# How much of music appreciation is based on historical context and status versus music



## Aloevera (Oct 1, 2017)

The question is, when we like a composer do we have the tendency to go out of our way to find the musicality in a piece which we might not find if the same piece was written by a different composer? Would we appreciate it the same? Let's say a group of people were born in a cave and they had all the music to listen to except they wernt given the author's names. Would they acquire the same taste that we have today? Or, is the historical context part of our appreciation. Furthermore, do we consider this to be a prejudice or just an inevitable way we appreciate art? As in, part of musical appreciation must be linked to the composers life and such?


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## Agamemnon (May 1, 2017)

Good questions. I struggle with them myself. I admit that at least I will try harder to appreciate a work if it is by a 'great' composer.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

in my own case, I believe that my reaction to the music alone irrespective of other factors is what guides my preferences. Most every composer I can think of has some works that please and some that do not. Especially the case when listening to classical on the radio--I'll come in late, not knowing the piece, like it (or not), and then find out what it is and who wrote it.


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## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

The reason that I first like a piece of music is that it immediately satisfies my present musical tastes, the history or life style of the composer never enters into the equation.


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## cimirro (Sep 6, 2016)

An example:
No matter how much I respect Schumann as a great composer, I have no plans of playing his piano concerto during my life nor I have plans of listening this again.
This is about taste, his piano concerto is a masterpiece and I know it is loved by most of classical listeners - so it is just my opinion that makes me not interested on this.
On the other hand, I'm very open to listen/read and eventually play new pieces by unknown composers, no matter how famous they are,
It must fit in my taste, which, unfortunately, is also an enemy of art as any other taste.
so, this probably explains my view.
Unfortunately several people keep only listening the famous names because of its "status" over the time... part of the game...

Aloevera is a nice nickname, i have it at home 

Best
Artur


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## Gouldanian (Nov 19, 2015)

Interesting topic. Thanks for proposing it.

I believe anyone can appreciate a piece "à sa face même" without previous knowledge regarding its composer or the historical context behind it. This happens often to me, and I'm sure to most people here, where I would hear a piece that I have never heard before and try to find out more about it, realizing often that it belongs to an composer that I had never considered in the past.

That said, once we've established some kind of preference for a composer, we do tend to search for the beauty in his pieces - and often find them - where this kind of effort might not have been spent trying to find the same in other composers' music. This is kind of normal, as when we are interested in a composer we are more knowledgeable about the historical context around his art and the way he wrote his music, which leads us to appreciate it more. It's like anything else in art, everyone might appreciate a certain beautiful painting, but not everyone will appreciate the more complicated and less obvious ones unless they have some kind of knowledge regarding their context and technique.

Regards,


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## Joe B (Aug 10, 2017)

Good question. And there are some good answers here. This is more or less a philosophical question, perfect for a class entitled "The Phenomenology of Music." Is our intentionality shaded and shaped by our past experiences and prejudices, both for and against? OF COURSE! We're only humans and come fully equipped with all that that involves, for better or worse.
I've deliberately listened repeatedly to many composers music to find what I was sure was there all the time. Yep.....a self fulfilling experience. The real question is, "Is there anything wrong with that?" The real problems only occur when we think we can transfer our perceptual bias and subjective experiences onto another. If our consciousness could be big enough, broad enough, and more selfless, we could probably find the absolute value inherent in the music of all composers. Like that's going to happen any time soon.


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## Aloevera (Oct 1, 2017)

These are all great responses, thanks. To continue on this, take some of the famous themes by Williams or Han Zimmer. All though they arn't as technically strenuous as some of the classical pieces, if Beethoven for example wrote one of these pieces it would no doubt be one of the popular favorites and even one of his masterpieces and we'd probably like it more considering there is this notion that 'Beethoven lived for the music' and so we find it an expression of himself rather than something strictly theatrical. What is in question is if its a prejudice or not or whether the composer is necessarily attached to the composition. For example, it might be that this prejudice isn't really a prejudice at all but when a composer 'lives' for the music, we find the notes more genuine. Another example is Mozart and Haydn, lots of Mozart is borrowed from Haydn but still its a bit more tough finding the soul in Haydn's work but this could also be because Mozart was much more sacrificial to the music and so we want to find the music in it.At the same time, this poses a problem in properly giving an honest listen to lesser known composers because in a sense we already think that theres nothing musical in the work from the start and this prevents other composers from ever gaining attention. Plus maybe we could be giving more credit to some composers ?


