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

fluteman said:


> Mozart doesn't cleanly break away from *Haydn's formulas and ideas*, rather he manipulates them for his own purposes.


Btw, in Post #144, I was also pointing out that people tend to give a bit to much credit to Joseph for his invention of "formulas and ideas" (while neglecting his contemporaries like his younger brother). 
Listen to Michael's string quintets, MH187, MH189, MH367, MH411, MH412, especially ones he wrote before the publication (1774) of Joseph's Op.20 quartets - MH187, MH189 (1773). I find many elements in Michael's quintets people tend to give only Joseph's Op.20 credit for.
Also notice the similarities in the openings of Michael's G major, MH189 and Mozart's K.387, and the finales of Michael's 23rd symphony (MH 287) and Mozart's K.387.
Maybe Mozart intended to outdo Joseph in some moments like the finales of K.464 (monothematicism) and K.590 (phrasing and rhythm), but I still think Michael was just as big a source of inspiration for him as Joseph, if not more. With the C major, MH187, I find the interplay of upper strings in the slow movement and the chromatic fun in the finale memorable.

http://mrc.hanyang.ac.kr/wp-content/jspm/20/jspm_2006_20_10.pdf#page=4
"Mozart wrote to his father on 29 March 1783 about the musical gatherings in the apartments of Baron van Swieten: "we love to amuse ourselves with all kind of masters, ancient and modern." So music was the main object of the other of the composers Mozart and his colleagues studied in these sessions is mentioned in the Mozart correspondence by name: Johann Ernst Eberlin, for instance, or Georg Friedrich Handel, or J.S. Bach and his sons Wilhelm Friedemann and Carl Phillip Emmanuel, or *Michael Haydn*."


----------



## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

Strange Magic said:


> My study of both AbsolutelyBaching, chu42, and my own posts and positions indicates to me that our views are actually nearly identical where it counts: there are no "absolute" or "objective" standards for judging works of art--certainly there are objective "facts" about artworks such as length, weight, duration, creator, date, note sequences, but neither goodness or badness or greatness inhere within the artworks. There is preference, polling, voting, and the statistics that flow from these, and discussions of the nature of the audience doing the perceiving of the artworks. It is exactly like discussing fine wines or ice cream, only striving to be more refined in tone and seriousness. And such discussions can be both fun and informative.


Well, I mention it only in passing, and not wanting to bring up discussions from the past. I actually think 'greatness' is something a composer imbues into their music when they write it, unwittingly, if they're incredibly talented and wonderfully inspired. I think it's a 'quality' above and beyond 'mere notes' and the other musical attributes you cite.

As subjective desires not to be killed or stolen from adhere and become societal norms, so I think lots of subjective assessments of 'like' or 'dislike' adhere over time to become more than a poll of individual opinions. I think 'quality' or 'greatness' (or 'merit', if you recall) would equate to a cultural artefact, along the lines of a marriage or a Bar Mitzvah. An unspoken assessment by many, in many locations, and at different times that becomes a cultural assumption. I think that it's intrinsic to the work, and revealed by 'the wisdom of the crowd'. Which is not to say that cultural assumptions can't change and the 'intrinsic merit' is overlooked or forgotten in time (_pace_ Bach's B minor mass for 79 years or so).

That said, I agree with everything you've written, except for including the word 'greatness'. Good and bad are subjective; the ultimate has an element of something beyond an individual's assessment.

But I know you don't agree, and I really can't summon the strength to go round 2 with you about it.

Let's just call it quits at 'we agree on bad and good'.


----------



## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

> AbsolutelyBaching: "That said, I agree with everything you've written, except for including the word 'greatness'. Good and bad are subjective; the ultimate has an element of something beyond an individual's assessment."


Your escape hatch. Proof that not only all esthetics are personal and subjective, but all theories of esthetics are personal and subjective.


----------



## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

Strange Magic said:


> Your escape hatch. Proof that not only all esthetics are personal and subjective, but all theories of esthetics are personal and subjective.


Not really. Merely an observation that society is more than the sum of individuals and their opinions inhabiting it at any given minute (with apologies to Mrs. Thatcher, she was wrong!)

Also, I did ask you to call it quits at 'we agree on good and bad'.


----------



## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> Your reply has completely missed what I was actually saying and replaced it with words and phrases of your own devising, and drawing conclusions from *them*.
> 
> You want to regard "biological impulse" as the same thing "objective". Be my guest, but I don't, and I didn't say that.
> 
> Specifically, there is no such thing as a 'biological predisposition' towards a universal cultural celebration of two people marrying, or of a cultural celebration of the transition to childhood to adulthood, to cite just two examples. Now the propensity to mate might be a biological predisposition; but having all your friends around and partying the night away to celebrate your entering into a state of marriage isn't. Growing from child to adult is a biological predisposition. _Marking_ the occasion with Bar Mitzvah or School Proms or what have you: that's a cultural artefact and not a biological disposition.


Let's drop the objectivity vs subjectivity thing and get something straight:

All cultural artefacts can be traced to biological dispositions. There is no tradition that inherently have meaning other than what humans give to them.

