# "The Douchebag Hipsters Of The Classical Music World"



## Xavier (Jun 7, 2012)

Highly critical comments about Pierre Boulez and his devotees earlier today:



> Just because monsieur Boulez says that contemporary music should be for the "elite", doesn't mean that contemporary music HAS to be for the elite, regardless of the size this demographic might have.
> 
> Boulez is, and always has been, a talented hack. He doesn't compose, he constructs. There has never been an ounce of "inspiration" in any page from his pen. He may have a magical ear for hearing, but he has absolutely no soul for creating.
> 
> The people who cry "au génie" at the mere mention of his name are not any form of musical elite. They are musical poseurs. They are the douchebag hipsters of the classical music world.



(Second comment below)

http://www.artsjournal.com/slippedd...ew-i-am-a-composer-i-still-am-a-composer.html

How would you respond to this person? (I'd especially like to hear from the ardent Boulez fans)


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## dgee (Sep 26, 2013)

I wouldn't bother


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

I wouldn't call myself an ardent Boulez fan, I like some of his works, I think he is a fine conductor of 20th century music and his recordings of Webern, Stravinsky and Bartók are among my favourites. I don't particularly care for his admittedly elitist views, but one must separate the art from the artist, and whatever my misgivings about his politics or whatever else, I do recognise his musical works as those of a master.

It seems to be a common thread running through a lot of spirited anti-modernist invective, that the people writing it don't seem to have spent much time listening to it at all. I see it all the time in negative comments about Cage ("4'33" blah blah blah") and Stockhausen ("helicopters!"), and here this attack on Boulez, and the one which follows it on that comment page, is apparently no different. Ultimately, as far as I'm concerned, if someone wants to call me a douchebag hipster because I listen to Boulez and actually enjoy it, that's their problem.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

dgee said:


> I wouldn't bother


The world of journalism is filled with interviewers who do a hasty bit of research about their subject and the subject's subject (in this case music) but who know less than beans about either the subject or music.... it is the interviewers, far too often, who are lethally stupid hacks.

There is that famous interview with Stockhausen, where within seconds it is clear the interviewer has no idea about either the composer, the composer's music, or contemporary music in general. You can see Stockhausen realize this in but a few moments, and the balance of that interview is a document of Stockhausen taking the **** out of an interviewer who remains unaware to the fact he is being made a fool of 

Of course, if you wish to vilify Boulez, or one genre of contemporary music, you have a host of people to choose from whose texts you can use and hide behind instead of just saying what you think in your own words of choice.

Choosing some completely unaware interviewer's tasteless less than college worthy text to support your argument is painfully inept and naive. Most people who know what these interviewers are, or more to the point, what they are not, do exactly what Dgee says -- that kind of interviewer / writer whose quote you used as the thread title gets wholly ignored as a spewer of valueless blahblahblah


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

I don't know Boulez' music at all. I'll give it a go some time; I doubt if I'll like it. But that is besides the point.

It seems to me the main complaint of the commentator that the OP refers to is that Boulez' music lacks "inspiration" (whatever exactly that means) and emotional depth. But to insist on deep emotion in music is to misunderstand it. Yes, one possible purpose of music is the expression of emotion, but I don't think that is its only legitimate purpose. The commentator complains that Boulez constructs his music, but music IS a construction, and indeed, an appreciation of elegant and clever construction is one of the very joys of music, especially classical music. 

A lot of Bach's work is also constructed; his brilliance at constructing is part of what his fame rests upon. Some people enjoy construction more, while others lean toward music with clear emotional content (and some enjoy both forms). 

As for "inspiration," that is for the most part just romantic nonsense.


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## classifriend (Mar 9, 2014)

i'd probably move on with my life because exteriorizing opinions is useless and we should choose wisely the people we have conversations with


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## hocket (Feb 21, 2010)

Never really listened to Boulez and doubt I'd get into it but anyone who uses the phrase 'hipster' in the current culture is basically abdicating any right to be taken at all seriously. It's become just a standard put down for anything that you don't like or understand and is outside some narrow minded conception of the norm. Anything challenging or 'other' is dismissed as being for 'hipsters'.

Rant over.


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## Guest (Mar 13, 2014)

Hey, Donald Fagen is an eminent hipster!


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## Guest (Mar 13, 2014)

Xavier said:


> [...]How would you respond to this person? (I'd especially like to hear from the ardent Boulez fans)


I'd be tempted to laugh in his face. Then I would reflect, and walk away before he started waving his bottle of methylated spirits at me.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

hocket said:


> Never really listened to Boulez and doubt I'd get into it but anyone who uses the phrase 'hipster' in the current culture is basically abdicating any right to be taken at all seriously. It's become just a standard put down for anything that you don't like or understand and is outside some narrow minded conception of the norm. Anything challenging or 'other' is dismissed as being for 'hipsters'.
> 
> Rant over.


Agreed ~ any supposed responsible journalist / writer who has chosen contemporary music as their subject who then interjects the phrase, ""The Douchebag Hipsters Of The Classical Music World," is infantile beyond belief, and probably needs a diaper change and a nap.


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## rrudolph (Sep 15, 2011)

I believe that with the title of this thread you have given me the perfect name for the next chamber ensemble I put together.


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## vamos (Oct 9, 2009)

Except stockhausen explicitly states that people who don't enjoy serial 12 tone atonal music are "less evolved" and closer to apes.