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## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

Aloevera said:


> These are all great responses, thanks. To continue on this, take some of the famous themes by Williams or Han Zimmer. All though they arn't as technically strenuous as some of the classical pieces, if Beethoven for example wrote one of these pieces it would no doubt be one of the popular favorites and even one of his masterpieces and we'd probably like it more considering there is this notion that 'Beethoven lived for the music' and so we find it an expression of himself rather than something strictly theatrical. What is in question is if its a prejudice or not or whether the composer is necessarily attached to the composition. For example, it might be that this prejudice isn't really a prejudice at all but when a composer 'lives' for the music, we find the notes more genuine. Another example is Mozart and Haydn, lots of Mozart is borrowed from Haydn but still its a bit more tough finding the soul in Haydn's work but this could also be because Mozart was much more sacrificial to the music and so we want to find the music in it.At the same time, this poses a problem in properly giving an honest listen to lesser known composers because in a sense we already think that theres nothing musical in the work from the start and this prevents other composers from ever gaining attention. Plus maybe we could be giving more credit to some composers ?


Beethoven was such a genius that had he heard "The Mull of Kintyre" he would have made a symphony of it perhaps even two plus variations and a St Qt


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Beethoven wrote some rum music, and we mostly recognize it as such, despite the name of the composer. It's just that the percentage of really good music to mediocre or bad, is higher for him than some others. Mostly we judge the quality of a piece of music by its quality, not the name on the title page.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

I would go so far as to say the reverse is also true. I can tend not to like a piece based on the composer (i.e. Mozart or Delius) however great the piece is. I tend to enjoy the works more not knowing the composers if I've been lukewarm to them in the past.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Aloevera said:


> Let's say a group of people were born in a cave and they had all the music to listen to except they wernt given the author's names. Would they acquire the same taste that we have today? Or, is the historical context part of our appreciation. Furthermore, do we consider this to be a prejudice or just an inevitable way we appreciate art? As in, part of musical appreciation must be linked to the composers life and such?


I'd love if this experiment were actually possible. I suspect it's common enough that an already highly regarded composer will get some "benefit of the doubt" in comparison to lesser composers when it comes to their relatively minor works. It might turn out that these cave-dwellers' favourite early 19th-century piano sonatas are still by Beethoven and their favourite German baroque cantatas are still by Bach, but perhaps some works by other composers would also find a more prominent place. Whereas in reality there's a tendency to value all of Beethoven's sonatas over all those by his contemporaries - according to Arkiv, the least-recorded of the 32 has 90 recordings, while (for example) none of Dussek's has more than 6. I've no desire to diss Beethoven, but surely reputation counts for _some _of this disparity?


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## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

If I was one of those cavemen I would still like what I like no matter who the composer, even today I hear some piece on the radio (yes I still have steam radio) and I say to myself that's nice I wonder what it is not having a clue as to who the composer is.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Famous composers are such because they already have an excellent track record of acceptance with listeners over the years. Consequently, there's the expectation of hearing something worth hearing rather than being time wasters with most of their works. The composers of today have to do the same thing that someone like Robert Schumann had to do - establish their own reputations and prove themselves in the midst of a highly competitive field. I'm open to giving them a go regardless of the reputations of those who've gone before. I'm interested in those composers who are saying something about today. Not all eras and epics are the same. I very much like the works recommended by PeterFromLA. He seems to have an instinctive interest and natural understanding of the new, though I must admit that I'm not quite as adventurous.  Quite often I have found too much chaos, anxiety and neurosis (without mentioning names and works) in a great deal of modern and contemporary music. I've often got the feeling that certain composers have not felt comfortable or at home in the universe, and I've lost interest in their apparent anxiety and confusion. But it was different when I was younger.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