Unless you have any proof otherwise, we'll leave it at that.


----------



## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> Not really. Merely an observation that society is more than the sum of individuals and their opinions inhabiting it at any given minute (with apologies to Mrs. Thatcher, she was wrong!)
> 
> Also, I did ask you to call it quits at 'we agree on good and bad'.


I agree. There are all sorts of forces and factors at work within evolving societies that will strongly impact the tastes and especially the mass tastes of those societies. I found Ortega y Gasset's amazing _The Revolt of the Masses_ to be a prescient and penetrating study of this phenomenon, now almost 90 years old. Highly recommended.


----------



## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> Not really. Merely an observation that society is more than the sum of individuals and their opinions inhabiting it at any given minute (with apologies to Mrs. Thatcher, she was wrong!)


Do you have any evidence for this? Is this something that anthropologists, psychologists, biologists, agree on?

Even if you were to argue this from a nonsecular point of view, most religions concede that the world and its humanistic artefacts have very little metaphysical meaning.

I think it speaks to the vastness and complexity of our biological impulses that we can arrive at such depth simply from a series of chemical reactions in our brain.


----------



## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

chu42 said:


> Let's drop the objectivity vs subjectivity thing and get something straight:
> 
> All cultural artefacts can be traced to biological dispositions. There is no tradition that inherently have meaning other than what humans give to them.
> 
> Unless you have any proof otherwise, we'll leave it at that.


If you say so. I don't.

You drop what you like if you find it inconvenient to you making a coherent argument. I try to deal with the things people actually say and write, not chopping bits out when it suits, or re-writing when it makes it easier for me to demolish a point.

But you be you. I'll stick to being me.


----------



## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

chu42 said:


> Do you have any evidence for this? Is this something that anthropologists, psychologists, biologists, agree on?


Evidence for what? That society, societal norms are more than the aggregation of subjective opinions of the people alive at a given moment? I think it self-evident.



chu42 said:


> Even if you were to argue this from a nonsecular point of view, most religions concede that the physical world and its humanistic artefacts have very little metaphysical meaning.


I have no idea what that sentence means or the point you're trying to make. I wasn't talking of religion or 'humanistic artefacts'. I can't comment further: I simply don't understand you.



chu42 said:


> I think it speaks to the vastness and complexity of our biological impulses that we can arrive at such depth simply from a series of chemical reactions in our brain.


I think it speaks to something much more complex than our 'biological impulses' that order can come out of chaos; that the 2nd law of thermodynamics can locally be violated over the time-span of billions of years, courtesy of evolution; and that our electro-chemical brains can make us laugh at a dirty joke. I would probably phrase it differently, in other words, but I don't think I'd fundamentally disagree with what you've just said. I just don't know the relevance of that to anything being discussed in this thread.


----------



## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> Evidence for what? That society, societal norms are more than the aggregation of subjective opinions of the people alive at a given moment? I think it self-evident.


You _think_ it is self-evident-without objective evidence, it remains a thought. I don't have to disagree with you to tell you this.



AbsolutelyBaching said:


> I have no idea what that sentence means or the point you're trying to make. I wasn't talking of religion or 'humanistic artefacts'. I can't comment further: I simply don't understand you.


If your argument that "society is more than the sum of individuals and their opinions inhabiting it at any given minute" does not come from a scientific standpoint, nor a religious standpoint, then where does it come from?

Here are your words: "Marking the occasion with Bar Mitzvah or School Proms or what have you: that's a cultural artefact and not a biological disposition."

So I'm not sure why you're confused when I mention humanistic artefacts. Clearly they are relevant to the discussion. You said that cultural artefacts don't result from biology and I responded that this idea is not scientifically supported. Scientists can trace back almost all cultural artefacts to a biological need or want.



AbsolutelyBaching said:


> I think it speaks to something much more complex than our 'biological impulses' that order can come out of chaos; that the 2nd law of thermodynamics can locally be violated over the time-span of billions of years, courtesy of evolution; and that our electro-chemical brains can make us laugh at a dirty joke. I would probably phrase it differently, in other words, but I don't think I'd fundamentally disagree with what you've just said. I just don't know the relevance of that to anything being discussed in this thread.


Again. If this is not from a scientific standpoint (of which you said you have no evidence), nor a religious standpoint (of which you said is irrelevant to the discussion), what is the line of reasoning from which you arrived at this conclusion?


----------



## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

chu42 said:


> You _think_ it is self-evident-without objective evidence, it remains a thought. I don't have to disagree with you to tell you this.


Well, current Red State America agrees with you. Feel that wearing a mask is an invasion of your personal liberties? Fine: no mask wearing! Except most people in most countries think that doing something you personally might not want to do but it's for the common good is probably a good idea.

Pay taxes do you? Why? An army, a health care system, an education system... these are not in specific individual's interests (I have no children: why the hell am I paying for schools and universities!! I own my own AK47, why the hell do I need to pay for an army, which might be used to _oppress_ me!? etc etc)

It is self-evident that we do some things for the _common_ good. Which means that there's something 'beyond ourselves' which we regard as worth something.

