# False Dichotomies in Classical Music



## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

There are a fair number of false dichotomies in classical music ; divergent ideas and types of music which are not at all mutually exclusive . Among them:
Old vs new music . There are more than a few composers and critics who are angry that music from the past is such a prominent part of classical music, and lament that there is far too little new music being performed (which is not even true, there's plenty of it today . 
There are others, usually conservative conceretgoers, who hate to hear anything new , and just want to hear their beloved staples of the reperttoire by Beethoven,Brahms, Tchaikovsky and Raqchaninov, and complain that nothing good is being written today . 
Actually, we need both old and new music . It would be fatal for classical music if no new wokrs were written and performed , but forutnately this isn't happening . But it would be equally wrong to abandon all the music of the past and have nothing but new music. This would be totaly unrealistic anyway , because it would require 
thousands of new works to be premiered every year .
We dont need to stop performing the plays of Shakespeare , Shaw, Ibsen and Strindberg , or stop showing the paintings of Goya, the French impressionists either at art museums . Nor do we need to stop watching famous films such as Gone with the wind, Citizen Kane, etc, or give up the great novels of Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, etc. all just to give new films, paintings, and novels a chance . 
German vs French music. Some German composers and critics over the years have maintained the supposed superiority of German music over French music, and some French composers and critics have insited that French music is far preferable to German music . The Germans call French music frivolous and lacking in substance and profundity; the French accuse the German composers of turgidity ,pretentiousness ,pomposity and being boring . But any reasonable music lover should not find them mutually exclusive at all .
Tonality vs atonality . Some 20th and early 21st century composers and critics maintain that tonal music is no longer valid, and that in order to be taken seripously, composers must use the most rigorous seriaism.
Schoenberg, inventor of 12-tone music, never did this, and declared that there is still plenty of music to be written in C major .Pierre Boulex famously(or infamously) declared many years ago that any composer who did not embrace rigorous serialism was "useless". 
Many conservative composers and critics, as well as many listeners on the other hand , insist that atonality is completely artificial, and that Schoenberg created a musical dead end, and that tonality is the only valid approach to composition. Hindemith compared tonality to the law of gravity .
Many listeners reject anything which is more harmonically complex and chromatic than Brahms out of hand, and insist that Schonberg and his followers "ruined " music . 
Schoenberg and Rachnaninov were close contemporaries, born a year apart , Yet you do not have to reject the music of one and love the other exsclusively . 
Orchestral vs chamber music . Many critics and composers consider chamber music to be somehow "greater" or more profound than orchestral music . Some music lovers, usually not professionals, prefer orchestral music to chamber music, and don't like it at all. (I've met a few myslef ).
As far as I am concerned, it makes no difference whether a work is orchestral or for a chamber ensemble . 
I love the Beethoven string quartets as much as his symphonies ; they are merely different sides of a great composer . The late Beethoven quartets are not sublime masterpieces because they are written for four string instruments, but because happen to be great music .The same is true for orchestral music vs opera .
Great musicians of the past vs those of today . Ever since i discovered classical music as a teenager, many reviews of recordngs and live performances have maintained that today's musicians are no match artistically for the great names of the past . The kee-jerk lament has always been "Oh where are the Toscaninis, Casals, Heifetzes , Flagstds, Melchiors, Furtwanglers , Beechams etc of the present day . Standards of performance have declined . No longer do musicians have the flair ,interpretive imagination and individuality of those of the past . Opera critics have been lamenting the decline of singing as far as I can remember . 
And of course, decades from now, critics will be longing for today's classical musicians . It never changes . I don't remember the performances I heard when I was a teenager and in my 20s as being on the whole better than those of today . I'm not old enough to have heard Toscanini, Stowkowski, Heifetz, Casals or many other illustrious names live, but I am certainly very familiar with their recordings . As much as I admire them, I still feel we have many,many great conductors, instrumentalists, singers etc today, and there are many very promising young ones who certainly have th epotential to achieve greatness . 
Nor do I find the playing of the orchestras of the past on old recordings in any way superior to those of the present; in fact, some of them did not play nearly as well as they do today . Nor do they"all sound alike" as some critics claim . They don't sound alike at all .


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

There are many false dichotomies in terms of people's beliefs about many things, including classical music of course. I sometimes see through these but I got plenty of my own contradictory opinions. One is that currently I'm enjoying the symphonies of Mahler and Bruckner, yet I dislike Wagner who influenced them both. Is that a contradiction or dichotomy? Maybe it is and I have to be accept it, or just be aware of it. I think its okay to have these contradictory opinions, preferences or whatever, as long as I just state them as my own opinion. & I think I am loathe to come down too hard now on others for having contradictory opinions. I got plenty of that myself. I think its part of life.

I honestly think though that whateve our tastes, or whatever false dichotomy or not so wise way of thinking we hang onto, anybody can enjoy whatever classical music they want. I mean, if I wanted to enjoy things I currently have no urge to listen to, there's nothing stopping me from enjoying it, given time, effort, dedication and so on. I am the type of person that can get some enjoyment out of most things. I suppose its the degree that matters. If its not fulfilling my needs or ticking enough boxes I have to give it a miss or a rest. That's a good enough reason not to want something, I don't have to set up some false dichotomy - or dogma/ideology that falls down like a house of cards even if given the barest of scrutiny - to support it.


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

This is all good stuff but if taken to an extreme may lead to the thought that all dichotomies are false; and then, there can be no opinions. There must be room for opinions as well.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

superhorn said:


> Old vs new music
> 
> German vs French music
> 
> ...


I'm not sure other people had a problem with it, but on my screen the punctuation and such were messed up and it made it hard for me to read. So I sorted this out to help us!

I'll add:

HIP vs. traditional styles of playing


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

the heart vs. the brain


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