Coincidentally, I just read this review of some Tomasek piano sonatas by Bertil van Boer in _Fanfare_, which follows on from my point above:



> In the teaching of music history, one tends to forge on into the 19th century along a path that begins with Beethoven. To be sure, he was a seminal influence on subsequent generations of composers, but often the context of music in the waning years of the Holy Roman Empire (and on into the Napoleon era) is focused on his importance. Others tend to remain in his shadow, and though an evolving style had many progenitors, these are often parsed out to specialized fields. I remember discussing the historical evolution of the famed pianists such as Liszt or Chopin, with emphasis placed (probably rightly so) on Beethoven's sonatas, with a nod to John Field, Johann Nepomuk Hummel, and a couple of Bohemians, mainly Václav Tomášek and Jan Voříšek. At that time, little of their music was either performed or available (though there was a sort of Field revival of his nocturnes), and so these remained just names. Even a Beethoven pupil, Carl Czerny, was relegated to his études, the tedious bane of all emerging pianists. In reality, all of these were important people in their time, and many lived on into the post-Beethoven era, where they were regarded (sometimes with a jaundiced eye by the likes of Robert Schumann) as transitional figures in a time of musical revolution.
> 
> The result of this placement is that the music has been slow to be rediscovered, though today one can hear the often original style of people like Hummel, even as they adhered to the earlier musical structures of their predecessors (in Hummel's case, Mozart). This brings us to one of these important colleagues of Beethoven, Václav Jan Křtitel Tomášek (1774-1850), who was lauded by his peers as one of the great keyboardists of the age.
> 
> ... These sonatas are all three every bit the equivalent of Beethoven, in my opinion, but lest people take umbrage with this statement, I will qualify it by saying that the sonatas show an evolution in the styles of the Classical period rather than a revolution. Thus they ought to be considered not in a comparative manner, but rather more as a parallel sort of work. Beethoven's sonatas are of course iconic, whereas Tomášek is relatively unknown but represents how the piano sonata evolved from its roots rather than changed abruptly. This makes it a fortuitous rediscovery, and not the least bit inferior in comparison.


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## Guest (Oct 4, 2017)

Aloevera said:


> Or, is the historical context part of our appreciation.


If I might just take a slightly different approach to this part of your question, I'd say that my tastes have developed in response to works from particular historical periods. I'm not drawn to Mozart, Bach and Beethoven because they are Mozart, Bach and Beethoven. I'm drawn to any composer whose work exhibits the features I find appealing from a particular period, which is 1880ish to 1950ish.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

If you go shopping for a shirt and you find one you like that fits with good color, etc. and you find another whose material is coarse, the sewing imprecise, and the color not so hot, which do you like: the one with the brand name or no? Me either. Whoever made it doesn't matter.

It's the same with music. People that are famous and beloved by millions of people that don't know a bar line from a tow line aren't famous because of their names; they are famous for their products.

Next time you watch the film "Amadeus" pay attention to the scene where Salieri, in the mental hospital, hums some of his music for the attendant -- who says he knows none of it. Then he hums a bar or two of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik and the attendant takes up the tune immediately and says: "That's charming; did you write that?"

That's how it works in classical music. Lots of people like composers that wrote terrible music. That's says a lot of them, nothing about famous composers.


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## pokeefe0001 (Jan 15, 2017)

If I like something, I like it. Period. If a piece of music does nothing for me but is by someone I like and respect I'm likely to give it another try. That probably means I'm missing something by not giving the unknown composer's work another try, but that's the way it goes.

By the way, for me it is a matter of personal taste rather than reputation of the composer. I don't much care for music from the classical period. I'm more surprised when I really like something by Mozart or Haydn than when I'm bored by something by them.