The objective evidence is all around you: you simply have to look. There are individuals all doing their own individual things... and there are things which no individual (except maybe Jeff Bezos) could afford to do on their own which we all aggregate together and declare to be a good thing to do. Even when it makes no sense to our specific, personal circumstances.



chu42 said:


> If your argument that "society is more than the sum of individuals and their opinions inhabiting it at any given minute" does not come from a scientific standpoint, nor a religious standpoint, then where does it come from?


Have a read of Rousseau's _Social Contract_ and get back to me, will you?



chu42 said:


> Again. If this is not from a scientific standpoint (of which you said you have no evidence), nor a religious standpoint (of which you said is irrelevant to the discussion), what is the line of reasoning at which you arrived at this conclusion?


See above. I don't need to have evidence that water is wet, either. If you insist on me defining what 'wet' is, we can do that. But there are somethings which we tend to take at face value for the purpose of having a sensible debate. Otherwise, we need to start discussing what the meaning of 'is' is.

And that way lie rabbit holes.


----------



## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> Well, current Red State America agrees with you. Feel that wearing a mask is an invasion of your personal liberties? Fine: no mask wearing! Except most people in most countries think that doing something you personally might not want to do but it's for the common good is probably a good idea.
> 
> Pay taxes do you? Why? An army, a health care system, an education system... these are not in specific individual's interests (I have no children: why the hell am I paying for schools and universities!! I own my own AK47, why the hell do I need to pay for an army, which might be used to _oppress_ me!? etc etc)
> 
> ...


I understand your point. The general scientific conclusion is that humans are biologically predisposed to be altruistic in some senses. It is, after all, an evolutionary advantage and a survival benefit to work for the good of all rather than only the good of one. Much like how some organisms ended up working together in hives and others create colonies-obviously it's more complex for humans but ultimately still a biological process.



AbsolutelyBaching said:


> Have a read of Rousseau's _Social Contract_ and get back to me, will you?


So you believe this purely from a philosophical standpoint. Understood.



AbsolutelyBaching said:


> See above. I don't need to have evidence that water is wet, either. If you insist on me defining what 'wet' is, we can do that. But there are somethings which we tend to take at face value for the purpose of having a sensible debate. Otherwise, we need to start discussing what the meaning of 'is' is.
> 
> And that way lie rabbit holes.


I'm glad you clarified your beliefs on the subject. It does not change the scientific conclusion that altruistic tendencies and cultural artefacts can be traced back to biology.


----------



## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

chu42 said:


> I understand your point. The general scientific conclusion is that humans are biologically predisposed to be altruistic in some senses.


You are surely not allowed to mention a 'general scientific conclusion' without evidence, are you?! Good lord. That almost sounds as if it is 'self evident'!



chu42 said:


> It is, after all, an evolutionary advantage and a survival benefit to work for the good of all rather than only the good of one. Much like how some organisms ended up working together in hives and others create colonies-obviously it's more complex for humans but ultimately still a biological process.
> 
> So you believe this purely from a philosophical standpoint. Understood.


Hmm. Using the words "believe" and "philosophy" in the same sentence makes me uneasy. But if it makes you feel you understand where I'm coming from, then fine. I'll run with it.



chu42 said:


> I'm glad you clarified your beliefs on the subject. It does not change the scientific conclusion that altruistic tendencies and cultural artefacts can be traced back to biology.


I really didn't clarify my beliefs. I clarified that demanding evidence for things which are self-evident is just... well, pointless would be the polite way of putting it.

I really don't care where altruism comes from. It makes sense to me that a bunch of apes working together can outwit the lion where working alone they can't. But that's not really the point. The point was, 'society is more than individuals' and you challenged me on that point, because where was the scientific evidence. And now you kind of agree that science says altruism is a thing.

I'm passed discussing this with you, I think. Make what points you like: you're welcome to have the final say.


----------



## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> If you say so. I don't.
> 
> You drop what you like if you find it inconvenient to you making a coherent argument. I try to deal with the things people actually say and write, not chopping bits out when it suits, or re-writing when it makes it easier for me to demolish a point.
> 
> But you be you. I'll stick to being me.


None of what you said in your original post counteracted my conclusion, so this slight is quite inappropriate.

The main concept in that post boiled down to "humans engage in actions that biology cannot explain, such as various cultural artefacts and a tendency towards altruism".

Your idea is directly contradictory to the current scientific consensus. It's just flat out objectively wrong.



> You are surely not allowed to mention a 'general scientific conclusion' without evidence, are you?! Good lord. That almost sounds as if it is 'self evident'!


Sorry, did I need to explain to you that humans are not unique in engaging in altruism?

Thousands if not millions of species engage in "altruism" and "teamwork", and scientists can explain why through biological processes.

Surely you don't believe that bees work for the common good of because they read Rosseau's Social Contract.

Surely I don't need to provide the specific chemical combinations that allow organisms to work as a team.