So i think the burden of proof is on boulez and friends. Not the person who responds saying he is a douchebag elitist hipster. I am not saying i disagree

I think boulez and carter and babbitt are maybe the equivalent to those old renaisannce counterpoint theorists that nobody remembers anymore. Their contributions to theory are interesting perhaps, maybe just from a historic view. Their music may not be very good. I might be wrong.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Who cares? Our taste is our taste. End of story.


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## vamos (Oct 9, 2009)

No, not really. There are objective measures of aesthetic quantity, hich leads one to suspect there are also objective measures of taste.

Now, the reason someone might call someone a hipster douchebag for liking boulez:






Listen to this. Now, someone comes up to you and claims they remember every melody in the piece, and that they consider it a great masterpiece. This person is 14 years old and they appear to be attempting to impress their friends with their "weird" taste. Now, this person neednt be a kid, they could be anybody. And you would have to be very naive to think that such people dont exist. "A great masterpiece! It moves me but i dont know why!"

Well, that gives the game away. Atonalism is about the expressionist "feeling" after all... Like abstract ambient or noise music. A person with no ability to "spot patterns" or "enjoy form and structure" can sit and say "it moves me but i dont know why.... A masterpiece!" Now, taste is subjective, sure, though this leads one to say that my "taste" for such people is very low, and that it is subjective, and thus that i may state my view: juvenile hipster poseurs.

Now, that is not to say that these serialists have not risen structure to interesting new heights. Just that it simply cannot be perceived by LISTENING to the music alone. It is academic


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

No, not really. There are objective measures of aesthetic quantity, hich leads one to suspect there are also objective measures of taste.

Now, the reason someone might call someone a hipster douchebag for liking beethoven:






Listen to this. Now, someone comes up to you and claims they remember every melody in the piece, and that they consider it a great masterpiece. This person is 14 years old and they appear to be attempting to impress their friends with their "weird" taste. Now, this person neednt be a kid, they could be anybody. And you would have to be very naive to think that such people dont exist. "A great masterpiece! It moves me but i dont know why!"

Well, that gives the game away. Fugue is about the expressionist "feeling" after all... Like abstract ambient or noise music. A person with no ability to "spot patterns" or "enjoy form and structure" can sit and say "it moves me but i dont know why.... A masterpiece!" Now, taste is subjective, sure, though this leads one to say that my "taste" for such people is very low, and that it is subjective, and thus that i may state my view: juvenile hipster poseurs.

Now, that is not to say that these fuguists have not risen structure to interesting new heights. Just that it simply cannot be perceived by LISTENING to the music alone. It is academic


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## Vesteralen (Jul 14, 2011)

_Well, that's really weird_....


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## Wood (Feb 21, 2013)

vamos said:


> Except stockhausen explicitly states that people who don't enjoy serial 12 tone atonal music are "less evolved" and closer to apes.
> 
> So i think the burden of proof is on boulez and friends. Not the person who responds saying he is a douchebag elitist hipster. I am not saying i disagree
> 
> I think boulez and carter and babbitt are maybe the equivalent to those old renaisannce counterpoint theorists that nobody remembers anymore. Their contributions to theory are interesting perhaps, maybe just from a historic view. Their music may not be very good. I might be wrong.


Can you explain why there is a burden of proof on Boulez because of a quote attributed to Stockhausen?


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Xavier said:


> Highly critical comments about Pierre Boulez and his devotees earlier today:
> 
> [/font][/size]
> (Second comment below)
> ...


I have respect for Lebrecht, esp. after I read up on him in WIKI and found that he edited the great Phaidon 20th century composers book series (I highly recommend these).

...but the OP's use of random on-line comments from readers, and even naming the thread after that repellent invective, just shows the agenda of the OP. The use of these quotes from random, obscure crtitics lends them an aura of 'authority,' which I reject. I don't think off-the wall invective like this is worth responding to, and it does a disservice to Lebrecht as well.


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## Whistler Fred (Feb 6, 2014)

I frankly have little patience, in music criticism or anything else, for the "I don't like it, therefore anyone who claims they do is either a phony or a fool!" mentality. Or, for that matter, "I like it, therefore you must be ignorant or reactionary if you don't!" I know musical invective throughout history has resorted to those sorts of sweeping generalities. But I’d rather talk about why we respond, or don’t respond, to a composer’s music instead of making rude assumptions about the psychology of those who tastes and opinions differ from ours.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

A lot of the criticism against Boulez shows a lack of understanding and acceptance, but ironically, there is a grain of truth to it. In the statement that Boulez "doesn't compose but merely constructs" is partially true. In _*Structures,*_ an early piece for two pianos which Boulez considered unsuccessful, was an attempt to totally remove his intent and personality from the music by creating a "totally self-generating system" which would automatically determine all of the parameters. So you can see the problem here. John Cage was similarly interested in "removing his ego" from the composition, hence his interest in chance procedures.

Brian Eno is also interested in 'self-generating systems' using tape loops, echo-feedback tape machine configurations, and electronic sequencing keyboards.

Whether or not one likes the results of such procedures is one thing; but to criticize a "lack of involvement" from the composer in such cases seems ironically misdirected and uninformed. To such critics I say, "Do your homework, please, then you can speak with more credibility."

That's like accusing an acrobat standing on his head on a unicycle, on a tightrope, of "not being able to stand on his own two feet."


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## Freischutz (Mar 6, 2014)

I thought everyone knew that Nigel Kennedy is the douchebag hipster of the classical music world.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Freischutz said:


> I thought everyone knew that Nigel Kennedy is the douchebag hipster of the classical music world.


... and way out of synch with being of an age to really dress or act the part at all convincingly. I doubt, for example, he lives in a communal squat, or ever did


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