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## Funny (Nov 30, 2013)

Pertinent to this discussion is Proksch's Reviving Haydn, which traces how popular and academic reception of Haydn has waned and waxed over the two centuries since his death. Of particular note are such details as how the anti-aristocratic sweep of 1848 struck a blow to the supposed "quality" of Haydn's music because of his position as a toady to the elite, and also the germ of his 20th-century rehabilitation based on the mistaken notion that he was of Croatian heritage, with many music-appreciators being able to "hear" his unmistakable Croatian blood in certain passages.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7722/j.ctt155j3qq


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Funny said:


> ...w the anti-aristocratic sweep of 1848 struck a blow to the supposed "quality" of Haydn's music because of his position as a toady to the elite...


I remember reading, while I was growing up, how Haydn was merely a servant, eating at the servants' table, etc. The contrast of course was with Beethoven, whose own dependence on aristocratic largesse was never mentioned. It appears now that Haydn's relationship with "his beloved prince" was a bit more complex and, seemingly, appreciated on both sides.


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## Razumovskymas (Sep 20, 2016)

I once was listening to a piece of a Prokofiev symphony while (by accident) thinking it was Shostakovich. I was thinking it was a bit lacking in colour and originality. UNTIL I realized it was Prokofiev (after looking at the cd booklet). Immediately the music felt much more original, colorful and even genius. 

This illustrated what I already knew: of course we are influenced by the "image" we have of a certain composer. The composer takes in a lot of space in our mind. It's impossible to listen to music without that composer (in our mind) having a big influence.

There's little objectivity at all in the appreciation of music in my opinion. When we hear a sound, immediately we associate it with lots of things. Those things being for every person different (of course there's some overlap).


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## Dedalus (Jun 27, 2014)

Aloevera said:


> Furthermore, do we consider this to be a prejudice or just an inevitable way we appreciate art?


I think it is both a prejudice and inevitable. While knowledge of the author must create a bias and therefore keep us from being as rational as we could be, it's not something that I think creates much harm either. I'm not losing sleep over it.


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## Dedalus (Jun 27, 2014)

Nereffid said:


> I'd love if this experiment were actually possible. I suspect it's common enough that an already highly regarded composer will get some "benefit of the doubt" in comparison to lesser composers when it comes to their relatively minor works. It might turn out that these cave-dwellers' favourite early 19th-century piano sonatas are still by Beethoven and their favourite German baroque cantatas are still by Bach, but perhaps some works by other composers would also find a more prominent place. Whereas in reality there's a tendency to value all of Beethoven's sonatas over all those by his contemporaries - according to Arkiv, the least-recorded of the 32 has 90 recordings, while (for example) none of Dussek's has more than 6. I've no desire to diss Beethoven, but surely reputation counts for _some _of this disparity?


So here's what we do. We select a piece from a contemporary of Beethoven and have a decent sample size listen to it and rate it in a scale of 1 to 10. Half of the subjects get told the true author and the other half get told it's a recently discovered piece by Beethoven. Then you see if there is a significant difference in the average rating. Some of the participants may actually recognize the piece though, so the experiment isn't perfect, but few experiments are. Maybe a better experiment than this could be designed, but the general idea is sound I think.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I collect music by Beethoven's contemporaries and have heard a lot of it. The sad fact is that Beethoven's music, even the relatively minor works in the better-known genres, is head and shoulders above the efforts of others writing at the same time. Certainly there are worthy works that have been thrown into the shade by Big Ludwig -- we can get a lot of pleasure from works by Hummel, Reicha, Spohr, Czerny and others. But little of it rises to the level of even middling Beethoven.

Schubert, writing when Beethoven was done with his middle period, is of course an exception.


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## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

KenOC said:


> I collect music by Beethoven's contemporaries and have heard a lot of it. The sad fact is that Beethoven's music, even the relatively minor works in the better-known genres, is head and shoulders above the efforts of others writing at the same time. Certainly there are worthy works that have been thrown into the shade by Big Ludwig -- we can get a lot of pleasure from works by Hummel, Reicha, Spohr, Czerny and others. But little of it rises to the level of even middling Beethoven.
> 
> Schubert, writing when Beethoven was done with his middle period, is of course an exception.


I am 100% with you Ken, IMO the one to follow on from Beethoven (Schubert excepted) would be Shostakovich but perhaps I will be on my own there.


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