So humans are not unique in that respect, just more complex-which results in advanced concepts like "paying taxes" and "universal healthcare" which are unique to humans and complicated emotions such as empathy and compassion (which are in fact _not_ unique to humans).


----------



## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

chu42 said:


> None of what you said in your original post counteracted my conclusion, so this slight is quite inappropriate.
> 
> The main concept in that post boiled down to "humans engage in actions that biology cannot explain, such as various cultural artefacts and a tendency towards altruism".
> 
> Your idea is directly contradictory to the current scientific consensus. It's just flat out objectively wrong. Thousands of species engage in "altruism" and "teamwork", which can all be explained by biological processes. Humans are not unique in that respect, just more complex.


Yeah, now you're reply-posting to things out of sequence.
Don't do that.

But just to make my point. Don't attribute to me words which you would like me to have said so that it makes it easier for you to demolish them. The words you put in quote marks, no less, in your second paragraph above are not mine.

If you really were to ask me to summarise my thoughts in that sentence it would be "humans have cultural artefacts".

The rest of your post is... well, pointless, because I didn't claim humans were unique in this, or that uniqueness was essential to the fact of there being cultural artefacts.

So, don't post out of sequence. And stop "quoting" me, when you're actually attributing things to me which I never said and would never say. Capice?

And since it is now self-evident that you won't debate fairly or reasonably, I'm done debating with you at all. Consider that a slight if you must. I consider it "self-evident" from your posting history. We're done.


----------



## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> Yeah, now you're reply-posting to things out of sequence.
> Don't do that.


My apologies. When you find a relevant counterargument, please respond in kind.


----------



## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> Yeah, now you're reply-posting to things out of sequence.
> 
> The rest of your post is... well, pointless, because I didn't claim humans were unique in this, or that uniqueness was essential to the fact of there being cultural artefacts.


You _heavily, heavily,_ implied that it was unique to humans because it was unexplainable by biology.

If you want to make the argument that altruism is unexplainable in other species as well, you can go ahead and do so.


----------



## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

chu42 said:


> My apologies. When you find a relevant counterargument, please respond in kind.


I added a sentence to my post whilst you were responding to it. 
I'm here merely politely re-informing you of the fact that you distort people's words at the cost of actually engaging them in future.
We're done.


----------



## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> Yeah, now you're reply-posting to things out of sequence.
> 
> The rest of your post is... well, pointless, because I didn't claim humans were unique in this, or that uniqueness was essential to the fact of there being cultural artefacts.
> 
> So, don't post out of sequence. And stop "quoting" me, when you're actually attributing things to me which I never said and would never say. Capice?


You made the argument that certain human artefacts are unexplainable by science.



> Specifically, there is no such thing as a 'biological predisposition' towards a universal cultural celebration of two people marrying, or of a cultural celebration of the transition to childhood to adulthood...Growing from child to adult is a biological predisposition. Marking the occasion with Bar Mitzvah or School Proms or what have you: that's a cultural artefact and not a biological disposition.


This is all objectively incorrect, and in your last sentence you imply that cultural artefacts aren't biological dispositions, which is also incorrect.

Then you said this:



> I'm saying that our responses to those events or biological conditions are personal and selfish and subjective... but they are also shared. And they're shared by entire cultures at a time, in all locations, in all history (as best we can tell). And that doesn't make them "objective" in the way that "God telling us that to kill is evil" would be an objective statement of a moral standard. But it means that it's not just someone's whims, either.
> 
> ...Society is more than the sum of individuals and their opinions inhabiting it at any given minute.


If all humans (or bees, or any organisms displaying teamwork) are displaying altruistic tendencies based on biological impulses (which is scientifically proven), it is the biological impulse of every individual organism that creates a "shared" culture or a "shared" tendency towards altruism. It's not an abstract external force that unites us.

When one is to apply this reasoning to music, then the conclusion is that there is not some objective greater force in Bach or any other composer that unites humans-it all comes down to the individually shared biological tendency to enjoy music written that way.



> And since it is now self-evident that you won't debate fairly or reasonably, I'm done debating with you at all. Consider that a slight if you must. I consider it "self-evident" from your posting history. We're done.


I don't believe I misinterpreted or distorted any of your arguments in a way that would fundamentally change any conclusions that are being made. I think you jumped on semantics and minor details as a way to divert attention from the inevitable holes in your lines of reasoning.

I doubt anything else has to be said.


----------



## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

chu42 said:


> You made the argument that certain human artefacts are unexplainable by science.
> 
> This is all objectively incorrect, and in your last sentence you imply that cultural artefacts aren't biological dispositions, which is also incorrect.
> 
> ...


Other than that you distort, misquote, claim without evidence, conflate different ideas and then proceed to rebut one as if it were a rebuttal of the other: no, I guess nothing further need be said.

If you're going to make pronoucements such as "this is all objectively incorrect", then I fear I cannot debate God.

To the ignore list you go. Byeee...


----------



## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

You made claims about cultural artefacts that were objectively wrong. We can agree on that.

And then you said this:



> It is self-evident that we do some things for the common good. Which means that *there's something 'beyond ourselves'* which we regard as worth something.


So when you say this and then get hotheaded because you never _explicitly_ said it was "unexplainable by science"-okay.

When you say something is "beyond ourselves" you imply that it's not a result of individual biological urges. I can reasonably make this implication because you've already made reference to other concepts that you believe aren't explainable by individual biological processes.

So I tell you yes, it literally is the result of biological urges. You say I'm misinterpreting your line of reasoning and that I'm actually agreeing with you:



AbsolutelyBaching said:


> I really don't care where altruism comes from. It makes sense to me that a bunch of apes working together can outwit the lion where working alone they can't. But that's not really the point. The point was, 'society is more than individuals' and you challenged me on that point, because where was the scientific evidence. And now you kind of agree that science says altruism is a thing.


Altruism = "something beyond ourselves"? And that's not conflating both terms?

When you first referred to "something beyond ourselves" you were really referring to a concept no more special than the altruism that bonds bees or ants or coral polyps? And I'm supposed to believe that?

It's incredible how you can make poorly-defined, vague, statements and then get all snappy when someone doesn't interpret them exactly the way you wanted them to.


----------



## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

SanAntone said:


> A ban by the Russian Orthodox Church of secular music, I don't think, is related to its quality. The Church did not want to have non-religious music performed during a service. The Catholic Church also forbade secular music, female singing, and even instruments other than organ, for centuries since they thought it distracted the congregation from what they should be thinking about during the Mass or other services.
> 
> The Soviet bans on music were political in nature, and also not related to an inherent good or bad in the music. It wasn't just popular music, they also suppressed jazz, and classical music which they thought was unduly influenced by the "formulism" of the West. Shostakovich had to run this gauntlet with his music.


Very true re the Soviets. IIRC, the idea behind the ban of secular and instrumental music by the Russian Orthodox church was that they regarded it as a celebration of superstitious beliefs that they regarded as blasphemous or otherwise inappropriate, perhaps distracting, as you say. But you are using the word "quality" in a narrow sense. Obviously, there was no case by case critique of individual pieces of music in the case of the Russian church (though I guess there was to some extent by Stalin and his cronies in the case of Shostakovich, to make sure it wasn't too 'western'). It was the very idea of secular music, or some aspect of that idea, that the church found objectionable. Therefore listening to it was unnecessary, as evaluations of quality in your sense of the word, such as whether it was skillfully composed or beautiful, were irrelevant. Empirical philosophers start with the premise that the arts present or create a positive experience and then analyze how that experience should be evaluated. The Russian church didn't even accept that premise.


----------



## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

fluteman said:


> Empirical philosophers start with the premise that the arts present or create a positive experience and then analyze how that experience should be evaluated.


How would you source that statement? (specific books or other texts)


----------



## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Very briefly: The biological origins of "morality":

"We have specialized cells cells called mirror neurons that reflect physical actions as well as emotions. These neurons fire when you stick your tongue out. but they also fire when you feel pain or when you see another person in pain, so they are essential for empathy." Meave Leakey, _The Sediments of Time_.

There is a growing body of literature/research on mirror neurons, beginning in the 1990s.

The mother-offspring bond is another--and even stronger--bond.


----------



## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Fabulin said:


> How would you source that statement? (specific books or other texts)


You can read the works of David Hume and Immanuel Kant, especially Hume's essay, Of The Standard Of Taste. There, Hume says, "Every work of art has also a certain end or purpose, for which it is calculated; and is to be deemed more or less perfect, as it is more or less fitted to attain this end. The object of eloquence is to persuade, of history to instruct, of poetry to please by means of the passions and the imagination."

The idea that the purpose of poetry, and of art generally, is to please by means of the passions and the imagination, which Hume accepts as a given, is very much a modern empirical one. The old Russian Orthodox church obviously didn't accept it. Nowadays, especially after the technological revolution that allows me to write this post to you and scientists to send space craft to the Moon, Mars and beyond, we tend to accept empiricism without remembering that any way of looking at the world existed before it.

I have posted about the empiricists here before, but you are the first to show any interest. Many thanks.


----------



## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

I'm enthused that MR started this. 

He isn't given enough credit for starting such 'surges' for kith like me.


----------



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Luchesi said:


> I'm enthused that MR started this.
> 
> He isn't given enough credit for starting such 'surges' for kith like me.


I appreciate the good words, Luchesi.

It's good to know that I'm not "just a bother" around here. I've been called a troll, illogical, troublemaker, bully, smart guy, uneducated, auto-didact, incomprehensible, hippie, peacenik, racist, and...banned for three months TWICE in 2020 (a bad year).

And now, let the short, pithy, humorless responses begin! :lol:


----------



## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

fluteman said:


> You can read the works of David Hume and Immanuel Kant, especially Hume's essay, Of The Standard Of Taste. There, Hume says, "Every work of art has also a certain end or purpose, for which it is calculated; and is to be deemed more or less perfect, as it is more or less fitted to attain this end. The object of eloquence is to persuade, of history to instruct, of poetry to please by means of the passions and the imagination."
> 
> The idea that the purpose of poetry, and of art generally, is to please by means of the passions and the imagination, which Hume accepts as a given, is very much a modern empirical one. The old Russian Orthodox church obviously didn't accept it. Nowadays, especially after the technological revolution that allows me to write this post to you and scientists to send space craft to the Moon, Mars and beyond, we tend to accept empiricism without remembering that any way of looking at the world existed before it.
> 
> I have posted about the empiricists here before, but you are the first to show any interest. Many thanks.


Thank you for the Hume quote. Very eloquently put and certainly encouraging to read more.


----------



## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Fabulin said:


> Thank you for the Hume quote. Very eloquently put and certainly encouraging to read more.


Alas, Hume tends to be a bit disorganized as a writer, so hang in there. One of the principal architects of modern western culture and hugely underrated, imho. Kant, on the other hand, is fearsomely organized as a writer, perhaps even too much so. But for me, Hume has a better understanding of music than Kant, who saw it as the least of the arts. (What is the point of ranking the arts, anyway?) I can't help but think that if Kant had lived a little later, into the romantic era, his ideas about music would be different.

Anyway, happy reading, then come back here and favor us with your insights, even if, or especially if, your view differs from mine.


----------



## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

millionrainbows said:


> I appreciate the good words, Luchesi.
> 
> It's good to know that I'm not "just a bother" around here. I've been called a troll, illogical, troublemaker, bully, smart guy, uneducated, auto-didact, incomprehensible, hippie, peacenik, racist, and...banned for three months TWICE in 2020 (a bad year).
> 
> And now, let the short, pithy, humorless responses begin! :lol:


The thing is, Mr. mr, you are a clever guy with an ironic sense of humor that doesn't always translate well to internet discussion forums. To people who think there can be no music beyond the diatonic scale, you say, The diatonic scale is dead! Harmony is now vertical and not horizontal! Or whatever. And people get all worried and upset, because they don't know what they will do without their bowl of diatonic scale and milk in the morning. Even though you're talking about musical trends that are now over a century old.

Before these classical music internet discussion groups, it never occurred to me that anyone could get upset over such things. But it turns out they can, and continue to rise to your bait, however many threads you start. They must enjoy it, however peeved they seem. So, live long and prosper, mr. May your threads be many and your bans be few.


----------



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

fluteman said:


> The thing is, Mr. mr, you are a clever guy with an ironic sense of humor that doesn't always translate well to internet discussion forums. To people who think there can be no music beyond the diatonic scale, you say, The diatonic scale is dead! Harmony is now vertical and not horizontal! Or whatever. And people get all worried and upset, because they don't know what they will do without their bowl of diatonic scale and milk in the morning. Even though you're talking about musical trends that are now over a century old.
> 
> Before these classical music internet discussion groups, it never occurred to me that anyone could get upset over such things.But it turns out they can, and continue to rise to your bait, however many threads you start. They must enjoy it, however peeved they seem. So, live long and prosper, mr. May your threads be many and your bans be few.


I appreciate the, er, kudos. 
Yes, they get worried and upset. 
And yes, there are composers who think more like I do, and they'd be 120 years old by now, at least.


----------



## Varick (Apr 30, 2014)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> The fact is that, in the abstract, everyone agrees that killing is bad, and theft is frowned on and so forth. From a set of selfish, subjective value judgments' then arises a moral framework that, as near as we can tell, is darn near universal. I can't think of a religion that condones murder and theft in the abstract, anyhow..


I believe you inadvertently did a slight of hand there. Inadvertently being the operative word. It sure seems that a lot of people conflate these two words and more's the pity: First you used the word kill, as in _"everyone agrees that killing is bad"_ of which I do not agree necessarily. Then you used the word murder as in _"I can't think of a religion that condones murder..."_ of which I can not either and can not think of a single scenario of murder being not bad.

There is a reason why English and Hebrew have two words: Kill and murder. I do not know of any other language that differentiates the two, but I'd be surprised if there wasn't. Just a technical observation.

V


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> The fact is that, in the abstract, everyone agrees that killing is bad,.


What? Even the headhunter tribes of Papua New Guinea?


----------



## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

Varick said:


> I believe you inadvertently did a slight of hand there. Inadvertently being the operative word. It sure seems that a lot of people conflate these two words and more's the pity: First you used the word kill, as in _"everyone agrees that killing is bad"_ of which I do not agree necessarily. Then you used the word murder as in _"I can't think of a religion that condones murder..."_ of which I can not either and can not think of a single scenario of murder being not bad.
> 
> There is a reason why English and Hebrew have two words: Kill and murder. I do not know of any other language that differentiates the two, but I'd be surprised if there wasn't. Just a technical observation.
> 
> V


The difference between killing and murder is simply one of intent and is more of a legal distinction than anything. Both involve the termination of life; murder requires malice aforethought.

In any event, my King James version of the 10 commandments has _killing_ being prohibitied. Thou shalt not kill, *not* Thou shalt not commit murder. So the religious prohibition is actually on the lesser or 'lighter' of the two concepts, not the worst and if anything my 'sleight of hand' underplayed the way that religion condemns the taking of life.

In either event, my point stands: we know terminating someone's life is not a good thing to do, because we do not want our own life terminated. From that selfish sense of the importance of life comes the moral prohibition on killing, malicious or otherwise.


----------



## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

Mandryka said:


> What? Even the headhunter tribes of Papua New Guinea?


Well, theirs is a tribal custom and is done with due deliberation and solemnity. It's a ceremonial ritual, not a casual occurrence.

So yes, even they know that killing is bad.


----------



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

*For awhile there hasn't been much talking about "Serious Music is a Dead Art." Could we revert back to that topic or simply avoid rabbit holes if there is no more to say? It would be desirable to keep this thread open.*


----------



## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

millionrainbows said:


> *For awhile there hasn't been much talking about "Serious Music is a Dead Art." Could we revert back to that topic or simply avoid rabbit holes if there is no more to say? It would be desirable to keep this thread open.*


Do me a favour. If you're going to _preternd_ to be a moderator, use the right font and the correct colour.

You can assert that "it's desirable to keep this thread open" all you like. But how does the song go? It ain't necessarily so.

Stop posting in ways that are designed to make the gullible think you're a mod. Given your history, I realise the hilarity of that. But just stop it. You want to keep the thread open and direct discussion in a particular way: *contribute something!*


----------



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Could we revert back to the topic or simply avoid comments on the postings themselves if there is no more to say? It would be desirable to keep this thread open.

Contribution: What does "serious" music mean? What are your criteria?

To me, serious music means "art" music, and that's not a genre, it's a _quality_ that I determine by using a set of criteria.

Some of my criteria:

"Art" is a relatively recent concept that means "for sublime contemplation," almost as religion is.

See book:
..............








Art is ideally non-utilitarian, but if it started that way, it can transcend that utilitarian purpose and become art, as in Church images, Church music, popular music...


----------



## Varick (Apr 30, 2014)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> The difference between killing and murder is simply one of intent and is more of a legal distinction than anything. Both involve the termination of life; murder requires malice aforethought.
> 
> In any event, my King James version of the 10 commandments has _killing_ being prohibitied. Thou shalt not kill, *not* Thou shalt not commit murder. So the religious prohibition is actually on the lesser or 'lighter' of the two concepts, not the worst and if anything my 'sleight of hand' underplayed the way that religion condemns the taking of life.
> 
> In either event, my point stands: we know terminating someone's life is not a good thing to do, because we do not want our own life terminated. From that selfish sense of the importance of life comes the moral prohibition on killing, malicious or otherwise.


Unfortunately, the King's James version, although the most poetic and arguably the most beautifully written of all versions (There is a great book on the making of the King James Bible called, "God's Secretaries" if one is interested in the history of it), did get some key translations incorrect. This is one of the those occasions. The Hebrew (in which the Ten Commandments was originally written) translation is "murder" and not "kill." Hence my comment above regarding both English and Hebrew having the distinction between the words, which you accurately describe.

There is no religious basis (speaking for Judaism or Christianity only) for the "prohibition" of "killing," only a prohibiting on "murder." In fact, in the same testament where the Ten Commandments come from there are multiple calls for justly taking a life such as (It might not be exact), "Whoever sheds a man's blood, so BY MAN shall his blood be shed" as just one example.

Anyway, I am enjoying your commentary on the OP and your style of precise thinking on this subject. Given your propensity towards the accuracy of yours and other's words and history, I thought you would like to know such a thing.

And to the OP:

No, I do not believe "Serious Music" is a dead art. I believe much of modern "classical" music and modern art has been hijacked by a post-modernist mentality which is made much of art a mockery (IMO), but as other's in this thread have demonstrated with multiple examples, there is still great music being made.

My *personal* criteria for "Art" (particularly "great" art) whether it be music, literature, painting, etc has four categories.

1. It has to be original. Unfortunately, I believe this ends the criteria for many people, and most unfortunately, many artist have adopted this singular criteria as the end all of claiming what they do is "art."

2. It has to have skill involved. If anyone can do it (such as splattering paint onto a canvass, even if it's from a ladder), I do not consider it art. If I can urinate into a stemmed wine glass from a helicopter hovering 50 feet above ground, that certainly takes "skill," (and probably a LOT of practice) but I certainly would never consider it "art."

3. Recognition of a theme or structure. This one has certainly lacked in the past 60 or so years. This is somewhat linked to #2.

4. Longevity. This may be the most difficult one to asses because many of us will be dead before this one comes to fruition if the art is created in our lifetime. In 100 years from now, will people still listen to it, will people still visit someplace to view it, will people still read it, etc.. 100 years from now, I don't know if The Beatles or Bruce Springsteen will still be a dominant factor in music, but I would bet big money that Bach's Mass in B Minor will still be.

V


----------



## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

There was a clause in Boulez's contract when he became the music director the New York Philharmonic specifically stating he would not be required to conduct music by Tchaikovsky, a composer whose music he particularly disliked . However, he had no objection to guest conductors doing Tchaikovsky's music .


----------



## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

Varick said:


> Unfortunately, the King's James version, although the most poetic and arguably the most beautifully written of all versions (There is a great book on the making of the King James Bible called, "God's Secretaries" if one is interested in the history of it), did get some key translations incorrect. This is one of the those occasions. The Hebrew (in which the Ten Commandments was originally written) translation is "murder" and not "kill." Hence my comment above regarding both English and Hebrew having the distinction between the words, which you accurately describe.
> 
> There is no religious basis (speaking for Judaism or Christianity only) for the "prohibition" of "killing," only a prohibiting on "murder." In fact, in the same testament where the Ten Commandments come from there are multiple calls for justly taking a life such as (It might not be exact), "Whoever sheds a man's blood, so BY MAN shall his blood be shed" as just one example.
> 
> ...


I knew someone would bring up the scholarship of the KJV. My pithy response is: it doesn't matter.

The religious injunction is against the *tighter* of the two crimes, not the looser (i.e., murder not accidental killing). Therefore, er... it doesn't matter. The fact is, I don't want to be *killed*. Murder or not, or I don't want my life ended. From there, the selfish desire not to cease-to-be, stems the religious prohibition on er... "termination of life". Naturally, there are exceptions for (so-help-me Godwin) killing Hitler, which would probably be fine. That doesn't touch the edge of the moral issue being raised, either.

I really don't look towards Bronze Age texts for coherence and consistency, either. If, in the same volume, we can get 'God is Love' and 'Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and a ss ." then I think it fair to say that something was lost in translation! And pity the Amalekites. (And sorry to introduce a space between the a and the ss of the donkey there, but the forum software is reluctant to accept something because it resembles the American for what I'd call a rse).


----------



## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

AbsolutelyBaching said:


> I knew someone would bring up the scholarship of the KJV. My pithy response is: it doesn't matter.
> 
> The religious injunction is against the *tighter* of the two crimes, not the looser (i.e., murder not accidental killing). Therefore, er... it doesn't matter. The fact is, I don't want to be *killed*. Murder or not, or I don't want my life ended. From there, the selfish desire not to cease-to-be, stems the religious prohibition on er... "termination of life". Naturally, there are exceptions for (so-help-me Godwin) killing Hitler, which would probably be fine. That doesn't touch the edge of the moral issue being raised, either.
> 
> I really don't look towards Bronze Age texts for coherence and consistency, either. If, in the same volume, we can get 'God is Love' and 'Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and a ss ." *then I think it fair to say that something was lost in translation! *And pity the Amalekites. (And sorry to introduce a space between the a and the ss of the donkey there, but the forum software is reluctant to accept something because it resembles the American for what I'd call a rse).


Lost in translation? No, it was completely reasonable and acceptable.


----------



## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> _"Serious music is a dead art. The vein for which three hundred years offered a seemingly inexhaustible yield of beautiful music has run out. What we know as modern music is the noise made by deluded speculators picking through the slagpile...The last really modern serious composer, modern in the sense that he spoke with the full authority of the cultural forces of his time, was Wagner. With him ended the long evolution of the art of music in the harmonic or European sense. All that has followed has been reaction, refinement - and desperate experimentation."_ - Henry Pleasants, The Agony of Modern Music (1955).
> 
> Do you agree or disagree?


Of course I vehemently disagree.

This statement assumes that everyone perceives beauty in the exact same way, or that beauty even needs to be the end goal of a piece of art or music, in the first place.

I am able to perceive beauty in the complexity of modern music (post 1950 up to the present), just not in the same way as the beauty found in previous eras of music. Sometimes beauty does not have to be obvious, it can be implied.


----------



## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> _"Serious music is a dead art. The vein for which three hundred years offered a seemingly inexhaustible yield of beautiful music has run out. What we know as modern music is the noise made by deluded speculators picking through the slagpile...The last really modern serious composer, modern in the sense that he spoke with the full authority of the cultural forces of his time, was Wagner. With him ended the long evolution of the art of music in the harmonic or European sense. All that has followed has been reaction, refinement - and desperate experimentation."_ - Henry Pleasants, The Agony of Modern Music (1955).
> 
> Do you agree or disagree?


I disagree. Today there is more than ever before on the performance of say Baroque and Classical music thanks to musicological research and dedicated performers worldwide who have studied and practiced such music to qualify as professional musicians. Henry Pleasants comment was from the 1950's, it is now outdated.


----------



## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

I wouldn't agree with the summation that "serious music is a dead art" though I may be convinced the greatest classical music ever composed has already been written and, on the evidence available to review, isn't going to be matched or bettered now or in the near future.

There is still a lot of "serious" classical music being written. Problem is none of it is memorable or worth your money or time compared to composers that wrote similar 50, 100, 200, 300 and 400 years ago.

I don't particularly find this a poor state of affairs. If you compare it to literature, the best books and plays were written up to 500 years ago. There hasn't been a writer comparable to Shakespeare, Thackeray and Mark Twain in more than a century.

So fret not classical music for there is still oodles of great stuff available even if it isn't contemporary.


----------

